So, I have this side project on the go, called TINT, which is a bit of Windows software to display text in-game over the top of a games display (most useful in MMOs such as World Of Warcraft or EVE, but works in just about anything else as well). It was originally intended to take data from Teamspeak (a popular Voice Comms application), list whos speaking at any given time, and show you their name so you know who it is. It has somewhat grown from there to display any text or image you like, so you can use it for FPS counters, graphs, etc.
The problem I have with it is that it’s so near to completion I can taste it, but there’s so many little things to do. These things include everything from packaging an installer including DirectX runtimes for those that don’t have it, rewriting parts of the website I’m not happy with, and getting a proper system together to notify users of new versions.
Then there’s the new stuff like Windows 7. It’s supposed to be out in October ‘09 but there’s no code to specifically deal with this so TINT just assumes it’s running on Vista and provides a warning.
To be honest I just need to get on with it, but the list just seems to grow, and when you code for a living there’s little motivation to actually do more of it when you get home. That coupled with the recent hot weather here in the UK (it’s too damn hot to sit at a desk) and you get the jist of why I lack the motivation to work on it and thus it’s at a stalemate point.
I would love to actually get it finished though, so will just have to get off my ass and get on with it!
qbnut Coding for the Desktop, Ramblings
Yep, want one of those now. Pity I can’t afford either 
qbnut Music, Musicianship
… or Gear Acquisition Syndrome
I own and play two Telecaster Guitars, one a modified Squier (started life as a Standard, made into a Fat Tele with the addition of a Humbucker), and one a Fender Flame-Maple Top model.
However, having played a friends guitar recently I now have a craving to acquire one of these beasts –>
(OK, maybe not with gold hardware, but you get the idea)
Looks like my bank manager might not be happy with me 
qbnut Music, Musicianship
I like retro games from time to time, so I dug out my Sega Saturn the other day for a nostalgic blast on Fighters Megamix. I found my old Action Replay codes written on a slip of paper in the manual. Now I didn’t buy the Action Replay to cheat at games, I bought it primarily as it made a good memory card (so good in fact it had all my saved games from the 90s still intact on it!) but being a bit of a coder I would occasionally poke around in games to find hidden stuff. This is about the best weird thing I found:
(Screenshots are from the Yabause Saturn Emulator, as I couldn’t find a decent enough way to hook my real Saturn up to the PC to take screenshots )
Now I know you can fight against the Training Dummy, but did you know with a little poking around you can actually play AS the Training Dummy? OK, so what is that Green Blob with Akiras headband? Well, that’s a leftover collision detection test character I assume, as every time a limb touches an area on it, the area turns white (or for P2, where the Avatar is Red instead it turns Yellow). The programmers didn’t bother to give the Test Avatar a shadow, nor does it record any replay data.
Try this yourself, if you happen to have a Sega Saturn, Fighters Megamix, and an Action Replay Cartridge:
(Note these codes are for the PAL Version)
Master Code
F6000914 C305
B6002800 0000
Play as Training Dummy (P1)
160657F6 0040
Play as Training Dummy (P2)
160675F6 0040
Play as Test Avatar (P1)
160657F6 0060
Play as Test Avatar (P2)
160675F6 0060
qbnut Cool Random
Today I had a cry of help from the folks. They had just bought something on eBay, and got through the whole payment process, only for it to tell them it was going to ship to their old address. They insisted that up until the “Congrats” page, it had listed their current address; I thought they’ve just got stale address info in their account. No problem, I’ll just go and update it.
Is the old address listed in eBay? Nope.
Is the old address listed in the linked Paypal Account? Nope.
The one and only address listed on both is the current address. Yet, clear as day, the transaction details show the old address that was deleted TWO YEARS AGO
WTF?
qbnut Uncategorized
This weekend I finally decided to do something about my sparse personal homepage, so I did what seems to be the trend and turned it into a blog
I will very infrequently update this with my ramblings about programing / coding, either for the Web (my day job) or for Desktop Application Programming (my sideline), or about Music (my hobby / other sideline).
Hope you all find this interesting!
qbnut Ramblings
