Just thught it was good for a laugh. lol

Have not made a post in a while but just got this email responce back from valve and thought it was good for a laugh. The funny text is highlited in bold/italics.

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Response (Mercedes) 02/12/2006 04:05 PM
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Hello:

I will pass this through the appropriate channels here at Valve. In the meantime, please do not do that and you shouldn't have that problem.

Please check the news section of www.steampowered.com regularly for updates.
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Customer (CBX CBX) 12/07/2005 04:15 PM
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I have tried running steam://runsafe/240 then steam://validate/240 then rebooting proceedure, but it did not fix the problem.

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Response (Mercedes) 12/07/2005 03:59 PM
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Hello!

Please click on the link given below in order to run runsafe which will reset your cvars.

steam://runsafe/240

Please validate your game files by clicking on the link given below and *restart your computer* immediately after game file validation.

steam://validate/240

If you do not see the run safe validation links, please copy and paste the run safe and validation text above and go to START > RUN > paste the text into th OPEN field > select OK.

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Customer (CBX CBX) 12/07/2005 03:51 PM
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To reporodice..
1: Start Counter strike source
2: start a server or join a game
3: press ~ to open up console
4: enter +attack and press enter (player should shoot gun once)
5: press ~ to hide console
6: you can no longer shoot your gun but the gun uncontrollably shoots at random every so often. Even though it shoots it does not decrease the ammo count on the onscreen hud
7: Disconnect from the game
8: Move mouse over main menu items, and the tick sound is played twice when mouse moves over an item. The game also seems to respond a little slower like it is going to crash but it never does.

Old content is being ported to new website

If you have been subscribing to the website feeds then you may have already discovered that I have been porting numerous items from my old web site onto the new website. I am almost finished and only have project related items to port over.

I am also going to be adding a few more projects to the projects page when I have time. But before I do that I may take the time to write some more code for the website to make it more visually friendly. As you can see from some of the pages on the site that there are too many items being listed on a single page.

Also I think some of my rss feeds are no longer conforming to the rss 2.0 stantards that state you should not have more then 15 "item" entries in your feed. I just glanced at the site but can't find mention of that 15 item entry limit?!? Must have read that someplace else. The idea behind the 15 entry limit is to keep the size of the rss file to a minimum for quick downloads.

Using ATI RM Shaders in vb.net

I have just added a new 15 minute tutorial walking you through the creation of a Greyscale shader in ati render monkey and exporting it as a directx *.fx file, and using that fx file in a simple vb.net app.

The code in the video is available here ATIRM2VB.zip

New cbxTimers project is now availible

I have just added my cbxTimers library to the projects section of the website. I created this library so I could have a colletion of Timer objects to use in my apps.

There is currently no documentation for the library but I am planning to try and make a few tutorial videos that will walk users through how to use the libraries.

It's not that they are comlicated to use it's just that I'm sure some people would like to have some documantation for it.

New projects and examples are available

I have added a new project to the projects page called xILikeToMoveItMoveIt. It is a new animation library that allows you to add easy use of animations in your apps and games. It also comes with a example app when you download it.

I have also added 2 example apps for the xGameConsole library. The first is a simple scripting example app, demonstrating how you can use the xGameConsole library as a simple scripting engine.

The second example app is a simple windows forms app showing how to load console commands into the xGameConsole and use them.

There is currently no documentation for these libraries and I probably will not be creating any. Instead I am going to try and make a few tutorial videos that will walk users through how to use the libraries.

New video is available!

I have had a video I created for some time now for a launch platform for rockets and such but have not uploaded it to my site because it is rather large in size. But I recently became aware of a new service at http://www.youtube.com/. It allows you to upload your videos, up to 100 megabytes, to the site. The cool thing is that the site allows you to embed object tags in any web page and reference the video from the YouTube web site so you don't have to host the video yourself. It also supports multiple formats, like mov, avi, and wmv! I have not made a blog entry in a little while so I thought I would post this.

Whoot! Whoot! Nano baby!

When I switched over to Telus DSL they were offering a 3 year Fixed Rate contract an get a free 2 gig iPod Nano, that I just got in the mail today!

This thing is really cool, not that I listen to music all that often but I can see why this device is so popular. Not only does it play music but it also can be used as a removeable disk drive for storing any kind of file, as well as the ability to store photos, and text files that you can view and read on the devices screen.

It even comes with a few games like breakout, solitair, parachute, and music quiz.

I just hope I don't have to cancel my internet service in the next 3 years for whatever reason. THe deal with the 3 year fixed rate plan I subscribed to specifies that if I cancel my internet early they will charge me like 230+(CDN) dollars as a penalty! eep! Not that I see that happening but you never know.

Also I keep forgetting I have some video I have been meaning to post on my site of this years mushroom camp. I will try to post it in the next couple of days.

WuHoo! 65 Ping! Die scum bag Die!

Thank god I switched to DSL! My ping in Counter Strike Source went from 150 to 250+ ping to a steady 65 ping! At least now I am hitting something when I shoot at it.

Now there is only the matter of my free 2Gb iPod nano....

BTW: I have been a little distracted as of late and am going to try posting more content on my web site, soon I hope.

Please save me DSL

I just canceled my current cable internet service. I am moving to DSL. But my DSL internet does not start until Dec 2, 05. So I might be in the dark for a day or two. I am seroiusly hope my ping drops after the move to DSL. Currently with cable I get around 175 to 300+ ping during the day with Counter strike source, farcry, and UT2004. But that drops down to about 85 to 125+ after 12 o'Clock at night. Needless to say that many people are tinking of heading to bed around that time, leaving me standing all alone with my bfg and none too many to shoot at.

There is nothing more frustrating then trying to blast someone knowing you hit them but finding out you actually missed because of lag! Not only that but 95% of the people playing counter strike source, have an average ping of about 20 to 60, giving them 2 to 5 times more chances to kill me first. BAH!

I suspect it is in part because I have been using cable, and I live farther north of any major city(s). Not only that but since cable is shared I have to content with the fact that my ISP is the only high speed provider this far out of town, which means I have been sharing my bandwidth with, I suspect, quite a few people.

This is the first time I have been able to get DSL where I live, so it is going to be interesting to see is there is a noteworthy drop in my ping when playing online games. I also signed up for the fastest package they my DSL provider offered, so I am hopeing for 40 ping in CS source, but I think I will settle for a high ping of 60 to 70. But I guess I will just have to wait and see...

Just a heads up

Just to give you a heads up now that I have been using the final release of VS 2005, it seems the rumors are true. MS should have delayed VS 2005's release data and went for a beta3. I have been using VS 2005 since beta 1 and I gotta say the final release crashes more then beta 1 or beta 2! If you are thinking of moving over to VS 2005 don't. Instead wait until the first service pack has been released. Hopefully by then the "Random crash" bug will have been fixed.

On another note, my new web site is up and running with all the original content from the old site. Now all I have to do is add the old, old web sites content to the new site.

Also I am not sure what I am going to do with this blog at Blogger.com. I am thinking I may convert it over to RSS 2.0 and move the content over to the new RSS 2.0 feed(s) on the new site. But that will not be for a while.

The new web site feed (RSS 2.0) is availible here.

Woops forgot to mention

I forgot to mention in my last post there is a web page detailing how to uninstall previous beta versions of the express line of products as well as providing a auto uninstaller to automate the process. I used the auto uninstaller to remove the .NET and express beta without any problems

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/uninstall/default.aspx

Visual Studio Express! Absolutely Free until Nov 7, 2006!

Microsoft has officially released the Visual Studio Express suite of products. And get this, There all free! But only until Nov 7, 2006. After that MS plans on retailing the software for about $50. And anyone who downloads it now does not have to pay for it afterwards. For more details Click Here...

I think this is a great opportunity for legacy VB6 developers to jump on the .NET bandwagon. I have been using VB Express since beta 1, and I have to say even though it does not support IDE Macros as well as some other Pro level IDE features it is still a very functionable IDE.

Here's the thing you really need to know about the new express editions. The Visual Studio IDE is just an application that helps you write your code. It has nothing to do with compiling your code. The .NET framework is responsible for doing the compilation of your apps. (IE the new MSBuild system) So even though you may not get all the bells and whitles in the express versions of the Visual Studio IDE that is not to say you will not be able to take full advantage of the power of the VB.NET, C# or other .NET languages.

Like I said I have been using VB Express since beta 1, and I think if you are as cheap as me, and don't want to have to dish out $2000+ CAD again to get a MSDN Pro subscription then I recommend you do what I am going to do and start using Visual Studio Express!

DotNetNuke Configuration Errors

I have been working on my new website but I have had conflict problems with the DotNetNuke portal that the current site uses. And as such I can only test my new site on my desktop and not online.

So in the comming weeks you may see my site loose some of it's dnn content as I slowly convert the content into their respective rss feeds. I will try and find a way to publish links to the new content feeds for the new site as I make progress.

So far it's looking like a promising idea to use a 100 percent rss driven website. But I guess only time will tell.

While I've been away...

I'm Back!
Just got back from mushroom picking a few days ago and have not been doing much, because my Maxtor Sata DiamondMax 9 Hard drives I had setup in Raid0 crashed again and I am waiting for the replacement drives to come in. I also got some video of this years mushroom camp as well as my aunties buying depot. I still need to edit the video before I post it to the web site. One thing I did not get around to doing is capturing some video of the different editible mushrooms in the forest, like I was planning on. But I did manage to capture a few still images.

DXTools Update
DXTools Release 7 is still being worked on, and still needs alot of work. R7 is written in .NET 2.0 and will not be released until after .NET 2.0 has been officially shipped. You can expect over 42 example apps for the library when it is released! Everyting from a basic windowed app to Dot3 bumpmapping and render to rexture exampes.

Poscasting
You can now find a Podcast link on my web site that links to the Created by: X Podcast. I'm not sure if I will be makeing too may podcasts as I barely speak 2 sentences a week otherwise. Not only that but lisening to your recorded voice is really painfull to lisen to. :p (I keep talking with a lisp.)

More projects on the way
I have a few projects I have been working on that I will be releasing on the new web site...
xGameConsole: A game console library based on jason olson's C# code.
ZiderGameEngine: A 2D game engine that uses 3D geometry to simulate 2D. There are a number of projects associated with the Zider Game Engine.
EGEngine: Is a game engine core with some interesting posibilities. It is designed to allow for easy creation of games, rather then having to start from scratch every time.
xCoreEngine: Is similar in design to the EGEngine in that it too is just a engine core, but it is intended to be more simplified than the EGEngine.
xFrippery: Is a simple GUI system that you can use to create GUI's for your DX apps. I will probably not be working on this project any further as there are other DX GUI system out there and the fact that WinFX will be availible for WindowsXP.


New web site should be availible soon
I have been working on my new web site, and should be testing it out on the web pretty soon keep an eye on http://www.createdbyx.com/newsite/index.html for updates. Just last night I could not access the website because I suspect the MS Access DB that the site uses was being overloaded. I had a simple idea for the new web site I was building but then I had an epiphany. Think RSS Everywhere ;)

Microsoft + Valve Software = Cool. Have you seen this yet?
Coding4Fun: Half-Life 2 Mod Spot

Came accross this interesting article on slashdot "Dr. Norman Wildberger, of the South Wales University, has redefined trigonometry without the use of sines, cosines, or tangents. In his book about Rational Trigonometry (sample PDF chapter), he explains that by replacing distance and angles with new concepts: quadrance, and spread, one can express trigonometric problems with simple algebra and fractional numbers. Is this the beginning of a new era for math?" - Link to slashdot article

I was also watching this video over at channel9 Anders Hejlsberg on C# 3.0 about how C# 3.0 will support in code sql statements. The way the video describes it you will be able simply add a reference to a assembly and automatically have this functionality in any .net language including vb.net?!?

XSI mod tool for HL2
f'ing XSI mod tool for HL2 is pissing me off with it's constant registration questions. WTF do you need my Phone number, address, company name for I don't event have a company but it's a required field! f'ing bullshit. You can't save your world or models out to HL2 unleass you register. You can't access the tutorial bank unleass you register. I am seriously hating this company and it's software right now.

Bad habits die hard. I've known since it was first introduced about the Like operator in vb, but never found my self using it, until recently. I was watching a video from the Channel9 web site and they were writing code that used the Like operator. At the time I was also writing a VaribleName validator function for my xGameConsole project. So I dropped the Select Case I was using and re-wrote the method using the like Operator and I actually reduced the ammount of code by half! I will be including a example demo that will use the like operator in the next release of my DX Tools library.

Get the features you want in vb.net or any other ms product! Over the years I have managed to accumulate multiple Microsoft Passport accounts. And it occurred to me a I was making another product suggestion that people could create a bunch of false passport accounts (there free) and then goto the product suggestion site at MS and submit votes for the features and bug fixes they would like to see. It makes you wonder if MS is keeping an eye on this kind of possible vote skewing.

BTW Here is a list of ...

Suggestions I Made

The need for smarter "Unused Varible" notifications.
Other block statements like End Try should behave like End If
Have the number of errors displayed in the "Error List" tab itself
Auto Code Compleation (ending brackets!)
VS2002 to 2005 Undesired/changed commenting behavior!
Give me macros or give me death!
base type conversion alternative suggestions


... as well as ...

Bugs I Reported

TreeNode Editor - Does not account for large image sizes IE: 64x64
Strange Line drawing behavior. (Visual Bug / Does not harm any thing.)
Improper code automaticly generated when implementing an interface ...

F*ing Blog Spam!
Anyone else who has a blog with a commenting feature may have noticed by now that they may be getting blog spam. IE: Spam messages being posted as comments on there blog posts, trying to sell you S**it you did'nt ask for. I am getting 2 to 6 spam messages every day! So I have decided to disable the commenting feature from from my blog.

Nope still here... Well not quite.

I have been fallowing the news about the .xxx domain trying being introduced. I think this comic strip explains it all. Money.

User friendly comic strip

I also came across this cool utility that allows you to merge multiple assemblies in ot one. It's called ILMerge.

Well I will be heading up to mushroom camp on Aug 24, 05, so this will probably be my last post for a while. But I will be bringing my laptop with me this year so I will be able to take pictures during the day and download them to the laptop at night. I will also have the ability to record video with the camera, so I might even make some videos while I'm up there.

I had thought that I would not be able to work on my new asp.net web site while I was away but I found a way to get a asp.net web server running on XP home. The Cassini Sample Web Server is a sample web server written using the Microsoft® .NET® Framework, and demonstrates hosting ASP.NET using the ASP.NET hosting APIs (System.Web.Hosting). But unfortunatly I don't think you can debug with it, but you can still compile your web projects and run them!

Sigh* What google give'ith google take'ith away. Sadly my directx page does not appear to have the 2nd place spot on Google.ca when doing a search for directx9. You can now find it on the 2nd page of googles page results. It was fun while it lasted. :)

Can't forget about this,... Have you heard of the Optimus keyboard? It's a keyboard where every key is actually a small display. So you can program each key to display a different image depending on what application you are using.

Well that just about wraps thing up, I'll be back in around 2-3 months, hopfully with a new site and new content!