Apr 11
6
Vote for the Internet
So the telecom giants in Canada are currently gouging internet users to a point that borders on ridiculous. I’m talking about charging up to $10 per gigabyte, where it costs them a mere penny to deliver it. That’s quite the markup.
We can’t just roll over and let them do this to us, and the folks at OpenMedia.ca are working to stop this.
So head on over and sign the petition. Half a million Canadians have already done so, and we need that number to go up.
There are currently 2 petitions, one against the usage-based-billing proposal, and another calling on candidates for the upcoming election to state that they are with us if they want our votes. Be sure to check them out, and sign if you agree!
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Sep 10
23
Robotics Project
So, the robot was defective out of the box…not a great start. What happened was that after charging it, you turn it on, nothing happens…and I mean nothing.
The RMA on the new part should be coming in shortly. Figures.
I have to say, I was a little more than disappointed when I got the parts…this is supposedly an “intermediate kit”, yet all of the electronics came pre-assembled in the base of the robot!
What is this, I ask you? Oh well, I will still take this time to enjoy some still amazing technology, and continue to get ideas for my own robot, where I will buy all of the parts myself, flash the board with a custom OS, and go from there. Ideally, it will eventually be able to bring me a beer from the fridge.
Technology at it’s best.
Sep 10
8
And a month later…
Wow, I have done nothing really interesting lately.
Pretty much just standard stuff. Linq still rocks, still using web services…just nothing ground breaking that I would think constitutes a tutorial.
I have a few new drawings, but I have to scan them first. They’ll be up later.
BUT:
I’m gettin’ a robot. Oh yeah, I’m getting a good start on it with a pre-fab kit, and then I am going to get the parts and remake my own. Custom code from the ground up, navigation, AI…gonna be sweet. The final robot looks like this (apparently…we’ll see how close mine is):
And, I have another secret project that I am working on. Just in the concept art phase right now, but I will post more when it is further along.
In short: Dun dun dunnnnnn…
‘Til next time!
If you have ever done .NET web development, you know the importance of web.config. It can store settings, connection strings, authentication modes, and many other important configuration variables.
It’s also usually in plain text. Slight security hole. There is a solution, however.
Did you know that ASP.NET 2.0 has functionality to allow you to encrypt your web.config files after publishing them without requiring any special code in your application?
Jul 10
12
1.21 Gigawatts…
Had a nice little trip back in time the other day.
I was asked to make a web service that can send emails. Ok, no problem. It has to support attachments. Little bit trickier, but sure, still fine. Then the monkey wrench: it has to be called from VBScript.
…WHAT?!?
That was my first response. I thought VBScript was an archaic language rarely used anymore, and I have used VBScript a grand total of five times in my life, so this seemed a little overwhelming at first. Turns out, it’s used a lot more than I thought.
I figure, ok, I’ll start with the web service. That’s something that I can whip together in a half day. So I got that done, then had the afternoon to play with calling that web service from VB.
I have to say, that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. It was actually kind of fun.
The trickiest part was the attachments, though I won’t be going into detail in this post. If there’s enough interest I will make a tutorial for it.
Anyways, I got it to work in the end, and it’s not bad. The web service can send emails to anyone, from anyone, attaching any number of files. The vbscript can call the methods to send an email to a single person, with or without an attachment. Not bad for a day’s work.
Things are starting to slow down now, finally. (I reference the time span of a month between today’s post and the last time I did, not counting the two tutorials I posted today)
This means that I will have some time for some Video Game Reviews! Yea!
I know that some of these are a little outdated, but I plan to review:
- Just Cause 2
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (and all expansions, each probably in a separate review)
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2
- Trine
- Supreme Commander
- Supreme Commander 2
In goings with reviewing these games, I also get to play them. Always a plus.
Edit:
Maybe, actually, before doing the reviews I should get the rest of my site online? Just realized I forgot about the portfolio…whoops…
That and some art that I have in mind, and some lightwave…ah man, I’m just as busy as ever.