Life and Code

In a world where mindless drones flock to a platform that has become the very thing it intended to fight, we stand apart, embracing freedom, to be different, to escape vanilla, we stand apart. Yesterday Buzz Out Loud, observed there cannot be disappointment without at least the feeling that you realize that something could be great. I can admit that at one time, I too was on the road to being a drone, content to fight for the scraps from the Apple table, to accept a vanilla OS, but no more. I felt the pride of having the technology, and only a slight resentment that everyone else around me had exactly the same, but that resentment grew, and I started toward the light. First jailbreaking, living on the fringe of the darkness, in the shadow but still not in the light. The light drew me from the Apple penumbra and into the warm Android light, I will never go back, this is the same reason I can never get an iPad and the reason why Android + Atom = Epic. My Lenovo S10-3t will ascend, slip the surly bonds of Windows, and be truly free. Apple to me is living behind an iron curtain choked by the smug of the Apple owners around you, windows is slightly better but not quite right for this device, Android will be a truly beautiful thing I can only wait in the shadow for intel to release Froyo for Atom, and then… Freedom

Code, Life android, apple, atom, BOL, buzz, disappointment, intel, iphone, loud, out

Yay for insomnia I guess, woke up early this morning and worked on my demo. The previous game projects have really given me a good idea of what I need to do to get to a running state. I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I was able to start getting my basic framework in place. Today, I worked on base objects for cameras and lights as well as managers for both. Also built some more basic framework functions, like translation class.  Also started building my base game components like my base physics object. So far progress is looking good.

Interested in XNA here is the book I learned alot from:

Beginning XNA 3.0 Game Programming: From Novice to Professional

Code beginning, cameras, demo, game, lights, novice, physics, pro, xna

So once again, I know, I am going down the building a game demo route. This time using one of my all time favorite games as a target for emulation. I do have alot of stuff going on, with contract work, freelance work, Android dev and everything else. But I know that if you love doing something you should actually do it and I miss some good deep programming and problem solving.

Here is the obligatory tech details post:

Platform: Windows, XBOX 360 (future)
Graphics etc: XNA
Physics: JigLibX

The plan is to do this to work on this project when I need a break from everything else. I am already enjoying it because ‘research’ is fun, see pic below. My goal is to actually put this one out there as an XNA indie game. I promise I wont keep it locked away in my collection of fun stuff I have made for me to play around with. I am looking forward to playing this game myself and that is a good sign.

Research is fun!!

Code car, demo, game, jiglibx, project, xna

The default Pidgin (Universal IM Client) sounds were driving me crazy…so made some less obtrusive ones…

New Conversation Sound

Received Message Sound

Sent Message Sound

Uncategorized

I am currently working on a refresh of Life and Code. I have recently started working a lot more with theming in wordpress. I am building a new theme and layout concept for this site. I want to start using wordpress more like a CMS than a blog. You can follow my theme development for this project at http://github.com/karlockhart/karlockhart.com-wordpress-theme.

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I have decided to share a configuration manager I wrote. I use this to maintain configuration files for my projects. Remember, as usual this code is as is, and written for my uses, I only share as it may be useful to others. See the software links on the right for download.

Read more…

Code configuration, configurator, eclipse, java, manager, serializable, singleton

You know sometimes you write code that really changes the world, and then there is LazyLib. LazyLib is my collection of web design code that makes web design, well…easier . I found this snippet and had a little bit of a laugh, right before I included it on the website I was building. So here is a snippet of LazyLib.

 function getCopyright($copyrightHolder){//Copyright Start Date
$buildDate = 2009;

if (date(‘Y’) > $buildDate)
{
  $copyright = ‘Copyright © ‘.$buildDate.’-’.date(‘Y’).’, ‘.$copyrightHolder.’. All rights reserved’;
}
  else
{
  $copyright = ‘Copyright © ‘.$buildDate.’, ‘.$copyrightHolder.’. All rights reserved’;
}
  return $copyright;
}

Very simple code that means on Jan 1, 2010 I won’t have to mess with this webpage. The rest of LazyLib isn’t this trivial. It actually contains everything I need to build a simple page with PHP includes. But I thought I would share.

Code copyright, css, development, html, php, web

ATMega168 MCU as setup for Nerdkits.com

There is a thrill that is hard to explain the first time you burn your code to a microcontroller. Excitement and apprehension abound as you plug in the power supply for the first time. My first solo microcontroller (MCU) experience came recently, and something has changed inside of me. As with everything, the best place to begin is at the beginning.

I had been tracking the box all day online, and the text that had once said ‘at unit’ was finally replaced with ‘delivered’. I knew that this was something I wanted, and it was finally here. I pulled up in front of my mailbox and got the key to the package locker. The key stuck a little and I smiled to myself at the metaphor; I had spent this long to open this part of my feild and the only thing holding me back was a sticky lock.

I had decided to go with the kit provided by nerdkits.com, mostly because I had heard nothing but good stuff and they seemed to be pretty helpful to the MCU noobs. I registered quicky on their website and downloaded their users’ guide. In about an hour, I had the device wired up in their original configuration, i.e. MCU and LCD wired together. Holding my breath, I connected the battery for the first time and the LCD spit out a nice message from the nerdkits.com team.

It all started that day, and this has been one of the biggest revolutions in my programming since I learned object oriented programming. I am loving good olde procedural c, yup c, programming. At d+21, I am still enjoying this quite a bit. I have started messing with the pulse width modulation function of the MCU to drive servos as well as play music on the provided piezo buzzer. I have used the analog to digital converter to measure temperature and do rangefinding using a Sharp IR sensor. In short, I am feeling very engaged in this and wish I had picked it up before. I love the idea that I can program a circuit to do complex behaviors. In the 19 years since I first played with BASIC, I have always wanted something tangible from my programming. I believe I have found it in embedded.

I will post my experiments and experiences on here as I play with new stuff.

Code atmega, c++, embedded, nerdkits.com, programming, sharp ir

XNA Model of my Jupiter C

Code c++, jupiter-c, project first, xna

Code image, jupiter-c, progress, project first