Channel 9 - Discussions by Code4Fun

The Sandbox - Laser Tracking Camera

Code4Fun — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:07:54 GMT

In my last article, we saw how a stepper motor could be controlled with a computer by connecting it to its parallel port. This article will extend it to build laser following camera panner, which tracks and turns towards any laser dot in the camera's field of view. I'm assuming that you have already built a computer controlled stepper motor. If not, go through my previous article for information on how to build one. After you successfully build your laser following camera, you could use your own ideas and creativity to build even cooler things. For example, you could extend this project and build a cool laser following robot, or maybe even an autonomous laser guided turret which shoots down targets you point at!

Ashish Derhgawen

The Sandbox - Beginning Game Development Part X –Direct Sound Part III

Code4Fun — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:08:25 GMT

Welcome to the tenth article on beginning game development. In the last article we manipulated sounds by adding sound effects. Together with the use of 3D Buffers to make the sounds positionaly accurate we now have a fully featured sound system in the game. But, while we’re are able to play and manipulate short sounds and sound effects we cannot play longer WMA or MP3 files with the DirectSound namespace. To accomplish that we need to turn to the AudioVideoPlayback namespace.

The Sandbox - Impersonating the Mouse with a Wiimote

Code4Fun — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:44:12 GMT

Once upon a time ... Nintendo, a game maker, innovates the world game experiences with a totally new concept: get physical (as to prevent you from getting ‘finger/thumb-RSI’). This striking new phenomenon is the nowadays well known Wii game, played with its remote objects, the Wii Remote (a.k.a Wiimote) and its companion, the Nunchuk.

As time goes by, clever people discover other possibilities for, in this case, the Wiimote. With some dedicated software you can turn it into a PC device, impersonating the standard mouse.

The Sandbox - Beginning Game Development Part IX –Direct Sound Part II

Code4Fun — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:11:28 GMT

Welcome to the ninth article on beginning game development. In the last article we added sounds to the game using the DirectSound namespace using devices, 3D Buffers, and 3D Listeners. Now we are going to further manipulate the sounds using the sound effect capabilities of the DirectSound namespace. Finally, since it has been a while since the last article, I am also going to update the basic game loop to a more efficient implementation.

The Sandbox - Possessed PC Pranks for Halloween

Code4Fun — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:08:00 GMT

Code for an article at Coding4Fun written by Brian Peek of ASPSOFT, Inc..

Two Halloween applications to annoy and scare your friends.

Code is available in C# and Visual Basic.

The Sandbox - WiiEarth -- Wiimote Interface for Virtual Earth

Code4Fun — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:03:50 GMT

Code for an article at Coding4Fun written by Brian Peek of ASPSOFT, Inc..

Use a Nintendo Wii Remote (Wiimote) as a controller for Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D.

Code is available in C# and Visual Basic.

Wiimote Interface for Virtual Earth

Click the [Save] link to download source and demo.

The Sandbox - How to Operate Stepper Motor from your PC

Code4Fun — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:02:31 GMT

In this article, we will connect a stepper motor to our computer's parallel port, and then we will write some code to control it with the scroll wheel on a mouse (video). If you have never worked with stepper motors, you will surely have a lot of fun with this project. With stepper motors, you can build things such as robots, automatic fish feeder, or even a computerized etch-a-sketch! I'll start off by discussing the basics of parallel ports and stepper motors. Then, we will build the driver circuit required for connecting a stepper motor to a parallel port. In the final section, we will learn how to communicate with parallel ports and how stepper motors are controlled.

The Sandbox - Home Automation with Windows Workflow

Code4Fun — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:38:06 GMT

There are some pretty good Home Automation packages out there on the market. Some of these are made for installers – and are thus closed to easy customization by the end user. Then there are packages that are made for hobbyists. These have good core automation systems, and provide some add-in points for customization. There are very few good “toolkits” for home automation enthusiasts who like to Code4Fun, so I decided to build one.

The Sandbox - Silverlight 8-Ball

Code4Fun — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:48:44 GMT

I have just posted an article on Coding4Fun exlaining how I have built a 2 player 8-Ball game in Silverlight (play here). In it, I explain how I used the Expression tools to design the graphics and various .NET techniques to enable user control and game animation.

The Sandbox - Facebook Outlook Add-in

Code4Fun — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 04:59:39 GMT

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. Using the Facebook Developer Toolkit, you can combine the data stored on Facebook with contacts already stored in Outlook via a custom form region. Additionally, using VSTO and the Outlook object model, you can monitor incoming RSS feeds for posts that match interests of your friends on Facebook.

Check out the article on Coding4Fun

The Sandbox - Wallpaper Changer App & Gadget

Code4Fun — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 01:04:03 GMT

Like many of you, I’ve got galleries of photographs on my PC. I’d like my desktop background to rotate through them automatically as I go through my daily activities. Being too lazy to open control panel, change my background by hand, and then go back to work, I wrote an application and a Vista gadget to do the work for me.

The Sandbox - Microsoft Robotics Studio and Lego Mindstorms NXT

Code4Fun — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:12:24 GMT

Code for an article at Coding4Fun written by Brian Peek of ASPSOFT, Inc..

Microsoft Robotics Studio and Lego Mindstorms NXT

Build a simple robot and control it using an Xbox 360 Controller

Code is available in C#, Visual Basic and the MSRS VPL language.

The Sandbox - Using Optimus Mini Three with .net

Code4Fun — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:41:15 GMT

Even though the device is connected to an usb port the communication is done through a (virtual) serial port. The protocol specification is available in the developer section on Art.Lebedev Studio's website. There's also some c sample code available which proved to be very useful to build this class. The document lists the following commands to send data to the device:

Switch the device on and off
Send image data for a specific key
Show sent image for a specific key
Change the brightness

There're two additional commands available, to read and write the internal id of the device. We're not going to use them for this article. They could be used if you've multiple devices connected to differentiate them.

All the commands we're sending have a length of 197 bytes, the last byte being the checksum. The response to a command consists of two bytes: a 0 to tell us this is a command confirmation and as second byte the checksum. Ideally that checksum matches the one of the sent command - if not the data was somehow corrupted and we've to send it again.

And the device is not just waiting until we send it something, it will also send something to us: the keys which are currently pressed - of course, wouldn't qualify as keyboard otherwise. These messages are also 2 bytes long, first byte being a 1 and the second byte is the 1-based index of the pressed key. We can get them anytime and very often - as long as one or more keys are pressed they're repeatedly send. When commands are send at the same time we get a mix of key messages and command confirmations.

The Sandbox - Synthesized Podcasts for your Zune and iPod using SAPI

Code4Fun — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:33:51 GMT

The guide takes you on your new speech-enabled adventure, as you'll learn to mix text with speech into a simple program that synthesizes XHTML transitional blog posts into the Wave format - for your iPod - using SAPI 5.3 and encodes them into the Windows Media Audio format - for your Zune - using Windows Media Encoder 9 Series API. In the end, you'll be able to make podcasts having just a standard plain text RSS 2.0 feed; plus, you'll be able to play them on at least two of the most popular media players available on the market.

Bio

Paul-Valentin Borza is in its second year of study at the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. Since 2005, he is involved in the Microsoft Student Partners - Microsoft Academic Program Romania. He can be reached through his web site at www.borza.ro.

The Sandbox - Wiimote Controlled Car

Code4Fun — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:17:10 GMT

Code for an article at Coding4Fun written by Brian Peek of ASPSOFT, Inc..

Wiimote Controlled Car

Control an R/C car using a Nintendo Wiimote

Code is available in C# and Visual Basic.

The Sandbox - Screensaver Mashup of Facebook, Flickr and Twitter using Visual C#

Code4Fun — Thu, 24 May 2007 23:34:43 GMT

Flitter combines the functionality of Facebook, Twitter and Flickr using Visual C# to create a screensaver.

You can view it over at Coding4Fun's blog.

The Sandbox - Control Windows Media Center using a Windows Mobile 5 Device

Code4Fun — Mon, 14 May 2007 20:03:39 GMT

This article demonstrates how to use a smartphone running Windows Mobile 5 to remotely control a host machine running Windows Media Center. I will describe how to create an add-in application that runs within Windows Media Center. I will also describe how to create a Windows Mobile 5 application, and use it to communicate with the Media Center add-in using sockets over a wireless internet connection. Finally, I will demonstrate how to use this implementation to manipulate Media Center using the Windows Media Center API.

Article text is here.
Code can be downloaded here.

The Sandbox - Coding4Fun: WhoIsLooking ASP.NET Control

Code4Fun — Sat, 05 May 2007 15:27:09 GMT

This ASP.NET control displays a list of who is looking at a particular web page. The control uses Javascript and Ajax to update the list of viewers in real time.

The download includes both C# and VB.NET source code and a test website for trying out the control.

The Sandbox - Intro to XNA Part 3: Advanced sound and Text

Code4Fun — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 03:10:47 GMT

In this article, The ZMan changes the TinyTennis game to create variable pitch sound and finally adds the scores back in.

This code accompanies this coding4fun article

The Sandbox - Coding4Fun - SweetSpot - The Beginnings of a Glucose Meter Downloader

Code4Fun — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:49:20 GMT

This is the C# code to support the Coding4Fun Article "SweetSpot - The Beginnings of a Glucose Meter Downloader" by Scott Hanselman

The Sandbox - April Fools' Day Application

Code4Fun — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 00:40:23 GMT

Code for an article at Coding4Fun written by Brian Peek of ASPSOFT, Inc..

A fun application for April Fools' Day hijinks!

Code is available in C# and Visual Basic.

The Sandbox - April Fools' Day Fun

Code4Fun — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:58:48 GMT

Code for an article at Coding4Fun written by Brian Peek of ASPSOFT, Inc..

A fun application for April Fools' Day hijinks!

Code is available in C# and Visual Basic.

The Sandbox - April Fools' Day Fun

Code4Fun — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:43:49 GMT

Code for an article at Coding4Fun written by Brian Peek of ASPSOFT, Inc..

A fun April Fools' Day application to annoy your friends and coworkers.

Code is available in C# and Visual Basic.

The Sandbox - April Fools' Day

Code4Fun — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:17:02 GMT

Code for an article at Coding4Fun written by Brian Peek of ASPSOFT, Inc..

Connect to and use the Nintendo Wiimote from C# and VB.NET. Contains a fully managed library for using the Wiimote from C# and VB.

Code is available in C# and Visual Basic.

The Sandbox - April Fools' Day App

Code4Fun — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 22:16:24 GMT

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