Posted By: Rossj | Mar 9th, 2008 @ 10:10 AM
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Comments: 35 | Views: 5400
Anybody working on any interesting* hobby projects at the moment? I am betting everybody has something going on outside of work hours ... come on spill the beans .. whatcha working on?

  • Learning UIKit for iPhone
  • Building RossBot with Python
  • Yet another recommendation engine in C#


* Qualifier to exclude Blowdart.
CannotResolveSymbol
CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}
Does wishing I had a good idea for a hobby project count as a hobby project? Tongue Out
zian
zian
Exploding heads since 1988

Not much right now because I've been spending most of my time doing schoolwork.

Current projects on hold:
File hasher and verifier
Randomized monthly task assignment assigning

(both in VB .NET)

Bas
Bas
It finds lightbulbs.
I'm building a Media Center into an Ikea TV-cabinet. It's interesting to me because it's something else than programming, and because I'm absolutely terrible at crafts type projects.

Also, it reminded me how much I hate painting stuff. We've made such incredible technological advances in the past decades, but why hasn't anybody invented paint that looks good after just one coat?
Lloyd_Humph
Lloyd_Humph
If Blackberrys are addictive cellphones, Channel9 is the ultimate addictive website.
I can't really say at the moment, but lets say it involves Josh and Donald from Channel8.

I'll put a post up soon, once everything is concrete.

But, it promises to be cool. And it involves WPF.
webmonkey
webmonkey
How am i supposed to code with theeeeeese ?
CannotResolveSymbol wrote:
Does wishing I had a good idea for a hobby project count as a hobby project?


I'd like to think so Wink

I'm toying with the idea of a Media Center app of some sort.
PaoloM
PaoloM
Hypermediocrity
Writing a BattleTech game for XNA/Zune.
stevo_
stevo_
Human after all
Interestingly, my hobby project concept ended up more interesting than I figured, and we actually decided to assign development time to it at my company..

So I'm not sure if I have one right now, maybe I should find something else, if I do, I think it would be using the same technology area, it would be nice to let each project learn from the other.. plus the hobby one can do some more 'radical' ideas.

(boring without context I know)
Minh
Minh
WOOH! WOOH!
PaoloM wrote:
Writing a BattleTech game for XNA/Zune.

You might be interested in the MechCommander 2 Shared Source Release. They mentioned XNA, but I think it's in C++.

Bah, it is in C++. You can always steal the resources.
webmonkey
webmonkey
How am i supposed to code with theeeeeese ?
PaoloM wrote:
Writing a BattleTech game for XNA/Zune.


Speaking of games, that's the other thing I want to do, Battleships!

I thought a Silverlight Battleships game would be pretty cool.
w3bbo inspired me to do a little bigmath project in c#, it’s a blast. That’s what I’m working on now, otherwise, I have tons of hobby projects.
W3bbo
W3bbo
The Master of Baiters
PaoloM wrote:
Writing a BattleTech game for XNA/Zune.


Under the real-time simulations, there was a quirk in the game rules whereby any Scout-class 'Mech (think: Jenner II) loaded out with Heatsinks, Armour, a fast engine, and nothing but Two MPlulse lasers (maybe an AMS for good measure) could destroy anything.

Please tell me that's possible with your implementation Smiley
SlackmasterK
SlackmasterK
I write my OWN blogging engines
Rossj wrote:
Anybody working on any interesting* hobby projects at the moment? I am betting everybody has something going on outside of work hours ... come on spill the beans .. whatcha working on?


Currently, just my blogs:
 http://blog.damnednice.com
 http://www.zi255.com || http://www.zindex255.com
 http://www.googlejuicer.com (when I get around to it)

The blogs all connect to the same data; damnednice is the old UI, zi255 is the new one.

Recently:
 - A referral spamming program.  Whenever I detect referral spam to my blog, I load this puppy up and return fire. You wanna send me 50 requests from http://www.free***.com?  Fine, Expect 50,000 to your IP from http://www.zi255.com/respammer tomorrow. Don't expect any to the referred spam site.

 - A SQL query that tells me everything I need to know about what's going on with my blog. It looks something like this:

use maximum_verbosity

-- Statistics
declare @dt datetime
set @dt = convert(datetime, convert(varchar(12),getdate()))+' 00:00:00'
exec mv4_getstats @dt

-- Searchers
select top 50 time=substring(convert(varchar(20),datetime),13,8), ips.ip, searchresults.domain, engine, query
from searchresults inner join ips on searchresults.userid = ips.id
where query <> 't' and query<>'entries'
order by datetime desc

-- Non-searchers
select top 50 [datetime], activity.ip, request, referrer, activity.domain, username, ips.hits
from activity inner join ips on activity.ip = ips.ip
where activity.referrer <> '' and activity.isspider = 'false' and activity.islocal = 'false' and not (referrer like '%google%' or referrer like '%yahoo%' or referrer like '%msn%' or referrer like '%search%' or referrer like '%damnednice.com%' or referrer like '%zi255.com%') and ips.banlevel <1
order by datetime desc

-- Non-Referred
select top 50 activity.id, activity.datetime, activity.ip, activity.request, activity.domain, ips.username, ips.hits, ips.description
from activity inner join ips on activity.ip = ips.ip
where activity.referrer = '' and activity.isspider = 'false' and activity.islocal = 'false' and not activity.ip like '127%' and not activity.ip like '192%' and not activity.domain='ixdatul.com' and not activity.ip='166.34.132.74' and ips.isspider='false' and ips.banlevel < 1
order by datetime desc

-- Activity by known spammers
select top 50 activity.id, datetime, activity.ip, request, referrer, hits, ips.banlevel, activity.domain
from activity inner join ips on activity.ip = ips.ip
where ips.banlevel > 0
order by activity.datetime desc

-- Errors
select top 50 * from errors
where ex not like '%maximum%resolutions%'
order by datetime desc

Sproc MV4_GetStats looks a good deal different.  It executes other sprocs to pull a specific statistic, and aggregates them into one row for easy retrieval.  This is how I pull the data in the "Statistics" section of www.zi255.com.

CREATE proc [dbo].[MV4_GetStats](@dt DateTime) as begin
declare @t table(
[EntryCount] int,
[UserCount] int,
[BanCount] int,
[HitCount] int,
[SearchCount] int,
[TodaysHitCount] int,
[DistinctDailyIPCount] int,
[SearchesToday] int,
[CommentsMod] int,
[Comments] int,
[FirstEntryDate] datetime,
[LastSpiderTime] datetime);

declare @temp table (x int)
declare @temp2 table (x datetime)

-- Entry Count
insert @temp exec MV4_GetEntryCount
insert into @t  ([EntryCount])
select x from @temp
delete @temp

--User Count
insert into @temp exec MV4_GetUserCount
update @t set [UserCount] = (select x from @temp)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp

-- Ban Count
insert into @temp exec MV4_GetBanCount
update @t set [BanCount] = (select x from @temp)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp

-- Hit Count
insert into @temp exec MV4_GetHitCount
update @t set [HitCount] = (select x from @temp)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp

-- Search Count
insert into @temp exec MV4_GetSearchCount
update @t set [SearchCount] = (select x from @temp)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp

-- Last Spider Time
insert into @temp2 exec MV4_GetLastSpiderTime
update @t set [LastSpiderTime] = (select x from @temp2)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp2

-- Today's Hit Count
insert into @temp exec MV4_GetTodaysHitCount @dt
update @t set [TodaysHitCount] = (select x from @temp)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp

-- Distinct Daily IP Count
insert into @temp exec MV4_GetDistinctDailyIPCount @dt
update @t
set [DistinctDailyIPCount] = (select x from @temp)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp

-- Searches Today
insert into @temp exec MV4_GetSearchesToday @dt
update @t
set [SearchesToday] = (select x from @temp)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp

-- Comments Requiring Moderation
insert into @temp exec MV4_GetCommentsModCount
update @tset [CommentsMod] = (select x from @temp)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp

-- First Post datetime
insert into @temp2 exec MV4_GetFirstEntryDate
update @t set [FirstEntryDate] = (select x from @temp2)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp2

-- Total Comments
insert into @temp exec MV4_GetCommentCount
update @t
set [Comments] = (select x from @temp)
where EntryCount is not null
delete @temp

-- Retrieve stats row
select * from @t
end

The whole thing comes back looking like this (clicky).  What, you don't use SQL Server Management Studio to monitor your traffic?

PerfectPhase
PerfectPhase
"This is not war, this is pest control!" - Dalek to Cyberman
Apart from a couple of typical software projects I'm thinking about how to build a filiment winding machine to make custom composite combustion chambers for another one of my hobby projects.
I'm looking for a good open source project to work on.  IronRuby/IronPython appeals to me the most, but I've got a steep learning curve to be productive with that.
PaoloM
PaoloM
Hypermediocrity
Minh wrote:

PaoloM wrote: Writing a BattleTech game for XNA/Zune.

You might be interested in the MechCommander 2 Shared Source Release. They mentioned XNA, but I think it's in C++.

Bah, it is in C++. You can always steal the resources.

I knew that existed but for some reason didn't thought about using the resources, thanks Smiley

My game is not a RTS or a FPS, it's an attempt to mimic the base Battletech 2nd edition rules on stock maps and stock mechs.
PaoloM
PaoloM
Hypermediocrity
W3bbo wrote:

PaoloM wrote: Writing a BattleTech game for XNA/Zune.


Under the real-time simulations, there was a quirk in the game rules whereby any Scout-class 'Mech (think: Jenner II) loaded out with Heatsinks, Armour, a fast engine, and nothing but Two MPlulse lasers (maybe an AMS for good measure) could destroy anything.

Please tell me that's possible with your implementation

If the real-time simulation is faithful to the boardgame rules, yes Smiley
PaoloM
PaoloM
Hypermediocrity
As an aside, anyone knows how to draw antialiased text in XNA 2.0?
Bass
Bass
www.s​preadfirefox.c​om/5years/
A Google Android project and also another one that is super secret.
SlackmasterK wrote:

Currently, just my blogs:
 http://blog.damnednice.com
 http://www.zi255.com || http://www.zindex255.com
 http://www.googlejuicer.com (when I get around to it)

The blogs all connect to the same data; damnednice is the old UI, zi255 is the new one.

Recently:
 - A referral spamming program.  Whenever I detect referral spam to my blog, I load this puppy up and return fire. You wanna send me 50 requests from http://www.free***.com?  Fine, Expect 50,000 to your IP from http://www.zi255.com/respammer tomorrow. Don't expect any to the referred spam site.

 - A SQL query that tells me everything I need to know about what's going on with my blog. It looks something like this: ...

do you have a table for javascript errors? do you log javascript errors?
Minh
Minh
WOOH! WOOH!
PaoloM wrote:
As an aside, anyone knows how to draw antialiased text in XNA 2.0?
You can try the Nuclex font library, a true vector-based font.

Or create a huge bitmap font, say 48 pts, and render it down to size, but that costs texture memory.

I haven't tried the Neclex lib, so I don't know about the performance. The author seems very aware of perf considerations, though, so it's probably very fast.
Massif
Massif
aim stupidly high, expect to fail often.
A book, a blog (or two) a stupidly realistic game which is a combination of breakout and asteroids (the stupid realism is that I've spent ages figuring out a realistic simulation for collisions between asteroids, when I should have just gone ahead and tried to see if the game was actually fun).

There's also a list as long as my arm of pet projects I don't have the brainpower or time to do. The problem with being a creative person who's bad at self-motivation, is you tend to live in a permanent backlog.
irascian
irascian
Irascible Ian
Just trying to generally keep "up to speed" on the avalanche of new announcements is a full-time hobby project!

You could spend weeks just playing all the MIX08 sessions back, let alone keeping tabs on what's happening in the rest of the ALT.NET universe.


Thought I'd got clever with my last contract which appeared to be "bleeding edge" (aha! A chance to move the "outside work hours" stuff into the "day job" stuff - clever, huh?!) and then found that actually the day-job was about dealing with endlessly fire-fighting the "currently live" ASP/VBScript system instead (ie not even .NET) because that always took priority over any new "bleeding edge" development. Such is the nature of the real world!

I guess you could say that launching http://www.dailydotnetshow.com as an all-singing all-dancing Silverlight 2, Expression Encoder 2 -based web site is my current "hobby project". The trouble is I'm struggling in choosing between playing with all these beta/CTP bits and pieces, dotting the i's and crossing the t's on the day-job stuff (or even making sure there IS day-job stuff to do) or working through the 40 hours of VASST training stuff I bought last week.

How the hell anyone with a family or hope for any kind of "life" has time for a "hobby project" is totally beyond my comprehension! What's your secret Ross?
irascian
irascian
Irascible Ian
Rossj wrote:

It isn't possible for an individual to try and keep up with every announcement or new tech that comes out of Microsoft - and I have always been worried that something I had spent lots of time on would be cancelled so - I stopped trying to keep up with Microsoft. 



It's a subject I discussed every time I got the chance at MIX08 (which wasn't that often given that most of the time I was wishing I was back in my bed, shaking off shivering and sweats)

We've already seen the "expected" stance in the report on the launch event that I linked to a week or so ago when some idiot program manager said that VS2008 made life the developer's life simpler just because we got some new designers. The far more sensible opinion of the article's author seemed to be that we were all going to have to become specialists instead of generalists.

But, again and again at MIX, I found people making the same complaint I have - that isn't the real world, at least not today. The real world expects to hire a "web developer" and that "web developer" to be proficient at whatever's needed. CSS? Yes because .NET now needs everything to be truly CSS compliant. You can't just palm off to "the front end guy" anymore. JavaScript? Well yes, but there are 10 different libraries out there and Microsoft's is the weakest so you'd better be up to speed on all of 'em cos you don't know which flavour we've chosen. WCF? For sure. WPF? Erm yeah 'cos Microsoft are really pushing it. Silverlight? Well yes, that's Microsoft's new web strategy isn't it?

And where does all that ALT.NET / P&P stuff fit in? Now that Microsoft have moved MVC framework into the product itself there are warning signs about future direction for all to see. MSDN.NET isn't enough any more and isn't going to be acceptable to customers who will want ALT.NET developers.

Just deciding WHAT'S the best approach vs what's just the latest fad of the ALT.NET crowd is a full-time job in itself.

MIX attendees I spoke to seemed to fall into two distinct camps: those complaining that Microsoft were much too slow, and were taking way too long to get new stuff out (when competitors already had offerings that are here and work today), pushing for even more releases of even more bits and pieces vs those who haven't got up to speed with what came with .NET 3.0 and don't understand the almost daily deluge of a new CTP of this and a new alpha/beta version of that, and all these add-ons that seem to be required.

I don't see any way that the "burn out" rate of the industry can do anything but get even worse, with the rate Microsoft are making things obsolete, continually reinventing the wheel in a desperate attempt to be perceived as "leaders".

IE8 "forced standards compliance" will be a straw that breaks the camel's back for many I suspect as suddenly what was "working fine yesterday" becomes seriously broken "tomorrow" and needs fixing on top of trying to get to grips with everything being spewed forth from many disparate groups and departments within Microsoft. The fact that so many people are blogging about what bits are needed and in what order they need to be installed based on just last Tuesday's announcements says it all.
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