Daniel Fernandez (and others) -- Coding for Fun

The Discussion

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  I've always found coding to be fun and exciting!

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  that wireless secutiry identity thing is the most radical thing i have ever seen.
  
  period.
  

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  wow wow hold on, vidcasts showing me how to start from 0 "what a variable is" to building an rss reader...
  
  link!
  

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  great video - i check out the site, but could not find the webcast they talked about?!?

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  Research Assitant
  
  Man that was so complex it made my brain sizzle! < / sarcasam >
  
  What it's done is ... nothing.
  - Steve

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  Yea they have extensions in firefox that do the same thing, weak I know.
  

• 

  That wireless security thing is awesome!
  
  I'm not sure exactly how useful the usb part of it is, though. I mean, uh, what if you just take it out?
  
  

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  Half life 2.
  
  Any guys from coding4fun can give any more info on this?
  

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  Everything that is currently available can be found under http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun
  
  The webcast they are talking about doesn't appear on there. I'll make sure Dan or Brian get a link in here, or information on when it will be available (if its a future article). I'll also see if they know what's happening on the half life stuff.
  
  Finally if anyone is interested in the pan-tilt camera kit you can find it here http://www.phidgetsusa.com/
  specific link http://www.phidgetsusa.com/cat/viewproduct.asp?category=20000&subcategory=20300&SKU=LM-CPT-KT-WC
  
  As for the <sarcasm> - it may seem very simple and not worth it to you, but the point of Coding4Fun is to encourage small beginner, hobbyist developers to be interested in coding. If someone from that audience sees the code and gets inspired to modify it to do something else then our job is done.

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  I am not beginner in coding.  I know how to read code and have done some java and cobol.   I want to learn this visual stuff.  What is a good place to start.  They mentioned some videos that show how to creat stuff for the beginners.  Anyone know any website or any good book that will get me started. Thanks in advance.
  
  One more question. In the articles on Coding4fun, is there a way to know what expert level is needed to read the article?

• 

  Hey Niners!
  
  Thanks for watching the video. Let me try to answer some of these questions you have:
  1) Link to "Beginners" Webcast:
  Visual Basic: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/learning/
  Visual C#: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualCSharp/learning/
  
  2) re: Geekling's comment about taking the USB Wireless Security key out of the computer, yes you could do that. But it would just end up "thinking" that you were no longer at your computer, so if it was programmed to lock your workstation it would do that. "Secure by default."
  I think that the "Security key" branding of these devices is kind of misleading but that's what they are sold and marketed as. For use with our project I prefer to think of it more as a presence monitor (am I at my computer or not?). Then we can program all sorts of tasks around the concept of whether I'm at my computer or not. For instance, do I want to lock my workstation when I step away from my desk? Do I want to mute my workstation? Set Messenger to "Away"? Defrag my hard drive or clear my Internet Explorer cache. Any task you can dream up really.
  
  Here's another idea I had for these keys... in our office and I'm sure many other offices around the world people are always printing documents and often forget to pick them up at the printer. Sometimes sensitive data is left on the printer, or trees are wasted on reams of documents people forget to claim. I think a company could save a lot of money and protect their confidential documents by requiring everybody to carry one of these presence indicators to the print room to pick up their job. Once the print server detected the person was in the room it would print their job - but not before. Of course this requires that the person waits for their job to print, but at least it's queued up to the print server already. Ok niners, who wants to write the application? I'll bet you could even make money selling it to companies. Coding4Fun becomes Coding4Profit!
  
  
  3) BenZilla: Re: HalfLife 2 we're still waiting for Valve to update their source code to compile with Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition. It was supposed to be ready by now but understandably I think they are probably working on getting some other game titles ready for the holiday season. Once they update their source code, though, you'll be able to use Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition to create "mods" for Half-Life 2. If you have Visual C++ .NET 2003 you can do that today - you can get started using the community and documentation sites we called out here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/half-life/default.aspx
  
  4) Re: the research assistant, Andy's response was spot on. Sometimes we find that hobbyist coding projects really are all about the challenge. For example, I've always dreamed about what it would take to build my own Web browser. In no way do I ever think that I could build a Web browser which was better than IE or FireFox, I'm just interested in the challenge because it's a mentally stimulating way of learning more about coding. That's common with many of the things we do on Coding4Fun. If you download the game created using the Gaming 101 Webcasts it pales in comparison to even an old Atari game, but the principles you learn along the way to build that game (sprite collision detection for example) are invaluable building blocks if you want to be a game developer or just learn more about how games are built.
  
  Keep the great questions and ideas coming
  
  Brian Keller
  
  

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  Thanks Brian, apparently there was going to be some integration between steam and VS05(it was on some random microsoft research webcast with some guys with valve and Kang Su(SP?) from Microsoft)
  
  Is there any info on this? Where will I be able to get it? Because stock express does not include it.
  
  And what kind of content are you thinking of doing?
  

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  BenZilla wrote:

  Thanks Brian, apparently there was going to be some integration between steam and VS05(it was on some random microsoft research webcast with some guys with valve and Kang Su(SP?) from Microsoft)
  
  Is there any info on this? Where will I be able to get it? Because stock express does not include it.
  
  And what kind of content are you thinking of doing?
  

  
  
  Wow - you're an astute follower of this topic! I was driving this project and we started about a year ago. We did get a prototype working which allowed you to click "File -> New -> Half-Life 2 Mod" and it would present you with a wizard to help you build your first mod. But it was really just that - your first mod - and the way it worked was to create a copy of an existing weapon class (e.g. crowbar) and allow you to create a new class which was a copy of the other class with strings replaced (e.g. baseball bat).
  Unfortunately, while this helped you build your very first mod it was only good at your first mod. And it also required us to make some hard assumptions about the Source SDK code. And unfortunately since Valve is in a position to update the SDK code any time they want, it means that they could easily make an update which broke our integration wizard. Of course, updating our bits along with Valve's updates is something which is solvable, but way beyond the level of resources we had to devote to this project. Keep in mind that Coding4Fun was started by a few Microsoft folks and people in the community for the love of coding on a shoestring budget and our spare time. We didn't want to release an integration pack into the community which was going to be broken in 3 months and cause a lot of customers confusion about why their mods weren't compiling.
  So unfortunately in the end we ended up scrapping this project because we found that 99% of the value was really in delivering an IDE which allowed people to mod Half-Life 2. So instead we've been focusing on trying to get Valve to update their source code so it would compile with Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition. We're still waiting on them to make that change. Feel free to throw some "consumer demand" behind the problem by posting at their forums and emailing them.
  
  Brian Keller

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  Thanks for the answer.
  
  So apart from getting valve to update their code to work with VS2005, are you planning anything else? Articles? Code samples?
  
  Apparently we are getting an update SDK "next week" but I don't know if that includes and updated code base or is just tools for their map editors.
  

• 

  wow i love coding for fun and i want it to grow and grow

   

  does daniel Fernandez come to channel 9 by anychance? by what nickname?

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  ya, can someone make a demo that allows us to capture voice from input device like mic, or stereo mix, and compress it and then send it off to a listening socket? and then eco back the bytes and then play it ?

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  Shark_M wrote:

  wow i love coding for fun and i want it to grow and grow

   

  does daniel Fernandez come to channel 9 by anychance? by what nickname?

  
  
  Yeah, I try to be here as much as possible, just search for posts by user "Dan"

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  great! I am happy to see you at channel9
  

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  Benzilla,
  
  Once Valve updates their SDK we might do some articles (video, perhaps?) showing how to do your first mod with Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition. But until they do you can find some really great community-driven content and tutorials at the sites listed on the Half-Life 2 Mod Spot.
  
  I also just got a link to www.3dbuzz.com which has over 3 1/2 hours of video content on level editing using the Hammer editor for Half-Life 2.
  
  There's never been a better time to be a modder, that's for sure! I remember building Doom 2 maps and it was fun but the possibilities were way more limited than they are now. For example, check out the killer game that the Dystopia Mod team built, you can download their demo at www.dystopia-game.com (you will have to have Half-Life 2 to get this). They had a vision for a game that they really wanted to play and set out and built it. They are always looking for good and motivated people to contribute to the project so if you want to pitch in and continue to build content for the game it's a great way to get involved.
  
  Happy modding
  
  BTW Ben, do you currently mod? I'm just wondering what your level of interest is and what you may have done in the past.
  
  Brian Keller

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  Hi Brian,
  
  I "sort of mod" where I work on my own projects, but i'm not attatched to any team at the moment.
  
  I'm currently learning to program that's why I love the source engine, it sure beats coding a temperature converter
  
  And I know how to map, and a couple of the auxillary tools like faceposer.
  
  Thanks for answering my questions.

• 

  briankel wrote:

  3) BenZilla: Re: HalfLife 2 we're still waiting for Valve to update their source code to compile with Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition. It was supposed to be ready by now but understandably I think they are probably working on getting some other game titles ready for the holiday season.

  
  
  It'll be ready in a Valve month. So, if you work on your models it'll probably be ready by the time they're all polished.

• 

  Wow, awesome to see the USBWiSec project shown on Channel9!  If anyone is interested in how it all started and some additional information, check out these articles:
  
  

  • A look inside the USB Wireless PC Lock
    
  • Proof of Concept replacement for USB Wireless Security Lock
  • Some clarifications on UsbWiSec
  • HOWTO write a plugin for UsbWiSec

  And of course, there is the Coding4Fun article itself.
  
  Now go get one for yourself (as cheap as $8), download the app from sourceforge, and code up your own plugins for the system!
  
  --b
  

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  The USB wireless security dongle is awesome! These kind of projects inspire me to do (even) more coding myself .
  
  pontiphex: Great work , just ordered mine . btw: The last link in your post is pointing to the froogle search.
  
  

• 

  Dear friends
  
  Trying to make my first steps with C#. I compiled the System Tray Alarm Clock without error. When executing, I only get a little window with the correct message, but it refuses to play the .mp3 file.  I get the following message :
  
  unhandled exception has occured in your application. If you click Continue.....
  
  The file located at.....is not a valid wave file.
  
  Of course, I tried various files that I can read, without problem, with Media player.
  
  Any help
  
  
  P.S. I am not sure my post is where it should be. Plea   se forgive me and put me on the right track. (french speaking person).

• 

  José wrote:

  Dear friends
  
  Trying to make my first steps with C#. I compiled the System Tray Alarm Clock without error. When executing, I only get a little window with the correct message, but it refuses to play the .mp3 file.  I get the following message :
  
  unhandled exception has occured in your application. If you click Continue.....
  
  The file located at.....is not a valid wave file.
  
  Of course, I tried various files that I can read, without problem, with Media player.
  
  Any help
  
  
  P.S. I am not sure my post is where it should be. Plea   se forgive me and put me on the right track. (french speaking person).

  
  
  Hi José,
  
  This is a good question, the issue is that the Windows Forms SoundPlayer control can only play Wave (wav) files and doesn't have MP3 encoders. To be able to play MP3's, you will need to add a separate Windows Media Player control (wmp.dll) to your application. You can read more details about this including helpful articles in my a previous blog post on the subject - http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2004/02/19/76677.aspx 
  
  Thanks,
  Dan