Fight for the Right to Purchase

Been trying to buy come computer hardware today. Only started trying at the end of last month. I'm buying from a company who you might have heard of, who probably have offices near a place called Dingley. I normally recommend this company to friends you want to buy computers because I like a quiet life. The stuff is well designed, well documented and well supported. And if you buy over the internet for your own use the service is swift and efficient. But if you try to buy as an institution, say as a university, things don't go quite so smoothly.

The first contact told me that the order we faxed over a fortnight ago would not work because they don't accept faxed orders. The second contact put me on to the third contact. The third contact told me to fax the order in and then assured me that the order had been processed and would be delivered next week. Then he went on holiday. The fourth contact told me that the order could not be found, but I should ring the next day when it would appear. The fifth contact told me that the order was not on the system because the order number could not be read. This contact then undertook to let me know when the order had been added to the system. And there the matter rests. Since I originally created the order all the prices have changed and so I'll probably have to go into battle to sort that out too.

And all I want is a couple of handhelds and a server. Ho hum.

Two Tyres and a Windscreen Wiper Blade

Took the car for its MOT (Ministry Of Transport) test today. This is the time of year when the government tells me if my car is safe to drive for the next year. Turns out that it is, with a couple of new tyres and a windscreen wiper blade.

I've been doing some sums and it turns out that I've had this car for a sixth of my life. Longer than I've had any car before. I can't work out if this is becuase I'm poor or boring. Or perhaps I've just found a vehicle that suits me. Anyhoo, this time next year I'm pretty sure I'll be taking the same car along....

Dinky Darth

darth
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

I saw one of these in the Lego catalogue and mentioned it to number one daughter. So, when she saw one she bought me one. Wonderful. You spin it round and "Arise Lord Vader".
Soon the empire will be mine to command etc etc...

Flickr Frantic

I've signed up for a Flickr account. This is the power behind the flashing badge on the right of the blog pages. They let you upload up to 1 GByte of pictures every month. To me that sounds like a challenge. So today I tried to break it.

I've uploaded loads (and I mean loads) of pictures. Total space used so far - 8%.

Quick on the Draw

My latest MSDN Smartphone articles are now out:

Pocket Jack: Writing a Card-Playing Application
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/pocketjack.asp?frame=true

Focus Point: An Image Scaling Game for Smartphones
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/focuspoint.asp?frame=true

Pocket Bots: Writing a Battle Game for Smartphones
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/pocketbots.asp?frame=true

StarLight: Writing a Space-Shooter Game for Smartphones
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/starlight.asp?frame=true

Feel free to have a read and steal the code from them. I'm particularly proud of StarLight, which has a neat scripting language for the game objects. This lets you create really nasty aliens.

I've been thinking about moving into 3D games for a while, so today myself and number one son spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to recreate Faceball 2000, one of the best ever games for the Gameboy. By the end of the day we had a program which would draw two triangles on the Smartphone screen. Go us.