Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 08:58PM I'm only a week late with this one, but it is worth searching out if you haven't heard of it yet. XNA 3.0 is now available for download from the Creators Club.
Version 3.0 adds support for the Zune, as well as enhancements to the Xbox Live interface and a much easier way of adding sound to your games. Well worth a look.
XNA Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 10:38PM Went out to see "Quantum of Solace", the new Bond film. Didn't really fancy watching anything outdoors, what with the truly horrible weather. So it was off to Vue in the middle of Hull for fireworks of the indoor kind.
We drove through what seemed to be a "Festival of Bad Driving" to get to the theatre, what with death wish cyclists, deranged lane changers and someone who seemed to want to race me round the car park, our nerves were pretty shredded before the film started....
I wasn't sure what to expect. Some of the critics have been a bit "ho hum" about this one, but I think is because the novelty of a new Bond is starting to wear off as Daniel Craig beds into the part. They may have a point about the plot, which seems to have reverted back to standard Bond faire, with sinister world domination types coming back to the fore.
Having said that, the whole thing was done with conviction and style and everybody played their role very well. It was definitely a bit bleak though, if you are looking for smug type endings with Bond and babe under a fur rug somewhere in the sun you are going to be disappointed. But if you are looking for another good action thriller, you won't be.
film reviews Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 06:01PM I went half way around the world to see this stuff. But you can get at it for free. Microsoft have put videos of sessions from PDC 2008 onto Channel 9. There is some truly some excellent stuff, whether you want to find out more about Azure, Windows 7 or Oslo. Get the videos here:
Monday, November 3, 2008 at 11:56PM At the PDC last week we all got given "The Goods", in the form of a hard disk full of software and a bunch of dvds with Windows 7 on them. They are heavily marked "For testing purposes only" since we are some way from a Beta release of Windows 7 and you really aren't supposed to use the system for real work.
I thought I'd give it a go anyway. So tonight at 7:00 pm I started an upgrade install on my main Vista machine. I didn't go for a clean install, life's too short for re-installing all those applications. At 10:30 the upgrade had just about finished and I was able to get my first flavour of Microsoft's new system.
It works. It works fine. I'm using my MacBook (which might make for interesting times if I ever try to boot back into OS X) and all my hardware has been detected with no problems. Since the current test release is based on Vista I wasn't expecting driver trouble and so far I've not had any. Setting up the monitors was a bit fiddly, but I soon managed to get them arranged how I like. And after a slight kerfuffle with the login for Outlook I've now got a very good place to work that does all the things it used to.
The whole machine seems a lot more zippy, with applications opening much more quickly and running very well. I've not really had much chance to play with any of the new features, but I don't think I'm going to have a problem living with this test release. If you were at PDC and are thinking about putting Windows 7 on your machine I'd say go for it.
Software Sunday, November 2, 2008 at 08:35PM I picked up a book while I was at PDC. it is a best practice book for software developers. And it is excellent. I really like Steve McConnell and the stuff that he writes but "Hard Code" from Eric Brechner (writing as the deliberately provocative "I M Wright") is just as solid on technique, and has a really good line in snappy titles and no-nonsense talk. (one of the early articles is called "Development schedules, flying pigs, and other fantasies")
The content is based on articles written by Eric for in-house magazines at Microsoft. The intention was to spark debate about what you should be doing when you try to construct systems out of software, and the best ways to make sure you do it right.
If you write code for a living, or are a student learning how to write code for a living, or just want to find out what makes developers go tick (and probably cuckoo as well) then this is a great book to get. Strongly recommended.
book reviews 