Marking Time

Spent the day marking First Year programming work. That’s around 15 different Breakout games and 5 or so banks (I got to do lots of games for some reason). I’m getting pretty good at paddle control, which is nice. We’ll finish tomorrow.

One thing that is impressing me is how much more the students are focusing on the deliverables. Last time we did this we had lots of submissions with bits missing. This time everybody seems to have read the specification and figured out just what they need to do. I think this is a really good development. Programmers are legendary for “drifting” off the original design, and it is nice to see some attention being paid to delivering what the customer needs.

Static on the Radio

I was doing a C# revision lecture yesterday and I was talking about static class members. I mentioned the fact that every year some students write “Static means that the value of the variable cannot be changed” in the exam, which produces an anguished cry from me and zero marks. I was trying to think of a better way to explain what static really means. And I thought about the radio. If you turn on your am radio and tune it away from a station you will hear static. And that static hiss is always there. It has been there since before radios were invented and it will be there until the universe cools right down. Static class members are a bit like this. They are always there. They exist whether you make an instance of the class or not. Static in this situation doesn’t mean “can’t change” it means “always there”.

We use them in programs when we want a data member that is part of a class but not part of each instance. For example, in a bank we might have loads of accounts, but the minimum amount you can withdraw, the maximum size of the balance we can have and the minimum age for an account holder are all relevant to accounts, but not stored in each account instance. Static works well in this situation.

Don’t Forget Memory of a Goldfish

David Parker, one of our postgrad students, has made a very nice Windows Phone pelmanism (matching pairs) game for windows phone. You can find it on the Windows Phone Marketplace by looking for “goldfish”.

I think I really ought to create a showcase page for Hull applications that have made it to the device (this would of course include Cheese Lander). If you have created an application or game for WP7 please get in touch and I’ll add you to the list.

WiFi Fun and Games

The WIFI connection downstairs has been a bit dodgy ever since I “upgraded” it with a device I got for an amazing price (can you tell what is going to happen here?). I’m pretty sure the discount was because someone had bought it, found it didn’t work and taken it back to the shop. It used to connect quickly enough, and then drop the connection at some random point in the future, just often enough to be really annoying. Its in the bin now. I can’t think of anyone I dislike enough to give it to them to use.

Anyhoo, I’ve recently come across these Tenda routers that you can get from eBuyer for the bonkers price of 12.48 pence:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169923 

They don’t replace the venerable Netgear DSL device that links me to the awesome power of Karoo, but then again I don’t want them to. What I want them for is to spread some WIFI around the house. They are designed to sit on the end of a broadband modem and provide WIFI and four more 10 base T ports. However, by ignoring the modem connection you can use them as WIFI access points. You can also use them to extend and bridge a wireless network if you are happy twiddling with the settings.

I just turned off their DHCP support (so they don’t go around offering network addresses to all and sundry) and set them up as WIFI access points hanging off the wire running around the place. I initially used one as a repeater to extend the coverage, but since that means I end up with a bunch of stations sharing one channel I decided to just make a new network instead. There is a nice little HowTo in amongst the reviews if you are new to this kind of thing.

So far so good, with speed and range nicely improved. 

Devdays Sessions now on Channel 9

All my DevDays sessions have now made it onto Channel 9.  Enjoy.

XNA Games for Windows Phone

Embedded Development with the .NET Micro Framework

Windows Phone Development in Rhyme

If you want any of the demo code you can find it on:

http://www.robmiles.com/demos