But is it a bug?

I noticed a little "foible" of Windows when I was writing my Moosaic program. Windows provides a lovely way that you can load an image into a program. You just go:

Bitmap b = new Bitmap ( filename );

This goes off to the filename and gets you a shiny bitmap which contains your picture. However, it also leaves open the connection to the file, so that if you try to delete the file you get an error saying the file is in use. I don't think that it is. I've just read an image from it, that is all.

This is rather frustrating if you want to reuse a temporary image file. In the end I had to use a stream to read the file, which I could then properly let go of..

StreamReader streamReader = new StreamReader( filename );
Bitmap b = new Bitmap( streamReader.BaseStream );
streamReader.Close();

This is messy, but works in that the file is released. I'm wondering if I've found a bug or a feature...

Moosaic Takes Shape

One of "Robert's Rules" is:

Any software development takes longer than you think, even if you allow for this.

Of course, having a day job as well has kind of hampered development...

So I've not finished the Moosaic program just yet. But it is looking quite tidy:

Coming to a setup program near you....

I've got the image download and the grid selection just about sorted, Now I just need to get the tile output done and we will be in business.

At it again

Came in tonight with an urge to write some code. Just as soon as I'd finished watching "Harvey". Wonderful old film staring James Stewart. Anyhoo, I'm going to write another Flickr program, this time to create lots of little images from a single Flickr picture. The idea is that you can make mosaics to have printed out on little cards.  I've called it my "Moosaic" program (not my idea I'm afraid).

I've got so far and run out of steam for tonight(must be my age). Should have it going tomorrow.....

Cheap Games

I thought it might be worth putting down some hints on cheap places to get XBOX 360 games. If you don't want the hassle of mail order you might find these useful.

I've found that specialist places like Game tend to sell at full price. The cheapest place to buy XBOX 360 games on the high street is actually a music store; Music Zone (which has shops in most cities in the UK) quite often has titles at 10 pounds less than the "usual" price, i.e. 39 quid rather than 49. If you don't have a Music Zone shop in your town, the next good place to look is WH Smiths. They quite often have games at around five pounds cheaper than other sellers. If you use Smiths, make sure you have a points card, as these can save you even more cash.

I was thinking about the price of games. 49 quid does seem rather steep, but I remember paying 48 for the very first version of Destruction Derby for the Playstation 1 (quite a good game in it's time)around ten years ago, and money seemed to go a lot further then....

Free Printing with Moo

Number one son put me onto this. If you have a Flickr Pro account you can get 10 free "minicards" from Moo. The cards are teeny tiny, but they look like fun. I've ordered my 10 free ones (and I'm darned tempted to have 100 done as well).