VinceArter.com

Archive for the ‘Design and Development’ Category

Well I’m sure those that are waiting for SPORE Game Packager (SPG) are wondering … where is it? I mentioned it only a few days after SPORE’s release. I have been busy at work and the 90 software releases we have going on in our projects right now so I haven’t had free time to finish SPG.

I did, several weeks ago, start re-writing the UI. It looks nicer and does use the Krypton Suite. I also fixed some of the bugs in the temporary file handling. The code is still ungodly ugly and horrible (I hate to admit it) but right now I just want to get it out there and will do some OOD later. (Hey … at least I refactored it so none of my methods have more than a few lines of code in them and got rid of unnecessary stuff but it’s still very procedural).

Anyway I hope to finish it in the next few weeks if there is still interest. I haven’t received as much interest as I did initially but I’m guessing folks are just waiting.

Oh and yes … this will be for Windows only right now. I chose to do in C# with the .NET 3.5 framework and it uses Windows environment information so at this time it will probably not work on UNIX / Mac even under Wine (I’m guessing).

Here is the latest screenshot. If you are still interested drop me a line and I’ll get it done faster.

SPG Screenshot

 Vince

So the SPORE Game Packager has been delayed a few days. I really wanted to clean up some stuff and make it more user friendly. I have just recently (acutally a few months ago) started working with a neat package of tools called the Krytpon Suite (part of which, Krypton Toolkit is free). VERY cool suite of tools and early testing shows that they perform very well.

Right now the package is almost done. I have everything packaging up nicely and am working on some clean-up items I mentioned:

To Do

• Clean-up packaging code (it’s messy now)
• Re-design UI (it’s just nasty at the moment) using Krytpon Suite and better layout
• Use temporary folders for more efficient restoration (unpackaging).

So I want to get some of that conversion finished and I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the tool and how it is going.

For those interested in the project (and it seems like a lot of people are for some reason) one thing to note (and the program will warn you) is that this does NOT do a merge. It is basically like backing up from one PC and the restoring OVER the other one … it is to copy everything from one location to another. IF enough people are interested in the project and I have time I guess I could dig deeper into the folder structure of SPORE and figure out how to do more of a merge approach.

Another question I have been asked is will it cost anything (or will it be Open Source). It will not cost anything but if you really like you can donate (coming soon) to help me continue development. It will not be Open Source. I have a friend (Trent) who is a big WoW gamer and has been thinking of doing a similar project for WoW so at some point we may merge our code streams (I THOUGHT YOU SAID NEVER CROSS THE STREAMS RAY!) so that could be a change in the future as well.

Well have a good rest of the week and look for more on SPORE Game Packager after the weekend (and probably an Alpha Release sometime during the weekend).

– Vince

I’ve seen so many threads about how people are struggling with copying or moving their SPORE data between PCs (say if you have a big PC and a laptop).

Actually you can. It is a pain in the rump. You have to copy your %APPDATA%\SPORE folder (in all its glory) and your My Documents\My SPORE Creations (or on Vista it is something like User\Documents\My SPORE Creations).

I’ve been so pained by this I am currently writing a little SPORE Game Packager so I can make it easy to do this … it will create a file that you can move between PCs … kind of like back and restore. I’ll post it for free on my website when I’m done if anyone is interested. It is ugly and poorly written (the REAL programmer in me wants to make it nice and object oriented but I’m lazy right now … PLAYING SPORE!). Anyway … keep an eye out here for the program. Here is an early screenshot. Note that most of the application is a “covering my butt” statement. You can click the thumbnail below to see a bigger picture.

Vince (V2)
http://www.vincearter.com

My wife has started a t-shirt shop on Cafe Press. There are a lot of them out there but hers is unique with some pretty cool designs and more coming. She has some already out there. You can access her shop by clicking the image below.

Well I’ve been musing the new year 2008. 2007 was a good year overall but there were struggles.

We lost our great (and amazing) friend Alex Sutherland on December 3, 2007. He was one of a kind and I’ll cherish the fact a week before he went home to be with our Lord I was able to play music with him again (and what a great time we had). That Sunday he also shared Scripture at church (NCC in Wildwood, MO) and I was able to hug him and tell him we loved him. I’ll always cherish those last moments with my “good cronie”.

Normal year of health issues and colds (and stupid seasonal allergies) … long work hours and interesting new technologies … SharePoint/MOSS 2007 baby. Server problems, new stuff, old stuff made new. Started a temporary gig with a local band. Re-organized the basement once again.

We started going to a new church (NCC in Wildwood, MO) and that has been interesting and nice. We love everyone at CFC (where we attended for 25 years) but wanted to go some place closer to home to be part of and with similar views on what we believe and where God is leading us by his Word.

Vince III is in his Junior year of college and then off the police academy. Dani is a Senior in high school and then off to university out of state. <sniff />

Well it’s been an intersting year. We are hoping for a happy (and quieter) 2008. We hope and pray for all of the best for you and your family.

Feel free to drop me a line and say “hi”.

Vince

If you would like to download a copy of the presentation I gave at the Enterprise Search Summit you can get it here: Monsanto ESS 2007 Presentation.

You can get more information on our case study (including a document and video) from the Microsoft website at http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=201093. This content has been approved for release. If I can get permission to post my presentation I will do so.

V2

At work we recently finished implementing MOSS Search for our production Intranet and Extranet applications. It went very well and we did it with very little documentation. Microsoft TAP support (we were a MOSS Beta TAP member) and the resources they provide were great.

At the same time we would have loved to have a bit more documentation and guidance. We’ve been waiting for this one for some time. It’s great to see this finally hit the press.

As more MOSS documents become available I may blog about them here.

Here’s the link http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/5465aa2b-aec3-4b87-bce0-8601ff20615e1033.mspx?mfr=true.

V2

For my first post I’ll note that I’ve been asked by Microsoft to present at this year’s 2007 Enterprise Search Summit (click here and find Breakout E-2 - Using SharePoint Server 2007 for Site and Enterprise Search).

V2