A Blog About Random Computer Subjects
It’s been a while since I posted something new. That’s due to the fact that I’ve been working on a small game. My intent was to design and build a fully-functional game to demonstrate AJAX, C# and SVG. The trick to completing something like this is to make sure the scope is small enough that … Read moreDesigning a Game
I just completed a post about database basics and at the end I showed how students (and faculty members) can download Oracle or MS SQL Server, install it on their PC and create a database to match the book they are using in database class. Then I thought about the fact that I haven’t really … Read moreMore Database Basics
In this blog post I’m going to talk about SVG again. One of the great advantages that SVG has over Silverlight is that it is built into the browser. That means that you can use it anywhere in the browser window. Plug-ins are restricted to the box where they are plugged in. Click on the … Read moreMore SVG
Getting Started In my last blog post I showed how I setup a basic board game with an array of linked lists. Now I’m going to show you some straight C code to add a unit to the board. I used a standard WIN32 console application, just to get past the complex interface code. My … Read moreLinked Lists – Adding and Deleting
Basic Unordered Linked Lists So my last blog posts were about pointers. I gave a little historical context to the fact that I’m a self-taught pointer maniac. The past 6 years is the longest stretch I’ve gone without using a pointer. That is because I now program using C# instead of C/C++. Sometimes I miss … Read moreLinked Lists
Ok, I’m in the mood to do some technical blogging. I was reading an article recently about the fact that many universities are teaching computer science using languages such as Java that don’t use pointers. I’m starting to feel like one of those old guys saying things like “back in my day….”. Here’s the article … Read morePointers
If you’ve designed and built software for as long as I have (more than 20 years), you’ll have a whole lot of experience dealing with disasters. I’ve had a couple in my lifetime that could have been expensive disasters if not for my knowledge of trading stocks. You see, there’s this little secret to trading … Read moreSoftware Development Disasters
Spam – Sheesh, Are They Kidding? I get spam every now and then. I used to get a lot but we have a really good spam filter (Barracuda, by the way). But I’ve been receiving spam since I signed up for email back in the early 90’s. I’m so familiar with the social engineering tricks … Read moreSpam
Microsoft Office products have the ability to be integrated with Visual Studio in what is called “Automation.” I view this technique as a dumb and dirty capability that I use for extracting data from Word, Excel, Visio or other Office applications. In this example I’m going to show a method to read some basic information … Read moreVisio Automation
This seems to be a common problem where a reference to another project has a yellow triangle on it. Like this: Check your warnings: In my case the project targeted had a .NET library set to 4.5 and my main project had a .NET of 3.5. The warning, however, gives all the details needed: For … Read moreVS2012 Reference Has Yellow Triangle