After nearly 3 years of having this blog, and all the times I said I would put up some tutorials, I guess it's about time I actually did that :P.  I intend to make my tutorials short and sweet, well, because I'd rather be keeping up with my YouTube channel or adding useful links to this site than doing grammar checks on blog posts, :D programming experience is assumed...

Anyway, XSLT, or eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations, is handy for converting any XML-compliant documents into other XML documents.  The perfect example is on this site's front page; you see I have links from GameTrailers, Joystiq, DigitalFoundry, and Gamasutra, all in their own little sections.  Well, you don't really think I copy-paste those links to my site every few minutes, do you?  No, each of those sites provides an RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication) for public use.  RSS is a subset of XML, and as such can be modified by XSL, because an RSS document/feed is an XML document.  Sooooooo, what I'm doing is slurping up the RSS from their site, and using XSL to reformat the data in those feeds for use on my site so that it conforms to my site's look and feel.  Voila, valuable content for my site's users, and that content will now update itself!

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Visitors will no longer be able to register on the old pheedbaq.com, as I have permanently disabled registration there.  The new site (the one you're on now) is now open for new user registration.  If you currently a user on the old site, please re-register on the new one if you wish to have an account here.  I will not be transferring accounts over, in order to weed out spam registrations and users who no longer wish to retain their account.

Just added a bunch of useful programming/software links to del.icio.us, a service that allows you to catalogue all of your bookmarks online and tag them for categorization.  The great part is that you can then syndicate any combination of tags as their own feed.  I've taken advantage of this and set up a Programming section full of these RSS link feeds (and some good vids) that will now update themselves as I add things to del.icio.us :)  It's all about entering things in one place and referencing it from there.  I'm starting to like the Web 2.0 and all its' cloudiness.  If you get the chance, check it out!  They offer browser plugins as well to make it really easy to bookmark as well.  You can also follow all of the links I put on the pheedbaq account, see below for the link.

The service web site: http://delicious.com/

Just the pheedbaq del.icio.us bookmarks: http://delicious.com/pheedbaq

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Just added a blog roll to the main page, should be below the gamasutra section.  Two friends of mine both have sites/blogs, so I figured I'd add them in case anyone is interested in their content.  The first, CobbNet.net, is done by a network admin, and has some nifty networking tools.  The other, Computer Programming and Magic The Gathering, is a blog about the card game Magic The Gathering, and the deck-building program my friend has written called Forge.  He also talks about programming issues that relate to games in general.  Check them out!

I'll be migrating some of the posts from the old blog to the new one.  I will mark each one with its original post date.  I'm only migrating the ones that will actually be useful, so they may as well be new if you haven't seen them before, but I thought I'd let everyone know.

I've created two new sections, Retro Gaming, and Programming Tools.  Bear in mind these are sites and tools that I myself use, so there's no chance they're going to turn into junk listings trying to catalog every possible link for a given subject.  I put a lot of time and effort into researching the sites and tools I use, so expect these listings to be the cream of the crop from what I've found over the years and still use.  You may notice a bias towards free sites and software, but rest assured if it's on the list, it's quality stuff.

There are still some tweaks to make here and there, but for the most part, this is the new site! In the process of doing this, I ended up learning XSL, which is what allows the site to consume and reformat the RSS feeds from GameTrailers, Joystiq, DigitalFoundry, and Gamasutra.  I'll have to put up a tutorial on what I've learned from that at some point.  Tutorials like that will probably have their own page, but it's possible I might keep them as blog posts, we'll see. The idea of overhauling the site was to provide people with content that I myself use, without needing to do a blog post for it every single time.  So I've created what is essentially a mashup of different gaming/programming sites plus my blog.  Everything except my own content will update itself (thanks to XSL), leaving me free to focus on blog posts, tutorials, etc.  I think this will make the site much more appealing and give people more reason to stick around and visit frequently.  The nature of the site hasn't changed, but there'll now and in the future be better integration of content.... Read More »

Just a note that I recently acquired a twitter feed and a facebook page. Also don't forget I've got tons of gameplay and walkthrough videos on my youtube channel.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pheedbaq

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/pheedbaq/350862156487

YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/pheedbaq

So glad I came across DigitalFoundry. Their most recent post goes over the performance of the Left4Dead 2 demo on 360. However, that's not what I found was the most interesting. They link to Valve's GDC 2008 presentation on cross-platform development. They go over the pros and cons versus PC development, along with many issues a console dev has to be aware of when doing a cross over. Very interesting read. Check it out! [Via DigitalFoundry]

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In keeping with one of this blog's themes of game development, I've added an RSS feed here for EuroGamer's DigitalFoundry blog. Lots of gaming sites do videos that compare ps3 games to 360 games, what technology goes into the games, etc, but most of those sites and their features only scratch the surface. DigitalFoundry on the other hand takes things up a few notches and gets into the design of game engines, how and why certain visual effects were used in certain places, what hardware techniques were used to achieve different aspects of gameplay, and lots of other topics that more programming-centric gamers with an bent towards game development would have an interest in. If you have any interest in game development, I think you'll find their blog... Read More »

 

[UPDATE: Added AdobeARM and Bonjour to the list of junk that can be turned off]

Just wanted to drop a quick post on some nice FireFox add-ons I came across. If you're like me and are trying to squeeze the most you can out of your aging P4, grab Firefox (awesome browser), and then get the Adblock Plus add-on, and the Flashblock add-on. Both are set up to block all that CPU-hogging Flash garbage that's so popular on web sites nowadays (yes I know there's some on this site as well, but that doesn't mean I like it in general). More on these and other speed-up tips after the jump. Flashblock blocks all flash, so you may find that one alone is good enough. It swaps out the Flash widgets with a place-holder and a Flash-looking play button. So if you want to see the Flash content, you can just click the play button. If you refresh the page, the Flash will be blocked again, which I actually like, because I usually know what content I want to see anyway, so I just click play on that and I don't have to worry about anything else getting through. I did run into a glitch or two while trying to play some things, and the Flash content just didn't want to play, but I was always able to open to a new tab and get it to work, or it would eventually just work on its own, kinda wierd but hey it keeps browsing fast. The Adblock plugin just checks the site you visit against a public list of content that's been recognized as ads, and blocks them accordingly. The benefit is that you block the ads, but still immediately see the Flash content you are likely to be interested in. In case it turns out to be junk, there's a little "block" tab that sits right above the Flash content pane, and you can click that to get your block on.... Read More »

My last post was when??? Holy cow, I need to get on the ball. Well it looks like my forever-coming tutorial on Amazon Web Services will have to wait and change a bit. Recently they goobered up the API some more so that only signed requests will be processed, and of course the service I made using their API (Amazon Price Targets) doesn't use signed requests, and so now doesn't work at all. Just another way of ensuring legit traffic through their API I'm sure, but it's also a good way to weed out lazy devs like me who don't want to update their software services every few seconds... ok so maybe I just made the service at a bad time. Typically I don't think the API changes that often. Aside from that, I've been reading up on PostSharp recently. If you haven't heard... Read More »

Alrighty! You should see a new link at the top of the blog for the free service I created, Amazon Price Targets. This is the Amazon.com service I was talking about in an earlier post. I dug into amazon's web service API for a few weeks and hammered out as simple and usable a service as I could without allowing the project to bloat into a mammoth. I'll try to put up a few posts with some useful code related to amazon's web services, so be watching for that. Anyway, here's the gist of the service. You make a wishlist on amazon.com, make it public (they are by default), then you come to the service, enter the e-mail address you use for amazon.com, wait for account activation, then start entering price targets for new and/or used items. A price target is simply... Read More »

Just heard this yesterday in a commercial for the Toyota Venza. It's a pretty cool mix of electronic, latin, and country of all things. The piece is called Thrive and was done by Elias Arts to be used internally by Toyota (as far as I can tell anyway). As such, you can't really buy it anywhere, but luckily Toyota has made it available to download for free. To get it you need to go to the Toyota Venza web page at http://www.toyota.com/venza/. Near the bottom left corner you'll see a "What's New" ticker with an arrow on the right that you can click on to cycle through the tickers. Cycle through until you get to "Download free, full-length Venza music here." and click on it. You'll have to click through an agreement and then you'll be able to download the song in a zip file. No telling how long it'll be there, so get it while you can. It'd be nice if more companies did this for their music, as many pieces like this one are quite good on their own.[via... Read More »

THIS is why the gaming industry now dwarfs Hollywood, video game technology and innovation has grown at nearly the same rate as the people who first seeded the industry are aging. Seemingly every year there's another giant leap in some area. Putting the CryEngine on consoles is something that people said just couldn't be done. Witness CryEngine 3, coming soon to a PS3 and Xbox 360 near you. CEO interviews behind the curtain.

 

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Yeah, it's been a while since the last post, but I can't help myself from getting into new stuff, and I have a limited amount of time to work with, so I end up hopping from working on projects, to doing blog posts, to posting on YouTube, etc., and I typically do each of those in chunks, maybe a week at a time or more. Anyway, I've been digging into the amazon.com web services API recently and decided I would try my hand at offering a service based on that platform. More after the beep. The service will be completely free, and should be able to save people money. I'll also have to post some tutorials and example code to share what I've learned. I've also been digging into neural nets recently, so at some point I hope to have something to show for that. If nothing else, I should be able... Read More »

I am by no means a guru of game programming, nor have I been at it for very long. But, if you're the type (like me) who has intermediate programming skills and a big interest in video game programming, but you happen to be lacking in math skills, you may want to follow along with the rest of this post. I always felt that game programming was wayyyy too math-centric for me. I'm not exactly horrible at math, but I don't have the skills that would allow me to figure out how to program my own shaders for a 3D game or anything. I'm pretty much an application programmer, not a systems programmer or a computer engineer. Another way of saying it is, I can build the house, but don't ask me to build the tools I would... Read More »

Since they announced that The Force Unleashed would be available for the less powerful consoles, namely the PS2 and PSP, many have been wondering how they'd turn out. These GameTrailers producer walkthroughs should put to rest any worries. Obviously they aren't going to measure up to the experience you have on PS3 or 360, but so far, they're looking very good in their own right. The PSP walkthrough is after the beep.... Read More »

Here's an interesting look back at gaming's history. GameTrailers has picked 10 milestone years and given us the breakdown of the highlights in this new feature video they've released. If you're under 20, there's a good chance you've never heard of some the games mentioned in the feature. If you're between 20 and 30 (me), feel good that unlike other entertainment industries and thanks mainly to the rapidly advancing technology we have today, the gaming industry has grown up with and been able to keep pace with the same audience that saw it become mainstream.Top Ten Years Of Gaming... Read More »

Someone tell Frodo! My 360 has the ring! Well, the replacement 360 MS sent me a while back has succumbed to the same fate as its predecessor. I was sitting there a few weeks ago, minding my own business while playing Rainbow Six Vegas (first one), and it just up and froze. Powered down and back up and the dreaded Red Ring of Death appeared in all its hellish glory. Called MS up, and they promptly had an empty box sent to me. This time, they wanted the core 360 unit and the power brick. At least it's all still under warranty. To be honest, that unit smelled like tobacco products and made funny noises (kinda like an old person who's smoked all their life I guess), so I'm kinda glad it died when it did. Maybe the internal error code that caused the ring was for lung cancer or something? Anyway, I patiently await its return, and I'll be sure to post an update on what kind of smelly,... Read More »