After seeing the cools stuff Chris Anderson is doing with Python in his AvPad program, I dicided to take his advice and learn Python. I read an ebook on the flight to Redmond, and today I wrote my first program. It uses IronPython and the .NET framework to make a webspider that searches for mp3s […]
Here is the story of Dan Lash’s interview at Microsoft in January. Pics and Videos included:
http://danlash.com/qwix/seattle.html
The sun is shining and I feel like doing something outside. It’s been a few years, but I’m planning on doing a bit of geocaching this spring/summer. Don’t know what this is? Here is the official FAQ. The basic idea is that you get a few buddies and a GPS device […]
The issue of whitespace preservation often comes up when working with XML. XAML, being XML, is no exception. Take this for example:
<StackPanel>
<TextFlow><Bold>i’m Bold</Bold> <Italic>i’m Italic</Italic></TextFlow>
</StackPanel>
You might expect this to render with a space between the Bold and the Italic text, but this is not the case.
it will instead look like: i’m […]
So I’m going to Redmond in less than 2 months (after E3 of course), and I need to become capable with the Avalon API so I can jump right in there and get some work done. Here are some tips I’ve discovered on how to learn a [huge] .net API.
1) download the docs and […]
In my previous attempt to describe a problem that I believe exists in the current implementation of ClearType on XP, I forgot one important thing. A picture is worth a thousand words. The problem is that you can’t just blow up a bitmap to show sub-pixels. That’s why I decided to write […]
Looks like I’m going to be interning with Microsoft on the Windows Client Platform team (aka Avalon) this summer! Interviewing at Microsoft was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Seattle is beautiful, and everyone I talked to during my interview was extremely friendly.
I wanted to wait to hear their response […]
I’ve been tinkering around with Avalon CTP lately (without actually making anything useful) and I’ve run into a few things that may be bugs. Also, coming from a web development background I’ve got a question that may be naive. First the bugs…
Here’s the short list of what I’ve found so far.
1) I […]
Halflife 2 actually runs fairly well on my Toshiba Portege M200 (1.7GHz Pentium-M). The graphics settings certainly aren’t maxed out, but it still looks quite good. Playing a first person shooter with the stylus was…well…fun.
I think I better get one of those little laptop mice if I’m going to continue.
Currently, tablets and cleartype don’t mix. Well, not in portrait mode at least. Why is this? I’m going to tell you! Read on.
Cleartype is an extremely cool technique for making text look good on LCD monitors. As you may or may not know, LCD monitors typically have rectangular pixels that are […]
Many graphics programs are floating around out there that have paint brushes, pencils, markers, etc…but a program called ArtRage takes it to a new level. This is the first program I’ve seen that makes you really feel like you’re painting. The paint brushes on the canvas unevenly and with bump mapping. You […]
one of the tablet pc powertoys allows you to quickly (less than 5 min) make a font that looks like your own handwriting. I’ve always wanted my own font!
Download my font here.
it look like this:
I finally got my new tablet PC today and I must say I’m loving it. I got the Toshiba M200 with a 1.7 Ghz Pentium M and 512 MB of ram. (mostly due to the higher than 1024×768 resolution)
Here’s a picture of me with my new baby.
my take on it so far:
1) The handwriting recognition […]
Ian Griffith is the man. After I posted about not being able to animate the font size he went ahead and did it. He’s posted the code on his site and more importantly got the attention of Elizabeth and Matt from the Avalon Animation team (via Chris Sells).
While Ian’s solution is really cool because […]
I got the new Avalon preview on XP last night and spent about 8 hours (ok, maybe 14) reading the docs and playing with XAML. IT BLOWS MY MIND. I really think WinFX this is going to fundamentally change applications of the near future. I’m not just talking about bouncy-rotating-colorchanging buttons, I’m […]
Tomorrow night at midnight I will be in geeky-nirvana. My pre-cache on steam has been mocking me, but I’ll show it who’s boss in due time.
Here is the game plan for tuesday morning (monday night in my book):
12:01am - Finish downloading HL2 final cache
12:03am - setup my controls and video options […]
Jason Olson pointed out this. Read it and post similar experiences in my comments. I wouldn’t have a problem with working overtime (read: 50-55 hours/week) for a month or so to get a project done on time, but this is just ridiculous. Makes you wonder how many other companies do this to […]
I went with the turd sandwich. I hope he wins.
My SPOT watch buddy Henry recently blogged possibly the greatest post ever. I can’t begin to explain it, so just read it. NOW!
I keep hearing about Skype. It’s a program that lets you make free “internet phone calls” or call from a computer to a real phone…but you have to pay. I guess I don’t get what’s the big deal. I’m not going to pay for the real phone calls, so how is this […]