 | from David Bolton
One of the options on the MSN Messenger update that disabled is family Safety hence the title of this post. As you can see (below), it's interesting what gets installed. See below for details. Coming soon (delayed for various reasons), Slickedit 2009 review,C++ tutorial on text files, then I finally start on iPhone tutorials. Have a great week!
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In the Spotlight | Look What Got Installed!
 I try to keep the various bits of software on my PC fresh with new releases and the most recent one was MSN Messenger. I use it very sparingly but I think developers, certainly the ones I know have an obsession or at least a desire to keep all software up-to-date. The Messenger update displays a list of things it will install. All but Family Safety is ticked- presumably this means that I'm putting my family in danger right? It also installs Direct3D (for games I guess or media display) and SQL Server 3.1 CE. Adding to the DB2, MySQL and SQL Server 2005 developer I'm already running plus Sqlite! Any more I've missed out on? SQL Server 3.1 CE is based on SQL Server 2005 though the newest version you can get is SQL Server 3.5 CE. This is free and intended for use in mobiles or within desktop applications and for single users not multi. Also, it runs as a dll not a service like the free Express edition. It's curious that the messenger update uses version 3.1 instead of the 3.5 version listed on Microsoft's site. Does anyone know why?
| | Getting into Game Development
Back when I started in 1983 there was virtually no games industry to speak of so I was self taught which is fine if you have the time to learn everything. Now you can start by taking a degrees or alternatively jumping into open source development perhaps by getting involved in an open source games project. You don't have to be an expert, though obviously you must know C++ or C and be able to take on minor bug fixes and learn the ins and outs of compiling, debugging, using version control systems and doing commits. Or creating game art, sounds etc. Spend enough time and you'll get the experience you need to break into the industry. There are no shortage of projects to cut your teeth on either. For example consider Glest an award winning free 3D real-time strategy game written in C++/OpenGL, where you control the armies of two different factions: Tech versus Magic, warriors versus Mages. Getting to grips with it lets you work in C++ and pick up OpenGL, AI techniques, 3D animation, DirectSound/OpenA, using XML and writing mods. It's written as a game engine as well to make it easier to create other games from it. Or maybe you might consider OpenCity, a city development type game also in C++. There are plenty of others and in other programming languages but if you're learning C++ these look interesting.
| Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Now Out
Generally I avoid betas because of the hassle of having to remove them when the final version comes out. I will make an exception with this as Visual Studio 2010 is shaping up to be a pretty big release and includes Silverlight object editing. Visual Studio 2010 is a WPF application for one thing which means zoomable, nicer looking windows. According to the Chief Architect Rico Mariani, performance has been enhanced enormously by getting rid of a lot of the old single threaded code and a new editor that is much faster. Also the help system (which I thought was not brilliant is VS 2008) has been totally revamped. The release date for the full VS 2010 is March 22 2010. If you are a MSDN subscriber you can download the beta 2 now and non MSDN can download it today or tomorrow from the same link. There is a lot of information on the Beta 2 home page.
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