I have posted a video of the xMessage component in action to give people a sense of what it can do. You can find the video here.

I have added a new XNA based project to the XNA page called xMessage. The xMessages component is designed for in game chararacter dialog to be displayed similar to games like Final Fantasy for the NES. This component makes use of xFripperyXNA and StreamContentProcessor. Both are included in the download.

Being the first release ther are some minor issues that still need to be worked out, such as when the component is typing out text if the word being drawn will not fit within the rectangle, the partly drawn word will dissapear from the end of the line and reappear at the begining of the next line.

Other then that the component allows an image to be displayed with the text, and the text is also dynamically changes acording to the size of the dialog. When running the demo use the left mouse button to move the dialog and the right mouse button to resize the dialog.

Future editions will have support for animated images so your game could have a picture of a talking head for example. As well as better text drawing support, and the ability to display the image on the right hand side. Also planning on adding more text drawing animations.

I just uploaded a new XNA content importer/processor library to the XNA page called StreamContentProcessor. The StreamContentProcessor allows you to use simple stream based importer and/or processors, so you can read your content files as a stream using content.Load("AssetName");

I thought it would be cool having 3 computers. Boy was I wrong. I have been spending the last few months consolidating all my files down to a more manageable level. I just got a new HP nx9420 laptop and am trying to move all my files from my three old computers over to it. Little did I know I had about +500,000 files to transfer. Yikes. Not to mention I had numerous duplicate files and trying to sort through the old duplicates from the new is a serious time waster, but at least I can start to see light at the end of the tunnel.

I have also posted a new image browsing application on the projects page called xImageSV. It's not actually new, I have been using it for some time but I have decided to post it on the site in the off chance anybody wishes to use it.

I was browsing through google video and came across this cool video that describes how to create a computer game that can be used to harness a humans ability to do image recognition and intern use that collected data to help make computer image recognition programs better. If you have any interest in image recognition or how to use computers on a large scale to solve problems ala Seti@Home, Folding@Home etc you should find this video very interesting.

You can find the video here.

I was feeling a little better since my last post. Mainly because ScamInformation.com was no longer being listed for $1,495.00. But $500 is still enough to make me whimper. I just checked it again and it's back up to $1,495.00. I still shake my head in shame when I see a domain i used to own being up for sale at that price. Especially because I know better then to just simply drop a domain like that.

Anyway I have moved my resume and about me info onto there own pages. You can now find them under the Home link.

I have also started an account over at http://www.helium.com/. If you enjoy writing you should go check them out.

I also just got a new laptop yesterday! It's an HP nx9420. I have to try and remember to post some pictures of it latter on. Also while on the topic of pictures I am almost done modifying and writing a proper image gallery page so that all I have to do is upload pictures to my site and the gallery code does the rest for me.

OMFG!!! WHY! WHY! *sob* WHY DID I NOT RENEW!!! *crying*

Let this be a lesson to whom ever reads this. I used to own the ScamInformation.com domain name about a year ago, after getting frustrated over online auction scamers trying to scam me. My intention was to setup a simple website about how to identify and avoid online scams. I just did a check to see if anyone else had taken the domain and you betcha it's taken. But that's not the worst part. It's being offered for $1,495.00.  *sob* *sob* whaaaa hahahaaaaaaaa....... omg this sucks! No, it really, sucks!

Now if you don't mind, I think I'm going to go curl up in a corner and cry myself to sleep ...

I have just uploaded the third release of my still in progress Zider game engine for XNA. You can find the download on the Zider page.

Features or changes for R3

• Updated the xGameConsoleXNA library so commands now have an array of string arguments and a new "usedAsFunction" boolean parameter. usedAsFunction when set to true means that the command is being used as a function and allows the command logic to be aware of that.
• Added Actor support
• Added a SceneManager to the
• Added an abstracted "UserInputService" service (Work in progress)
  
• Full 360 controller support added. So virtually everything can be done using just a gamepad controller.
• Added layering support, so a map can have multiple layers.
• The zider project is no longer a standalong exe, it has been change into a class library.
• Added SMLOP: Heroes which is a game that is being developed by me that uses the zider engine to run it.
• The engine now makes use of the content pipeline for loading game files

I have ported over some more of my old content from the previous incarnations of the createdbyx.com website.

• Bubble Sort - Simple example and info about the bubble sort algorithim.
• Cures Equal Bankrupcy - A short article on the reasons drug companies are incapable of selling cures.
• Banking - The first 2 pages from the book titled "And the truth shall set you free" that describes the current banking system.
  
• Die Book Man Die - Just a rant about books and reading.
• Quote list - Added a quote list to the articles page.
• Setup what map the player will enter into next - A quick warcraft 3 tutorial on setting up what map the player will enter into next.
• Secret Power - A custom Warcraft 3 Map created by me

I have also decided to re upload the numerous incarnations of my old websites. You can find some of them listed here ...

• http://www.createdbyx.com/oldsites/version1/
• http://www.createdbyx.com/oldsites/FF2D/
• http://www.createdbyx.com/oldsites/prevweb/
• http://www.createdbyx.com/oldsites/oldweb/
  

The contact page can now be found by hovering your mouse over the Home link at the top of the site.

Also fixed some minor spelling mistakes and formatting on various pages. A new XNA example project wa added as well called HealthBarProject. HealthBarProject demonstrates one way to display a health bar that floats above a desired object using the Viewport.Project method and 2D sprites rendered with a SpriteBatch object. The health bar also scales itself depending on the distance from the camera's position. View Screenshot

I was trying to get a Google Analytics script tags embedded into the skin for this site, and somehow broke the dnn skinning system. I can't seem to gain access to my skin folder for this site anymore. Luckily I managed to download all of the skin files out of the folder before I was denied access. That'll learn me for not making a backup of the skin files.

Anyway as I was saying I got Google Analytics up and running so it will be interesting what kind of info I records or me. It also seems that many people are coming to this site by using a search engine to search for "xna", which reminds me that I have been meaning to post more xna related content on my xna page.

I will try to upload some more xna related content tonight ...