Well I just finished setting up my web cam capture software and have scheduled it to run under the windows task scheduler every ten minutes.
You can find a new link on the side bar called "WebCamera" that will take you to the web cam page. Kind of a novelty item, so people can see weather or not I'm at my computer. I still have not posted the WebPosterCL application yet, will do that tomorrow, but for now its bed time....zzzzzzzz

Goto webcam page! <link no longer exists>

I have decided to start posting my running times. I run a course over a dirt road for 2.4km. Here the data table of my running times thus far...

				Moving 		
Date		Distance	Time	Average		Comments
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 30, 2004	788m		4m30s
May 31, 2004	776m		4m56s			With break mid way
June 1, 2004	800m		3m56s	12.4kh		With 32 sec break mid way
June 2, 2004	800m		3m59s	12.1kh		With 30 sec break mid way
June 3, 2004	1.4km		8m35s	8.8kh		With 1 minute break half way (longer run at less speed more preferable)
June 4, 2004	1.4km		8m51s	9.5kh		With no breaks
June 5, 2004	1.79km		11m32s	9.3kh		With no breaks
June 7, 2004	2.4km		16m45s	8.6kh		With no breaks
June 8, 2004	2.41km		16m28s	8.8kh		With no breaks
June 9, 2004	2.42km		15m30s	9.4kh		With no breaks
June 10, 2004	2.45km		16m31s	8.9kh		With no breaks
June 11, 2004	2.4km		17m09s	8.4kh		With no breaks
June 12, 2004			10m			Took cassie dog for a run 
June 13, 2004	2.4km		15m53s	9.0kh		With no breaks
June 14, 2004	2.41km		14m24s	10.0kh		With no breaks (also rode to town about 45min)
June 15, 2004						Did not run. Did yard work.
June 16, 2004	2.41m		13m16s	10.9kh		With no breaks

My goal is to run 2.4km in under 11m56s. That is the Canadian forces minimum standard for entry. I figure if I can start running 2.4km in under 11m56s consistently I'm doing good. From the data table you can see that when I started doing my run I was running 12.4kh for only 800m I stopped doing that because it was too difficult so I opted for a slower pace run at a longer distance. Which is much easier. Although I can't recall the reason for deciding to start doing a daily run... Just for the hell of it I guess. :p

I am just finishing off a application called WamPosterCL. This app will capture an image using your webcam and save it out to a file. It will include features like FTP Upload, Embeded text etc.

I should be uploading to my site within a few days.

I have updated my links page and removed the link to the Camstudio application because it appears to have been bought out by Macromedia. The Camstudio application was free, but the link now takes you to the Macromedia RoboDemo application page. RoboDemo is not free. Therefore the link was removed.

This was the original url to the CamStudio application http://www.ehelp.com/camstudio/product/screenrecording/

I also have added a link to Sony's QRIO personal "entertainment" robot. Sony QRIO Main Page

DX9Tools Release 5 is now availible! Hope you find it usefull. Visit the DX9Tools workspace at gotdotnet here DX9Tools at gotdotnet

The setup package contains the DX9Tools installer which includes Source code, compiled assembly, Documentation, and example apps.

The DX9ToolsR5 helper library is not meant to be another SDK that sits on top of DirectX 9. It is designed to function similarly to the D3DX classes, and provide a more robust and more easier/faster way to work with DirectX 9. Basically DX9Tools aims to simplify DirectX 9 where simplification is necessary. The Camera object is an example of this.

Have not made too many blog entries lately because I am preparing to upload DX9Tools Release 5, on either monday or tuesday. (June 7/8 2004)

I am just adding some last minute xml documentation and finishing off some sample demos. Currently there are 19 example demos compleated, with possibly more comming on the way.

After I release DX9Tools I am planning on starting work on a doom style game engine. More on that later...

Also, I may be packing up and moving to Edmonton, Alberta in the next few weeks. ... I hate alberta. Stupid flat landers. I need me mountians!

After installing the DirectX 9 SDK some people could not see any of the managed DirectX assemblies/DLL's under the the "Add References" dialog. Which meant that they had to try and reinstall the DX9 sdk again. Uuugghh! Or they had to do what I was doing, which was to put all of the managed DX9 assemblies into a folder like "c:\dx9\" and manually navigate to that folder to add a reference to the assenblies.

Well a better solution has just come to my attention!

1: First open Regedit(Start | run | "Regedit").
2: Then navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\AssemblyFolders\" and right click the "AssemblyFolders" Icon and select New | Key and name it "DirectXAssemblies" or whatever you like.
3:Now go to the "DirectXAssemblies" folder and double click the "(default)" key and and type in the path to your managed DirectX assemblies/DLL's: should be something like "C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Managed DirectX\v9.00.0900"

Now fire up a new instance of VS.NET, start a new project and open up the "Add References" dialog and presto! You should see all of the Managed DirectX assemblies in the list.

Also note that you can do this multiple times and specify multiple folders!

I can't take credit for finding this out, all the credit goes to out to ThePentiumGuy.

whoot! whoot! 203 overloads! whoot! whoot!

I have continued to play around with loading embeded resource data files and have come up with a alternative way to create a D3DTexture from an embeded resource image. This new method seems more apropreate. (To me at least :p )

If you are wondering why I am loading embeded resource images rather than simply loading and creating a D3D texture from a file, it is because external files can be lost and can result in you app not being able to run. Not that I will be doing this for every app I write!

    Protected Friend Function LoadResource(ByVal ResourceName As String) As IO.MemoryStream
        Dim ResourceStream As IO.Stream

        ResourceStream = Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.GetManifestResourceStream(ResourceName)

        If ResourceStream Is Nothing Then Return Nothing
        Dim byts(CInt(ResourceStream.Length - 1)) As Byte
        Dim Len As Integer = ResourceStream.Read(byts, 0, CInt(ResourceStream.Length))

        Dim MemStream As New IO.MemoryStream(byts, 0, Len)
        Return MemStream
    End Function

    Protected Friend Function LoadResourceImage(ByVal ResourceImageName As String) As Direct3D.Texture
        Dim Mem As IO.MemoryStream
        Mem = LoadResource(ResourceImageName)       

        ' attempt to load/create image we saved to memory stream
        Dim Tex As Direct3D.Texture
        Tex = Direct3D.TextureLoader.FromStream(mobjGraphics.Device, Mem)
 
        ' done with varibles
        Mem.Close()
        Mem = Nothing  

        ' return reference to texture
        Return Tex
    End Function

I have added a cool little code snip that demonstrates a way of loading a image that was added to a project and declared "Embeded Resource" at design time, and returns a newly created D3D texture.
The code is written in vb.net and DX9.

Private Function LoadResourceImage(ByVal ResourceImageName As String) As Direct3D.Texture
        Dim Mem As New IO.MemoryStream()
        Dim Img As Bitmap

        ' attempt to create bitmap from embeded resource
        Img = New Bitmap(Me.GetType, ResourceImageName)

        ' save image to memory stream
        Img.Save(Mem, Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png)

        ' seek to start of stream
        Mem.Seek(0, IO.SeekOrigin.Begin)

        ' attempt to load/create image we saved to memory stream
        Dim Tex As Direct3D.Texture
        Tex = Direct3D.TextureLoader.FromStream(mobjGraphics.Device, Mem)

        ' done with varibles
        Mem.Close()
        Mem = Nothing
        Img.Dispose()
        Img = Nothing

        ' return reference to texture
        Return Tex
End Function