Kmartin's Q&A profile

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. XNA Book ( In Progress )

  For reasons I cannot exactly put into words, I’ve decide to write a (free) book about how to use XNA.   It is defiantly a work in progress and thus far only includes two chapters and associated source code. I truly hope that my work is advantageous to some people out there. I am in part doing this as a practice towards writing technical documentation.   I am not accomplished in writing instructions for other people that may not have the same level of technical skill sets as myself.   I hope that with this book I learn a whole lot and more in that regard. Granted, if you are a diehard game programmer, what I have written is probably not for you, at least, not yet! Yet I would value your input.   If you feel like c ...Show All

• Visual Basic Trying to write a general save function

  Hello, I'm trying to write a function using VS2005 that will take an untyped Collection of Objects, output the toString to a file for any basic Object it finds and then recursively call itself on all of the Collection types it finds. Trouble is, I don't really know the best way to set up an "isCollection" function and wondered if anyone here could help me out. Any suggestions Turns out that the easiest way to do this appears to be to use the "TypeOf" operator like so:   Public Function isCollection( ByVal someObject As System.Object) As Boolean Return ( TypeOf someObject Is ICollection) End Function   As well as checking whether an Objec ...Show All

• Visual Studio 2008 (Pre-release) Certificates... one tiny question

  I think I have understood that a server certificate helps the client to know that it's the "correct" server it's talking to, and not someone pretending to be the correct one. However, I have not fully understood if the certificate (i.e. X.509) is required to get encrypted communication between the client and the server. Or, is there something else built into WCF that will encrypt the communication without usage of external certificates Regards Andreas In most scenarios you should be decoupling your security requirement from the Service API ie your contracts. Now sometimes if you are doing some security related services then this might be a different case and thinking about security and em ...Show All

• Visual Basic looking for design ideas >> custom properties list

  Is there a way to keep information, say from a multi-line text box or a list box after the app is closed Like a program properties list, or something similar We need to be able to fill out a custom (secondary) form with information, be able to close (or hide) the form, have the main form use that information, but have the information still available after the whole app is closed and re-opened. I am imagining something like a “user information” list or a “custom properties” list for the app, but I need to have at least three lists, containing dozens of items in each. I also need to be able to add an item or delete an item when needed, by launching one of these lists. Any ideas Mike ...Show All

• Audio and Video Development HD DVD Jumpstart v0.2 now available!

  The latest release of the HD DVD Interactivity Jumpstart kit is available from the same download location, linked to from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/hddvd/default.aspx . Please note that this release relies on some components installed by Media Player 11 and Internet Explorer 7 , which are both still in beta. As with all pre-release software, you should not install this on mission-critical machines. An on-line programming guide is also available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp url=/library/en-us/HDDVDATK/htm/hddvdprogrammingguide.asp . Hi Peter, I went through almost all of your blog hoping you had put up the sample networking code but I couldn't find it. Any idea where I could find a ...Show All

• .NET Development An error occurred creating the configuration section handler for comm/requestor: Could not load type

  I have a nunit test CommTest.dll for which I have written an App.Config file < configuration > < configSections > < sectionGroup name = " comm " > < section name = " requestor " type = " Edss.Comm.Requestor.RequestConfig1, Comm " /> < section name = " bridge " type = " Edss.Comm.Bridge.BridgeConfig1, Comm " /> < section name = " processor " type = " Edss.Comm.Processor.ProcessorConfig1, Comm " /> </ sectionGroup > </ configSections > < comm > < requestor > < request-helpers > < request-helper name = " HTTP " class = " Edss ...Show All

• Visual Studio Express Editions Navigating and filling out IE fields

  I have the following module as an .exe file that I run to open our daily websites and fill out usernames and passwords. It works great but not always. Often the sendkeys strings are sent to the wrong window. I guess there is some problem with sensing when IE is ready. Any help to solve this issue Thanks, Antonio   Module Module1   Sub Main() Dim ie As Object ie = CreateObject( "InternetExplorer.Application" ) ie.navigate( "http......./" ) Do While ie.busy And Not ie.readystate = 4 System.Windows.Forms.Application.DoEvents() Loop ie.Visible = True System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys.SendWait( "xxxxx" ) System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys.SendWait ...Show All

• Visual Studio Team System Protocol violation - can I change how sensible the test shall be to protocol errors?

  I get this error when running a test on a web page that I have no possibility to change: RequestFailed: The server committed a protocol violation. Section=ResponseHeader Detail=CR must be followed by LF Is it possible to configure how the test shall handle this so the test will not fail I have been trying to repeat this problem but the VS2005 enviroment crashes on clicking in the treeview of recorded requests and when replaying it. The request is one web page only. Another try after uninstalling and reinstalling the June CTP behaved the same way. The pages are generated by a content management system and I have no problem when using other tools like Mercury Loadrunner or OpenSTA. When VS2005 crashes it generates a error report ...Show All

• SQL Server Join on subquery with distinct?

  Can someone give me some reasonable explanation why these two queries are performing dramatically different: First (slow): select tableA.column1, tableA.column2 from tableA join (select distinct col1,col2,col3 from myView) vw on vw.col1=tableA.col1 and vw.col2=tableA.col2 and vw.col3=tableA.col3 Second (fast): create table #tempTable (col1 varchar(200),col2 int,col3 varchar(200)) insert into #tempTable select distinct col1,col2,col3 from myView select tableA.column1, tableA.column2 from tableA join #tempTable vw on vw.col1=tableA.col1 and vw.col2=tableA.col2 and vw.col3=tableA.col3 SQL Server 2005 Express Win2K3 Server Regards, Marko Simic When I say 'materialise', I just mean that the engine will create the ta ...Show All

• SQL Server Problem with PreComputed Partitions and numeric partition key (HOST_NAME())

  BOL says the following (headed with important): "The HOST_NAME () function returns an nchar value, so you must use CONVERT if the column in the filter clause is of a numeric data type, as it is in the example above. For performance reasons, we recommended that you not apply functions to column names in parameterized row filter clauses, such as CONVERT(nchar,EmployeeID) = HOST_NAME () . Instead, we recommend using the approach shown in the example: EmployeeID = CONVERT(int, HOST_NAME ()) . This clause can be used for the @subset_filterclause parameter of sp_addmergearticle (Transact-SQL), but it typically cannot be used in the New Publication Wizard (the wizard executes the filter clause to validate it, which fails because the compu ...Show All

• Software Development for Windows Vista problems with my SDK help

  hi all, today i un installed May CTP and installed June CTP and June SDK set-up files. everything seems to be fine but when i press F1 for some help i get this message You have chosen to use local Help only for Search and F1 results, and the topic could not be found in local Help. also in Filtered by option i have all SQL Server *.* but not with .Net Framework3.0 Win32 Development i want my help to be filtered by .Net Framework3.0 thanks in advance Nani Hi Nani, In what environment are you using F1 Help F1 Help will only work with the Windows SDK .NET Framework 3.0 topics if you're using VS 2005 or the Express SKUs, and if you've installed Microsoft Visual Studio Code Name “Orcas” Community Technology ...Show All

• Windows Forms DataGridViewCellStyle, Change of Property

  Hi, If attempted to change one of the cell style properties by creating a local CellStyle object and then equating it to the cell style, the remaining cell style properties become effected too. // In C++ DataGridViewCellStyle^ MyDGVCellStyle = gcnew DataGridVIewCellStyle(); MyDGVCellStyle->Alignment = DataGridVIewCellStyle::MiddleCenter; MyDGVCellStyle->BackColor = System::Drawing::Color::Yellow; MyDGVCellStyle->Font = gcnew System::Drawing::Font (e->CellStyle->Font, FontStyle::Regular); // In this case the CellFormatting event was used, and the code is located within the event. Then, e->CellStyle =  MyDGVCellStyle; The code seems to work with the exception of from then on the remainde ...Show All

• Visual C# StreamWriter saves/creates file in Desktop autometically

  hi, i have a function like this. public void saveConfig() { //.this method is for saving configuration on a xml file configuration += "<name><firstName>akm</firstName><lastName>mokaddim</lastName></name>"; StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter("cofig.xml"); sw.Write(configuration); // closing stream writer sw.Close(); } It's a VC# project. when saveConfig() method is called the file "config.xml" is created in users desktop. though I want it to be saved in the same directory where my main applicatio (.exe) file exists. if I use ".\\config.xml" it happens also. but for the absolute path like "c:\\src\\config.xml&quo ...Show All

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. For the DX/XNA Team(s) Please Read This!!!

  I am posting this in the hopes that it may find it's way to the members of the DX/XNA Team(s). I have posted a simple example of how DirectInput and yes XInput should be replaced!  You will notice that the code provided conains absolutely NO object references. NO DeviceLost states. NO Aquire/Unaquire calls. Just pure and simple clean, clear, and concise code. As developers we should not have to constantly have to "manage" the DX api's!   For all that is holy! All we want to do is check if a button is currently pressed, or the user is moving the mouse! Why are we constanly forced to capture a device state, or buffer the devices input! It's just a freaking mouse!  All devices can be treated the same! All input de ...Show All

• Software Development for Windows Vista Elevation during runtime

  Hello I would like to ask you something about our software. Perhabs anyone has the same or a similar problem. The software we wrote does not write into the registry or into the Program Files folder except for one registry key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE... this key/data is required by another foreign tool, that is really old and not state of the art (its some kind of software-protection module, that allow us to check serial key's for our software). Anyway, so the whole program run's in Vista with no problem except you try to enter the serial key which one we must save to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Does this mean we must make our whole software with a manifest that's execution level is "requireAdministrator" or can we call the e ...Show All