After a bit of jiggery-pokery (aka deleting loads of stuff) I’ve managed to scrap together enough room to upload pictures of the camping trip.
This coming weekend I’m flying out with Easyjet to Belfast to visit Kerry. Should be fun, really looking forward to it. This unfortunately means that I only have 3 days of holiday left until Christmas :s
So going briefly back to the pictures/storage saga I need to get me some new hard drives, so if you have any particular recommendations please let me know 
Just got back from a camping weekend up near Pitlochry It’s been a great weekend, although I’ve been full of cold. Highlights include:
false moustaches
Terry Thomas (see above)
unicycling - Apart from breaking the quick release on my seat post 
Skinny dipping :s (Unfortunately photos exist )
I started to upload the pictures but I’ve run out of room on my server. So I need to need to get a bigger hard drive or two. Gives me a reason to get things working ‘properly’ 
I’ll get the photos uploaded as soon as possible…
Yesterday I got two calls asking for computer assistance. One from my Mum, and one from my Aunt. The one from my mum just annoyed me 
but the one from my Aunt has got me thinking about the Torrent stuff I was mentioning. It has made me reconsider a few things.
Now I’m not 100% sure what went on, I can only make educated guesses from what my Aunt said to me. Basically she accidentally deleted about 200 of her digital photos. From what I can gather she saw the pictures under “My Pictures” on a WinXP Home machine (I think), and in a Kodak package she uses. I’m assuming that she has a Kodak digital camera. Now using this package she said that she can still see the thumbnails of her images, but when she tries to access them it reports an error saying that they have been moved/deleted.
It appears to me that two things have happened one being vastly more important than the other. Firstly my Aunt was not aware of the location of the files, but secondly the Desktop metaphor has been broken by this Kodak package! I can only assume that in an attempt to make things easier it has tried to present file/folders in it’s own way and confused the user* Adding to the confusion for my Aunt is the fact that she can still see thumbnails of her images, thus confusing her more (One would assume that the program isn’t using the Thumbs.db since that would of been deleted in the mass photograph purge too). Recently I’ve become aware of a few programs that are doing similar things, firstly a package that you can get from Adobe, and a program that has just been bought by Google.
So where does this all fit in with my Torrent thoughts? Well I was thinking of creating a Namespace Extension that shows the currently shared Torrents in a folder similar to “My Pictures”. .Torrent files are just normal files, that contain meta data. In the system I was thinking of I was going to create a NSE, and when parsing the files in the folder (Even though the NSE can sit anywhere under the root ( The Desktop for those not familiar with NSE’s) it has to conform to certain standards if it is to be displayed in the common dialog boxes) I was going to ignore the .Torrent files, and just display the files that are associated with the .Torrent. This obviously breaks the Files/Folders metaphor again (Well I think it does)
Anyway I’m starting to ramble and that previous paragraph doesn’t read so well… so I’m going to go to bed now and reread it in the morning. Perhaps then I can be more articulate
* Can I just say this is all conjecture, I don’t actually know for sure. So if you happen to work for the UI designers of Kodak software please don’t come after me with a pitchfork.
Just up at the hill, with Ben, Dan, Rich, Charles and another chap Rich.
Over the last few weeks I’ve finally been getting me arse into gear and having driving lessons again. This morning I went for my Driving Theory Test
To be honest I was shocked and saddened just how easy it was. It really makes me worried about the quality of drivers and their general interlect. I’d done minimal revision (about 2 hours tops) I was also very disappointed with the quality of the Hazard perception test. The video was grainy and generally poor quality. No sound, no other visual clues (eg mirrors) I’d like to see a much better system of assessing peoples spatial awareness and hazard perception. Perhaps something more akin to a F33 Ferrari Challenge cabinet with multiple monitors. I got the details of the company that run the system on behalf of the DSA, if it wasn’t for my apathy I might just write a letter to them and my MP*
* Crackin’ website BTW (Hat tip to Neuro)
Spent the last few days helping one of Kerry’s friends setup a domain name etc. So Alex Humphreys is now the proud owner of humphreysglenthorne.co.uk. At the moment just forwards emails and aliases to a user account on my machine with gallery setup on it. I want to setup a load of other stuff for her too, just a case of getting around to it.
I’m also finally thinking of moving my shand.org.uk domain over to my actual machine. I’d need someone to act as secondary mail server for me
It might come as a suprise to some readers, that Scotland actually has a vibrant copmuter games development scene. Specifically clustered around Dundee. Charles pointed me to a Yahoo Group which I joined the other day. There has been the usual moaning about various things but it looks like it might actually spawn something fun in the Scottish Stickman Challenge.
The idea is to concentrate on gameplay, a bit like the Indiegamejam. Simply create a game with a stickman and two buttons, using only two colours! Target system is unimportant. I think the hard bit is going to be the buttons, unless they mean two buttons for actions and a d-pad/joystick. Got a few ideas so might have a go at them and lets see what Scotland’s finest can produce.
i don’t think there’s much jumping involved … more swimming upwards.
That quote kinda sums up how I feel at the moment… and so the cycle begins anew.
Spoke to Charles about the BT idea, he thinks it’s feasible. So I think we’re going to meet at some point in the week to hack something together.
At lunch time I had a quick look at the MSDN docs regarding services. They look pretty simple overall, so once I get libTorrent compiled correctly I’m gonna have a bash at writing the service side of things. I’m also trying to get something running as a service at work. It’s proving to be a right pain the arse. And it’s far too hot in the office Currently it’s sitting at about 29C. The WHO suggest a maximum of 24C. We demand ice cream damn it
I’ve been thinking more about the idea I’ve got for the torrent client. I need to perform a few tests, but essentially it would consist of two parts. First a Windows Service that actually does the job of sharing the torrents, and secondly a Namespace extension, something akin to “My Pictures”.
There are still a few things I need to think about, firstly the whole permissions thing. If you think about the layout of user directories on your average Win2K/XP machine, you should see something like
c:\Documents And Settings
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\My Documents
Unless I can think of another/better way the current idea is to have a service running that sets up all of the torrents that are common. Then when a user logs on interactivly go to their torrent storage location and add those. That isn’t explained very well Anyway I’d better sit down and do some work.
For most of the week whilst my mum has been in hospital I’ve been bored out of my mind. I tried doing some coding to no avail. I’ve got an idea for a BitTorrent client using libTorrent which I might consider doing. Still got a few things that I need to work out with it. Stuff like file ownership and permissions. 
Finally got to meet up with some friends last night. Met Jim and Glen for a couple of pints down in the Abbey Inn. Then they went to a shitty little nightclub and I wandered home.
I really must start typying more interesting stuff into this blog. I’m starting to think that it’s a waste of time since I don’t have that much interesting to say
I’m at home at the moment.
Things as I think of them. My beloved Nan passed away a few weeks ago, she had been in hospital, but had been discharged. Her passing was very sudden and has taken the whole family by suprise.
A few days after the funeral my Mum went into hospital for an op. She’s got an infection in the wound and still isn’t home 
It was my birthday yesterday, and since I’m at home (To look after my Mum) it was rather shit. Didn’t do anything!
In happier news went to a great skirmish over in Edinburgh.
More when I can be bothered
