August 12, 2015
When I play games I don't really play anything new. Heck, the last game I bought as it was released was Final Fantasy X, the original version.
The one game I do play and perhaps play too much, is Intelligent Qube (or Kurushi since I'm a contrary European) on the PS1. I usually speedrun it, but then …
The one game I do play and perhaps play too much, is Intelligent Qube (or Kurushi since I'm a contrary European) on the PS1. I usually speedrun it, but then …
January 25, 2013
It's well known that Visual Studio's C compiler hasn't progressed much beyond C89, save for things like variadic macros. What might not be quite as well known is that to rectify this a bit, somebody created a C99 to C89 converter. A decent tool to be sure, but it doesn't integrate well into Visual …
October 17, 2012
If you haven't been living under a rock (or in a non-Windows world) you'll know that since XP, Windows has had zip file extraction and creation. You may also know that what it doesn't have, is a defined API so us normals can leverage it programmatically. But there are ways and means.
Think about it,…
Think about it,…
October 08, 2012
CreateConsoleScreenBuffer, what a fabulous function. You ask it nicely, and it gives you as many 'console window content' buffers as you want. With the other supporting functions it's everything you need for a AAA game (ascii-art-animation natch). But backup a minute here. what's that mysteriously …
June 22, 2012
Way back in the mysts o' tyme I told a tale of a little picture-in-picture / interactive zoom tool I was working on. Well, a whole year and 4 months later I got round to fixing the buggy bits and wrote some help pages. Now it's ready for public consumption as an Installer, or just a Zip.
It's simple…
It's simple…
June 03, 2012
Microsoft say "Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8 provides tools for Metro style app development. To create desktop apps, you need to use Visual Studio Professional 2012, or higher."
That isn't quite true. In fact, there's no quite about it. In the current RC version on MSDN, it's downright wr…
That isn't quite true. In fact, there's no quite about it. In the current RC version on MSDN, it's downright wr…
May 26, 2012
If what you're writing already requires a dll, or you can augment an existing one, then you're already set and can use the fact that DllMain gets called when threads are created and destructed to your advantage. If you're not, or can't then you're pretty much stuck for an answer. Conventional wisdo…
April 25, 2012
Wait, there's a disassembler built into Windows? Well, only in the sense that a supermarket that has the ingredients to build a cake. There's no ready made pastry hidden away in the depths of system32, unlike there is for file hashing [sup][1][/sup].
What there is though, is an aisle full of ingredi…
What there is though, is an aisle full of ingredi…
January 17, 2012
Linux people who have to work in Windows are sometimes found lamenting about the basic tools it has which are absent from Microsoft's product. While recent developments of Windows have implemented variously featured versions of whoami, ln, cat, grep, ps and chmod, one app that's so far evaded the c…
January 03, 2012
It doesn't sound like it should be so hard. I mean, the shell has managed to produce it every time you've logged on since Windows XP. MSDN has a page dedicated to user profiles that includes a section on where it is and how its treated. It details that a users picture lives in their temp directory,…
July 18, 2011
We all need ideas. Whether you've just finished something, or are getting a little bit bored with your current project you can't help but let your mind drift to the next cool thing you'll create. Sometimes the ideas come thick and fast, other times they're like gold dust. When I'm in the second cam…
July 01, 2011
Sorry to crush your hopes but this isn't a post about my new job as a prostitute army drill sergeant. Nope, it's just another post of me shilling my wares.
In some distant part of the mists o'time, I wrote a little tool who purpose was to report pending messages and other misc info for a thread and …
In some distant part of the mists o'time, I wrote a little tool who purpose was to report pending messages and other misc info for a thread and …
May 07, 2011
DLL hell isn't just the name given to managing monstrous dependency chains. It's also the name given to the phenomenon of pulling your hair out because LoadLibrary is returning NULL or because your dotNet app is throwing lots of System.DllNotFoundExceptions. The usual statement Windows gives as wit…
April 29, 2011
Detecting whether UAC is enabled or not is something I've never needed to do. I can't really see how it can affect anything you architect one way or another but nevertheless, some people think it's necessary and nice to know.
While investigating something else, I stumbled across a more accurate meth…
While investigating something else, I stumbled across a more accurate meth…
April 01, 2011
Yep, I'm now on iTunes and further reducing the Gamedev's journals' 'hit to miss ratio of useful-ity' at the same time. My place on iTunes isn't in any technical sections, heck no. I do have a hackintosh set up but after it took me 10 minutes to figure out where the off button was, the idea that I'…
February 24, 2011
No, it's not an Andy Williams inspired poem, it's actual pictures of the thing I've been working on. Imagine that.
Enter WindowWatcher:
It's a single window, that displays another single window, keeping it on top. Great for watching stuff like TV or Youtube playlists in a small corner of your workspa…
Enter WindowWatcher:
It's a single window, that displays another single window, keeping it on top. Great for watching stuff like TV or Youtube playlists in a small corner of your workspa…
February 14, 2011
It happens to be that time again, where all the loved up people get all mushy with their sentimental I love you's. Just like Christmas though, there are no doubt some people who have a distaste for all that jazz.
So here's something I do every year, and that's write a poem that's not in the least bi…
So here's something I do every year, and that's write a poem that's not in the least bi…
February 06, 2011
What do you get when you combine C#, C++/CLI, Access 2003, VirtualBox, a few ISOs and too much free time?
You get a 345MB database of the complete API and dependency history of 32-bit Windows. Yep, every OS module from Win95 onwards has had its imports, exports, and selected PE header info extracte…
You get a 345MB database of the complete API and dependency history of 32-bit Windows. Yep, every OS module from Win95 onwards has had its imports, exports, and selected PE header info extracte…
January 29, 2011
There's tonnes of example on how to use SWbemDateTime to convert from FILETIME's or CDates in VBScript, yet I couldn't find any for C++. So here's how...
All WMI queries that give or take datetime values, do so in a certain format called CIM_DATETIME. For scripting guys, this is only a minor inconve…
All WMI queries that give or take datetime values, do so in a certain format called CIM_DATETIME. For scripting guys, this is only a minor inconve…
January 17, 2011
We all know that stepping over array bounds is easily managed in C and C++. So much so that the C standard library has a function, gets, which may as well be named 'cause_buffer_overflow'. The consequences of overflowing a buffer are also understood, pretty much anything can happen. To demonstrate …
January 14, 2011
Recently WinDevs, the guys in charge of developing the Getting Started content for native developers on MSDN, and I had a short conversation relating to message loops. They're in the process of creating a Win32 tutorial in the vein of TheForgers teaching the basics of creating a small Direct2D draw…
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