Gareth Hughes - Blog

Pain fail

I am really not enjoying this.

Hoping the switch to the new trackball mouse will make the pain go away.

Webcomic #1

Someone jokingly said I should make a webcomic. Here is the result;

Google App Engine

I've been looking at Google App Engine and Python in the last few days. I've never done any Python before this so I thought it would be an interesting thing to learn. My goal is to create a web service hosted on GAE and use it as the backend for other projects/apps, like this one. I'd like to be able to create .NET/Java/PHP whatever apps using the same data and user authentication services.

I used the following article as a base for the work, it wasn't easy with my knowledge of Python but I have the user authentication in place.

www.ioncannon.net/programming/180/soap-on-the-google-app-engine-platform/ 

This code is probably horrific and I had a lot of trouble working with dates.

@soapmethod(AuthenticateIn.typecode, AuthenticateOut.typecode, operation='Authenticate', soapaction='Authenticate')
 def soap_Authenticate(self, request, response, **kw):
   	
   	user = User.gql("WHERE username = :username AND password = :password", username = request._username, password = request._password)
   
   	parts = str(datetime.now()).split('.')
   	timestamp = calendar.timegm(time.gmtime(time.mktime(time.strptime(parts[0],"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"))))
   
   	if user.count() == 1:
   		ticket = Generate_Ticket(request)
   		ticketExpires = timestamp + 600
   		
   		loggedInUser = user.get()
   		loggedInUser.ticket = ticket
   		loggedInUser.ticketExpires = datetime.fromtimestamp(ticketExpires)
   		loggedInUser.put()
   		
   		response._success = True
   		response._date = timestamp
   		response._ticket = ticket
   	else:
   		response._success = False
   		response._date = timestamp
   		response._ticket = ""
   
   	return request,response
   

Starting Game Development with XNA

I installed XNA and decided to see what I could achieve in a couple of hours. I started reading some tutorials because I really had no idea what I was doing. I ended up making a very basic platform game (using entirely stolen art work) in C#.
 

It uses a simple sprite loop and the location of the character on the X axis gets updated while A or D are being held.

Download a copy of the game here.

I was originally looking at using Torque 2D but I figure XNA is worth investigating too.

Mass Effect 2

This game wins on a massive level. Couldn't stop playing it from start to finish. Bring on Mass Effect 3.