Been rather busy these few months – working on lots of other things at the moment than the blog.. Check back in 2010!

Ever wanted to have your own Xbox Achievement for your own site, video or picture? Now you can generate your own Xbox Achievements with this nifty achievement generator at http://achievements.schrankmonster.de/

{ devpeng } unlocked!

Generate your own custom achievements and award them to everyone, ranging from your buddies all the way to your boss. Just make sure that they are all Xbox gamers

Before the world of MMORPGs was created, there existed a genre of games known as Interactive Fiction, or IF for short. Most IF games are purely text based that allow players to explore and interact with a large world that usually contains elements of fantasy such as dungeons, monsters and magic.

The game requires a lot of imagination and thinking skills on the user’s part but the game play is fairly intuitive. The game describes to the player, in words, the current location you are in with any objects of importance. Using simple verbs and phrases, such as look at and pick up, coupled with nouns, users can interact with the game world objects. However, problems often arise when some interpreters do not recognize similar, but complex words such as observe as compared to look. Movement within the game is often categorized as the four cardinal directions and the intermediate points between them where applicable.

Players will have to use their critical thinking skills to put pieces of the puzzle together to advance through the story. However, because of the lack of graphical representation, some players may find such games hard as certain events are rather obscure; for example, finding a sword to cut open a pillow in order to obtain an essential item for the later part of the game. Occasionally, with the “correct” wordings, the game response can be humorous, ranging from kicking on a locked door or attempting to pocket a gate.

To have a better understanding of IF games, you can go to iFiction.org to see a repository of IF games by famous creators such as Will Crowther and Don Woods back in the 1970s. Of the games there, Colossal Cave (aka Adventure) was one of the first computer games I ever played when I was younger.

Give it a try! Have fun!

There is a simple way of determining which versions of the .NET framework is/are installed on your computer without the use of third party applications or programs.

Simply navigate to this address in your Windows Explorer:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework (replace C if your OS is not installed on that drive)

and look at the numers on the folders there. The numbers represent the .NET framework version that has been installed on your computer.

Quite a while back, I was flowing through the day with my daily routine today when I suddenly thought of an analogy about processes and threading. While this may not be the best way to illustrate the concept of threading, it could be used to better explain it to non IT-savvy people/peers.

How does one insert symbols not found on your keyboard, such as the copyright, fractions and yen? Firstly, there is the Character Map which can be located in the Start menu (All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map). The character map is a very nifty tool that can displays all the characters that a particular font pack supports and allows you to take your pick, buffet style.

However, one might point out that most word processors already have auto converting features that help map a particular string of text to the desired symbol. For example, typing ™ or (c) would get you the trademark and copyright symbols respectively. But how about online email composers or text fields? Though the Character Map is useful, the process to get it out to add just one symbol is rather troublesome.

Microsoft recently launched the Live@Edu package that is targeted at education institutes. Live@Edu provides the education institute with professional means of online communication and collaboration. With the growth of the Internet coupled with the tech-savvy students and teachers, technology has become a part of the education scene, breaking lessons free from the confines of the classroom walls. E-learning, submission of type written reports and even online homework has become common within our schools.

This is great for getting students to play around with technologies and platforms used by businesses. Eventually, when they enter the workforce, these technologies will be part and parcel of their skills, which increases their value to the company. The company need not provide extensive training to use their systems and new workers can start contributing from day 1.

However, the down side is that students will be much more familiar with a certain set of technologies than others. When they move on to their careers, most of them would be more inclined to use them over other technologies available, even if other alternatives maybe more feasible. Perhaps it’s up to the school to promote the use of multiple platforms, so that students will be well versed in a range of products and services and not rely on only a selected few. Knowing more helps improve a worker’s flexibility in term of finding a job and getting the job done.

The camera phone has been around for quite a number of years now. Most phones have at least a 2.0 megapixel (MP) one looking out from the back of it. A 2.0 MP camera gives decent pictures with decent file sizes, but of course photo enthusiasts may opt for a higher MP count on their hand phone cameras. The higher the resolution, the better it is to capture all the tiny details from that once in a life time photo opportunity. Editing becomes easier too as there is a higher resolution to work with and details are captured more clearly.

The benefits of having a camera and a phone together are undeniable. Not only do you carry one device lesser, but you can also do more with the photos taken. With so many self service booths around that lets you print photos from a variety of inputs (including Bluetooth), you can snap and print photos within a couple of hours. Sharing your photos has never been easier too – you could share the photos with your peers using Bluetooth and with the web community via uploads to popular social networking and photo sharing websites.

But instead of using it to take photos of scenery and people, how else can your camera phone serve you productively in your life?

There are many types of keyboard layouts that exist in the world. The most common would be the QWERTY layout, used widely across the globe. However, there may come a time where you are presented with a foreign keyboard layout, or require a different keyboard setting to cater to the needs of a different type of user. Alternatively, you may have a keyboard that does not have a particular key that you want, or one with a particular key that is spoilt.

Instead of changing the hardware to suit the user (i.e. buying a new keyboard), why not remap the keys at the software level? Introducing KeyTweak, a freeware that allows you to change the keyboard layout by remapping keys at the software (registry) level. With this nifty tool, you can add new features onto a normal keyboard and replace those hardly used keys with functionalities that are useful to you. For example, if your keyboard does not have a Windows key, why not sacrifice one of the Alt keys? Tired of opening up the master volume control to mute your sounds while your boss/teacher pays you a visit at your terminal? Why not replace the hardly used Scroll Lock key with a mute button?

Many programs use codes to represent date/time formats (e.g. d/m/yy) and for most of them, they have a basic  template which they branch out from. In this simple post, I will tackle the basic level and list out the different types of formatting and their common corresponding output.

However, one should note that not all programs/codes follow this template and may vary from what is listed below For example, the code dd may be represented as two numeric digits in one program and as the day spelt out in full (e.g. Monday) in another. Do also take note that dates are usually represented in capital letters while time is in small caps to prevent confusion when both are used together.