Hello Again; here's what I've been up to the past few months.

I feel like my approach to blogging has been a bit too, well, tech blog like. I like writing about it to an extent but at the same time, I feel as if each blog post needs to be of equal detail to my last and it ends up being a post reporting on something new rather than just my thoughts on it. Which has put me off blogging a bit, in fact its been months since I've blogged and the last entry I had drafted was a long piece on Windows 8. I'd even gone to the extent of having multiple sections but juggling this and multiple projects just isn't as easy to manage as I thought. So rather than thinking, "I still need to blog about MWC (Mobile World Congress), Samsung's GS4 or Blackberry's failure", I'm going to sum up what I've been up to and start afresh. If I miss a major event, I miss a major event.

So what has been happening in the past couple months all one of you may ask? Well November-December time was quite busy for me not just because I was in two group projects but on top of this work, I had been involved in planning two major events as part of the Computer Society. One I had been planning since September and that was a Skype Talk with the amazing people over at Valve.

I was quite surprised at how open and how willing someone like Chet Faliszek was to give up some time just to talk to us. I feel that speaks in abundance to how much Valve care about Education. In fact in preparation for the talk I found out Valve often do talks to encourage people to get into the Video Games Industry. I was kinda star struck almost since Chet Faliszek was a key writer to Half Life 2 and Portal 2 (some of my favorite games) and Doug Church had worked on so many legendary titles such as the Ultima series, Thief series, Deus Ex and Portal 2. It was really an honor just to be able to host something like that. The talk itself went smoothly and it was great to hear these Video Game legends talk about their experiences during development and I definitely took away some great advice from that talk such as the best way to get out there is to actually have a finished product out there as it shows you can ship a piece of software. They talked about a whole range of things including Game Jam's as Doug Church had been to and organised quite a few and gave some great advice. I really hope it helped those who attended in their careers in future as their was a lot of stuff that could be learned from that talk. I can't thank my lecturer  Simon Grey enough as he helped quite a lot in setting up the talk and most of all thanks to Chet Faliszek and Doug Church for giving up their time just to speak to us.

I probably wrote more in that paragraph than I thought so I'll try and keep the rest short. I also helped organise a Charity Ball called VideoBash. We had a similar event the year before but this time we decided to fund the event ourselves and give all the ticket sales to charity. The event went really well we had a DJ and we had multiple booths of games consoles including a projector where we had a tournament. It was good fun and we raised quite a bit for Macmillan and the Make A Wish Foundation. For me it was key that we raised a lot of money for charity and I found out afterwords that people were paying more at the door so more went to charity which was incredibly generous of them.

We also restarted the game dev talks and we had Christophe talk about using a 2D Camera in games. It was a really well put together talk with some great tips. You can check out his blog for the files as well as the presentation. The Windows Games Ambassadors (John and Josh) for our University have carried on the Game Development sessions so that it becomes a session for people to carry on work on their games which is a great opportunity for those wanting to improve their portfolio. Also I took part in a Game Jam called Three Thing Game. Our game wasn't amazing but it was still a great experience and I learned some valuable lessons from it.

We also had a Linux talk in February which went fairly well and it was about the basic set up as well as how to set up a Linux server. Recently we had a talk from Orta Therox on working at a start-up and he shared some insight on the trials and tribulations of working at a start up as well as the instability of it. It was an eye opener for me and I think it was useful for some of the ComSoc members.

Currently I am working on my Final Year Project but I feel I should leave discussion of that for another post as this is already quite a lengthy post. I think I've covered everything that's happened in the past few months outside of University work.

So Birmingham is turning into a tech hub

Its weird, I never though of Birmingham as a tech hub at all until I really looked and then I discovered how rich it is in Developers of all kinds. You have a fair few big developers based in the midlands area such as Codemasters and Rare Birmingham. And Aston Science Park is becoming a real tech hub for start ups which is great really. Tech start ups have always been quite interesting to me as they often work on the consumer space and on some of the latest tech trends.

Recently I found out that there's a tech meet up every month or so of local developers and I went to the recent event at the Giant Screen in Birmingham which was quite interesting. It was my first networking event and I met some people from various local developers as well as students like myself and recent graduates. It was quite surprising to find out companies such as Full Fat are located in Coventry, you might've played games such as Flick Golf, Flick Soccer or there latest game Agent Dash. There was a lot of new companies as well and some which hadn't actually brought a product out yet but it was really interesting to find out what there trying to do and how a lot of these companies are quite small and it could even be two or three people. Leo Laporte often says that its best for a business to have someone who manages the business side of things and another to actually manage the company so I suppose some companies do that but then again business' have different ways of management.

The event itself was hosted at the Giant Screen because a company called WallFour had this amazing concept called Renga. Its a 100 player game that lets the audience control the game using laser pointers. It was very interesting to see how the game progressed because initially we had no idea how to control the character but as the event went on we had people realizing how to control the ship and telling others how to do it. By the end of it some of us were controlling the ship and some were beating the enemy's and we were all shouting out on how to defeat an enemy and which upgrade to get for the ship. It was quite cool how we got to that point by the end and we actually ended up beating the main boss really quickly and it would've been nice if it was harder but I guess we were limited by time. Its definitely worth a visit if there doing a demo near you.

Game ratings are there for a reason...

Now, video games are always coming under attack from parents saying, "oh these 18+ games are bad for our children and should be banned!" But there missing a key detail,  18+ games are meant for people who are 18+. It's sad that its now come to be enforced by the law now (although it has been this way for a while with BBFC) but if it means we see less stupid parents complaining about great games with adult themes then thats great.

Ok so I admit it, I played Mortal Kombat when I was a kid. I think I played Resident Evil as a kid as well. I mean I equate some of that to be the equivalent of seeing an 15 as a kid. But the problem is, some games are just not right for some kids to play. Some kids are mature enough to say, "hey this is a game only and I understand its not real and its not ok to act like the characters in game", and if a parent feels like there kid is mature enough to handle something with a bit more excessive violence or adult themes then that's fine. However some kids just shouldn't play it if there not ready for it and some parents just don't recognise that some games aren't intended for kids. Its a tricky issue and I can see why this issue of legally enforced game ratings have come into play.

I think PEGI do a great job of rating games, they even have a website called ask about games which is a great idea for a site. They actually tell parents what a video game is about rather than going "oh video games are for kids" etc. Which is brilliant and Video Game ratings are actually better than any other industry. I think video games shouldn't be coming under fire for not being tough enough, I think they should be congratulated for actually providing detailed ratings. On PEGI games there are symbols for parents who don't read the warning that a game has drug use, sex etc.

At the same time though, I think games have really changed and the themes they hold are obviously geared towards a more mature audience. Apparently the average age of a gamer is actually 37. So people should really take that into consideration. I mean I dont think a game thats targeted for an older audience should be toned down for kids. I mean yes in some cases its good if they tone it down so that 12 year olds can play a bit more of a mature game but I think that's another issue really.

There needs to be more games aimed for that 12 rating as that could deter some from going for COD. Sure Call of Duty isnt as bad as some games but at the same time it would be nice if there were more games for 12 year olds that didnt treat them as kids. I remember being a bit frustrated by that myself. I just hope this new rating allows for that.  Its been quite a while since I've seen a game like XIII which was a 12 and I think there should be more.

I just hope that this actually makes some parents think before they buy games although I can see some parents still buying games for there kids. I just hope that the sales people are smart enough to just refuse to sell a game if its clear there buying it for there kid. At the same time, I hope they dont just go, "oh I'll only buy games that have there favorite tv series on the box," because there are some great games that have a 3+ rating that are amazingly creative and fun. I mean Rayman Origins is one of my favorite games from last year and I'd gladly reccomend that game to anyone and everyone. There are games like Elite Beat Agents which is completely wacky but it must be pretty good for reaction speeds. There are also games like Zelda which are brilliant games for everyone and it encourages puzzle solving.

But at the end of the day its dependent on two main things really, parents realising that some games aren't meant for kids and developers making more games targeted towards that 12 rating. I think it'll be interesting to see how things go and whether parents will get more informed or even if developers do try and target games for a younger audience due to this form of rating.

Reddit for learning!?

So we all know Reddit. Its that place that we find funny pictures and learn about random stuff or maybe browse /r/worldnews occasionally but thats all I really used it for. However recently I've found how useful Reddit is as a learning tool. Reddit has some incredibly useful boards for learning new skills. I've been playing about with some System Admin stuff as well as messing about with some networking and I've found that /r/sysadmin is amazingly handy as wekk as the /r/networking. Not only that, you've got subreddits like /r/redditdayof which encourages you to research a new topic each day and post about it. You also get that wonderful stuff called karma as well as some special badges for doing so. Just now I found an excellent reddit called /r/dailyprogrammer and it gets you to complete a challenge related to programming each day. That seems like a really useful too for us programmers although even the easy challenges seem like a bit of challenge... I think I may need to try some more of these challenges to keep me going.
The only problem I find is that you'll see some subreddits which could be useful but just arent that active. And therein lies another problem, you kinda need to discover the useful Subreddits. So far its just been finding them by just testing them or finding a link to a useful subreddit by another subreddits' sidebar. But I'm sure I'll find a better way to find a subreddit and post about it later.

Microsoft Surface

I don't know why I didnt blog about this earlier but Microsoft has unveiled two game changing Windows 8 tablets that have set the bar high for other OEM's. I think they really have set the bar high for more high profile OEM's that still need to showcase there Windows 8 tablets such as Dell, HP and Lenovo.

The reason they unveiled 2 is due to one being based on ARM which is typically found in phones and one being based on Intel which is typically found in a laptop. Microsoft have also brought out a special variant of Windows 8 called Windows RT. This doesnt have the Desktop mode and it can only run metro. It also means that it can only have special RT compatible devices as well. Windows 8 is the full version of Windows with Metro so you could dock it at home and use it has a full blown PC and undock it and use it as a tablet with Metro.

The tablets themselves look really distinctive, they've got a nice brushed back and it has a kickstand that looks pretty sturdy. Not only that, they both feature gorilla glass 2 which should make it pretty durable. Its also quite nice that they've brought out two different types of keyboard cases, one with touch buttons so its slimmer and one with traditional buttons.

However the tablets differ quite a lot internally.
Windows 8 Pro tablet offers;
- 64/128gb SSD, MicroSDXC, USB 3.0 
- MiniDisplay Port
- 10.6" Full HD (1080p) display
- i5 Ivy Bridge Processor
- weight: 903 grams
- Thickness 13.5mm
- Battery; roughly 5 to 8 hours purely by speculation

Windows RT offers;
- Nvidia Tegra 3 plus processor(rumoured, only Nvidia based processor stated)
- 10.6"  HD (720p) display
- MicroSD, USB 2.0, Micro HDMI
-weight 676 grams
- thickness 9.3mm
- 32/64gb storage

Personally I really like the look of the Windows 8 pro device due to the high res screen an it seems like a nice ultrabook competitor. It will be able to run all the apps you would be able to normally so I could install Visual Studios on there as well as other desktop apps. I think the only way Microsoft can really mess things up is the price. All they've said is that it will be competitive with ultrabook pricing when it comes to the Windows 8 Pro model and competitive with ARM based tablets with the Windows RT tablet. I'm guessing its going to be around £450-500 for the RT and £800-900 for the Windows 8 pro. It seems quite reasonable but still its a major investment. I really hope they can be all that more competitive by making it even cheaper but we'll have to see.

DD-WRT is great!

For some reason I've decided to work on some networking stuff recently as I wanted to take advantage of my taheem.net domain. Also both my D-Link routers in my parents house have gone down which has led to the Virgin Media Super(rubbish)Hub being used as the main router.

So far I've moved the taheem.net domain over to google apps so i can have my own personal email managed by gmail which is quite nice. I did have a custom email account with my bbfun domain but it was using squirrel mail which was a bad web client. On top of this I've been looking into two new routers and I think I'll be messing about with DD-WRT the open source router firmware. It looks like Asus have really taken a good lead into the networking side of things and its interesting to note how well regarded Broadcom is for DD-WRT so I'm tempted by the N16.

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Well I half finished that last post and I decided to leave it in. What I actually ended up buying was the Linksys E3000 and the E4200 as the main router. I bought these for pretty decent price off eBay and amazon and they are both amazing bits of kit. The E4200's range is incredible and you can have a separate 5GHz network for wireless N devices only. Its a shorter range but its on a spectrum that inst really used by a lot of devices. 2.4GHz is used for cordless phones, routers, mice, keyboards etc so It can get a bit noisy.

I've had to look up quite a few networking terms such as wireless bridging which lets you have another access point that's connected wirelessly instead of running a long cable which is great. Also DD-WRT enables you to do some pretty cool stuff like boost the signal of your router and use something called QoS to manage the bandwidth so that certain devices get priority. Its all pretty interesting to know and its amazing how much you can change just by properly managing your router. Seriously the performance was incredible! I went from 10mb/s unstable to 25mb/s stable. It really made a big difference.

Something that kind of amused me was the similarity between the Android modding community over at XDA and the DD-WRT community. You had a lot of different distro's and some were stable depending on the device and you had a lot of guides based on forum posts and I found it odd how the router database on DD-WRT is quite outdated and some guides advised to just go by the wiki. But I guess thats the effect of an open source system.

 Its expected but all that aside it is a great platform and you can learn a lot from messing about with this stuff. I'd forgotten how its fun to just tinker with Linux and mess about with the settings on a router to improve things. I've also messed about a bit with Amahi again and I have a feeling I'll be trying to do more things with it. I really do urge you to go through some lifehacker posts to see what you can do and then look through the DD-WRT wiki for the router of your choice. It can really improve things dramatically.

Windows 8 Developers Session

So as I mentioned in my previous blog entry, I went to the Windows 8 Development Session and this was really good. The developer session was generally about the development options for Windows 8 as well as how to design a good app for Windows 8.

I found it quite useful to know which frameworks I could use although the first bit wasn't as useful to me as he talked about using Windows 8. I've been using Windows 8 since the preview and I've made an effort to use the metro apps on the go and the desktop when my laptop is plugged into my monitor. I will write a further blog post on my experience with Windows 8 in detail later on as I have a lot to say on the topic of Windows 8.

The design session was quite interesting, about how theres 4 main types of fonts and how the content has good use of spacing to make it easier to read. It's definitely something that I often overlook. Also the API's for Windows 8 seem really easy to develop for so I'm very tempted to start developing for Windows 8 however most of my idea's have been mobile based. I feel like I need more time with a tablet to really design a good app for a tablet type device. Although I should say windows 8 is actually not too bad with a keyboard and mouse, a metro app just need enough shortcuts and gestures with a mouse and keyboard to make it usable with a mouse and keyboard. I actually quite like the search feature as you can actually search through multiple different apps like the Wikipedia app from one search bar like i can on my phone. Also I like how the sharing feature goes across all apps.

I made a good amount of notes on it so I'm sure I'll develop something for it this summer. Also we got free Domino's Pizza which was pretty awesome of them.

Have a play about with it here