I was recently running some performance benchmarks across different platforms to understand the cost of some simple mathematic functions such as sqrtf and quickly noticed, under certain circumstances compilers such as MSVC, Clang and GCC by default will not generate Continue Reading
Introduction There are plenty of fantastic websites out there which explain the technicalities of Gamma Correction and SRGB colour correction so won’t try to do the same here. Instead this post is to show visually the effects of SRGB/Gamma Correction Continue Reading
If your Windows executable is using /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS rather than /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE, something you will have noticed your output messages to stdout (printf, std::cout etc) will be missing. You can easily solve this however by spawning your own Windows console window and Continue Reading
If you’re in a situation where your console output text is being truncated because so many lines have been output, you may want to increase the limit. Increase Windows Console Text Limit With a console window already spawned, right click Continue Reading
Unity/Jumbo builds are a way of speeding up C/C++ compilation by compiling multiple c/cpp files as a single object file. Speed improvements can come from not having to re-parse and compile shared headers. Even in projects that use pre-compiled headers, Continue Reading
Github Link: https://github.com/comeradealexi/MCP4131 Datasheet One of the most important parts of programming an MCP is studying the datasheet provided with it. For the MCP4131, you can download it here: https://www.microchip.com/en-us/product/MCP4131 It will provide everything you need to know about the Continue Reading
This article will show you how to connect directly to a Raspberry Pi by connecting an ethernet cable directly to your PC without needing to do any setup on the Raspberry Pi itself. This means you don’t need to plug Continue Reading
I’ve recently found the need for a custom deleter function attached to smart pointers in C++ and I found there are a number of different ways to implement this. I’ll touch on the advantages/disadvantages of the different ways to use Continue Reading
With having written many Raspberry Pi programs now, it made sense for me to create a little Log class which I’ve used in all my projects now which I feel is really quite nice to use and intuitive. In this Continue Reading
Using multiple Raspberry Pis, I’ve put together a small system to monitor my home when away. In order to maintain my own privacy, I’ve set up a system which detects when myself or my partner is home by periodically pinging Continue Reading
Having a spare TV and a hard drive full of videos, I wanted to make it so I could easily watch videos from a hard drive on the TV and control playback and video choice entirely from my phone, this Continue Reading
After following the great tutorial here (http://www.penguintutor.com/linux/light-webserver) for getting lighttpd setup and running on my Raspberry Pi, I wanted to change the default user the service ran as so I could run commands from php scripts requiring more permissions. The Continue Reading
Have been writing some code to test out creating worker threads in C++ and came across an interesting bug where my program would crash on the first lock of the mutex. Thought it was an interesting little problem to solve. Continue Reading
For this guide I’ll be showing how I got my Huawei E303 Mobile Dongle to with with Gammu on the Raspberry Pi to send and receive SMS messages. This is the specific Huawei E303 I used. When I first started Continue Reading
I recently came across a problem with a friend whose computer was having strange issues of switching off entirely at random. We contacted the power supply support channels who suggested it sounded as if the surge protection on the motherboard Continue Reading
I followed the tutorial for setting up VisualGDB for a Raspberry Pi from this link: VisualGDB and below are some issues that I ran into and how I fixed them. Hope it helps! Compile Error: “bits/c++config.h: No such file or directory”: Continue Reading
Had a similar problem to Jeroen Swart to do with Cookies in Windows Phone as he mentioned in his blog post here. Basically identical C# code to make a HttpWebRequest with a few cookies would work in a simple desktop Continue Reading
Steam Live has received yet another huge update, this time adding some great new features and fixing some of those other little niggles! It’s an application that has been around for a while now and after a long stream of Continue Reading
Problem: Try and use this class in any C# project and it won’t work, it will give errors after compiling that it can’t copy the exe/dll with the following errors codes (warning MSB3026: and error MSB3027: and error MSB3021:) Renaming the ‘type’ Continue Reading
Came across a very weird problem today that has occurred on my application Steam Live which I’ve never come across before… On a certain Steam Profile I’d get a crash with the following message: “Layout cycle detected. Layout could not Continue Reading
The Problem: When the phone is in landscape mode, the rendered area isn’t rotated on screen! As you can see, the image on the right is when it is in portrait mode, the one below is when in landscape. The problem Continue Reading
Something I’ve always enjoyed programming is input via a controller, I’d dabbled with Microsoft’s XINPUT classes for the Xbox 360 controller before and I found it really interesting so I decided to put together a collection of classes which would allow Continue Reading
In order to further my C++ skills and get started with the brand new Unreal Engine 4, I decided it would be a great task to convert my previous game Side Switcher from UE3. I have currently replicated the entire Continue Reading
As part of my degree at Bournemouth University, part of the final year project was to exhibit at the Festival of Design & Innovation (FODI) where we can showcase ourselves and our final year projects. With FODI came the need Continue Reading
As part of the ‘Modelling & Game Design’ unit at Bournemouth University, I was tasked with creating a full game using the Unreal Development Kit. Having only ever used UDK for map design and some very simple Kismet visual scripting, Continue Reading
‘COMMAND THAT TANK’ is a game which puts your tank commanding skills to the test to see whether you are not only the best tank commander in your country, but the entire world. With Command That Tank you tank control Continue Reading
After finishing my course at Bournemouth University, I wanted to invest my free time into improving my programming and game development skills. I decided that since majority of my course at University had focused on the Unreal Development Kit, it Continue Reading
When I first started doing work as a creative writer for certain websites around the web I started to learn the basics of how WordPress worked more and more and the potential to make some money from a blog / Continue Reading
Abstract / Introduction: With the video games industry currently larger than it ever has been before, just creating a game and releasing it to the world is just the beginning of its lifecycle. Analytics has exploded in the games industry Continue Reading
For my final year project at University I had decided that I would be developing a Windows 8 application, something I, at the time had no experience in. Over the 2013 Christmas break I decided I would create a Windows Continue Reading
Being my most popular application to date, Call of Duty Quiz was one of the first applications I ever made for the Windows Phone and since creating it my programming skills have come a long way. I felt it was Continue Reading
Having run multiple websites for a number of years now, Google Analytics has been an extremely important part of managing and running the sites. I’ve used the service provided by Google to analyse a vast array of different data in Continue Reading
Latest and Greatest app. Consolidates and builds upon all previous Windows Phone knowledge, having spent months creating previous applications as I was going through large learning curves, I was able to create StarCraft II Profiler in less than one week. Continue Reading
In order to broaden my skill base and allow my applications to reach a larger audience, I decided to finally begin development on the Android platform. After years of solely developing for Windows Phone it was a brand new experience Continue Reading
After completing my Weather Phone 8 application I had grasped some very complex skills within the Windows Phone operating system as well as PHP, upon realising there was not application in the marketplace which would create a Live Tile out Continue Reading
For an assignment at university, we were required to form a group and begin the development of a game, based on a clients brief. Upon assigning the programming roles to myself and another member of the team, we worked extensively Continue Reading
A recent assignment from Bournemouth University required me to form a group and construct a game which demonstrated Newton’s three laws of motion. Once a group was formed it was decided that I would understake all of the programming on Continue Reading
Check out the embedded SoundCloud songs below. They can all also be found at: http://soundcloud.com/comeradealexi My latest ventures: My initial ventures:
Top-Ten.TV is a project I am currently working on with my father. It is a website about top ten lists of tv shows such as the best characters, episodes or moments etc. Recently I have been working with an experienced Continue Reading
Spaceman & Slime is a game I created for one of my assignments at Bournemouth University. The game is a re-skinned version of the classic, tactical board game Hounds and Hares built using C# and XNA for the Windows Phone Continue Reading