My New Kick, Browser Based Games

I found an excellent browser based MMO called Fallen Sword-



I didn't think just HTML and PHP could pull off a game that is very fun but they have done it. Best of all it is expansive, offers many features, and is free. Plus it is easy to jump in and jump out of the game, making it a great game for more casual players like myself.

Check out http://www.huntedcow.com/ , they make quiet a few BB games, all of them look pretty good.

AQ Thanks Iran for Its Support

I know many in the left don't want to link Iran and Al Qaeda, but AQ doesn't seem to have such a problem.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/3506544/Iran-receives-al-Qaeda-praise-for-role-in-terrorist-attacks.html

DARPA to Develop SKYNET

Remember the movie the Terminator? SKYNET was the AI in charge of Norad that decided that ALL humans were a threat, not just America's enemies, and thus started a nuclear war to try to rid the world of humans.

Well it looks like DARPA is trying to build SKYNET. Heck, you could even have this Slashdotted article as a movie prolog leading up to the early days before SKYNET.

Read onward here-

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/21/2137244&from=rss

And for some fun reading to prep you for the release of Terminator 4: Salvation, click on the image above to take you to a site that has some great writing based on the original Terminator Movie.

Basic: Adding JavaScript Confirmations to an ASP.Net Button

Adding Javascript generated confirmations to your ASP.Net buttons is easy, but I always seem to forget how to do and my first and second guesses are usually wrong. So instead of using google to find the answer next time, I will use google in a new way (my blog) to store the answer. Ok here goes.

  btnCancel.Attributes.Add ( "onclick",
   "javascript:if(confirm('" + CancelMessage + "')){do stuff;return true;}else{return false;}" );
     

Not All Mysteries Have Been Solved

Scientist find a new species of dolphin in Australia

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/new-dolphin-oz/

Also, check out cryptomundo.com, it is a great site, and they post new species discoveries, weird sightings of creatures, and other oddities that bring a little mystery back into our digital age.

The ACLU Lost One, Let's Hope The Trend Continues

The ACLU in my book is pretty much an enemy of the state, which is a shame, because they should be providing a needed service to protect people's rights rather then be involved in societal transformation.

Anyway, they lost a court battle. Excellent.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/17999573/detail.html

Campaign Coverage Leans Left: Suprise!!!

One major newspaper admits it, but without appology.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/07/AR2008110702895.html

After all, when you are on the side of righteousness, who dares question you? [sarcasm]

File This Under...We Will Think About It Later

This is one example of many of the types of things that pop up on the radar from time to time that just doesn't fit into a secular humanist's world view. So how do our secular humanist scholarly scientist types deal with this stuff? Dismiss, deny, forget.

Prayer Helps with Fertility-

http://www.obgyn.net/newsrx/womens_health-Fertility-20011018-16.asp

Breakthrough: Organs Grown to Order

Look like they can grow replacement organs in a lab now. Drudgereport.com posted three links. Check 'em out.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/3479613/British-doctors-help-perform-worlds-first-transplant-of-a-whole-organ-grown-in-lab.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/the-medical-miracle-1024576.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5183686.ece

Silverlight vs. Flash...Silverlight 3 May End The Battle

I like Flash, though I've only used it to do progressive video streaming and a few other minor text spins on a page. I don't like Flash's IDE. Flex's eclipse might be better, but I did one check of it and it didn't offer full intellisense (even though it is advertised as such), so at the time I decided to back burner learning Flex.

Well, I'm glad I did. Flash 10 supports quasi 3D, but it looks like Silverlight will support full 3D. Read towards the end of Scott Guthrie's Blog here-

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/16/update-on-silverlight-2-and-a-glimpse-of-silverlight-3.aspx

Very signifigant. I've been looking for the holy grail platform to do browser based game development for a long time. Flash works, but you have to hack at it. And you don't get true 3D. MAYBE, just MAYBE, Silverlight 3 will be the killer web game app, as well as business RIA creator, that I've been waiting for.

After Christmas it is time to start diving in to Silverlight.

Access Stored Proc Output Parameters in a SQL Data Source

The following Blog sheds light on how to access an Stored Proc output parameter from a SQL Data Source.

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t86158-re-how-to-retrieve-an-output-parameter-using-sqldatasource-control.html

Some JavaScript Plugins/Code Worth Checking Out

I can't vouch for these, but over the course of the last few months the following links have shown up on my RSS radar, and they look promising. Take a look for yourself.

Spin JS, which turns textboxes into clickable number up and number down boxes-
http://acidmartin.wemakesites.net/?pageId=SpinBoxJs

A Javascript Graph Plotting Tool-
http://www.jslab.dk/plottool.htm

A jQuery based Color Picker-
http://acko.net/dev/farbtastic

Easy Google Map Marker Creation-
http://ajaxian.com/archives/google-maps-utilities-for-creating-markers-and-loading-kml

Javascript/PayPal supported Simple Shopping Cart
http://www.thewojogroup.com/2008/10/simplecartjs-paypal-e-commerce-in-minutes/

Another Javascript Table Sorter
http://www.leigeber.com/2008/11/javascript-table-sorter/

CSS Menus
http://lwis.net/free-css-drop-down-menu/

Thanks to Ajaxian and Web Resources Depot (see sidebar under useful links) for making me aware of these resources.

Auto Ajaxify A Static Web Page

Ajaxifying a web page by just dropping a javascript class onto the page? Sound to good to be true? It probably is, but the author seems to have allowed for exceptions by including the ability to create rules for the javascript class.

Looks worth checking out-

http://www.bydust.com/examples/com.bydust.ajax/

Source: http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/

So I won't forget this the double split

coming back and editing this later. nothing that anyone couldn't figure out on their own, just something I bump into, here for ref

declare @p_value_rows as varchar(300)
set @p_value_rows = '234f~asd4adsfa~0dfsg'


      SELECT
          SUBSTRING(value_desc,0,CHARINDEX('~',value_desc))
        , SUBSTRING(value_desc,CHARINDEX('~',value_desc)+1,LEN(value_desc) - CHARINDEX(value_desc,'~'))
      FROM [db splitter function here](@p_value_rows, '')

Obama Wins

Sighs...

Well, the dems have the white house. I will try to be positive. Some good things I saw.

1) High voter turn out. A good sign, I hope the trend continues.
2) All in all things were civil.
3) A Minority is elected President. That is a good sign that America, for the most part, is moving beyond skin color and ethnicity in judging and individual.

Enjoy your victory democrats, both in the presidency and in various other offices. I and many others will be watching.

Work Begins On A River UUV

Check out ARES blog for info about a new river patrol unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV).

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3aab9fb812-1470-4983-ae14-687b08d9ebd0

Next Administration Needs to Spend A Lot On Defense

Great article on the future defense spending. Think the dems, if elected, can rise to the challenge?

Restocking_For_Another_Decade_Of_War_Part_One

Georgia Leaves the CIS

Georgia decided it hasn't had enough @ss whipping by the Russians, and has decided to leave the Commonwealth of Independant States.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Analysis_Georgia_leaves_the_CIS_999.html

Metal Returns to Iraq

Yes, Heavy Metal is back in Iraq. A good sign for any nation.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2008-10-29-iraq-heavy-metal_N.htm

Libya Offers Russia A New Base

Sensing U.S. Weakness, Libya decides it can now cozzy up to Russia.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/
Libya_offers_to_host_Russian_military_base_report_999.html

Saving XML to SQL and the Dreaded Parse Error

I recently at work tried to save an XML string to SQL Server 2005 and I kept getting the following error...

XML parsing: line 1, character 38, unable to switch the encoding

Turns out the solution was to just change the paramter datatype that I'm passing to the stored proc to a varchar (even though the stored proc expects XML) and the problem goes away and data is saved fine. Example of the parameter I passed to the stored proc-


SqlParameter p_xml = new SqlParameter ();
p_xml.ParameterName = "@p_xml";
p_xml.SqlDbType = SqlDbType.VarChar;
p_xml.Value = "your xml string";


The issue has to do with my string XML being UTF-8 based, and SQL 2005 wanting UTF-16. The above hack fixes the issue, and you can still pass UTF-16 based XML and the varchar handles that as well.

Credit for the fix goes to Bob Beauchemin at this link-

http://bytes.com/forum/thread498342.html

Starting A Busines in Michigan

Saving this link for reference.

http://ref.michigan.org/medc/services/startups/?m=12;7