Tada! :-)

The webpage is now available with a shiny new appearance. … or something like that. At least I got rid of my old, annoying php scripts. I decided to use WordPress as blog engine/CMS, and up to now, I don’t regret the decision. Everything seems functional. There are a few small flaws with the multi-language plugin and, of course, I want to replace the theme with my own, but for now I am satisfied.

Now I can focus on other things. There are enough projects I want to work o …

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In … April, *omg* that was a long time ago, … whatever … I wrote I’d like to re-work and extend my websites. On my wish list were bullets like user comments and RSS feeds. Long story short: I ask myself recently if I am a complete idiot. I mean … *wtf* … what I have here is pretty exactly a Blog and nothing else. Therefore I am currently looking at existing, free Blog-Engines and I will switch to one of these.

Nevertheless, as I am writing an entry here I thought I use this opportunity to update my project list:

  • MegaMol
    My huge project at work: MegaMol; That project is now in the hands of my successor. I am not doing any big changes there any more, just some minor fixes.
  • Exoworlds
    There is nothing new here. I got my ideas. They are rather complete. I simply have to do it. *sigh*
  • MILC
    “… but stay tuned.” What a joke. Whatever. Does not evolve and is problably going to get canceled.
  • Nameless Board Game
    Well, I can actually tell you something new here! In May I wrote that the rule set is making good progress. Now I got a first version (with some possible variants).You can take a look:

    KDD_Rules_2011_6.pdfKDD_Rules_2011_6.pdf Knights Double-Duel Rules (June 2011)
    There is a newer Version of this File available
    [378 KB; MD5: b76e1d4489614ae95cfcf716663980ca; More Info]

    Now, the problem remains, that I am not sure if the game is fair with these rules. At the moment it looks like the second player as a slight advantage (when played without the variants. I am currently checking if this is really the case.
    I also named the game “Knights Double-Duel”, because this is basically it. Both players play each with two knights similar to chess.
  • NSB
    NSB is officially dead for now.
  • Kanoneur 2
    Kanoneur 2 is also officially dead for now.
  • My Website
    Now, I am not going to say something.
  • Mr. Burns TOK
    *sigh* I don‘t know.
  • All my little Tools
    Yeah, there are some I am writing every now and then. (No mail), no plan, no goal
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I told you about my current projects in the article I wrote at the end of last year. Among these projects is the “nameless board game”, which I am trying to create for some time now.

My Motivation was to create a chess variant with some features:

  • Less number of pieces, meaning the number of pieces per player as well as the number of types of pieces,
  • less rules, what should happen more or less automatically due to the reduction of the pieces, and
  • shorter game durations.

I have now experimented with different pieces, setups, and rules for a long time. A few days ago, 9th May, it seems I finally had the key idea! Since then I am testing the game, to see if it is functional, meaning none of the players has a significant advantage over the other and that the game is not too easy. Both are problems that are well known e.g. from Tic-tac-toe.

At the moment I am writing a small program allowing the computer to play against itself. The basic framework is done and I am writing the computer player now. All works pretty well, considering my half knowledge about computer player AIs. As soon as I got two or three implementations I will start testing and I will see if my rule set is fair and balanced.

I am insanely curious about it …

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We can’t ignore the fact: the year 2010 is almost past. At such times I recognize how much I have not done of what I wanted to do. I am still not millionaire and all my projects are significantly less complete than they should be. There is absolutely no doubt that this will also happen next year. But, that is no reason not to try as much as I can (or more). :-) I want to show you a, for sure incomplete, list of my current projects and my projects planned for 2011. I sorted the list according to my personal priorities, which might change any minute.

  • MegaMol
    The only “commercial” project I will show here. Early 2011 I plan to get version 1.0 of MegaMol up and running.
  • Exoworlds
    It possibly is my oldest long-term project. But I love it and I will not let it die!
  • MILC
    A very young project, started this week because of personal needs. I don’t want to give too much information about it just now, but stay tuned.
  • Nameless Board Game
    A small board game I am planning for some time now (imagine a cross-over of “Risk&quot, “Chess”, and “Checkers”). Every now and then I had a name of the game, but I didn’t liked most of them. Currently I am still tweaking the rules, because I want to ensure that no player could force a tie. Although, there is some progress, it is much slower than I hoped it would be. Well, I believe creativity cannot be forced.
  • Working Title: NSB
    Behind the working title NSB stands an idea; a good idea! :-) More info to come…
  • Kanoneur 2
    In the week just before Christmas a good friend of my reminded me of the mini-game “Kanoneur” I have written a long time ago. For me it was a project to gain some practice in OpenGL. The gameplay was basically the one of Tank Wars. When my friend reminded me of all the “enhancements” we came up for the game, I wanted to re-start that project again. So “Kanoneur 2” will come, although it is probably the game with the most stupid name of all time.
  • My Websites
    There is still much to do at my websites; nothing visible, all optimizations and enhancements of the scripts.
  • Mr. Burns TOK
    I didn’t forget about it. It’s just that my motivation to work with this ancient source code is not that high. But I promise, I will do it “soon”.
  • All my little Helpers/Tools
    I got roughly a dozen small tools I am writing to ease my daily work. I would be nice if some of them would finally be completed. :-/

Because I know myself, and I am pretty sure I will not write another post this year:

I wish you all a Happy New Year 2011!

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There is a bug is Mr. Burns TOK. On some systems the buttons of the window are not present. Unfortunately, until now I was not able to create this effect on my own computer and therefore the fix is difficult. I believe the problem might be some Dll-dependency, however I have no prove yet. Because I have only very little time for my tools at the moment I cannot make any promises until when I will have the solution for the problem. I will write as soon as I know a solution.

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Here is, once again, a small tool the world does not really need.

UrlCollector.zipUrlCollector.zip UrlCollector
[158 KB; MD5: c7b75fcfbd602beec5902f8019f14ebb; More Info]

The UrlCollector is a very small and simple utility. It simply checks whether the windows clipboard contains a single line of text which looks like a Web-URL. If it does, that text line is copied from the clipboard into the program window. E. g. that way you can easily collect several download links from a website for later download, without hitting “Ctrl+V” all the time. Just “Copy link location” does the job.

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About two years ago I was tinkering with code for changing the resolutions of my monitors. Of course, I screwed up several times and broke the layout of the icons on my desktop. So I searched the internet for a tiny as-simple-as-it-can-get tool to store and restore the layout of my icons. I did not find any. I mean, I found hundreds, but some were to blown-up by functions I don’t want (background services automatically detecting screen resolution changes, or something like that) and some were shareware.

Shareware!

I mean … WTF?!

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against someone earning money with a useful and good-written software, but such a tiny little icon tool. I mean, it’s far less complex than Calc.exe of Notepad. I was really miffed and so I decided to write such a tool by my own and to give it away as freeware. Yes, freeware. Just, because I can.

Dib.1.4.16.0.zipDib.1.4.16.0.zip Desktop Icon Backup
Selected File Version not found, showing newest Version instead
[378 KB; MD5: 846a6d216e74ad0f09eae94f1f2279d7; More Info]

And here it is: Desktop-Icon-Backup (DIB). Written in C# with Windows Forms and a whole bunch of P/Invoke. It only took me two or three afternoons to make it work. I am absolutely sure that somewhere out there a tool like this exists, and that I missed it, like I missed many others. Who cares? Now the world is blessed with one more freeware. Get it and have fun with it.

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Just in time for the new year 2010 my website is back online. Okey, it’s not really finished or something, but … well … it’s a start.

Now, don’t start dreaming of regular updates. I’m still very short on spare time. But I will do my best. So, stay tuned … ;-)

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