Do as I say, not as I do ...

RESIZING AN EXISTING HDD IMAGE IN VIRTUALBOX

2011-10-15T03:47:00.012-02:00

[ If you deem this article as helpful, please consider downloading my game "Just Survive XP" on the Appstore (free for a limited time):

=> http://itunes.apple.com/app/just-survive-xp/id461876025 ]

Yesterday I was installing a new virtual machine on my desktop with VirtualBox and, don’t ask me why ‘cause I don´t know, but I made a rookie mistake …

… when I created the vdi file for the virtual hardrive I forgot to assign a custom size so it ended up with the default 20GB. Sigh!

Soon I noticed my mistake when I realized I would need more space on the drive to install the whole set of tools I wanted to use, so I opened VirtualBox in order to resize the drive and guess what … I found no way on settings to directly do it. Bummer …

Maybe it is there somewhere but I didn´t find it so fearing the worst –that is, reinstalling everything on a new image from scratch, I did a search on the Internet for a solution. Why not reading VirtualBox’s help file, right?

Well, to my surprise I found any kind of cumbersome solutions like cloning the .vdi file and using a parition manager to blá, blá, blá. Tired of this dead-ends, I finally did what I should have done on the first place: read the help file!

Yes; the solution was always there: VirtualBox includes a command-line tool named “VBoxManage” with a set of interesting options available and one of them is “modifyhd”. Its syntaxis is the following:

VBoxManage modifyhd <uuid><filename>
[--type normal | writethrough | immutable | shareable
readonlymultiattach]
[--autoreset onoff]
[—compact]
[--resize <megabytes>--resizebyte <bytes>]

Having opened a command-line terminal in the host OS of your machine, a simple way to use this command would be, say:

VBoxManage modifyhd “<fullpath>/<filename>”
--resize 30720

It is important to notice that you should use not a relative but the fullpath to the .vdi file for optimal results. So, if your .vdi file is located on “C:/mypath/myvdifile.vdi”, use this string on the command (in case of other OS than Windows, use the path from root).

If everything goes well you should see a new text line showing the progress:

0%…10%…20%…30%…40%…50%…60%…70%…80%…90%…100%

But sometimes, like in my case, things turn out not to be that simple. You may find your-self facing an error message like:

ERROR: Cannot register the hard disk 'C:/mypath/myvdifile.vdi' with UUID {someUUIDtext} because a hard disk 'C:/mypath/myvdifile.vdi' with UUID {someUUIDtext} already exists in the media registry ('…/VirtualBox.xml')
Details: code NS_ERROR_INVALID_ARG (0x80070057), component VirtualBox, interface IVirtualBox, callee nsISupports
Context: "OpenHardDisk(Bstr(szFilenameAbs), AccessMode_ReadWrite, false, Bstr(""), false, Bstr(""), srcDisk.asOutParam())" at line XX of file VBoxManageDisk …

If that happens don´t panic; a solution that worked for me was using the UUID assigned to the virtual hdd, instead of the path to the file, so if the UUID is “{13f2…-…-…342a}” then the command should look like:

VBoxManage modifyhd 13f2…-…-…342a
--resize 30720

Now, when the new size of the .vdi file gets allocated, all you need to do is open your virtual machine, log into the OS, and assign the new free space to the hdd. If your hosting Windows, then execute the provided managing tool (rightclick on your PC icon and select “Manage”), find the vitual disk and extend its size.

Well, that’s it. Hope you find this tips useful.

Cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

FORZA MOTORSPORT 4 TRAILER FILMED IN URUGUAY

2011-10-13T18:35:00.001-02:00

It’s been a nice surprise to find the following “live” trailer of Forza Motorsport 4, which has been mainly filmed –with the exception of the last scene with the mountains- in my hometown: Montevideo, Uruguay … !

Forza Motorsport 4 - “Endanger Species” Trailer

I´m a huge supporter of Forza Motorsport series on the XBox 360. Some may argue Dirt 3 has better graphics than FM 4, but for a DirectX 9 console system like the XBox 360, I don´t care what fanboys may say … ;)

´till next time!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

NETFLIX NOW AVAILABLE IN THE REGION!

2011-09-16T16:53:00.001-03:00

First was Brazil, and now Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay will count on Netflix providing its multimedia services.

This is a huge leap on the region and many cable providers are starting to worry.

Uruguay has recently finished the work of laying a fiber-optics cable beneath the sea, thus before year-end uruguayan homes will be enjoying speeds around 100Mbs (hopefully sync). Finally!

Now all we need, and personally hope, is that Microsoft opens the XBox Live Arcade channel for the region (and Live services).

C´mon Microsoft! Show some love …

~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

RUN WEB CAMP URUGUAY

2011-07-03T13:27:00.001-03:00

Last month Montevideo held a new edition of Microsoft’s one-day-all-day event in Uruguay, named “Run Web Camp Uruguay”.

During the event there were many sessions of talks divided as usual in two main categories: For IT Pros and For Developers.

From dev topics like WP7, Silverlight, HTML5, and ASP.NET MVC to IT ones like System Center Configuration Manager 2012 and Virtual Machine Manager 2012, the event covered tech that is available today and what we can expect in the near future.

At the end of the day, there were some round tables named “Ask to Experts” where you could go, grab a beer, and chat with experts in each field.

This year MSFT invited me to be part of the round table about WP7 as the expert in XNA along with an expert in Silverlight. I must say it was a really cool experience!

Kinect was also present. During the breaks, attendees could and did play with it. It was fun to see the ones that had their first contact with the device as they attempted to do some weird movements to control stuff. Of course the learning curve is low so they got accustomed in a heart bit.

To wrap it up, Run Web Camp Uruguay was really enjoyable and quite a success.

For more info and to watch videos of some talks, please go to this page:

http://www.puertadeenlace.net/post/Lo-que-nos-dejo-el-RUN-Uruguay.aspx

‘till next time,
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

LIVE STREAMMING: MICROSOFT’S E3 KEYNOTE

2011-06-06T13:02:00.001-03:00

Today begins the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3! And guess which company will be holding a keynote today … yeap! Microsoft.

This expo is one of the most important events of the year where big players in the Industry usually announce big breaking news, stopping all speculation on rumors. So let’s see what they have up their sleeves this year!

If you want to watch MSFT’s keynote on your browser, just follow this link:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Community/E3

And here’s the link for all the events:

http://www.gametrailers.com/netstorage/e3/e3-live.html

Also, Apple is holding its annual event (known as WWDC), and its keynote will start at the same time that MSFT’s keynote at E3. Coincidence? :)

Enjoy!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

WP7 NOT BOOTING? FIRST CHECK YOUR DATA CABLE

2011-03-29T10:09:00.001-03:00

[ If you deem this article as helpful, please consider buying my game "Just Survive!" on the Appstore for only 99 cents:

=> http://itunes.apple.com/app/just-survive/id424392950 ]

A couple of weeks ago I had pressed and held the start button of my WP7 device to find that it had fallen in a sort of neverending booting loop.

As soon as the device started and the first screen appeared showing the initial info/stats, it automatically rebooted for ever.

Since I wasn’t able to hard reset it, my first thought was “Oh gosh, it’s bricked!”.

I then noticed that the batery level was closed to zero, so I grabbed the USB data cable and plugged it into my desktop PC. No luck! After a couple of minutes the battery was still at zero level …

… as a desperate move I connected it to the AC power, directly. Still no luck! My thought then was “Drained Battery?”.

So I searched on the Internet for similar cases and I found that many reported faulty USB cables. “Could it be so?” …

Well, it turned out to be the case, at least for my device. After buying a new USB data cable, the device started to recharge the battery. And when it reached a charge level of 7% percent, it successfully booted!

So, if you happen to suffer from a similar situation, don’t panic! Go and buy a new USB data cable and try again.

Hope this help,
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

“LONG TIME NO SEE”

2011-03-15T13:46:00.005-03:00

For the last few months I have been immersed in a code rush to get my first commercial game published on iTunes’ App Store. And finally, I’m proud to say that it made it into the market!

http://itunes.apple.com/app/just-survive/id424392950

The name says a lot about the game: Just Survive!

I had originally started working on it on 1998 and published it on the web during 1999. At that time there was just one enemy and scores were saved locally. The game didn’t get noticed but many people because everything was much different from the globalization we are experiencing now, but I remember having received an email message from someone who wrote something like:

Nice game. I have been playing it for 45 minutes and I want to know how much longer I have to play it to get to the first boss; btw, highscores aren’t been saved on your server …

That message helped me to decide –a few years after- whether to jump into the indie Industry. And today, here I am …

The game has gone through lots of modifications since then, 90% of them happening during 2010/2011, so I can now say the you’ll get to fight many types of enemies, more than one boss and there’s global leaderboards!

Here’s the trailer on Youtube:

Just Survive! First Trailer

This is one of the four games I have in production for different platforms, so in the following months expect some news about them.

Hope you like it … and buy it!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

OFFICIAL WP7 VIDEO AD: “REALLY?”

2010-10-20T10:34:00.001-02:00

As you may know, the set of Windows Phone 7 devices has been recently presented to the world during an event in NY city.

Now, the first official video advertisement –entitled “Really?"- is out:

Enjoy!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

REPLACING THE CONTENT MANAGER API: PRELUDE

2010-10-14T15:14:00.001-02:00

As I briefly mentioned in one of my previous posts, for a period of time (close to 2 years, now) I have been developing my own API to manage content as a replacement for the one delivered as part of the XNA Framework.

Why? At first I was trying to circumvent the limitations of the latter related to its inability to properly handle the Dispose operation. And while doing so, I realized -when I checked the source code of the original with “Reflector”- that there was room for improvements (with a redesign).

After almost two years of development as part of my own XNA-based videogame engine (being the latter still in endless development), I decided to redesign my content manager as an independent module so that it can be used with XNA without the need to plug my engine (neither in whole nor in part).

I will not release the source code of my API, so in the next installments in this series of articles I will be discussing publicly what my API has to offer, so that anyone can read it, focusing on The-What rather than on The-How; thus, I will be mainly presenting features and results (I do indeed know, yes, “what a bummer!”).

So, what’s coming next? On part 1 (and most likely part 2 also) I will be introducing my API, explaining differences with the built-in one, and after that I will start to talk about obtained results (yes! With numbers, screenshots and such) for the different platforms I tested.

‘till next time,
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

XNA GS 4.0 FINAL IS NOW OUT

2010-09-17T11:11:00.001-03:00

Today is a great day for us, XNAers, since the final version of XNA Game Studio 4.0 is now up for grabs!

Please check Aaron Stebner’s blog for installation details.

Enjoy!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

GETTING A REFERENCE TO A METHOD-CALLING OBJECT IN C#

2010-09-10T16:32:00.001-03:00

Ok, after taking a month off from any blogging activity, I guess is time to catch up and blog again. And I believe there is no better way of doing so than to write an article explaining a way to get a reference to the object that calls a specific method.

For the last two years or so, I have been working hard on a new Content Manager replacement API for the XNA Framework to use on my own “never-ending” game engine (I will blog about this later on). In some early stages of development I found a way to solve this referencing burden that have been creating headaches to many devs, globally (being me, one of them, for a long time).

Although I must admit that at some point on the development cycle of my API I decided to abandon this workaround, after reading one of the articles mentioned by Shawn here (guess which one), I believe it’s a great opportunity to talk about it.

A little history … before founding this solution I tried everything: from attempting to use –with no luck- the info held in StackFrame instances and even delegates to finally “quit” and use a naive approach as passing the caller as a parameter in the signature of an operation. But, then came .NET Framework 3 and extension methods to the rescue!

Please bear with me that the example presented in this article is just a simple one to show how to use it, but believe my words when I say that it can be extended to complex scenarios.

Having said that … if you want to know which object is calling a certain method of a class like (which may or may not be sealed):

public sealed class MyCalledClass
{
    internal bool JustReturnTrue(int myParameter)
    {
      return true;
    }
}

Being the caller, say, a specification of the following class:

public abstract class MyCallingClass
{
    public void Print()
    {
      Console.WriteLine("I am the object which is just about to call
         the monitored operation named 'JustReturnTrue' …");
    }
}

Then all you have to do is to implement the following generic extension method for the types you want (in my example, “MyCallingClass”):

public static class MyExtensionMethod
{
    public static bool ExecuteOperation<T>
      (this T mycallingClass, int myParameter)
      where T: MyCallingClass
    {
      mycallingClass.Print(); // Replace it with your own stuff.

      return new MyCalledClass().JustReturnTrue(myParameter);
    }
}

The trick here is to design and split assemblies and namespaces in a way that all instances of “MyCallingClass” cannot directly execute the “JustReturnTrue” operation (I leave that task as an exercise to the reader).

But there is one catch to watch closely, though. By doing this you are actually adding one more call (you know that), which is not generally a problem on Windows, but for the XBox 360 and all devices using the Compact Framework, it could turn out to be expensive if used lots of times on intensive or heavy tasks/loops.

But if you really need it when speed is not an issue or for operations where -for example- you need to set owners to something “automagically” behind the scenes and later assess whether an owner calls a restricted operation before executing it, then there you have it!

Just use it wisely …
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

IT’S OFFICIAL: KINECT PRICE CONFIRMED!

2010-07-20T20:38:00.001-03:00

You all know this: lately, there has been plenty of speculation around the price of the upcoming new device for the XBox 360 console, originally known as “Project Natal” and recently renamed as Kinect.

Well, the time for speculation is over since MSFT has confirmed prices for standalone and bundled options.

Interested? Then find out more here.

Cannot wait to get “kinected” :)
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

PROJECT NATAL HAS A NEW NAME

2010-06-14T11:33:00.001-03:00

For the last few weeks rumors had taken news blogs with articles mentioning that Project Natal was likely to be renamed to something more catchy.

Today, during MSFT’s E3 presentation, it has been confirmed that the new name is “Kinect”.

Neither prices nor ETAs have been announced, so in the meantime check out this video to have a glimpse of what’s coming this fall:

Kinect

Enjoy!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

2010-05-07T11:24:00.001-03:00

The “final six” and the cash-prize winners for this year Dream.Build.Play competition have been recently announced.

As you may know, the compo had been split in two flavors: the standard one and the Old-Spice challenge.

Well, the name of the game and dev team that won the latter has been also published.

Congrats to all the winners and finalists!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

STEVE BALLMER IN ARGENTINA

2010-04-30T16:29:00.001-03:00

A few weeks ago I was invited to Steve Ballmer’s talk about Cloud Computing in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The talk was held last Tuesday on the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE) and lasted about an hour or so.

Since “I crossed the puddle” and attended the event I can tell you that the presentation and all topics covered where quite interesting, so for those of you not present at the event I recommend to watch the recorded video, which is now available at:

http://www.microsoft.com/argentina/cloud/ballmer.aspx (subtitled in Spanish).

Enjoy!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

OBFUSCATORS PAGE UPDATED

2010-04-16T14:46:00.001-03:00

Just a quick a post: I have updated the page containing the list of obfuscators of .NET IL code, adding two word checking:

BitHelmet, and
Eazfuscator.NET.

You can find the whole list here.

Cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

MICROSOFT ACTIVE PROFESSIONAL 2010

2010-02-24T12:47:00.001-02:00

Yesterday I received, on behalf of MSFT Technet & MSDN Team for Argentina and Uruguay, the distinction of “Microsoft Active Professional 2010”.

The award is granted to those professionals who are considered to be among the top 5% of most active contributors in the community.

Thanks a lot to Microsoft for honoring me with this award, again!

Cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

WATCHING THE SUN BURN - PART 3

2010-01-29T01:44:00.004-02:00

A little while ago I wrote a couple of tech-oriented posts regarding the rendering engine -for XNA GS- known as “Sunburn”.

This time, I’ll skip the technical side of things to share some great news about the latest version of it, which has been just released: it fully supports lighting and shadowing for Avatars!!!

Is it a soft shadow what I’m seeing projected in there? Cool … gotta download v1.3.1 right now!

Enjoy!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

XNA/DIRECTX MVP ONCE AGAIN

2010-01-02T17:03:00.001-02:00

The new year 2010 has started with great news for me: Microsoft has granted me the XNA/DirectX MVP award once again!

It’s truly an honor to be an MVP. Thanks MSFT!

Cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

OUT OF OFFICE

2009-12-29T13:50:00.001-02:00

Hey guys, I will be "out of office" from today for a week or so.

For those of you who usually read this blog thanks a lot for you time and comments.

Don’t forget to check the new “Developer Talk Series” –by members of the XNA Game Studio Product Team, starting on January 2010!!

See you next year ;)

Happy holidays and cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

PDC09 VIDEOS AVAILABLE

2009-12-08T23:07:00.001-02:00

The videos showing all PDC09’s presentations are now available either for online watch or download.

In particular, for those interested in using DX11 to develop .NET applications & games for Windows 7, check these videos out:

Enjoy,
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

RAIMI WANTS A “PANIC ATTACK”

2009-11-30T22:29:00.001-02:00

Do you guys remember how Montevideo was attacked by an horde of giant robots and high-tech fighters?

Well, according to many news that have been recently posted around the globe, Sam Raimi’s contacted the authors of this amazing short-film in order to convert it into a whole movie.

Well done, guys! You really deserve it …

Cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

WATCH OUT THE XBOX 360 YOU BUY!

2009-11-25T11:38:00.001-02:00

It’s been a little while since my last post; well … there’s a wonderful reason for that: last week my first son was born! So, I had little-to-none time left for blogging.

Ok, down to business now …

In the past few weeks you may have heard and or witnessed that a new update for the XBox 360 was recently released, bringing a bunch of new exciting features like Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm support.

You may have also heard that Microsoft banned unofficial memory units.

Well, that is not what I’m going to blog about today!

There is one more thing you may have heard (and I hope you haven’t experienced yourself): MSFT has banned a plethora of (modified) consoles (the buzz is that the number of bans is close to one million consoles).

The reason? Simple: fighting against piracy.

Thus, if -for whatever reason- you hacked the disc drive, installed unauthorized software, created a modded version of the console, and –maybe in some cases- repaired it yourself from the RROD with a custom solution, then you are likely to lay within the unlucky number!

What does a banned 360 mean? Simply put: the XBox Live service is not available any longer to that console. The owner can still play offline, but forget about Arcade and Indie games.

And since the gamertag/account is not banned, just the console, that gamer can purchase a new console to regain access to those channels. What brings me to the main topic of this post:

WATCH OUT THE XBOX 360 CONSOLE YOU BUY!!!

As a result of the massive banning process, many owners of banned 360s are trying to sell those consoles through popular online auction sites, claiming that they never experienced technical problems, offering a bunch of (pirated) games, and not even mentioning that console is “modded” in the first place.

Always remember: the ban is on the console itself, so if you happen to buy a banned 360, it doesn’t matter that you have a valid gamertag / account, the ban on the console won’t disappear.

So, be careful on the 360 you pick: verify it’s a brand new one on a sealed (never opened) pack before closing any deal.

And don’t install pirate software: is illegal, and eventually -as this wave of bans prove, it turns to be more expensive than doing things right in the first place!

Play safe,
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

MONTEVIDEO INVADED BY GIANT ROBOTS

2009-11-06T23:40:00.001-02:00

Browsing the web I happened to find today a quite impressive CG short film, where the city of Montevideo, capital of Uruguay (where I live), is being suddenly attacked by an army of giant robots and a squad of pretty advanced space fighters.

The film is entitled “Atáque de Pánico! 2009” (“Panic Attack! 2009”) and you can find more info about it here.

Kudos to the producers for this great release!

Enjoy,
~Pete

[If you ask me, the title is kinda misnomer. I would have chosen a different one for such a great production. What do you guys think?]

> Link to Spanish version.

RULES FOR MULTIPLE LANGUAGES IN XBLIG

2009-11-06T16:38:00.001-02:00

Recently, there’s been some fuss regarding the use of (symbols from) unsupported languages in Xbox Live Indie Games (in particular, traditional Mah-jong symbols).

This discussion led the XNA Team to post the following two messages to clarify things:

Read both messages carefully and if you still have questions post them in or browse the forums to get the answers.

‘till next time,
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.