tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31375700653852583822012-02-17T00:11:46.375ZMartinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-63084657721925682522012-01-01T15:44:00.000Z2012-01-02T14:23:38.992Z2012-01-02T14:23:38.992Z

Mobile gaming is taking off in a big way but not, as many might have supposed, thanks to the efforts of Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony. No, instead the biggest player in the mobile gaming is scene is the humble mobile phone. To describe a modern smart-phone as humble is, of course, entirely misleading. The latest models from the likes of Apple, HTC, Samsung et al are all fully-fledged handheld

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-78485868633907413152011-12-31T18:27:00.001Z2012-01-02T13:19:08.009Z2012-01-02T13:19:08.009Z

Selling things on eBay used to be a pretty simple and straightforward affair. The costs were fairly easy to understand and people, generally speaking, were happy. Then eBay bought PayPal which should have made things even easier for all concerned, but strangely (or not so strangely) has resulted in a multitude of costs, fees and other considerations that directly impact your bottom line. I

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-40409684495997950682011-12-11T15:39:00.001Z2011-12-19T16:22:22.654Z2011-12-19T16:22:22.654Z

I've been doing some research on data compression and differencing recently and came across an excellent article by Mark Nelson on the LZW compression algorithm: http://marknelson.us/2011/11/08/lzw-revisited/ It's well worth a read, however all the code examples are in C++ so I decided to implement LZW in Python to enhance my understanding of the algorithm. To start with we need something to

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-15373529800061604762011-10-07T17:23:00.000+01:002011-10-07T19:32:17.870+01:002011-10-07T19:32:17.870+01:00

Here's how to setup Virtual Box shared folders with a Windows 7 host and a Linux Mint 11 guest and have it automatically mount in Linux Mint on boot. Software used: Windows 7 (host OS) Linux Mint 11 (guest OS) VirtualBox v4.1.4 Instructions 1) Create a folder on your host machine - I created mine in the root of C: and called it Shared. 2) Start your Linux Mint virtual machine. 3)

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-27102193337598632162011-10-07T01:53:00.000+01:002011-10-07T01:53:08.119+01:002011-10-07T01:53:08.119+01:00

DON'T BOTHER! YOU'LL ONLY WASTE YOUR TIME! It took me about four hours to realise this, but Microsoft really don't want you hosting non-Microsoft operating systems in Windows Virtual PC. 95, 98, XP, Vista and hell even 7 hosting 7 works fine. Try a *nix O/S though and you're out of luck. By the time I'd finally got FreeBSD installed - after much piss-balling about with vhd's - I thought I was

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-60816353475071333452011-10-06T15:16:00.000+01:002011-10-06T15:55:06.949+01:002011-10-06T15:55:06.949+01:00

Lists - or arrays - are an essential part of programming. While their usage varies depending on the problem being solved, the typical method of constructing one is to create a loop and append each new item to an array or list, as the following pseudo-code shows: myList = new List for i = 0 to 9     myList.append(i) end for While this is perfectly ok, Python - and indeed other languages -

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-31391239088508707432011-09-24T15:48:00.000+01:002011-09-24T15:58:23.306+01:002011-09-24T15:58:23.306+01:00

Learning Python is a great programming experience. The immediacy of the environment lends itself perfectly to experimentation, trying out new things and a very iterative approach to coding. Previously I wrote a random password generator in Python. This worked well, but had a couple of problems. The first, identified at the time, was that there was a slight bias in the algorithm which would

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-39327439770041323662011-09-24T14:14:00.003+01:002011-09-24T14:14:51.909+01:002011-09-24T14:14:51.909+01:00

Here's a quick video - level 1 of 32x Space Harrier played by me!

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-38379892614884371362011-09-24T14:10:00.001+01:002011-09-24T14:11:27.479+01:002011-09-24T14:11:27.479+01:00

For a recent project I needed to create a lot of random passwords. There are plenty of websites out there that can do this for you, but as I'm learning Python I thought I'd have a go at rolling my own solution. My requirements were that each password be of a specified length and constructed from a random pick of the letters A-Z and a-z and the digits 0-9. I also wanted the function to return a

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-27801411503357077002011-04-09T15:25:00.000+01:002011-04-09T15:25:14.752+01:002011-04-09T15:25:14.752+01:00

A fish is made up of three parts: head, tail and body. The tail is equal in length to the head, plus one-quarter of the length of the body. The body is equal to three-quarters of the entire length of the fish. The head is 4cm in length. How long is the entire fish? SOLUTION Let's pose this in the following way: T = Tail B = Body H = Head L = Total Length Therefore: 4 + 4 + 1/4 B + 3/4 L =

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-59377652857993422912011-02-18T19:00:00.001Z2011-02-19T11:44:46.526Z2011-02-19T11:44:46.526Z

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-79687619718591059252011-02-13T17:16:00.000Z2011-02-13T17:16:28.573Z2011-02-13T17:16:28.573Z

Mark Henderson - science editor of The Times - is writing a book on science and politics called The Geek Manifesto. It sounds like an interesting project in itself, but he's also set up a blog to canvass views, suggestions and other contributions. You can find his blog here: http://geekmanifesto.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/introducing-the-geek-manifesto/

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-91366511963665256302011-02-13T13:12:00.002Z2011-02-13T13:25:32.386Z2011-02-13T13:25:32.386Z

5 - Dark Star For a film seemingly produce on a budget of about 50p and a length of string, Dark Star is one of the most influential films of the genre. Without Dark Star there would be no Alien and without Alien where would we be? Suicidal smart bombs, alien life and a lack of toilet paper - this film has it all. 4 - Tremors Ok, so Tremors rips the idea of giant worms straight from Dune, but

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-33735094325375947282011-02-12T18:18:00.000Z2011-02-12T20:45:47.450Z2011-02-12T20:45:47.450Z

During my recent dealings with Three Mobile in search of a better signal it occurred to me that I've never seen a mobile phone base station or mast in or around Fair Oak. This probably means one or the other of two things: 1) I've seen plenty of them, but not realised what they are or 2) They're generally in out-of-the-way places I don't tend to go. Feeling in an inquisitive frame of mind, I

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-43484417705555479182011-02-12T16:42:00.000Z2011-02-12T20:45:20.635Z2011-02-12T20:45:20.635Z

Since upgrading my mobile phone to HTC's (utterly fabulous) Desire HD I've hit a minor snag: Three's data and voice coverage seems to be patchy at best in and around Fair Oak. In the five+ years I've been with Three this has never been much of a problem, so much so that I've never really noticed.Although it seemed unlikely, given that in other places both voice and data signal was good, I

Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0