Murach's Java Programming 4th Edition

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:57:00 +0000

I was recently given the opportunity to review Murach's Java Programming 4th Edition. It is part of what fueled my interest in evaluating Java for game programming. I recently finished the book and have written my review. On the whole I was happy with the book and would recommend it for anybody looking to learn Java. My review is below. QuoteI was impressed with Murachs Java Programming 4th edition. It is an excellent source for learning core Java and object-oriented programming with Java, for the beginner programmer and experienced programmer new to Java. It gets you going with Java using examples relevant in the business world. Im always impressed with the format of books from Murach with text on the left and examples relating...

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A Basic Guide To Passwords And Social Engineering

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:45:49 +0000

First off, I shall start off by saying that this guide was inspired by three books: Security in Computing (Charles P. Pfleeger), The Cuckoo's Egg (Cliff Stoll) and Ghost in the Wires (Kevin Mitnick). While these books all explain old methods, they are worth reading and the fundementals of security are still the same today as they were when VMS and the like were common! I think we ought to start from the beginning (although reading this backwards would be a lot more entertaining, ?kniht uoy t'nod), what is a password? Passwords are codes that only the user and the system should know, these codes let the user access the system. Most systems are not for public use, and so they often require different permissions...

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Reputation Awards -- January 2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:06:08 +0000

It's that time again! Here are all the hard working members that earned enough rep in their respective forums last month to receive awards! Let's all congratulate them! C++ r.stiltskin jimblumberg Java pbl VB.NET smohd jimmyBo modi123_1 _HAWK_ PHP Dormilich C# tlhIn`toq Curtis Rutland RexGrammer Industry News Shane Hudson XNA ShadowsEdge19 Javascript Dormilich Atli

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Game Programming Forum Rename

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:48:07 +0000

Hey everyone, Through discussions with forum leaders and mods we have decided to rename the "Game Programming" forum to "Game Development". The main reason for this is to encourage game development topics beyond programming, such as math, design and art along with other topics. Feel free to start discussions or ask for help in any aspect of game development and look forward to some great things on this section of the site in future. Thanks to all of the game development and XNA forum leaders for their ideas and contributions. /smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

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New Mentors

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:44:09 +0000

We have promoted some of our outstanding experts to mentor! These guys have been doing fantastic work around the forums helping out. Give them a round of applause! Congrats everyone and thank you for all your hard work! blackcompe: Java codeprada: PHP/Javascript Kilorn: XNA r.stiltskin: C/C++ GunnerInc: Assembly Karel-Lodewijk: C/C++, Ruby

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Linux: 7 Tips To Enforce Your Server

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:43:56 +0000

After having hosted my customers' websites for a few years and finding out what the vulnerabilities of many servers were, I've decided to share a few techniques on how you can properly secure your Linux box to avoid seeing a message like: Hax0red by t3am ... on your front page. A few hackers experiment the XSS injection technique, but since this is mostly about patching the holes in your PHP scripts, I'm not going to cover this part. By the way, this tutorial was made and tested using a CentOS 6.2 box, but it can be adapted to whatever distribution you have. All right, let's get started. Tip #1: Open only the ports you need and do NOT forget Ipv6 Most of the hackers will try attacking your box through Ipv6...

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How To Receive Command Lines In Your Application!

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:38:02 +0000

Hey Guys, I've noticed that nobody's posted a tutorial in the .NET section on how to receive command lines in a program. This is a relatively simple thing to do, and can yield great results. For those who don't know what command lines are, i'll explain. When you execute a program, you add certain parameters called command lines. If anyone's ever worked with CMD using any command such as "ipconfing /release", "/release" is the command line, and tells the "ipconfig" executable what you want to do with it. In this tutorial, we'll be using command lines in order to start a program minimized. Firstly, open Visual Studio 2010 (or Visual Basic 2010 depending on your installation), and...

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Guess What RAWKs

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:17:00 +0000

I recently ran into a problem where I needed to convert a file from format A to XML. Essentially, take the lovely tidbits in their random format of 'A' and put them nice and neat into a well groomed XML file. I'm not going to lie, I started to do this by hand. After about five records (in a several thousand line file) I uttered an expletive out loud and started to search for a better way to go about this. Lo and behold! Upon my searching did sed and awk then appear! Since I really didn't need to manipulate the stream as is (since the data in format A is consistent) I could write myself a little awk script to do the conversion. I took the next hour to teach myself awk and that's when the magic started to...

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ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH52 First Impressions Review

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:29:00 +0000

ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH52 First Impressions Review Video Review http://vimeo.com/35664064/ The Zenbook is one of the new Intel inspired Ultrabooks. Ive recently received one to review, so Ill be sharing my first impressions in this review. Look for a much more detailed review coming in a few weeks. First, the unboxing. I have to say, I was surprised and pleased when I opened it up. It came with all the adapters I might need (USB to LAN, Mini-DP to VGA), it also came with a very nice-looking sleeve style case. The case is slightly larger than the laptop, so if youre looking for something that fits the computers profile more closely, Id still suggest a neoprene case, but the included case is quite nice, and it looks great....

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It's Been A Long Time Coming...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:15:00 +0000

Hey guys, as many of you know I am a web developer with strengths in CSS and front end development. For the longest time I have wanted a quick swatch library of PNG's at various alpha levels to use within my site. Since CSS3 displayed RGBA with opacity I was excited at using it. Just now, almost 6 years later (according to the blog post date) I still can't use this without the need for backups as only the latest of browsers support this feature. So I created Swatch It to allow for you to have PNG swatches at 25, 50 and 75 percent transparencies. Also, it allows for over lap as the CSS files included also allow you to call the RGBA version for browsers that support it. Download Swatch It from here I hope it's useful, and...

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Reminder: Q&A With The Experts Ends On Friday!

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:35:00 +0000

http://www.dreaminco...th-the-experts/ Get your questions in by Friday.

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A Brief, Incomplete, And Mostly Wrong History Of Programming Languages

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:21:23 +0000

Found this on reddit, thought it was hilarious. Figured I'd share: http://james-iry.blo...tly-wrong.html?

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[c++11] Fun With Functions

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:23:09 +0000

Fun with functions presents a modern, functional programming look on functions within C++/C++11. It shows what is possible with function, how it can be applied and how it ties into the STL library. I've very much tried to explain things by example. This information should give you a broader look on how functions can be used and let you have more fun with them. It is aimed towards intermediate to advanced level programmers, for a basic introduction to functions read http://www.dreaminco...-i-the-basics/. The tutorial will cover the following topics. Function pointers Anonymous/lambda functions Partial function application Higher order functions Higher order functions in the STL Templating our functions ...

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Console Input

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:02:44 +0000

For any console based program, console I/O streams are the only direct means of communication between user and program. Despite being encountered from the very start, there’s something slightly confusing about the different options available when taking user input. For any console input in C++ we will make use of the header <iostream> and will make use of the istream class. For C we use the header <stdio.h>. The >> operator is known as the extraction operator, and its main use is extracting and interpreting console input. For example, if you have an integer variable on the right hand side, this operator will attempt to parse the console input and give the variable a value. This is a really neat way of...

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XNA Starter Kit Challenge One

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:28:07 +0000

Here is a new challenge that the Game Programming and XNA Forum Leaders and team members have been discussing. We are providing a starter kit for the challenge. The catch is that there are errors in the starter kit and they can be developed into a more complete game. The challenge is to take the starter kit, find and fix the errors, and extend the starter kit to include suggested features. The challenges will get progressively harder with more difficult bugs to fix. For this first challenge I have a 2D space shooter, the project is at the bottom of this post. It contains two game states, a start screen and a game play screen. Alien ships fly from the top of the screen to the bottom and shoot bullets at the player. The player can fly...

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INotifiyPropertyChanged Extension Method

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:43:00 +0000

I wrote an extension method that helps with this. Public Interface INotifyPropertyChanged_Extd Inherits INotifyPropertyChanged Sub RaisePropertyChangedEvent(ByVal source As Object, e As PropertyChangedEventArgs) End Interface Public Interface INotifyPropertyChanging_Extd Inherits INotifyPropertyChanged_Extd Sub RaisePropertyChangingEvent(ByVal source As Object, e As PropertyChangingEventArgs) End Interface Imports System.Runtime.CompilerServices Imports System.ComponentModel Imports System.Collections.Generic Public Module Exts <Extension> Public Sub SetProperty(Of T, U As INotifyPropertyChanging_Extd)(ByVal obj As U, [property] As...

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Bulk Event Delegation In JQuery 1.4.2+

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 08:52:03 +0000

Hey there fellow coders! I wanted to take the time to document this because, while it is a simple concept, it took me a while to get the hang of it, and it is extremely powerful and very efficient. Without wasting any time, let's get to it. There is always a need for binding event to elements in jQuery, but for this example, I will illustrate with a grid containing several rows, and several columns. In our grid, we will bind events for mouseover, mouseleave, and click, but you are not limited to these events only. The old way of doing this was to bind to each row in the table, which means if we have an extremely large table, the amount of events we are binding can get quite large.. Wouldn't it be far easier to bind the...

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Setting Up A PHP Web Service To Be Consumed By VB.NET

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:34:13 +0000

The problem - you have a database hosted on your website, but darned it if you can't figure out how to make your VB.NET application connect to it! You cannot connect with a connection string.. you are getting frustrated at the exceptions.. what do you do? Solution: Web services! You can build a small PHP page to connect to your database and provide data to your application! As long as your web service is running your app should be able to find it (assuming it has an internet connection)! If you have never played around with PHP then this will be deep water for you. If you've played with just a bit of PHP then you should be okay. Unfortunately I am not going to go into too much PHP depth. We have plenty...

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What The Experts Want To See, A Resume Reminder

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:22:29 +0000

Welcome to the time of the year when everyone needs to start looking for summer jobs and internships. It is nothing new, however this is the first time we here at </Dream In Code> have put something together to help you make sure your resume is the best that it can be prior to handing it out to potential employers. Feel free to ask questions, look for feedback and see what professionals around the world are looking for in a potential new recruit. Get pointers on resume expectations, what is worth adding and what is simply better kept to yourself. And don't forget to upload your resume to here for all of </DIC> to see. Remember, resumes are all about selling yourself to potential employers. Everything you put on your...

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Protest SOPA And PIPA

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:03:00 +0000

Dear </dream.in.code> community, Being a part of the technological community we know better than anyone else the dangers that SOPA and PIPA pose. So I turn to you, to take a stand and spread the awareness. As many of you know there are already some major sites participating in a blackout tomorrow to protest SOPA and PIPA. Large sites like Wikipedia and Reddit have already committed to a 24 hour black out. However, we need to hit bigger demographics in order to get a response of the masses. That means two things. Facebook and Google. I ask the community to do 3 simple things, including passing the message to keep the spread of this going. Google the phrase "I want Google to blackout to protest SOPA." If enough...

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Filament Games Is Hiring!

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:48:40 +0000

Position Summary: Filament Games is seeking a talented and bright Web Programmer to join its core development team. Qualifications: The Web Programmer must be an excellent communicator, self-reliant, and self-driven. The candidate must have a B.S. or Associates degree in Computer Science or related degree, and have at least three years of professional experience using PHP, Javascript, and SQL. The Web Programmer should have experience developing application logic for large dynamic websites, designing and implementing web service APIs, and designing and implementing robust data architectures. Additionally, the Web Programmer should have experience with ERD/EER diagrams, and have knowledge of Subversion or another SCM...

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A Word About The Reputation System And Our No-Homework Policy

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 03:23:00 +0000

It has recently come to the team's attention that there has been some confusion as to the purpose of the reputation system, as well as the homework policy. We wanted to better clarify the purpose of both the upvotes and downvotes, as well as what types of responses would warrant each of these. Helpful Responses and Upvotes An upvote is intended for helpful posts. Such posts generally have a high pedagogic value to the reader, including future Googlers. Beyond the basics of how to solve the problem, helpful posts often times go the extra mile by explaining not just the "how", but the "why" as well. Helpful posts that warrant an upvote also commonly include links to other relevant and informative links, like...

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How Important Are Pointers In C++

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:10:12 +0000

i am new to programing i have being codeing for about 3 weeks now and i have being working my way thought some tutorial online but one of the things in c++ that i don't get very well is pointers . i mean how impornt are they is it just something that you need to know but don't really use ? or are they used alot ?

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Using Excel And XML Data In VB.NET And SQL Server

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:16:15 +0000

I had a customer come to me the other day and ask if I could put together some data for him. It was only 18 months worth of shipped products so I naturally said "Sure! That won't be too hard. What database is it in?" He replied, "Well, we don't have the data stored in a database...what we have is all of the pallets of product that we have shipped in an Excel file." Now, at this point I got a little scared because that meant that part of the data was in an Excel file, and the other part was in the database. I needed to join them together and make one cohesive report. I don't imagine this is too atypical for a small to medium sized business. Many folks are still stuck in the Excel glory days where...

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Designing A Breadcrumb Navigation W/ DOMXPath

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:44:01 +0000

Designing A Breadcrumb Navigation As defined by Wikipedia: "Breadcrumbs or breadcrumb trail is a navigation aid used in user interfaces. It allows users to keep track of their locations within programs or documents. The term comes from the trail of breadcrumbs left by Hansel and Gretel in the popular fairytale." - Wikipedia Here's a lovely example of what a breadcrumb looks like if you're still not sure. Breadcrumb Navigation In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to design a breadcrumb navigation using DOMXPath, DOMDocument and a XML file. Basically we're going to take advantage of the way paths work in a URL and XML file. Let's say we visit a website and we're at the current...

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