Sunday, February 06, 2005 - Posts

GAMES: Half-Life 2 & Counter-Strike Source Updates

I was playing CS:Source today with a friend (Not a fan of steam i have to admit, sure i bought the game - collectors edition -  but having to authenticate is bull-poo grrrr..) and came across this news item:

First, we'll be releasing an update to Half-Life 2: Deathmatch that will include the Slam, Stunstick, and the Crowbar. We're not ready to release the contest winning maps just yet, but we will be releasing a new map we've built at Valve to tide people over while we sort out the contest winners. There will also be a release to Counter-Strike: Source around the same time that will address a few minor issues.

One feature that we'll be adding to the Source engine in the coming months is high dynamic range lighting. To showcase this we've taken a part of the Highway 17 chapter of Half-Life 2 and worked it into a single level that incorporates HDR along with some new gameplay. We're calling this short level "The Lost Coast," and it will be made available free of charge to Half-Life 2 customers that meet a specific set of high end hardware requirements. We'll be publishing those requirements soon.

The update will work well with hte newer generation of DirectX 9 powered cards. Some screenshots of early development sketches:

 Screenshot: Image 1 Screenshot: Image 2 Screenshot: Image 3 Screenshot: Image 4

posted Sunday, February 06, 2005 7:22 PM by wsoftware with 0 Comments

Longhorn First Look :: IIS v7.0

Well it only seems just recently we adopted IIS 6.0 (2003) but Microsoft are hard at work on the next major release of IIS, known as IIS 7.0. As we are gearing up for Longhorn's release in sometime around 2006 (maybe 2007) its good time to consider what the future holds for web developers in terms of IIS.

One of the biggest features(or enhancements) they've done with IIS 7 is to componentise(is that a word?) the entire product. This means, if you dont use a feature, you disable it. So if a bugfix/patch comes around you wont necessarily need to update it unless its enabled. With this enhancement Microsoft have made the API for writing IIS addons public making a whole third-party product line possible.

Learn more about the changes in IIS7 in this article. Beta testing will start sometime this year (mid-to-end).

posted Sunday, February 06, 2005 7:16 PM by wsoftware with 0 Comments

.NET Compact Framework and writing Mobile Applications

While I've never publicly disclosed information about what I'm working on (apart from the usual folks that hear it) we've been working with .NET quite a bit the past 4 years. From the initial beta to the latest Whidbey, primarily for private projects for clients (not commercial software). One area I have had limited exposure to was the .NET Compact Framework.

A recent project for a client needed me to write a custom patient management application - your standard patient management system with appointments etc - with an added focus on being able to check the appointments via a smart device like a PDA's and mobiles that the doctors use (around 80 doctors). While the initial application was written purely in .NET 1.1, there was no way to be able to rewrite most of the code again in say Embedded VC++/VB for the PDAs. The solution? Write it in .NET Compact Framework!

The .NET Compact Framework opens up your development environment to deploy to mobile devices like PDA's, mobiles and to a certain degree setup boxes. If anyone's interested - and has a keen interest - in writing for .NETCF then take a look at these sites, a small collection but a wealth of knowledge:

Whidbey will allow a deeper integration with the mobile toolkit and I've promised our client an upgrade to .NET 2.0 once its final is released (approximately August now)...

posted Sunday, February 06, 2005 4:33 PM by wsoftware with 0 Comments