Less than two months away from the MPM Stage

I don't think I have commented on it here yet, but since last october I've been taking La Salle BES' online Master in Project Management, or MPM in short. But, what is it for? The programme introduction reads:

The Master in Project Management (MPM) is aimed at professionals whose positions demand coordination skills and who are either presently in charge of project development or will be in the near future.

During the 'stage' in Barcelona —27th June to 5th July— I will be attending the final lectures and seminars of the course. I'll also have some spare time so anybody reading from Barcelona: just drop me a line if you want to meet up =)

AirportMania is out!

AirportMania is out!

Although my involvement in this game –developed by SouthWindsGames for Reflexive– is limited to the development the Mac version (I don't like the term 'port'), it is really a project I'm proud of having worked on.

The game has been designed by Rusell Carroll from Reflexive, and the programming has been the doing of Juan Pablo Ferreyra, a friend with whom I already collaborated on Dylo's Adventure. Some interesting excerpts from the interview with Rusell Caroll on GameTunnel.

Q - So it sounds like Airport Mania had a three person team working on it then?

A - Well the team was a little larger than that. I did the game design and also the level design, South Winds Games had 3 people involved, doing coding, art and Mac porting. Reflexive, who is the financer and owner of the game, also had several people involved doing sound and music (along with lots of interesting suggestions and feedback along the way).

Q - Sounds like a pretty big project then?

A - It was, especially for Juan and I, though we've both worked on games before, neither of us has been involved with something of this scope. Creating the full game, start to finish, ended up taking close to 14 months.

Q - So with it being an easy game with friendly graphics, doesn't that make it a kid's game?

A - You know, I'm always disappointed at that kind of generalization. Airport Mania is really for everyone who is a kid at heart. Unfortunately, I have seen some people turn up their noses at the game's graphics, so I would guess that some people feel it is somehow beneath them. While I did make the game easy, there are a lot of challenges built in to push players of different skill levels.

• Preview of AirportMania at Reflexive.com
• Press release on GamesIndustry.biz
  

I finally jumped in

The new prices of Xbox 360 bundles were too good to pass on them, so I finally bought one. Obviously I don't have many games yet, but I plan on getting Halo 3 and COD4 in th future. Feel free to add me as a friend on Xbox live or leave your gamertags on the comments section : )

Caracol of Duty [WIP]

I'm developing a 2D game with other students as part of a video games course at university. This is a work-in-progress capture of the first thing you see when you start the game:

By the way, 'Caracol' means snail in Spanish. More details in a few weeks.

Do you carry sensitive data on your laptop?

Do you carry sensitive or confidential data on your laptop on a daily basis? Have you ever thought what would happen if you got it robbed?

Despite the obvious loss of the laptop, it's the data loss that matters. Because I usually carry source code and other information that is supposed to be confidential on my laptop, I use Mac OS X's Filevault to keep the contents of my home folder encrypted. In Apple's marketing dept. words:

FileVault secures your home directory by encrypting its entire contents using the Advanced Encryption Standard with 128-bit keys. This high-performance algorithm automatically encrypts and decrypts in real time, so you don’t even know it’s happening.

Although Filevault uses 3DES effective 112bit, AES-128, and RSA-1024, it has some limitations. Firstly, it is vulnerable to dictionary attacks. But you probably are using a 'secure' password, don't you? Secondly, some proof-of-concept Filevault attacks have been developed by hackers, although certain special conditions must be met and it would be very rare for a thief to have enough knowledge to use them on your laptop.

If you want to know more about he internals of Filevault and how good it is from a security standpoint, be sure to check the following resources:

Unlocking Filevault: An analysis of Apple's disk encryption system
http://crypto.nsa.org/vilefault/23C3-VileFault.pdf

Secure Your Mac workshop at METALAB
http://metalab.at/wiki/SYMWorkshop

Using hash_map on GCC

If you have tried to use some STL containers with GCC, such as hash_map:

// error: hash_map: No such file or directory
#include <hash_map>

int main()
{

 // error: ‘hash_map’ is not a member of ‘std’
 std::hash_map<int,int> hm;
 
 return 0;
}

Then you have realized that the code above does not compile. That's because on GCC, hash_map is not regarded as a standard container, but rather as a extension included in the __gnu_cxx namespace. In order to use hash_map and other extended containers with a minimum impact in your code (which is very important if it's intended to be cross-platform), you can use the following solution:

#ifdef __GNUC__
#include <ext/hash_map>
#else
#include <hash_map>
#endif


namespace std
{
 using namespace __gnu_cxx;
}

int main()
{

 std::hash_map<int,int> hm;
 
 return 0;
}

Hope that helps.

It's a great time to buy foreign goods

EUR 1 = USD 1,489

GBP 1 = EUR 1,318

If your currency is Euro, now is the time to buy some stuff on Steam, E-bay, Amazon or Macheist. Shall I recommend:

• SunAge at TotalGaming.net ($29 / 19€)
  
• Dylo's Adventure ($19 / 13€)
  
• Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen Book ($19 / 13€)
• Gish (5$ on Steam for a limited time / 3€)
  

Where's my flat stomach?

Oh, the horror. For the first time in my life, my stomach isn't flat anymore. Damn christmas. However, I am not letting this last too long! This shall be hereby one of my new year's resolution.

How am I going to do it? Well, I used to do some light abdominal and weight-lifting at home for muscle-building. Gotta go back to it to get rid of this small fat belly. But this is not a clear enough goal. What's my goal 'flatness'? How often am I going to train? When will I stop? Should I stop at all?

Oh noes!

Let's set an S.M.A.R.T. goal:

1. Specific – Objectives should specify what they want to achieve -> I want to get my flat stomach back.
   
   
2. Measurable – You should be able to measure whether you are meeting the objectives or not -> Is the curvature of my belly zero?
   
   
3. Achievable - Are the objectives you set, achievable and attainable? -> I hope so. Probably it's not too late.
   
   
4. Realistic – Can you realistically achieve the objectives with the resources you have? -> My resource here is time and determination. Hmmm.. this is a risk, as I am not sure if I have those.
   
   
5. Time – When do you want to achieve the set objectives? -> Before spring comes would be EPIC WIN, after summer would be EPIC FAIL.

So I got an smart goal. However, I detected a risk: I may not have the time or determination to train often. I must do something to mitigate this risk. I know, I'll set a training schedule, this will help me allocate the time I need:

• 45-60 min aerobic, abdominal and light weight-lifting sessions at home, five times a week.

Ok, I can surely find time for that, even during exams. In order to maximize my determination, I will be hearing one episode of the PM Podcast every session, and will never give up until the show is finished. So.. that's it, I could keep narrowing my goal and making my training schedule more specific, but I think that will make it for now.

And rest assured, I won't post any "after and before" pictures ; )

My 'cave' during the last five years

Be warned, this is a sort of a geek story.

This is how my desktop looked like five years ago. I had an Athlon XP 1600+ plugged to a 15" CRT, plus a iron strong neck (if only LCDs had been affordable back then). After many upgrades, that big white box today serves to my father.

I spent the 2005-2006 course in Vienna as exchange student, living in a flat located in Obere Donaustraße. That year, my only companion on the desktop was the tiny 12" PowerBook.


Back in Spain, different flat. This is from the last summer, the very same day I got my iMac. I was importing all the data from the PowerBook via Firewire, with the PC of the first pic still on the bottom-right:


Today my working environment looks like this:

Note: I keep my laptop's AC adapter on the desktop because I usually take it with me everyday. After three years and countless charge cycles, the PowerBook's autonomy has decreased from the original 4 hours to a mere 2 hours. Maybe it's the time to buy a new 'akku'..

BugMeNot widget for Mac OS X

Almost two months after the idea, I'm proud to present my very first Dashboard widget! The BugMeNot widget:

Yes. I know.

There is a bookmarklet for Bugmenot. FireFox has a plugin. Right.

But! For those using Safari, I think this widget is a god-sent, and a better solution than the bookmarklet. From the micro-site:

This widget allows you find logins for webs that force you to register, using the Bugmenot.com database. Check the BugMeNot terms of use for more information about the service.

By default, it displays the URL of the top-most window of Safari, although you can also type in any URL on the search field. The copy buttons do what you’d expect them to do. However, to save you some clicks, every time you request a new account, the username is copied automatically to your clipboard.

If you try to search a URL without a top-level domain(.com, .net, etc.), the widget will automatically append “.com” to it.

What are you waiting for? Visit the BugMeNot widget site and download it!

WipEout for PSP - for free tomorrow at the PSN

If you got a PSP, and register a new PlayStation Network account between the 22nd November and 7 December, you get the original WipEout(PSX port) for free, thus saving 5 euro. In order to transfer the 90MB download to your PSP, you will need to download the Windows-only PSN Downloader available at the PSP European store.

A good move by Sony, despite leaving Mac and Linux users out, once again.

More details

SunAge teaser trailer

At last, the long-awaited teaser trailer for SunAge is online. Although it is short, it manages to show off the new features that make the game stand out from others RTS. You can watch the teaser in Flash, QuickTime, Windows Media or iPod formats clicking on the image:

The teaser has been my last contribution to SunAge, which is expected to hit european shelves at the end of November, and a bit later in USA. Production of the video took me four weekends, and although I got some headaches about technical issues, the biggest problem came from keeping everybody happy about the final cut: team members, the publisher, and me. As always, we had to reach a compromise which is what you can see on the released trailer.

I must also thank team member Angina P. for the awesome soundtrack she provided, and for being the easiest person involved to deal with ;)


Finally, I learned some things about video editing:

- Dual-core processors are a blessing.

- Adobe Premiere is good, but not enough to get all the work done. I had to stick to it, but I was jumping to other applications all the time to get some basic tasks performed, such as putting fade in/outs in audio tracks. The title editor in Premiere also lacks the ability to animate the text parameters, so if you want something as simple as an animated glowing title, you either work your ass off with tricks, or purchase one of the commercial plug-in packs, or get some composition done in After Effects.

- My external Lacie hard-drive USB is slow. Getting a firewire one in the mid-term.

Japanese is on the rise

Picture taken at my local Fnac in Alicante:



Yes, it says 7th edition. And that bookshelf is facing the main corridor. Sehr interessant. Bwahahaha. (· ·)

Radiohead - In Rainbows

When Radiohead left the iTunes Music Store because they didn't like people purchasing individual songs, I thought that was a bad move on their side. I agree that most music should be listened to as whole, but sometimes you really only want a like track and don't care about the others. But that wasn't the whole story. Since Radiohead is one of the still few (big)artists that is not tied to an specific record label, they are now trying to skip the middle-man and reach the fans' pockets directly. Now that's interesting.

They recently made their new album "In Rainbows" available in exclusivity through their website, in a DRM-free MP3 format(only 160kpbs though). But the shocking thing is that they are asking customers to pay whatever they feel for the album. That's right. You can either pay 1 euro or 10, or even 50 cents. This way, the final customer says how much value is the music to him.

So I paid 1 pound and I am now listening to the album... so far it sounds more of the same, which is not that bad if you like Radiohead music : ) . After all, it's the kind of music that fits those moments before you go to bed at night.

I expect more artists to follow this trend in the future, but I still think iTMS is a good marketplace, and much easier to buy music from than the Radiohead site.

Jam Sessions

I've been playing around with Jam Sessions for the Nintendo DS. I was firstly disappointed by its 'game' mode. Putting that aside, Jam Sessions is a truly amazing guitar simulator. Not only succeeds on (somehow)feeling like a guitar, but it also lets you apply FX such as reverb, chorus, tremolo, flanger and echo. Only two effects can be stacked simultaneously though.

However, the real power of this game/guitar simulator can only be exploited when plugged into a computer. As if it was a real guitar connected to an amp, Apple's GarageBand can transform the input waveform into more interesting sounds and rythms.

A week ago, with little previous knowledge of GarageBand and after 3-4 hours I was able to produce this low-quality piece:

W00t.mp3

Four tracks use the guitar-sim as input(e.g. the first thing you hear), then I added a drum-kit and bass rhythm from the app library. For the distortion thing in 40-50 I used an Audacity-edited sample of a distorted guitar chord.


The bottom line is, I had a lot of fun composing this, and I'd like to spend another afternoon with GarageBand and JamSessions soon.