Mark Schmidt's Abode

Embedding a ScreenSaver in a Windows Form

Mark Schmidt — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:39:11 GMT

I just posted the source code to render a screensaver within a Windows Form using a custom UserControl on my MSDN blog.

Embedding Screensaver's in a Windows Form

Windows Live SharedView

Mark Schmidt — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:25:09 GMT

This cool app is like other shared workspace applications but seems much easier to use. Supposed to work even if behind a firewall, so it would be interesting to try it out when I get the inevitable "Can you fix my 'puter" question from a family member.

http://get.live.com/betas/sharedview_betas

Good Luck at State Skyline Spartans!

Mark Schmidt — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:49:26 GMT

My son's high school (and eventually other 3 kids' high school) is playing in the AAA state football championship game at the Tacoma Dome tonight. I wish them the best of luck. Unfortunately, I can't make it due to other commitments. When I moved up to this area, the Spartans won the AAAA state championship and moved back down to AAA after that. Last year they didn't fare as well but they're back up and running. I coached in the Skyline Spartan youth football program and really feel they're doing the right thing and it shows since this is the 2nd time in the 3 years that I've been here that the high school is playing the championship game.

Tonight's game is a little more exciting for me for one single reason...REVENGE! Let me take you back to 1990 when I was a Junior in high school. I attended Prairie High School (AAA at the time) in Brush Prairie, WA. I was the starting right guard (only junior that started on offense) and we made it to the playoffs. The first round, after having basically been written off by everyone was exciting as we beat a team that was supposed to be the top dog. We then had to travel up north to that field that's right next to the space needle (can't remember the name). Here's the connection, the team we played was O'Dea, the same team that Skyline is playing tonight. I am one that usually accepts a loss as a loss and never complain about the officiating (well, there was that Seahawk Super Bowl thing a little while ago, but that's not the point). It was 4th quarter and we were ahead by I believe 1 point. O'Dea had the ball and the clock was almost out. With the clock winding down, they made a good play to get them in field goal range. The kicker was that they were all out of timeouts and there was only seconds on the clock which means we were about to come away with a victory since it would have been a miracle for them to set up and hike the ball to kick the field goal. So, Murphy's law kicks in and the officials...STOPPED THE CLOCK! Keep in mind, O'Dea didn't have any timeouts left and there was only like 3 seconds left in the game. They stopped the clock allowing O'Dea to setup for the field goal. The officials started the clock, O'Dea hiked the ball and made the field goal to run away with the victory. We were absolutely devastated and frankly we were robbed. We ended up taking 7th in state that year.

Fast forward to 1991 when I entered college as a freshman. As if God was looking down at me to test my adversity, one of my college roommates (I lived in a 4 person dorm) was from O'Dea. He remembered the game and also agreed it was a fluke. Oh well. Tonight will be sweet revenge

Mark Schmidt's Abode : C# WebCam User Control Source

Mark Schmidt — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:31:24 GMT

Want to learn how to control your webcam using .NET? I just posted the source code for everyone to look at. Click on the link below for more details.

C# WebCam User Control Source

.NET Sidebar Gadget Creator Tutorial 1

Mark Schmidt — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 19:22:40 GMT

The first tutorial covering some of the history of the .NET Sidebar Gadget Creator as well as issues creating .NET based Vista Sidebar gadgets has been posted. View the full post on my MSDN blog:

.NET Sidebar Gadget Creator Tutorial 1

Announcing the WebCam Vista Sidebar Gadget

Mark Schmidt — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:05:23 GMT

I just created a WebCam Vista Sidebar Gadget. Read more about it here: Announcing the WebCam Vista Sidebar Gadget

Here's a screenshot:

Please note that this has only been tested locally on my machine using a LifeCam VX-6000. Your webcam may or may not work. If it does, let me know. If it doesn't...I guess let me know that too :-)

Creating a .NET Sidebar Gadget - The Easy Way

Mark Schmidt — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:49:04 GMT

Take a look at my recent MSDN blog post to see how you can get around the common issues related to .NET development of Vista Sidebar gadgets. Don't want to write registry access code in javascript? Can't figure out how to uninstall your .NET based gadget? Read on...

http://blogs.msdn.com/markhsch/archive/2007/07/17/creating-net-sidebar-gadgets-the-easy-way.aspx

My Vista ScreenSaver Sidebar Gadget

Mark Schmidt — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:22:00 GMT

For some reason, I'm drawn to creating things that are just cool while not altogether useful (see my Animated Activity Designer post, though one could argue that it may in fact be useful). To that end, I decided to create a Vista Sidebar gadget that displays a screen saver of your choosing. Vista has some good screen savers that it shipped with and I've embedded screen savers before (in fact, I show how to do it in one of my books).

So go ahead and grab it from the Windows Live Gallery (link below). If enough people clamor and beg, I will post the source code. Here's a quick rundown of what I did:

1. Create a .NET User Control
2. Embed a screen saver in the user control whenever the ScreenSaverPath property is set (and the control is visible)
3. Create the HTML page for the sidebar (sidebar controls use Javascript and HTML in case you didn't know already)
4. Embed the UserControl in the HTML page (using COM interop naturally)
5. Create a settings page that also uses COM Interop. The settings page calls a .NET component that I wrote that simply returns a collection of screen saver paths on the local system.
6. Create the installation in Javascript. I had to get some help for this one. Basically, I do what regasm does by using the WSHShell object to set registry entries. I found some code on the Internet to help.

Here's a screenshot of it in action using the Ribbons screensaver:

Here's the link:

Screen Saver Vista Sidebar Gadget

My Game Developer's Choice Awards Picks

Mark Schmidt — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 14:45:00 GMT

The Game Developer's Choice Awards are over and the winners have been crowned. I for one am quite surprised. I've owned most of the games that were up for nomination. I totally disagree with the game of the year. Oh well, to each his own. Here are my picks (red is my winner for that category and blue is the actual GDC winner):

Best Game

Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Katsuya Eguchi, Hisashi Nogami, Takashi Tezuka, Kazumi Totaka

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- David Jaffe, Shannon Studstill

Guitar Hero (Harmonix Music Systems/RedOctane)
- Rob Kay, Greg LoPiccolo, Alex Rigopulos

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Kenji Kaido, Yasuhide Kobayashi, Fumito Ueda

The Movies (Lionhead Studios/Activision)
- Gary Carr, Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley

Ok, I like Shadow of the Colossus. It's an innovative game and just cool all around. Game of the year though? Not even close in my opinion. God of War just excels in so many areas that it should have been a clear winner. I couldn't put it down and finished the game all the way through. The thing is, I really don't like platformer games (of which God of War is) but God of War just had that certain appeal. Maybe it was the Greek mythology storyline, maybe it was the cool moves that Kratos pulls off, maybe it was the awesome visuals...who am I kidding, it was the gore! Just kidding.
Best Audio

Call of Duty 2 (Infinity Ward/Activision)
- Mark Ganus

Electroplankton (Nintendo)
- Toshio Iwai, Koichi Kyuma, Yuichi Ozaki

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- Dave Murrant

Guitar Hero (Harmonix Music Systems/RedOctane)
- Eric Brosius, Kasson Crooker

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Bizarre Creations/Microsoft Game Studios)
- Nick Bygrave, Guy Whitmore, Nick Wiswell

Hmm, maybe I need a color for choices that I agree with. Guitar Hero is such a cool game whether playing by yourself or with a group of friends. It comes with a cool guitar and the soundtrack is all new and classic rock songs that everyone knows. Nothing like jamming to some Black Sabbath or some Helmet. I agree with GDC, Guitar Hero is by far best audio and since Guitar Hero 2 was recently announced, I'm even more excited.

Character Design

City of Villains (Cryptic Studios/NCsoft Corporation)
- Ocala Bellows Kulig, Ryan Butts, Jay Doherty, Jeremy Mattson

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- David Jaffe, Terry Smith, Charlie Wen

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (Oddworld Inhabitants/Electronic Arts)
- Lorne Lanning, Rich McKain, Iain Morton, Raymond Swanland

Psychonauts (Double Fine Productions/Majesco Entertainment Company)
- Scott Campbell

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Atsuko Fukuyama, Hitoshi Niwa, Shunpei Suzuki, Fumito Ueda

Ok, I can kind of see why this one is close. The collosi are just plain cool and quite a site to behold when you finally meet one. However, they all seem...I don't know...too similar. God of War in my opinion has some seriously cool character designs based off of Greek mythology. Just take a look at the “Making of“ extras included with the game. They even allow you to walk around a museum that includes character designs that didn't make it into the game. They put a lot of thought into making their characters look just right and it shows.

Game Design

Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Katsuya Eguchi, Hisashi Nogami, Takashi Tezuka, Kazumi Totaka

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- David Jaffe

Nintendogs (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Tsutomu Kaneshige, Hideki Konno, Shigeru Miyamoto, Kiyoshi Mizuki

Psychonauts (Double Fine Productions/Majesco Entertainment Company)
- Erik Robson, Tim Schafer

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Junichi Hosono, Fumito Ueda

Ok, I'll give Shadow of the Colossus some props on this one. The game is definately unique and just shows that you don't have to keep making the same type of game over and over again. The reason I didn't give this one to God of War is that it is similar to other games in its genre (see also Prince of Persia). The reason I say this category is close is that beyond hunting the colossi and defeating them, there is nothing else to Shadow of the Colussus. That's all you do. Hopefully a new version will take it to the next level (hint...maybe add some RPG elements and random smaller mobs to defeat along the path to the colossi).

Best Technology

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Digital Illusions/Electronic Arts)
- Fred Gill, Måns Vestin

Guitar Hero (Harmonix Music Systems/RedOctane)
- Eran Egozy, Eric Malafeew, Phil Winston

Nintendogs (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Tsutomu Kaneshige

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Bizarre Creations/Microsoft Game Studios)
- Edmund Clay, Roger Perkins, Phil Teschner, Ian Wilson

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Jinji Horagai, Takuya Seki, Hajime Sugiyama, Masanobu Tanaka

I didn't actually play Nintendogs, but my son did and I watched him on several occasions. If I had the option of not choosing a winner, this category would not have a winner. Sure the little doggies are cute and all and somewhat lifelike, but it still reminds me of that old PC game called Dogz. Is Nintendogs innovative? I don't think so, but it is the most innovative out of all of the other titles. Let me see, let me think of a game that I would put up there instead that isn't on this list....I wonder if Fable was eligible for the awards?

Best Visual Arts

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- Steve Caterson, Terry Smith, Charlie Wen

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Bizarre Creations/Microsoft Game Studios)
- Gren Atherton, Julie McGurren, Peter Roe, Kiki Wolfkill

Resident Evil 4 (Capcom Production Studio 4/Capcom Entertainment)
- Yusuke Hashimoto, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, Yusuke Kan, Masaki Yamanaka

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Koji Hasegawa, Hironobu Nakano, Masanori Kajita, Fumito Ueda

We Love Katamari (Namco Limited/Namco Hometek)
- Keita Takahashi, Takeshi Ugajin

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! God of War all the way in this category! Did they choose Shadow of the Colossus due to the lumbering giants? Well, God of War did have a huge Ares (or Mars if you prefer) reigning fireballs on the helpless citizens of Sparta and that huge giant thing carrying Pandora's box. God of War was just beautiful all around. I definately disagree with this category.

Best Writing

Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich (Irrational Games/Vivendi Universal Games)
- Ken Levine

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- David Jaffe, Marianne Krawcyzk, Alex Stein

Indigo Prophecy (Quantic Dream/Atari)
- David Cage

Jade Empire (BioWare Corp./Microsoft Game Studios)
- Drew Karpyshyn, Brian Kindregan, Luke Kristjanson, Mike Laidlaw, Peter Thomas, Mac Walters

Psychonauts (Double Fine Productions/Majesco Entertainment Company)
- Tim Schafer, Erik Wolpaw

Ok, I will admit that I never played Psychonauts. Maybe it was better. But Greek mythology is just cool all around so I tip my hat to God of War on this one.

Best New Studio

ArenaNet (Guild Wars)
- Mike O'Brien, Jeff Strain, Patrick Wyatt

Double Fine Productions (Psychonauts)
- Caroline Esmurdoc, Tim Schafer

New Crayon Games (Bonnie's Bookstore)
- Phil Steinmeyer

TellTale Games (Bone: Out From Boneville)
- David Bogan, Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors, Troy Molander

Wideload Games (Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse)
- Alexander Seropian

This was a hard category for me as well. From a purely market penetration perspective, ArenaNet in my opinion takes the cake on this one. Guild Wars has a huge following and it almost put the standard MMORPG on its head. Plus, I think ArenaNet did more than just Guild Wars (or am I thinking of the publisher of Guild Wars?) Who knows.

Innovation Award

Nintendogs (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Tsutomu Kaneshige

Guitar Hero (Harmonix Music Systems/RedOctane)
- Eric Brosius, Kasson Crooker

Tough one. Ok, what's the difference between “Best Innovation” and “Best Technology”. Seem similar to me. I'm picking Guitar Hero. They did a good job of making it feel like you're actually playing a guitar. Miss a note and the song actually stops playing the guitar track (and you here a “twang”). Take a look at the drummer in the background. He's actually playing on the beat to make it look real. The singer, his mouth moves with the actual vocals. So, the puppies poop in Nintendogs. Innovative? Nah, I can do that too.

The gates have opened!

Mark Schmidt — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:39:00 GMT

The gates of Oblivion have finally opened. 'Tis a good day in the land.

My new toy

Mark Schmidt — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 18:33:00 GMT

My new toy. Just finished the paint job last night (though it needs some touch up)

View the spec's here: http://www.helimax-rc.com/helis/hmxe0205.html.

Mod your Nano to hold 200 Gb of data

Mark Schmidt — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 15:40:00 GMT

This is just too funny. Some people have way too much time on their hands.

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Ipod_Nano_200gb_Instructions/Page_1

Here's the result:

Geek enough to figure this interview question out?

Mark Schmidt — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:01:00 GMT

For the programming savy, head on over to my MSDN blog to see if you can solve this interview question I created: http://blogs.msdn.com/markhsch/archive/2005/09/22/473015.aspx

Ask me about Windows Workflow Foundation

Mark Schmidt — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 14:05:00 GMT

For more information, check out my MSDN blog post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/markhsch/archive/2005/09/14/466209.aspx

Games on Demand from Verizon?

Mark Schmidt — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 18:48:00 GMT

Well, Verizon realizes how big the gaming industry is and it has jumped in. Surprisingly, I think it'll make quite the splash. They just launched their Games-On-Demand service and for $14.95/mo you can play full version PC games. I was thinking they'd list old games that never made it far (and there are some of those) but there are actually some really nice games on the list. I've found quite a few that I've played or have always wanted to play.

Check it out here: http://verizon.exent.com/gamesondemand