I'm putting this in now, just in case I'm not able to post until after Christmas
The Year In Review
Well, this year hasn't been particularly good for me. Aside from getting a year older, I have had numerous laptops stolen (one set was while I was in Portmerion). What makes it even more annoying is that I wont know what's happening with the insurance until January, as apparently it takes 40 days to get a police report (which they have to pay, I think it was £70) to get.
I have complained, but that hasn't made any difference, so I'll probably complain again soon...
The guinea pig died during October – he was a lovely creature. The main cause was internal problems leading to an inability to eat or drink.
The dog is feeling is age, and has a tendency not to want to go out now. He's got arthritis in his back legs, so spends most of his days sleeping.
The cat has had some front teeth out (one was broken and the others were causing problems), but aside from that, according to the vet, he's very healthy.
The rabbit needs to go to the vet. The stupid animal has a tendency to sit in the rain and let his fur get knotted.
I did manage to get a game completed, but only one – I would have liked to have done more, but I have a tendacy to get bored with them half way through coding, which doesn't help.
At work, my programs have only recently started to be tested, even though they have been written for a couple of years now – most of the main program graphics still haven't been done (they are supposed to be brought in, but nothing has come of it).
One of out customers decided to upgrade to Sage V12, which means my interface program didn't work. And we had left Sage development Support... We (when I say we, I mean I – as I'm the only developer here - are supposed to be re-joining, but again, nothing has happened yet). And you think Mike & Lee are slow – try working here.
Got my Axim 51V – unfortunately the A04 NAND memory upgrade crashes the machine when ActiveSync 4.1 is used to sync files. Plus it does have interface problems. But aside from that it's fine...
My new laptops are working well, although Nero 7 doesn't like my Matshita drive.
And onto the good news :
Well, I did another spiffing convention this year. Thanks to all who turned up. Next one's one will organised by either Lagmaster or Mmemonix – and assuming they do actually organise anything, it should be even better. I hear rumours of Page 3 girls hosting some parts of it...
Hopefully I'll be turning up depending on whether I have enough money to...
Got Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (its a very nice program, but seems to be very hard to buy). Its a shame DarkSDK isn't compatible with it yet, but I have having fun developing for the Axim 51V instead (converted my CMappy to it, and have simple DirectX class up and running). Its also not cheap – the standard version is around £130 on eBay.
Converting code to use the new security enhance functions is easy – should help to increase program stability. VS 2005 also now detects when the size of memory being copied wont fit into the destination location, which is pretty good.
Been playing Age Of Empires 3 a lot, and until recently Need For Speed:Most Wanted (needs time for that one). Aside from those few games, its been rather disappointed for PC games this year – hasn't been anything particularly interesting.
OpenOffice 2.0 came out, and side from a crash in the Powerpoint-like module, it seems pretty stable.
And so, that leads me to list what I'll like to see happen with DarkSDK/DBPro next year :
A) Finish dealing with all the bugs and test properly (when a set of changes has been made, resubmit it for evaluation again).
B) Get DarkSDK compatible with VS 2005
C) Get all TGC written expansion packs up and running
D) Finalise the DBO and DBW format – so exporters wont need to be continually updated
E) Get some more development and testing people in
