Just got a new computer the other day (info coming soon) and only had a disk for Vista x64 RTM on hand. I loaded that on and attempted to use Windows Update to move to SP1 when I was presented with the error: 8024420C. Now I have had this error before on a previous system, however I forgot how I solved it, although I thought it was solved by downloading the offline install of SP1 and running that.

So I did that, and upon booting into SP1, found the error was still there. Much searching later I found that the error has to do with proxy settings, with suggestions like ensuring “Automatically Detect Configuration” is on in the LAN settings on Internet Options, amongst other things.

The issue here: I am not on a proxy. So after much effort searching (to no avail) I did what I usually do – suspect the firewall.

Turning off Windows Firewall gave me an immediate response, my updates now worked! Turning the firewall back on gave me the error again, and so I realised that Windows Firewall was the sole culprit here.

Morale of the story? I guess there is none, thankfully I have a NAT to protect me, and hopefully Windows 7 doesn’t have this issue.

On that note, word is that Windows 7 will enter full public beta early Jan, open to all, so if you are daring (or have a VM), give it a try, and give feedback!

The game enjoyed an ‘early’ release in Australia, I picked it up last week and had loads of fun! For those who do not know, Spore is the latest game from the genius game designer that is Will Wright. Here he has taken his Sim style of games, where you create more than you destroy, and expanded it more than ever.

Now you can create life from the cellular stage, modifying your creature through some really intuitive and powerful tools before you get to the tribal stage where the game turns into a little version of Populous. (Also created by a game design genius, in this case, Peter Molyneux)

The game is lot of fun and I would recommend it to everyone, however I do have some issues with the DRM the game uses to fight piracy. Electronic Arts decided to use Securom to ‘protect’ the game after a large amount of backlash came from their idea to have people activate every 10 days. Now the game activates upon installation, however there are a limited number of activations possible before you have to contact customer support to reset your counter. In my opinion this does more to hurt the legitimate consumer than it does the pirates, as the scheme has already been cracked.

Those issues aside, the game runs great and is lots of fun. On the technical side the game makes heavy use of procedural generation, for textures, models, music and animations. The use of procedural generation allows people to share their creations using a small file that weighs in at less than 100kb. (In most cases 20-30kb)

Maxis have also developed an innovative way of sharing the content. Inside your ‘My Documents\My Spore Creations’ folder, you will fine png files that are 128x128 and contain an image of the creation. This is actually all the data the game needs to generate the creature/ship/vehicle etc. To share this, you simply give the png to others and they put it in their folder, and it is ready for use. The bonus of this is that because it also contains the thumbnail, you can easily create a small gallery for people to browse.

Pretty cool. Wordle generates word clouds from text provided, or RSS feeds. This one for example came from my blog homepage.

It is free, just visit http://wordle.net/ to make one of your own. They use a Java applet to generate the image, and you can customise many aspects of it.

Not much has been heard on the Spore front recently, in comparison to two years ago. However today saw the release of the Spore Creature Creator Demo. Spore is the latest game from design genius Will Wright of SimCity and Sims fame. Taking the “Creation” gameplay idea to a whole new level by letting you create your own species and leading them from the cellular stage through evolution until they advance themselves to space travel.

The key element of the game that is being promoted by Will Wright and team, is the procedural content generation technology inside the game. To be able to create any kind of species you like, with practically any look, they let you do the art creation yourself through an easy tool, and generate the rest, like animations on the fly.

This tool, a simple modelling tool for your species, vehicles and buildings is what has been released early for fans to play around in. A demo of the Spore Creature Creator, featuring a subset of the “parts” available in the full game is now available to download from most game file sites on the Internet.

The editor is extremely simple to use, and does not need a tutorial or manual to start using. Some of the more advanced features are prompted by an unobtrusive text popup at the top of the screen, making it easy to jump into.

I did however find that creature textures were generated every time you switched from “Test Drive” mode to the editor and back. Which introduces a noticeable period of “lo-res” texturing on your creature. I feel that caching would have been a simple and effective option here, since if no changes are made during an editing phase, there is no need to regenerate the texture.

Aside from that, the editor was pretty easy and fun to use, and this is a good taste of a key element of the full game coming in September.

Go ahead and download the demo today, it weighs in at 205mb and runs pretty well on a decent system.

GameArena Download Link

or from the Official Spore Website (Mac version available there as well)

  I was alerted to the fact that at the time of writing, Youtube has ALL of it's featured videos pointing to the ever famous Rickroll.

They look like normal videos, except they all point to the same video: Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, aka the Rickroll.

Beware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_moia-oVI (the link the videos point to)

is one of them, note that the link is underlined to show its being hovered over (that's how Youtube does it)

and note the url in the next one:

Found this whilst trawling the RSS feeds. Pretty funny, a good take on what 24 would have been like if it had been pitched in 1994.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1788161

Some great references in there. He really wouldn't survive without modern technology.

So tomorrow begins my first year of university at UTS studying for a Bachelor of Engineering in ICTE Software. (Pretty much Software Engineering)

Should be enjoyable, and should also provide some inspiration so I can get started programming again. Been relaxing too much these holidays.

Big news out of GDC, as most already know. XNA Community Games is finally here, and a general timeframe for XNA 3.0 :) Sad that Australia doesn't get the game preview that is currently running. :(

I am in the process of working on a small game, but still in the tech planning stages, I want this engine to be useful for later projects and maybe even samples or demos.

Dreamspark is also something big that occured which is good for me. Being a student, I can get access to this once it is prepared for Australia. Some great resources in there for students, all for FREE! XD

I need to update more... :S