February 16, 2009
Posted by bullsworld2007 under Uncategorized | Tags: blog moved, Bull's Rambles, bullsworld.net, new address, site moved, update your links |
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February 1, 2009
Release builds now work and here is 1.4.1 alpha
Posted by bullsworld2007 under Uncategorized | Tags: 1.4.1 alpha, NASA, nasa World wind, World wind, worldwind |1 Comment
I finally got the release build working in SVN with a lot of help from James_in_Utah, just checkout from SVN, run a debug build, then run a release build and it should work fine.
I also mashed together an alpha of 1.4.1, this isn’t final, although any core changes are highly unlikely, also NASA had nothing to do with this build so don’t hold them responsible if your hard drive gets wiped.
http://sydney.freeearthfoundation.com/dsbaker/World_Wind_1.4.1.alpha_Full.exe
You use this at your own risk, I cannot be held responsible for any damage caused
This is an x86 build and works fine for me in XP and Windows 7 beta, it has also been installed successfully on Vista pro SP1.
January 22, 2009
Well not much progress today, installed the PC software, had a few problems getting the phone to connect, a combination of my firewall ang usb port, after getting it working I downloaded the UK map pack, it only downloads the 2D versions though, no aerial imagery. This is a bit annoying as no matter what I try I can’t get the phone to connect to the internet, I think the problem is vodafone, maybe because I’m using prepay and my credit is low, and then typically the battery went flat, so I need to find a 3-pin to 2-pin adapter.
January 22, 2009
Notes to self (and anybody else who is interested) on building Eord Wind in release mode.
Posted by bullsworld2007 under Uncategorized | Tags: Bull, NASA, problems, release build, World wind |Leave a Comment
As most World Wind developers know getting it to build in release mode doesn’t ‘just work’, I think I have managed to get it to work again tonight, so here are the steps so I don’t forget.
1 – Check the Microsoft.DirectX References in all projects, if the version is 2.0.0.0 delete it then add a new reference for Microsoft.DirectX version 1.0.2902.0.
2 – Build in debug mode.
3 – Create a directory in bin\ named Release and copy everything from bin\Debug to the bin\Release folder.
4 – Open the properties for the RSS.NET project, select signing, tick ‘Sign the assembly’ and make a strong name key file, don’t use a password.
5 – Select release mode and hit build.
This worked for me on a clean checkout from SVN, if it doesn’t work for you ask a real dev not me!
January 22, 2009
Nokia 6210 with Nokia Maps 3.0
Posted by bullsworld2007 under Uncategorized | Tags: 6210, GPS, mobile phone, Nokia, Nokia Maps 3.0, WOM World |Leave a Comment
Got my trial phone today, after being asked by WOM World if I would like to test out Nokia Maps 3.0, I haven’t had chance to fully test it as it’s horrible outside, so these are just my first impressions.
The phone itself is a Nokia 6210 Navigator, it comes in a cool looking box with the ‘blue marble’ on it, I’ll post images soon, the phone is nice and light, installing the battery and SIM was simple, which was lucky as neither manual in the box is English, also no 3 pin plug, just two 2 pin Euro style chargers. Also in the box is a Bluetooth earpiece, some headphones and a usb lead.
The navigation panel is simple to use, and feels nice, the slide out keypad isn’t so good, I have trouble pressing the top row as the bulk of the phone is in the way, also the shiny keys look nice but my fingers tend to slide off them.
The menu layout looks very nice and is easy to use, it’s also not too ’simplistic’ like on some phones, the geek side of me hates systems which are too dumbed down. The video playback quality is extremely good, it uses Realplayer (eww, but it works well on a mobile), the sound quality is also pretty good, better than most laptops, using the inbuilt speaker that is, I haven’t tried the headphones.
The Map feature looks pretty good from what I could see, which isn’t too much as I can’t get a GPS signal indoors and the web connection doesn’t connect, the latter is probably my fault as I just shoved in a spare SIM I had and no doubt need to get the settings sent from Vodafone, also it is a pay-as-you-go SIM so no 3G, I wonder if I can get it to connect via Wi-Fi hmmm…
I’ll have a better play tomorrow and also upload some photos, signng out for now, and going to attempt getting World Wind to do a release build yet again.
January 16, 2009
World Wind and Windows 7
Posted by bullsworld2007 under Uncategorized | Tags: compatibility, NASA, Windows 7, World wind, worldwind |[3] Comments
Well I just installed World Wind 1.4 onto Windows 7 beta and everything went amazingly easily, I wasn’t asked to update DirectX, or install either Managed DirectX or .Net, great ! After installation all I had to do was right click the desktop shortcut and select ‘run as administrator’ and World Wind popped up in all it’s glory, no connection problems, graphics glitches or anything, colour me impressed.
World Wind 1.4 running in Windows 7
Also I love the on-screen keyboard in Windows 7, the predictive text makes things go so much faster, I’ve also noticed that it uses no more memory or CPU resources than my default XP install, I think I’m becoming a Windows 7 fanboy, arghh……..
January 11, 2009
Windows 7
Posted by bullsworld2007 under Uncategorized | Tags: first impressions, Marvell Yukon problem, rubbish magnifier, Windows 7 |Leave a Comment
First thoughts
Meh.
Ok Multiboot install was easy, no need to use cursor arrows on an ugly text based screen, just a simple GUI with mouse support, also nice is the ability to use an on screen keyboard and magnifier. Not so good is the time it takes to expand files, it stayed on 0% so long I was tempted to reboot, maybe a larger iso with less file compression would be better, the other part that took a while was completing installation, there isn’t even a progress indicator for this which I found very frustrating. On the plus side it saw my RAID and didn’t BSOD like XP.
After finally booting into Windows 7 you just think VISTA, I dislike the magnifier and would like a ‘classic’ option so I can just attach it to the top of the screen like in XP, also my Marvell network adapter was not installed so I am going to have to download the Vista 64 bit drivers under XP then install them manually.
All in all my first try was ok, it will take a while of playing around to decide whether it is really any good or not, so far I’m thinking it could really just be a Vista service pack renamed by Microsoft’s spin department to get people like me to forget the crappiness of Vista and finally upgrade from XP, more updates will follow after I get the network working and try installing World Wind.
January 10, 2009
General updates
Posted by bullsworld2007 under Uncategorized | Tags: NASA, Trojan, virtualmonde, virtualmondo, vundo, Windows 7, World wind, WorlWind |1 Comment
First off I’m downloading Windows 7 Beta, so I may kill my PC, if I vanish you know why, you can get it from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/ I had a bit of trouble getting it to download, I ended up having to use IE to view the download pages source, then paste the url beginning http://wb.dlservice.microsoft.com/download….. into Firefox, so far it’s downloading fast, 1.72 MB/s 
I had problems compiling World Wind, which is one of the reasons there is no beta yet, it turns out Visual Studio was inserting extra references to DirectX which needed to be deleted one by one, fun.
Another reason for the delay is the Vundo/Virtumonde/Virtumondo trojan, it’s supposed to not do any damage, but for me it made explorer crash after boot up, I had to use task manager to run any apps. Fixing Vundo is a PITA, if you get it just reinstalling Windows is by far the easiest fix, I managed to kill it by running Spybot S & D, Spyware Doctor, Bitdefender, VundoFix, manually removing registry entries, booting to UBCD4WIN on a usb stck and deleting the random dll’s and ini’s it puts in \system32 and copying explorer.exe, winlogon and iexplorer from a clean PC to mine. It put up a damn good fight and took me two days solid to eradicate, but I won!
The other delay was of course Christmas (bah humbg), talking of which Mya says belated Seasons Greetings
Mya
And so does Chesney,
Chesney
That’s all for now, time to burn Windows 7.
November 30, 2008
Tim van den Hamer aka ShockFire
Posted by bullsworld2007 under Uncategorized | Tags: loss, nasa World wind, R.I.P., ShockFire, Tim van den Hamer, worldwind |Leave a Comment
I have been putting off making this post as I cannot think of appropriate words to sum up all Tim meant to this project, and more personally to myself.
If you have not already heard ShockFire, a long term member of the World Wind Open Source community, has passed away, I will not go into the details here you can find that information on his wiki page here.
Tim was one of the founding members of the WW community and contributed a great deal to the project. Most of you who met him virtually will probably be surprised to learn that he was only 21, his wit and maturity, in both conversation and coding style, would make most believe he was much older, and you would probably also be surprised to find his first language was not English but Dutch.
I have known Tim since I first joined the community and worked with him on most of his projects, mainly as a tester and adviser (with the odd line of code allowed when he got bored). Working so closely and chatting so much we had become good friends, and I feel great loss at his passing, I wish we could have met in ‘real life’ but I am pleased and honoured to have known him ‘virtually’, and to be honest I don’t believe that not meeting him in person made our friendship any less real.
If anyone would like to give a message to his family the website http://vdhamer.com/Tim/ is now working correctly, or if you would like to leave something longer you can edit the wiki page, but be sure to read his Fathers wishes on the discussion page first.
A poem by Tim’s younger Sister -
Dag lieve Tim.
Te snel voorbij de vele dromen,
oneerlijk is het lot dat nu is gekomen.
Ergens tussen zon en maan,
zul jij doorgaan met leven.
Je hebt je strijd dapper gestreden,
zo moedig heb je het aanvaard,
helaas tevergeefs.
Rust nu maar in vrede.
English translation kindly provided by Roel -
Bye sweet Tim,
they’re too quickly over – the many dreams,
unfair is the destiny that now has come
Somewhere between sun and moon,
you will continue living.
You fought your battle bravely,
and as bravely you accepted it,
unfortunately futile.
Rest in peace.
The funeral Service will be held on Monday at 2:30 PM -
aula van crematorium Heeze,
Somerenseweg 120
te Heeze.
November 5, 2008
Well it looks like Obama is the new president of the US, hopefully this is a good sign for the future, and a pretty nice concession speech by John McCain.
I’m off to bed, good work Americans.
