ok, so after breaking the cardinal rule of installing a firmware update within 24 hours of showtime, my holiday controllers stopped responding.

the firmware was corrupted and only 3 of the 8 controllers wanted to talk to the network.

"Houston, we have a problem."

Unfortunately the only fix is an overnighted delivery that, as it works out, will not be recieved until later this week.

Needless to say, the animated home light show did not play the last 4 days of the holiday.

-ouch

in an attempt to salvage any dignity from the frequent inquiries of visitors, I deconstructed the display yesterday and decided to, as they say, "leave them wanting more"

I hope you had the chance to see the display during its run time, if not, next year will be better and the videos are still available on my blog.

as I prepare for the new year, reclaiming the front yard removes one thing from the TODO list.

Happy Holidays and New Year!

David Johnson 

Wishing all, Happy Holidays and a . . .

ok,
I had some interest in understanding the process of creating the Lightning Effect on my MAME cabinet, so here is the quick process.

Paint:
Transparent Black
Transparent Royal Blue
Transparent Red
Royal Blue
White

Layer 1:
Paint: 80% white, 20% Royal Blue mix

Technique: Begin airbrushing the lightning out from the center (origin), I began with heavy/soft lines 1/2" at their widest narrowing down to 1/8" at the tips. after completed go back and add glow/haze to the lightning, the thicker the beam, the more the glow. be generous.

Notes: This step is the least critical, you basically are forming the branches as you want them to look, it helps to have smooth erratic lines, keeping in mind the electro-magnetism you are rendering, if the lines get close, in reality, they will join, try to replicate this phenomena.
it helps to do a few quick searches on the internet to decide your desired style before you begin.


Layer 2:
Paint: 75% transparent Royal Blue, 25% transparent Red

Technique: In the previous steps you airbrushed vague beams of lightning, in this step you will go back in and add the purple (blue/red) tint to the glow. this will add depth and allow you to *block in* the light areas to focus the energy(bright part) of the beam to its center.

Notes: This step is important to add depth, you are providing the electrical atmosphere around the beams. it also allows you to *work* your beams narrower.

Layer 3:
Paint: 75% transparent Black, 25% transparent Royal Blue

Technique: if you have areas that you over sprayed the colors , you can tint them out with this mix to taste.

Notes: This step is optional and allows you to clean up your work and ballance the shape of the beams.

Layer 4:
Paint: 85% White, 10% reducer

Technique: with your bolts defined and glowing, its time to make them pop, airbrush your beams in clean sharp lines (with some amount of shakeyness) from 1/4" out to 1/16" at the tips.
the paint should be reduced enough to flow well for fine lines, yet not too reduced to lose opacity.
If required, you may need to shoot it twice, just be careful to keep the line crisp.
as you reach the end of the bolt, pullt out quickly to wisp the ends.

Notes: This step is the most critical as it requires a sharp line to convey the electrical pop.

if all goes well, you should have some nice bolts of lightning, ready for clear coating!.
hope this helps.

OK,

So here is the break-down.
 
Computerized Home holiday lighting:

1. 9000 assorted String and net lights.
2. 96 Computer Controlled channels/outlets
3. 100 40' extension cords
4. and Way too much time on my hands.

I am the developer of the computer software application used to coordinate and control the Lights to music. I developed it in Partnership with D-Light (the Hardware Manufacturer). For more information about the Hardware and Software please visit D-Light Designs LLC.

Below are two of the many songs in rotation this year. I hope you enjoy the show.

Please, if youre out sometime this holiday season, take a few minutes to stop by and enjoy the show in person. it is much nicer than this grainy internet video.

2429 gads hill st.
Santa Rosa, Ca.
95401

The Display schedule is as follows:

Dec. 9th - Dec. 25th (*Storms Permitting)
--------------------------------------------------
Monday - Thursday......................6:00PM-9:00PM
Friday,Saturday and Sunday.........5:00pm-9:00pm

** Be sure to tune your radio to 105.5 fm (in front of the house) for the audio portion of the performance!

Enjoy the show and have a HappyandJoyous HolidaySeason

Dance of The Sugar Plumb Fairies

Trans Siberian Orchestra

Perry Como

Nutcracker

Warm Regards,

David Johnson and Family

...The Saga Continues

OK, So I planned to finish up this weekend and came very close. (a couple minor things left..)

First thing to do was cut the speaker holes, and finish up some airbrushing on the cabinet.

I cut out the coinbox over/under hole and then the marquee speaker holes.

then carried the Lightning theme airbrush work over to frame the coinbox..

total time only took about 20mins to paint, 5 mins to dry

and finally the full cabinet view ready to assemble the components..

first to go in was the side neon rings.

the layering was first the neon ring, then plexi, then art, then 1/4" plywood veneer.

from the inside it looks like this...

from the outside, turned on they look like this (in broad daylight)

(also notice, only 1/4 of the circle is fitted with t-molding, I came up short and had to order more)

next thing to tackle was installing the 6" speakers and sub woofer.

using the Creative 2.1 remote control, I wanted it easily accessible so I decided to notch out the lower marquee retainer and have it easily located in arms reach.

in the picture below you can see the marquee bulb and the location where it will be mounted. to the right you can see one of the 6" speaker holes.

after taking apart the sattellite speakers, I will save you the joy and show you the contents below, it was quite un-eventful, however required as this is the wire that I will use to connect to the 6" car speakers.

with the wires disconnected and holes cut, it installed quite easily.

I mounted the volume controller, re-installed the marquee. then I soldered the sattellite speaker wires to the 6" (new) speakers, installed them in the cabinet and voilla!

looks nice, and works great.

(although you can see groove for the t-molding that has not been installed yet)

The next step was to finish the monitor placement and bezel.

First, I decided the easiest aproach would be to block the monitor into the exact location.

the cabinet was designed for any monitor and did not want to structurally limit it from upgrades, otherwise I would have designed it as a more permanent solution.

neverthe less you can see how the configurable blocks leverage its shape to bind the monitor(21"). (as seen through the rear access panel.)

with the monitor now fixed in its final resting place, I needed to get rid of the tan monitor face...enter the black paint.

I simply masked to the edge and airbrussed the monitor frame with the same black paint used for the cabinet (Black Magic, latex acrylic)

ok, remove the mask, clean the screen and move on.

while it dried, I modified the bezel.

the bezel was 5/8" thick and with the hole cut for the monitor, it did not look right playing through a "thick window" hole of a bezel. so I decided to rout the back side of the bezel to 1/4" thick the area that the monitor touches, so that the monitor would only be behind a 1/4" thick face plate, reducing the tacky factor. below you see the end result is quite nice.

now with the bezel done, monitor in place, I could mount the bezel artwork and place the plexi-glass screen..

below the monitor bezel, you can see the subwoofer where it will reside.

I tried with and without tinting on the bezel to see what I liked better, I ended up going with clear.. although here it is with tint..

now it was time to wire the control panel, I had been postponing this because I expected it to take a while(due to the fact that I was also lighting each button) so I finally got started.

after drilling a hole in the bottom of each of the buttons, inserting the LED and routing wires, it looked like this. (I used the MALA Hardware due to its simplicity and integration with MALA frontend, well worth the price, you can get one here)

once the lights were all ran, I routed and wired the switches to the I-Pac unit(yellow wires)

with the Control Panel wired and finished, I mounted the lid back on the Control panel box using the piano hinge and 15 screws.

next thing I did was set my control panel on the cabinet to make sure it all looks ok, before final wiring of the cabinet..

here are a few photos of that.

Its starting to make it all worth it!!

going to have to wait a few more days for the coin box to be delivered, for now, there is alarge hole...ugh..

below is pretty much a picture of the rest of the day, playing, configuring and playing some more. (notice the side neon rings have power... :) )

A dream come true, for real, scratch one item from the todo list, special thanks to my Father(and his tools) for all the hard work, Expert Advice and patience!

(...starting to sound like a  fathers day card.)

I am really loving it so far, hope you like it as well, cant wait to share more!!

Who has time to keep up with all of these hobbies?

my latest tangent has been to design and build a MAME arcade cabinet. for those of you un-familiar, MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.

• what is it?
  • it is a software application that runs on a PC and emulates the hardware that used to reside in arcade machines.
• what does it do?
  • it plays the rom files that have been extracted from the memory chips on the arcade machines.
• where can I learn more?
  • http://www.mame.net/

a lot of undocumented planning and work has occured and after 3 saturdays of working in a wood shop and painting, I have reached a point where I have something meaningful to show, the semi complete arcade console..

A modified Lucid cabinet design (http://users.adelphia.net/~seanhat/arcade/) with a recessed neon side logo (Idea from Knievel Kustoms, http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,31417.0.html) and my own custom airbrushed Lightning to set it off.

when completed, the system will play over 1900 original arcade game roms.

I plan to include Daphne(http://www.daphne-emu.com/), the Laserdisc emulator to be able to play "Dragons Lair" and "Space Ace" as well.

this weekend, between chores and standing responsibilities, I will be doing the following:

• installing the speakers (Creative Labs SBS 2.1 350, retrofitted with 6" 3-way car speakers and the included subwoofer)
• final assembly on the control panel (29 buttons, 2 player console, 2-8way joys, 1-4way joy, and a 3"backlit trackball)
• wiring of the control panel, every button on the panel is backlit using MALA Hardware (http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/hardware.html)
• wiring up the marquee and placing art
• airbrushing lightning around the coinbox opening and screen bezel
• build a PC and configure the hardware/frontend (MALA)(http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/index.html)
• needless to say my saturday will be busy and long
• more pics and documentation to follow...

hope you enjoy the pics.

the controller box will sit on the ledge you see in the above photo, to the right hand side of the cabinet.

below is the top view image of the controller graphic.

the colored dots represent the color of button that will reside in the location, with the exception of the large blue dot in the center (which will be a 3" glowing trackball) and the dots in the center of the stars(which represent the color of joystick handle).

other than that, imagination is key...

Preparing for the big move, I have been spending a lot of time rummaging through the dark corners our house. sorting through boxes of *stuff* determining what to keep, what to sell, and what to laugh about.

Its always fun to come across those articles of our past that remind us of happy times.. but sometimes they raise emotions, major life decisions that changed the direction of your life, we all have them, some of us just remove all traces from our closets.

for me it was a few slides, photographs, of a previous career, more than one?, yes I was fortunate enough to survive a mid-career change in direction. the pictures were artwork from a time in my life when computers were less important and things were much simpler.

the late 80's

its been so long since I have seen them, Im quite prowd of them.

no matter how creative and complex the work we do becomes, there is something more *real* about art and design on canvas.

believe it or not, these were hand crafted, using an Air Brush and Pencils, NO COMPUTERS!

Hard to imagine these days!

hope you can enjoy these rare items from my stash!.

By the way, What ever happened to individuality?

If im not mistaken, what used to be creativity has been replaced with ringtones and backgrounds.

I didnt get the memo.. ;)

Why do I see a message prompting me to “click to activate and use this control” when I roll my mouse over a Flash animation?

This is a result of the latest Internet Explorer update.

Microsoft recently lost a legal battle with a patent holder about the way Internet Explorer displays OBJECTs and EMBEDs in webpages.

because of the rulling, Microsoft released an update to Internet Explorer with changes requiring user input to display and activate ActiveX based media.

This affects all Flash animations but also other files such as QuickTime, RealPlayer, Java and Adobe Acrobat among others. It means users have to click the object first in order to activate its functions.

There are ways for website developers to modify their website so that the user experience is not impacted by Microsoft’s changes. Samples with the fix

To fix the problem, modify your web sites using these steps:

1) Just below the last <object> in your HTML page, insert the following Javascript:

<script type="text/javascript" src="ieupdate.js"></script>

2) Open a new document in Notepad or your HTML editor, and copy & paste the following content into it:

theObjects = document.getElementsByTagName("object");
for (var i = 0; i < theObjects.length; i++) {
theObjects[i].outerHTML = theObjects[i].outerHTML;
}

3) Save this file as ieupdate.js

4) Upload both files to your webserver, and the problem should be solved.

To read more about this issue and see other solutions available, please visit:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/articles/devletter.html
http://blog.deconcept.com/2005/12/15/internet-explorer-eolas-changes-and-the-flash-plugin/

This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.

Your Intellectual Type is Word Warrior. This means you have exceptional verbal skills. You can easily make sense of complex issues and take an unusually creative approach to solving problems. Your strengths also make you a visionary. Even without trying you're able to come up with lots of new and creative ideas. And that's just a small part of what we know about you from your test results.

Descriptive Classifications of Intelligence Quotients
IQ	Description	% of Population
130+	Very superior	2.2%
120-129	Superior	6.7%
110-119	High average	16.1%
90-109	Average	50%
80-89	Low average	16.1%
70-79	Borderline	6.7%
Below 70	Extremely low	2.2%

Does anyone believe this stuff?

Ofcourse, I do, because I ranked well! and the intelligent thing to do would be act humble!

:) frankly, it doesnt mean much to me, still have difficult issues to solve each day, of course thats why I love my job!! how about you?

take it for yourself HERE

or, more info HERE

Just thought id share a picture from my latest ski trip.

after ten minutes at the resort, took a wrong turn and it flattened out, it just got worse from there...

Needless to say, it lends itself well to a caption, any ideas?

History of the C family of languages

1972 - The precursor to C, the language B, is developed at Bell Labs. The B language is fast, easy to maintain, and useful for all kinds of development from systems to applications. The entire team that designed the language is immediately fired for behavior unbefitting a telephone company employee, and the project is handed to Dennis Ritchie. He alters the language to be incomprehensible, difficult to maintain, and only useful for systems development. He also designs in a pointer system guaranteed to give every program over 500 lines a pointer into the operating system.

1982 – It is discovered that 97% of all C routine calls are subject to buffer overrun exploits. C programmers begin to realize that initializing a variable to whatever happens to be lying around in memory is not necessarily a good idea. However, since enforcing sensible variable initialization would break 97% of all C programs in existence, nothing is done about it. 

1984 – The number of operating systems bad pointers can get to has been dramatically increased.  

1985 – A variant of C with object oriented capabilities, called C With Classes, is ready to go commercial. However, the name C With Classes is considered too clear and easy for outsiders to understand, so the commercial version is called C++.

1986 – C becomes so popular that industry analysts recommend writing business applications in it. They argue that applications written in C will be portable to many different systems. Many of these industry analysts are suspected of being under the influence of hallucinogens.

1988 – Industry analysts finally run out of LSD. After their hallucinations fade, they notice that business apps written in C take five times longer to produce, and are still not portable. They stop recommending that business apps be written in C, except for a minority that switch to crack cocaine and start recommending business apps be written in C++ because “object orientation will result in code reuse”.

1990 – By this time, all C compilers have turned into C++ compilers. But, since most C++ programs do not use any of the object oriented features of the language, this means in practical terms that bloated code structures with pointers into the operating system are now being compiled with an object-oriented compiler.

1990 – After hiring some industry analysts that switched from crack to sniffing glue, Sun decides to create a language called Oak to program set-top television boxes. Since all their programmers have had stilted C syntax imprinted into their DNA by this time, the new language borrows heavily from C and C++ syntax. However the set-top boxes don’t have an operating system for bad pointers to get to, so pointers are eliminated from the language.

1994 – Someone at Sun finally realizes what a stupid idea it was to develop a special language just for set-top television boxes. The language is renamed Java and repositioned as an “Internet” language that is supposed to be portable to many platforms. This works well as a marketing campaign, since less than 3% of people in the industry at this time realize what the Internet is, and since hallucinating industry analysts continue to be suckers for the mythical idea of "portability to different platforms".

1995 - Sun offers free psychedelic mushrooms to industry analysts, who immediately start writing articles about how Java is the future of programming because of its portability and integration with the Internet.

Mid 1996 – 17,468,972 articles appear about how Java is the future of programming. The age of Java applets in web pages begins.

Late 1996 – Programmers trying to produce actual web pages with applets that really work commit mass suicide out of frustration and depression. Industry analysts increase their dosage of hallucinogens to compensate.

1997 – Taking the advice of hallucinating industry analysts, Corel decides to rewrite all their applications, including WordPerfect, in Java. The end result is the first known word processor that is slower to use than a typewriter.

1998 – Realizing that the applet thing is fading fast, Sun repositions Java again, this time as a server language. They steal the design of Microsoft Transaction Server and convince everyone to pretend they created the design.

1999 – Java 2 Enterprise Edition is introduced to the rave reviews of drunk and stoned industry analysts. 21,499,512 articles are written about it, but no one actually uses it because it’s immature and expensive.

2000 – J2EE finally works, sort of. Just about the time all the Java vendors are ready to start making money on it, Microsoft announces .NET, which includes almost all the features of J2EE except the outrageous cost. In fact, Microsoft decides to give .NET away free for Windows users. Scott McNealy is so outraged he files another irrational lawsuit against Microsoft.

.NET includes a new C-family language, C#, pronounced “C-pound”, continuing the tradition of languages in this family having stupid names.

2001 – Microsoft’s marketing department realizes that no one in marketing has ever talked to a live Microsoft product developer. They have lunch with one and discover that the pronunciation is actually supposed to be “C sharp”.

2002 – C# is introduced as part of the release version of Microsoft .NET. C++ developers on the Microsoft platform rejoice over the concept of “managed code”, which means they finally receive the same automatic memory management features that Visual Basic has had since 1991 and Java has had since 1995.

copyright (C) 1996-2006 by Billy S. Hollis, originally posted on dotnetmasters.com 13 January 2006

well this christmas we were fortunate enough to get our hands on an xbox 360, after reading all the reviews on the games available, we bought a few that looked like the ones with the best bang for the buck.

my reasoning behind the whole thing is to do something a bit interactive with the kids, build shared interest, ive always been a great fan of good looking games and home theater so adding an HD gaming box (360) to the cabinet makes for lots of creative outlets.

originally purchased to play games, the xbox-360 is much more than a game box, its a media center extender and gaming community (xbox live)

the interfaces are nice, the online integration is seamless, the os perception is that "the games are running on an xbox" (so at any time you can exit the game into the xbox), not the traditional, "the xbox is running a game" (so if you want to configure anything, reset the box and do it before you start the game) . very nice experience.

although we do experience the errors on powerup, (1 out of 6 times) that gives us a fullscreen error message in a few languages. we have had a lot of fun using it.

in our media cabinet, we also have a Media Center PC, xbox-360 allows integration with the MCE, so that you can watch TV on your xbox. that is a neat feature, although since both the MCPC and the XBOX are on wireless (and the tv is streamed) the experience is less than optimal for me (802.11B)... time for an upgrade to G.

anyway...having fun with the kids, care to battle?

OKAY, So I did it for the Kids, the holiday and the fun of building some Hi-Tech goodness this time of year...

thanks for the apreciation! next year will be surprisingly better!

http://www.davidjohnsondeveloper.com/xmas.html

Task: Use the 2005 "Copy Database" function to copy the SQL2000 databases to SQL2005. The ultimate goal is to copy all the live databases from SQL2000 to SQL2005, check everything has upgraded ok, then uninstall SQL2000.

Error #1: First option I tried was "Use the detach and attach method". Using Windows authentication. Selected the databases, tables and object to copy. Create package name. On the "Schedule the Package" screen only option avail is "Run immediately". The "Integration Services Proxy Account" option is greyed. Upon hitting "NEXT>" I get a popup "Proxy account has to be selected to proceed further." That's as far as I can get with this option.

Error #2: Second option I tried was "Use the SQL Management Object method". Using Windows authentication. Selected the databases, tables and object to copy. Create package name. "NEXT>". Immediately at the "Schedule the Package" screen a popup appears: "The specified @subsystem_name ('SSIS') does not exist. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 14262)".

Solution:
A common situation more and more are coming across getting aclimated to the *new* sql agent architecture.

you will need to install SQL integration services which may not be installed by default. (you can run the install package again and add it) the service is required to execute the package and the missing / reuired proxy account is created during the Integrtion services installation.

HTH
David Johnson
www.davidjohnsondeveloper.com

There are a lot of variations of this unique way to provide guest interaction to your web site, and recently I have had the need to explore some the google map api capabilities.

this GuestMap is the side effect of some of the research I did. I will compile some documentation to the solution but, all source code is only a proof of concept and provided as-is. feel free to extend it how ever you like just please provide a link back to this site in the source code.

I would be glad to help anyone make this work for their site.

the solution is developed in ASP.Net 1.1, javascript and HTML, leveraging a SQL back end.

.

I began to develop Flash Admin UI's to overlay the google map to provide configuration screens, but the additions were beyond the scope of my research.

If you would like some ideas on that feel free to ask.

source code download

check out a working demo

Tutorial will be available soon.

p.s. I am so excited. been working with the final Visual Studio Team System 2005 bits all weekend, nice speed improvements over June and August CTP's. more on that later!!

have a great day!

50 degree w/ rain here couldnt be better development weather!

Getting ready for a 3 day Intel developer workshop in houston. learning more about migrating code to 64bit architectures. should be good, look forward to seeing another state for a change (California recluse!!) witll post back any findings or usefull knowledge I collect. the best part is that we will get our hands on an Itanium 64 server for jsut a tad over 2k (thats ~10k sakings)..

more info:

HP and Intel®, in conjunction with our Workshop sponsor Novell SUSE, have developed a series of tracks/courses designed to help start your migration effort to the HP Itanium®-based server family. These tracks assume a baseline level of knowledge about developing code in similar environments. The focus at this workshop series is on moving existing code to the Itanium Microarchitecture.

and the Course Descriptions

This is the first post to my site blog, I will be integrating the blog engine further before any regular entries will be made, expect great things to come meanwhile, hang in there..