Matt Goldspink » Computing

Me and My DS

Matt — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 20:13:33 +0000

Last weekend I was pretty ill with I don’t know what, so I decided I’d treat myself and buy a Nintendo DS last Tuesday to keep myself occupied while i was in bed at my sisters. It’s soooooooo addictive! I got it with the Brain Age game & my Dad is also addicted to it! Infact on the Tuesday night at my sisters, all the Ushers for her wedding were there bashing away and screaming colours at it (it’s got a built in mic with speech recognition and a touch screen). It’s also got WiFi built into it so I was playing against a little lad at the wedding the other day (not during the actual service cos that would just be wrong) which was awesome!! So everyone go and get a DS and lets play together (I want some friends basically). If you get one make sure you go and buy New Super Mario Bros! If you loved the old one on the GameBoy (back in the day) then you’ll absolutely love this version!!! It’s exactly the same style, but the graphics are amazing!!! And it’s so much more fun!!!

Pants! I succombed to the dark side

Matt — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 20:00:41 +0000

I’m on Myspace But I’ve made my mark by at least making my page readable and it looks very familiar! Add me as a friend (please) check me out at http://www.myspace.com/mattgoldspink

30Bots Update!

Matt — Wed, 17 May 2006 22:59:47 +0000

OK, so it’s been a while. I’ve been distracted and also, since Microsoft released Windows Live Messenger they’ve changed the whole handshake procedure which was a pain up the arse However, they did do something right & get some companies to release API’s written in a variety of languages to make creating a bots a hell of a lot easier. Further more, they’re encouraging people to write bots! With a $40,000 prize fund for the best! Luckily for me, my 30Bots handler is all done and dusted and needed hardly any work to port it over to one of these API’s! However, I still don’t have a permanent host for the bot, but my computer will do for now. ~~If you bare with me while I tidy up the signing up procedure (found a small bug yday) I will release it’s address and you’ll be ready to use 30bots with your 30 boxes account!~~
UPDATE: It’s all up and running~~, except for adding new events (small problem with the Java API I’m using)~~. So feel free to add the address thirtybots@hotmail.com to your contact list. If you find any bugs or want give feedback, do so within the IM window by typing either bug or feedback and then your comment.

Still To Do:

Reminders via the conversation window
Display and accept date according to users setting in 30boxes
Anything else that comes to mind or I recieve via feedback

Wii over Sony Playstation

Matt — Mon, 15 May 2006 22:56:07 +0000

Following on from my earlier post about how much I want a Wii. Looks like I’m not the only one! This video shows what happened when the doors opened at E3 the other day. Note that the Sony Playstation stand is on the left and just watch where the masses go. I bet Sony must be pissed off! Especially since you can buy 2 Wii’s for the price of one Playstation 3! Hahaha!

I want a Wii (pronounced wee)

Matt — Wed, 10 May 2006 13:18:58 +0000

I’ve been watching the presentations by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo at this years E3 – a huge game’s festival where all the big names show off their new stuff. I’m not normally a big gamer. I don’t have a console, I’m crap at everything apart from Wipeout & Tony Hawks and I get sick while playing Jedi Outcast (I had to stop after 10minutes today cos of the motion sickness – bluergh!). But I am so impressed by some of the new consoles coming out. Sony’s Playstation 3 looks amazing, the graphics are outstanding! Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and it’s Live Anywhere means you buy one game and you can play or interact with it on you Xbox 360, your Windows Vista computer, and your mobile phone! However, I was pretty bowled over by Nintendo’s Wii. It has the most revolutionary controller. A kind of wand that you wave around to interact with games. For example, in their demo, they showed a tennis game with four people where they all swung the controller around to hit the ball. You can even add top spin by twisting you hand as you hit it. Now that sounds fun! No more sitting infront of a screen with a joypad, but much more interactivity and just all around FUN! That’s what games should be, fun!

The Beast Is Complete

Matt — Mon, 08 May 2006 23:27:54 +0000

Yes! I’ve finally finished my new computer! I bought a new 256Mb Graphics Card & a copy of Windows XP on Saturday and set those up. And today I copied all my music across & installed the second sound card so my mini funk box is already for DJing live! I think my first live gig with it will be my big sisters wedding – a perfect opportunity for it to go tits up! There’s only 2 more non-essential bits i want for it. A second beast of a hard drive & a flat screen monitor. Then I’m well & truly sorted.

Here’s me on my new handbuilt computer!!!

Matt — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:22:09 +0000

Yep, I’m a true bonafide geek now. I have built my first computer from scratch!!! And my word, it is a BEAST Took me over a day (I didn’t want to rush it), but it’s ace! It’s fast (very fast!) and tiny. The only downside is I couldn’t afford to buy windows (yet), so I’m using Ubuntu – a version of linux, which I have to say I’m very impressed with. Though I can’t get my USB wireless to work, I’ll have to keep trying. I took some pics while I was building it, I’ll post them at some point. For now I’m just gonna… play!

Done and Dusted!!

Matt — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 12:32:32 +0000

Well I had my last exam yesterday. My word it was tough, trying to remember pre-written answers. It was the one where our lecturer had already emailed us the exam paper by accident! Haha! So now I’m free to do all the random things I wanted to! Finish off ThirtyBots, make my Shuttle PC for DJing (money permitting), and complete a load more of my 25 challenges. I’ve not forgotten them! Infact I’ve started learning Spanish for when I go to Mallorca & my Didgeridoo skills are coming on swimmingly. I can almost do circular breathing, but I can’t get enough puff to keep the didgeridoo sound going. I’ve also been looking into Kayaking courses and founf Plas Menai, where I used to do them, have a one day Eskimo Roll Kayaking session!! Â£60 though is pushing it a bit, even if it is in a heated pool and i get a free packed lunch.

So for my first day of freedom I’m gonna get on thirtybots, which I’m gonna make into generic bot called JimBot. I’m gonna tidy up the code, iron out a few bugs and create some funky documentation so people can easily create handlers to make it do whatever they want! For example, thirtybots is just a handler I’ve created. Hence why it made more sense to create a generic bot. Off I go then.

Netvibes 1Gb Storage Module! Sweet!

Matt — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 01:03:35 +0000

Netvibes have just added a new module that allows you store upto 1Gb of files online so you can access them anywhere straight from your netvibes home page! No need for my pen drive anymore!

30 Bots: Stage X Complete

Matt — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 02:22:18 +0000

UPDATE: Implemented search by date functionality now.

I can’t remember what stages I said I was gonna do things in, but essentially, the core functionality of the bot is complete!!! Woohoo!!! I’m mega chuffed. I still need to do some serious load testing and tidy up the code, but it all works!

Some of the features are:

Simple registering process to get your 30 Boxes token to use in the bot (basically you need to give the bot access to your account, which is as easy as clicking a link in the conversation window!)
simple commands to get your events:

typing “2day” or “today” gets you a list of the events you have on today
“tomorrow”,”2moro” or “2mz” gets you events on tomorrow
“help” or “?” gets a list of commands you can use
“tag (tag)” gets all events tagged with (tag)
“search (query) …” gets all events matching your query.
~~Still to be implemented, but not far off is~~ “(dd)/(mm)/(yyyy)” will get you all events on that date
and “(dd)/(mm)/(yyyy)-(dd)/(mm)/(yyyy)” gets all events between the two date

Actually can’t think of any other features at the mo, but hopefully I’ll add more.
Oh, I rejigged the 30 boxes logo (see what i did there eh!)

I really need feedback on how to return the events to the user, at the moment they’re returned in the form “12:00 – 14:00: Lunch with Pete (At Nando’s)” for calls on 2day or 2mz, and “Playing football – 12/03/2006 18:30″ for querys and tag searches which to be honest I don’t really like. But I’ve got plenty of time to mess about with all that.

So if anyone wants a try then let me know! I should warn you that it’s very much in an Alpha stage and so we on and offline fairly regularly until I fix it up properly and find a more permanent host to run it on. but if you’re interested in giving it a try leave me a comment or send me an email (matt_goldspink at hotmail.com) with your email address and I’ll add you to the bots contact list.

I should also point out, I’m fairly busy with coursework and finals over the next few weeks so any bug fixes, etc may take a while, so apologies in advance.