Moving...

I am currently moving, so I haven't had a chance to post anything or work on anything. Once I am moved in I will post more...

Creating your own QR C# ASP.NET website generator...

Well there aren't a whole lot of examples of how to create your own...so I decided to post how to do it here.
For starters when I wanted to create my own QR Code generator in C# .NET I found sites like google that would do it all for you with the click of a link...but this didn't generate the image file. In some instances generating that image file is important since you may want to use it later on, for instance when customers are ordering business cards and they need to keep track of the QR Code image as well as what will be on the card.
So here is a nice library I found that is open source.
http://twit88.com/platform/projects/show/mt-qrcode
It is very simple to use and requires minor setting up. After creating an object of the QR Code library you just set a few values:

MessagingToolkit.QRCode.Codec.QRCodeEncoder QREncoder = new MessagingToolkit.QRCode.Codec.QRCodeEncoder();

QREncoder.QRCodeEncodeMode = MessagingToolkit.QRCode.Codec.QRCodeEncoder.ENCODE_MODE.BYTE;

QREncoder.QRCodeErrorCorrect = MessagingToolkit.QRCode.Codec.QRCodeEncoder.ERROR_CORRECTION.H;

QRCodeBitmap = QREncoder.Encode("http://xelot.blogspot.com");

QRCodeBitmap will now hold the bitmap you want to store to your HDD...with a simple saving...

System.IO.FileStream fs = new System.IO.FileStream("/QRCode.bmp",System.IO.FileMode.Create);

QRCodeBitmap.Save(fs, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp);

fs.Close();

I hope this can help anyone to create their own C# ASP.NET website QR Code Generator.

Coders at Work...first 60 pages...

         So I have been reading this book, and I have really been enjoying the interviews it contains with some of the pioneer programmers of our days. One which was quite interesting was one of the main programmers of Netscape...He basically started programming at about 15 years old, dropped out of college but was still a successful programmer.
        In chapter 2 the second interview is with an Google employee who began programming at about age 5 in BASIC. Throughout Middle School he was making graphical games for kids and selling them(talk about crazy)...In High School he was making about 10k-25k on his FreeVote engine programmed in CGI which would generate voting polls. He generated this revenue through ads on the FreeVote site...by college year he was contracting to do programming work as well as starting projects of his own. I cant remember the name and don't have the book on me to look it up, but it was called like LiveJournal. anyhow I was very impressed with the success stories this book contains this far, as it is very motivational to any programmer.

Coders at Work

I just picked up this book. It includes a bunch of interviews with programmers that did big things for the computer industry, which should be interesting to read about. Its more of a non technical book since I feel like I tend to read more technical books and not enough literature about coding that may include good insight about the field of computer programming.
For anyone interested in reading about it as well here is a link.
Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
Once I've started reading it ill be sure to write some reviews.

Great Games...

While I was busy working on my first iPhone game I was listening to techno and trance music while coding, testing, playing with, and understanding different pieces of the cocos2d lib...Ofcourse, my lil brother had to go and send me some of that great music from my childhood video game "Secret of Mana"...boy did that touch a spot of good memories, of thoughts of such a great game in its time...While soaking up the music I decided to give it a search on iTunes. Which yes it is available on iTunes and also the entire game for iPhone(wow)...Secret of Mana was one of those games that will never be forgotten, neither graphics nor gameplay will out rate it in my mind. It had a wonder selection of music and some really good gameplay.

Just hearing this song brought back good memories of the old SNES days and I felt i'd share it with everyone...

Three new iPhone game ideas!

I came up with three new iPhone ideas, that I am very eager to work on. First will be an all time favorite of mine that I created back in High School when I was taking my first computer science course. I call the game "Monster Rally" which was basically a very simple game programmed in C++ using the Direct X API. I want to make it more sophisticated in the iPhone version so players can upgrade their guns and have different monsters that attack.

Finding time for everything...

     I have been giving thought to how to find time for things I enjoy to do as well as things I'd like to do. Being an avid game player and enjoying games on a daily basis can be very unproductive in many ways. There must be a balance to how much time is spent playing games and how much time is allocated for coding. Being the sole programmer and owner of Xelot Code LLC makes it difficult at times to work full time, play games, and find time to work my side jobs/ideas I want to create. I've given it some thought and here is what I think may be the secret to this problem...first of all there needs to be time management...This is key to any successful start up business. Without time management as a human being its easy to get drawn into the fun things that can be done with our time(Games, Outdoor activities, shopping, movies, etc).
     For starters making a schedule is one way to accomplish things that need to be done and also things that you would like to do. For instance, playing games every other day or once a week would be one way to still enjoy playing games, but also have time to be productive. It is something I will start to do with my time and get some of the project ideas done that I have been considered doing with my time.

Tron: Legacy

Yesterday I finally got the chance to see Tron:Legacy. Overall I felt it was a decently good film. I liked the special effects, and how the movie ended. I did feel there was some inconsistency with the film and the timeline...since in the grid Kevin Flynn mentioned that days there were like minutes in real life...which then made me think about why Kevin Flynn is not dead since he got trapped in the grid when his son Sam Flynn was like 12 years old...And now Sam being 27 years old is meeting his Dad in the grid...so that is one main problem...second problem...if turning off the power to the arcade meant they didnt age i suppose that would take care of this problem...But...then if that were the case how did CLU send out a message to the pager? So there are some holes in the story, or maybe I am over analyzing it.

QR Codes

    I recently came across a few clients wanting to use QR Codes in their ideas. I decided to do a little bit of research to get an idea of what they were...To simplify they are basically a complex bar code which can store things such as URL, or messages...and with your very own cell phone and a QR Code decoder you can then use that to decrypt the message or have it automatically send you to the URL the code has encoded.
    When thinking about how I may be able to use this in a real life business opportunity...I came to the conclusion that they are mostly only good in a niche market...for marketing a particular product(since naturally someone is gonna want to scan your QR Code if they run into it when walking at the mall), and providing discounts to customers that have a QR Code decoder(this could be fun). In these two ideas, I believe lies the best interest of a QR Code enthusiast...but as you'll notice its a niche market since it has such a small use and the amount of people that will be scanning the codes will be few unless more and more people become involved with using them.

Text Message

Website URL

Xelot Code LLC

Xelot Code LLC is now an official company. We are registered in the state of Utah! Main reason behind finally doing this is cause we have been contracted to start to develop a new IPhone app/Website project.
Exciting times, hopefully there will be more on this later on to share about.