2004 Report

These tutorials focus mainly on OpenGL, Win32 programming and the ODE physics engine. OpenGL has moved on to great heights and I don't cover the newest features but cover all of the basic concepts you will need with working example programs.

Working with the Win32 API is a great way to get to the heart of Windows and is just as relevant today as ever before. Whereas ODE has been marginalized as hardware accelerated physics becomes more common.

Games and graphics utilities can be made quickly and easily using game engines like Unity so this and Linux development in general will be the focus of my next tutorials.

2004 Report

Hi all. I hope you had a good year and got most of what you wanted to achieve done. I certainly got a lot done but not necessarily in the way of programming. As you can see, the website has had a facelift, hopefully for the better, but the good news is that I am now using cascading style sheets (CSS) for the site and I will be experimenting with a few different styles until I find that ultimate look, or at least something halfway decent. I am sold on CSS and actually enjoy making webpages now, the days of fighting font tags and tables are finally over. The only problem now is I spend so many hours trying different styles that I end up taking far more time to get the work done; though I guess the novelty will wear off after a while. I don't have enough expertise to comment on the browser issues but I have only used CSS1 which works well with most browsers and even passes the ultimate test in the Firefox browser.

The last part of this year has been spent making webpages for a small local hosting company which has been a good opportunity to practice and learn a bit more about webpage design, javascript and search engine optimization, but I would like to get back to my true passion of programming, making example programs and writing tutorials. To be able to do this on a full time basis I need to derive an income from my website so I hope you understand why I must now sell a small amount of advertising space on the website. Having just made over a hundred two page websites for local businesses I can see that most businesses are small family owned and operated businesses, even the franchise outlets, and have a legitimate need for promote their business through a reasonable amount advertising. By allowing businesses to sponsor my website rather than using pay per click banners I hope to be able to be more selective in the type of advertising I allow on the pages. If advertising is truthful, non-patronizing or intimidating then it is a benefit to both businesses and the community.

You may also have heard that I am now using the ODE library for physics simulation. I'll be having fun experimenting with the library during the new year and I hope to bring you the results of this experimentation by way of examples and a few tutorials. Again, it all depends on whether I can make a modest living from my 'craft'. To help me achieve this you can click on the banners and if you are running a website of your own then perhaps you could include a link back to this site to help improve its position in search engine results. After all, this is all I am asking for in exchange for using my source code. To date I haven't found a lot of links back to this site. I have to agree that not everyone is going to want to link to a website run by someone who goes by the name TheGoodAlien but it was very common only a few years ago to have an interesting alias, how times change. The new improved look should remove this obstacle for those contemplating a link back so I'd appreciate you taking the time to do so.

Have a great time over Christmas and remember to play nice :) Bye for now.