SLOODLE / PhD Research - Survey Invitation
Posted by Peter | Filed under SLOODLE, Software, Virtual Worlds
SURVEY CLOSED
Thanks for your interest, but I’m afraid this survey is now closed. I will be running the next set of evaluations in the coming months, so pleased stay tuned if you’re interested.
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Hello readers!
I am plastering everywhere else on the web with this, so I thought I might as well put it on my own blog too! 
I am conducting a survey alongside the SLOODLE project and as part of my PhD work. Your participation would be greatly appreciated:
https://avid-insight.co.uk/limesurvey/index.php?sid=16321〈=en
It contains 35 questions, taking around 20 minutes to complete, and the software allows you to save your responses for later completion if you are pressed for time. All data will be handled anonymously.
The broad topic of my PhD is usability and user centred design in the context of integrating technologies such as Second Life and Moodle. This particular survey is exploratory in nature, asking for general feedback (quantitative and qualitative) on a few initial concepts for the software.
The front page of the survey provides further information if you would like to know more, and you are welcome to contact me with any questions. It will hopefully be online for 3 weeks, after which time selected data will be released here for the SLOODLE community, and to any individual participants who request it.
Many thanks,
Peter R. Bloomfield (SL: Pedro McMillan)
PhD student / Research Assistant / SLOODLE developer
Supervisor: Dr. Daniel Livingstone (SL: Buddy Sprocket)
University of the West of Scotland (School of Computing)
http://peter.avid-insight.co.uk/research
Splitter
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
“Splitter” is a fascinatingly original casual web-game. The objective is simply to get the little yellow dude to the level exit, but you cannot control him directly. Rather, you need to modify the level in various ways, causing it to dynamically respond, achieving your goal, or foiling your plans.
It’s hard to describe exactly how the gameplay works. Imagine it like other physics sandbox games like “Magic Pen“, but instead of creating stuff to achieve your goal, you are actually splitting it with a knife (hence the name) in very precise ways.
The graphics are simple but pleasant, and the audio is reasonable. The interface works nicely, with a wonderfully simple control scheme… just click and drag where you want to cut, and that’s it. The physics responds nicely in various ways, and makes for a very enjoyable playing experience. Limits on the number of cuts you can make in a given level provide a good challenge.
It’s too late at night for me to go into much further analysis… I suggest you just play this game for yourself… it’s well worth it!
What is “hiberfil.sys”?
Posted by Peter | Filed under Software
I noticed that my hard disk was down to less than 1GB free this evening, so I decided to do a clear out. I am running a rather crusty old Windows XP Pro installation, and on my usual rounds, I noticed a large file that I hadn’t noticed before, called “hiberfil.sys“. It was sitting in the root of the C drive, taking up around 1.5GB.
I’ve learned from experience (the hard way) not to go about randomly deleting files, especially when Windows displays them with a slightly faded-out icon, indicating they are supposed to be hidden/system files. Thankfully, a quick web-search revealed what I needed to know.
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Using GDI+ in C++ Win32 programming
Posted by Peter | Filed under Programming, Software
If you do any Win32 programming in C++, then I strongly recommend you learn about GDI+. It’s been around for a while now, but not everybody knows about it. It can be great to have on hand even just to illustrate tests and prototypes.
Why is it so good? It provides an object-oriented way to draw graphics using the GDI, which is much nicer and easier to user than the basic C-style GDI functions and resources that used to be the norm. It also provides a lot of additional functionality which otherwise was not possible (or at least not easy) with the regular GDI functions alone, such as proper alpha blending, matrix transformations, file input/output, and loads more. It’s quite easy to setup too, as I will explain…
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