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fyhuang

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Posts posted by fyhuang

    Now We All Know That Internet Explorer

    in Computer Desk

    Posted

    I don't like XP grouping - I only have 5 windows open and it groups them. Then it takes 2 clicks to open a window compared to 1.

    Tabbed browsing is an absolute neccessity! Once you get used to it, you'll never go back (taken from some website - I think it was Mozilla's)! And IE has bad support for PNG anyways.

    Writing Technical Documents

    in Computer Desk

    Posted

    If you're talking about just standard applications, I don't know many. However, for games...

    I heard that GOD (Gathering of Developers) has a good one(www.godgames.com), but I haven't seen it. The book Programming RPGs with DirectX has a good template, which consists of several books, or 'bibles', which I won't post here because I don't want to get sued. Go to your local bookstore and look it up. Also, you can get many of them by searching for 'Design Document Template'.

    Typically, just break up your document into several logical parts - for games, that would be gameplay/story, art, sound, content (levels, characters, etc.), technical stuff, and anything game-specific you would like to add. For other software, it depends on what kind of software, but UI, design patterns, etc. are my best guesses.

    Hope it helps!

    I Have This Computer Offer In A Local Newspaper...

    in Computer Desk

    Posted

    Yes, graphics card matters. Also, that processor is pretty good for that price.

    It really depends on what you are going to use it for. If you are just doing word processing/checking e-mail (like most people), you can just go to your local Wal-Mart (or whatever you have there...) and get the cheapest PC you can find (as long as it has a modem/whatever you use to connect to the Internet). You don't need Windows, you don't need Office, you don't need any of that. All you need is the Internet and you're all set. I heard that Wal-Mart (at least in the US) is offering a $300 USD PC with a Linux and fairly good components (about the same as a $1100 PC I bought a while ago).

    On the other hand, if you're an avid gamer, I got my gaming PC (from Dell - a Dimension 4600) for a pretty good price:

    3.0 GHz Pentium 4 w/HT (should have waited for the Prescott core - Intel is better if you use SSE2 apps, but AMD can have better performance and the 640-bit ones rock)

    1 GB PC400 memory (I went high on this one - get the fastest and most memory your budget allows - 1 GB is obvious, PC400 means 400 MHz)

    ATi Radeon 9800 Pro (ATi is good for performance and less power/space usage, but nVidia has good OpenGL support (which I use) and supports bleeding-edge features)

    19 in flatscreen CRT monitor (unless you don't have the space, CRTs are the way to go for now - they cost a fraction of the price (mine was maybe $150, a new 17 in LCD can easily be $300 - and LCDs have slow response times, which make them horrible for gaming)

    HD, 80 Gigs @ 7k RPM (I don't remember the exact RPMs, but faster speed matters. I've never used more than 40 Gigs of space anyways, just be neat so that you don't leave file fragments lying around)

    CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives (I got a good offer from Dell for this one, a single combo drive works as well, but I find it more convenient)

    Microsoft Windows XP Home (I would have gotten a Pro or a Linux, but Pro costed too much and Dell wouldn't let me get it without an OS)

    And I used the printer I already had. All in all, this came to ~$1400, plus S&H $100.

    But if you're in the middle, then tone down the specs to fit your needs:

    1.5+ GHz processor (AMD Athlon XP is good, DO NOT get an Intel Celeron)

    AT LEAST 256 MB of memory (DO NOT get any less, even this is pushing it - Windoze XP requries a HUGE amount of memory to run responsively - I would recommend 384 MB or 512 if you need to run a couple of applications (more than 3-4) )

    Any mid-range graphics card (it doesn't matter much, as long as it's not 'integrated')

    Any 17 in monitor (15 in is way too small, get an LCD if you have space concerns, a CRT otherwise (and if you're doing ANY gaming at all, get a CRT) )

    HD, 40 Gigs (you don't need much)

    CD-RW drive (you NEED a CD Burner)

    Microsoft Windows XP Home (I would recommend Linux, but no one has it pre-installed. However, Linux is lightyears ahead of Windows in cost (how can you get better than free?) and usefulness (with Windows, you have to buy Office after you buy Windows, then you have to buy photo editing software, then... - Linux comes with tons of software and you can get more free from the Internet), and is one of the most stable OSs)

    Well, hope it helps!

    [edit] Bolded choices

    Problem When Opening "send To"

    in Computer Desk

    Posted

    Interesting... Windows shouldn't use Firefox bookmarks, right? Windows uses IE bookmarks, AFAIK Firefox uses Netscape bookmarks. Also, Firefox isn't v1.0 yet, so don't expect everything...

    It seems that you could have a corrupted bookmark file... try re-creating the bookmark.

    Besides that, I haven't ever seen that kind of problem... hope it helps.

    How often do you use a shell in favour of ...

    in Computer Desk

    Posted

    The command line is somewhat of a neccessity - compilers, many utilities, all run from the command line.

    I use MinGW's MSYS for compiling things, and otherwise, Cygwin. I never use Microsoft's command line unless I have to.

    Also, don't spend your money on alternative shells for Windows, they're not worth it. Better to just use Cygwin - bash is the best out there!

  15. AI Scripting ?

    in Game Modification

    Posted

    Well, AI scripting wasn't the easiest thing to begin with. And with the addition of a logical Host API, there shouldn't be much of a problem. When the mundane details of how to get units to move is gone, the pure AI becomes much easier.

  16. What 0S Do You Run?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    OS X is a Linux kernel!?! Yay, the open-source movement spreads!

    And no, unless you can get a native environment for the Linux programs to run (i.e. Cygwin), they won't. Different libraries probably. And even if it were based on a Linux kernel, I have never heard of a Mac console, let along Bash (which I use a lot :) ).

    MinGW would be a better choice than Cygwin for compiling, because the MinGW executables rely on Microsoft's MSVCRT.dll (included with Windows), while Cygwin-compiled executables rely on Cygwin1.dll (not included with Windows).

    A Linux port of 0 A.D. would be a very, very good idea. Same with a Mac port. Seeing that there aren't many games for Linux/Macs, this could be the first and greatest! Although there are some great games for Linux (Pingus is great), many are not as commercial-scale as 0 A.D. The only problem is that Linux doesn't have the greatest 3D acceleration support, so those people with newer graphics cards will miss out a bit (currently, I have seen support for the ATi Radeon 9700 and nVidia makes drivers for Linux, so nVidia cards shouldn't have a problem).

    And I would have a Linux on my new com, but it's got a pre-installed Windows and an undetailed filesystem (NTFS-2 or something, Microsoft obviously doesn't like to release filesystem details, even though Linux ext2 is way better...).

  17. New Screenshots - 8/1/04

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Me has 56k, and the JPEGs are loading about 1 min. And I hate screenshots of, say, IDEs that are JPEGs, because you can tell that the frame is so distorted, and it looks horrible... I wouldn't mind a couple minutes download time, because that's what I usually get :D.

    Also, with a few... tricks, I got a compressed PNG of the afternoon screenshot down to 563 KB. There is no perceptable (sp?) quality loss, except when zoomed in some 500%. And zooming in makes everything look really cool too :). On the surface, when zoomed out at 100%, everything looks almost identical, and without the JPEG artifacts, it might be more identical.

    With PNG interlacing (far superior to JPEG's and GIF's, I might add), there will be no perceptable (sp again?) difference in the loading times.

    Of course, it's all just my opinion, as I am a supporter of PNG, ...

    If You Could Make The Perfect Forum

    in Computer Desk

    Posted

    Well, WFG is probably the best forum I have seen in a while :lol:. Considering many other forums are just made for spam and all that. I would have good organization and a few split forums, probably lots of good features, and the rest depends upon the community using the forum...

    Web Programming

    in Computer Desk

    Posted

    v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}

    o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}

    b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}

    .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}

      Dnas

      11.5606

    ....

    Uhhhh...

    Well, I only use WYSIWYG editors for finding out how to do ___, never to create whole web pages.

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