I took a pre-order of Destiny just to get into the Beta. I was very skeptical of the game after watching 'The Devil's Lair' trailer. It seemed very dull, and nothing we haven't seen before. Very disappointing. However, the gameplay seems much better after playing the Beta. Controls are good, graphics look fantastic. There is a real feeling of polish that Bungie are really good at, even though this isn't even the finished product. MORE
Yep. I am now a graduate of the University of Hull with a 1st class BSc (hons) degree in Computer Science. Graduation was on the 14th of July, and it was a fantastic day. As well as a lovely ceremony we had lunch in the department and I found out I'd won the 'G B Cook Prize in Computing' for the 'Best Project in the Honours Stage'. This is referring to PascalDE, which I received a mark of 90% for. Extremely happy about that, and I had no idea I had won an award. MORE
What an amazing day of E3 press conferences (or 'media briefings' as they are now called). MORE
One of my modules this last semester was 'Mobile Devices and Applications'. For our coursework, we were tasked to make an m-Health app for Android which would allow people to perform 'mini game'-like tasks to assess how alcohol affects cognition. Users can test themselves while drinking alcohol and compare their performance to a baseline established while sober. The app was called 'Amulet' and includes 3 different tasks for the user to test themselves with, a drink diary to keep track of units consumed, and a unit calculator. MORE
I've been replaying Halo 4 recently, and while I've really enjoyed it, I also thought about what was missing in 343 Industries first go at the Halo saga. Things that Bungie really got right most of the time. So here are five points I think 343i should pick up on. MORE
So recently I've been working on the search functionality in PascalDE. Unlike most text file searches, which just let you click through 'Find Next' to go to each instance of the search term, the search in PascalDE will show you the results in context as a list. This makes it easier to find what you're looking for. I also found you could search for something like 'procedure' and it would give you a list of every procedure in your program with names (useful for quickly navigating your program). I've also implemented autocomplete into the search, making it quicker to search for a variable/type or reserved word etc. MORE
Progress on my 3rd Year Project (a Pascal IDE) has been coming along nicely. Since my first post about it, the UI has been tweaked and features have been added. The screenshot above shows a new Start screen that is presented to the user on startup. Adding a Start screen gives useful options to the user, and the main window is loaded in the background, making it appear faster to open. A feature I like about the Start window is the recent files list. Each tile has a thumbnail of where in the code you last saved, and when the file is opened you can pick up right where you left off. MORE
My friend Danny and I were discussing whether or not you should use a custom window chrome on your desktop programs. We both have the same subject for our third year projects, and this issue came up when we were talking about my custom window border in PascalDE. It's a bit picky and some might not see it as an argument at all, but I want to share why it does have an importance in some cases. MORE
It's been a long time since my last blog post, sorry about that. As you can imagine, university work has been a lot more intense in the last year of the course. There is one thing I can now show you - my third year project. MORE
GAME held Xbox One lock-ins across the country this month, and one of them was in Hull. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to play an Xbox One before launch so I reserved a place for me and my friend Danny. MORE
