I use it at work to keep track of slashdot and a few webcomics. I haven't found one I really like yet. The best one I've seen seems to be the one built in to IE7, but even that isn't quite what I want.

I'm a fan of Google Reader -- you should check it out.

I've tried it a little, but I didn't quite like it. It seemed slow or something to me.

Really? Interesting.

Nice job on the syntax highlighting.

I cheated.

Can somebody help me with this:

I'm writing a graphics engine (ambitious, I know) and I need to use the BIOS. I'm operating under Windows XP and can write in assembly or C/C++. Does anyone know how to a) use interrupts in a Win32 application or b) use API in a DOS application?
Thanks a ton!

I probably should have explained better.

I need interrupts to interact directly with the hardware (speakers, video memory, etc.). Every time I try in C/C++ with an asm block, the program crashes. I have been able to use int86 in the past, but I cannot find the library in which it is defined. The same happens with PE format assembly, which I need to use to access the Windows API for functions like ExitProcess. I haven't figured out how that can be done in DOS because the PE format usually holds the import data, which in not in DOS executeables. I considered a device driver, so I could call interrupts "legally" from a Win32 application, but the only compiler I have that can accomplish that is Miracle C. I can't find a Windows NT device driver written in C anywhere. It comes to this: I need a few things from DOS and a few things from Windows, but I cannot use them together.

If I could use int86, this entire problem would be solved...Do you know what library (DLL) it's in? Is it faster than calling the BIOS interrupts directly?

I'm afraid that the asm() function isn't supported in my compiler; I'm using DMC. I can use an asm block (for example, asm int 21h), but that always crashes. I think it has something to do with Windows XP running on top of DOS, or some such thing.

Okay, if I put 'inline' in the function declaration, it doesn't crash, but it doesn't do anything, either. If I leave out 'inline', I get this message: The NTVDM CPU has encountered an illegal instruction.

If I can't call interrupts directly, do you know of any API that will allow me to access video memory? None of this makes sense, though. At some point, Windows has to call some interrupt, so why can it do it but I can't?

Isn't there always a way around things like this?!?!

I think I'll just use the Windows GDI and be done with it. At least Windows won't have a problem with that!

You could use DirectX instead. It gives you a little more direct access to the hardware, though still not as much as you could get under DOS.

Have you tried Project Euler Problem 20? My program is telling me 675 but the web site claims that's wrong. My program works on smaller cases that I can check manually, so I'm at a loss. Am I misunderstanding the question?

I have been using DirectX for about two years, but I haven't figured out how to load models and animations. Plus, there were a few things I felt were missing from the system. I may go back to it eventually, but I've been considering trying my hand at my own engine, if only to get some insight into the way they work.

Edit: I just realized I've had a tutorial to load models for some time. I may just program my engine as a hobby. Who knows, maybe it'll actually be useful someday!

What do you mean by engine? Most modern game engines are built on top of DirectX. Are you trying to do you own 3d rendering? I think that's a great idea, it will be a good learning experience. I'd recommend building it on top of a 2d library like Direct Draw though.

It's kind of built on top of the Windows GDI so far. There were a few features I wanted to add that DirectX didn't have. I have always considered writing something yourself to be the best teacher. I was also going to construct a "composer" for writing music files in some format that I may make up myself. The music and sound side of the engine will use MIDI. The rest of it hasn't really been planned yet, but that's what I have so far.

Awesome music!!!!

Hey, I figured out how to fix the problem: I just loaded the DLL and GetProcAddress'd the function instead of using a library.

Hey, I have a question about DirectX again (sorry!):
I am trying to spin a triangle around by using Direct3DDevice9::SetTransform with a Y-axis rotation matrix, but when I run the program, the triangle is the same as before. What would cause that?

do you have enough video card to run vista with all its spiffy graphicalness?

also, what build are you running?

5600 is RC1, not post-RC1. It's great you get to see vista in all it's glory. I installed it on my brother's machine last weekend, and it worked really well (he has an audigy2, but he's running a 32-bit build) but Vista doesn't support his printer yet.

It seems to not be very efficient with virtual memory. At work I'll put it through some pretty heavy loads and programs start getting unresponsive because of paging. It's sad that anything can make my dev box feel overloaded. Hopefully the performance team will get this all fixed before it's shipped. I've got build 5600 on my laptop, and it's actually usable, unlike the beta2 that I had installed, so that was a rather impressive improvement.

I figured it out, I'd pre-transformed the triangle.
I'm not really that excited about Vista. All of my programs are Win32 PE files, but my dad (computer analyst) says that no one knows if those will run on Vista. Do you know if they do or not?

Hey man. How are you?

You never post stuff that I know about, so I just have to randomly say hello.

When my hosted database comes back up, you could listen to the piece I wrote yesterday - that's pretty non-technical, right?

Ok, it's back up now.

Any news on my DirectX question?

I get a "Symbol Undefined: DirectDrawCreate@12" error even though I link ddraw.lib, ddraw.dll, and a definition file (ddraw.def) that I wrote to my project, which should fix the error. However, I just get a "Cannot Export: DirectDrawCreate" error instead, and I don't know what else I am supposed to do. I'm using Windows XP and DMC++ compiler.

i'd seen that one... That's funny.

great site!

this semester i've generally been writing in C, integrated with some assembly. it's software for microcontrollers in embedded systems.

So are you through with rails?

I'm actually liking rails more and more, especially after 1.1.

I don't like the by-default ruby templating, but with Liquid, everything is really great.

Python is good, but I find it somewhat less attractive than ruby (esp with the "__init__"-style method names)

yeah it definitely is Bawls. good eye!

22, you?

this is starting to get really odd.

adam darling...how are you?

Can you help me with some C++ and DirectDraw? I get this error: "Symbol Undefined: _DirectDrawCreate@12" but when I make a .def file and convert ddraw.dll to ddraw.lib and link those two files to my C++ file, I get this error: "Cannot Export: _DirectDrawCreate@12". Does anybody know what's up?!?!