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Messages - Michael_Lee

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91
Web Programming and Design / Temporary downloadable files -- best practice?
« on: September 16, 2011, 07:43:41 pm »
I'm taking user input (in a text box or whatever), and trying to make a file the user can then download.  What is the best way of managing the newly created files?

Should I assign them a unique name, based on a hash or something?  Or is there a way to preserve filenames without risking accidental name collision?

I really don't want a bunch of files to be created and slowly take up a huge amount of memory -- what's the best way of managing and purging temporary downloadable files?

(I'm trying to make something based of off Javascript and Python).

92
Miscellaneous / Re: Rating TiCalc files
« on: September 16, 2011, 07:32:54 pm »
I think that a game needs to accumulate a certain amount of ratings before it'll show up?

93
Miscellaneous / Re: Ideas for older boys for Operation Christmas Child?
« on: September 14, 2011, 12:38:43 am »
lol, I forgot about those.

Those metal balls and magnet connector things are awesome.
When I was little, I used to spend hours playing with just a handful of those.  I carried them around with me all the time and would play with them in the mall as my parents went shopping.

I think there's a similar toy floating around that's just comprised of magnetic ball bearings?  I thought I saw it on ThinkGeek once.

Magnets in general might also be cool.

Non-electronic toys you can find on ThinkGeek might also work -- they have a bunch of pretty neat thingies.

94
Miscellaneous / Re: Ideas for older boys for Operation Christmas Child?
« on: September 14, 2011, 12:27:09 am »
The typical standbys:
Inflatable soccer ball, Frisbees, Transformer-style toys, small racing cars, a small kite.

Toys that might be suited for more introspective kids:
An origami kit (paper and instructions), a collection of legos, a paint/calligraphy kit, binoculars/small telescope, microscope/magnifying glass, Rubik's cubes, puzzles in general, model kits, sand-box style toys (stuff like legos where you can do/build a whole variety of stuff instead of being constrained to just doing one thing).

95
Introduce Yourself! / Re: Hello!
« on: September 13, 2011, 01:51:01 pm »
Hey!  Welcome to Omnimaga!

What kinds of programs  are you working on right now?

96
Miscellaneous / Re: Coding Font
« on: September 12, 2011, 07:43:58 pm »
@FinaleTI: You, good sir, win the internet.

I am SO setting that my default coding font from now on ;D

Oh god, I suddenly have the urge to hand-craft code using a really fancy calligraphy pen on some parchment...

97
Miscellaneous / Re: Coding Font
« on: September 12, 2011, 05:51:47 pm »
Consolas.

It just feels... clean for me.  Much better then whatever horrible font MS Notepad defaults to, anyways.

98
Miscellaneous / Re: Lowered participation
« on: September 09, 2011, 07:51:07 pm »
Thanks for the support.

Yeah, I've been trying to stop procrastinating as much -- I'm actually making a daily todo list (and I try and check off each item at every opportunity.  I'm actually trying to train myself to feel unhappy if I have too many unchecked items, so that I compulsively do things, just so I check them, but it's not working too well D:),  I'm worried that I'll start backsliding though, but hopefully that won't happen.

Our school doesn't do AP -- they do something called IB (International Baccalaureate) which is fairly similar in difficulty/college likability (I think), but is designed to be more... international in scope (AP is pretty much confined to the US).  I'm taking IB English, History, Physics, Business, and Calculus.

I didn't have summer homework, but I had to go do SAT prep, plus I signed up for an online AP Computer Science (just the first semester of the first level/course/thing).  Was it just my particular online class, or is Java taught in all AP Computer Science classes?  Because after churning out tiny program after program, I am really starting to hate the language.

99
Math and Science / Re: Builderboy's Lobster Puzzle-- A geometric approach
« on: September 09, 2011, 07:38:34 pm »
I love how you illustrated by writing a calculator program ;D

I'm pretty noobish at geometry -- how did you determine that 1/3 of the second circle was in the 1 unit range?

100
Axe / Re: programming help?
« on: September 08, 2011, 10:13:04 pm »
I would highly recommend you look up pointers.  They're basically related to low-level manipulation of memory.  Googling it would pull up a bunch of explanations in C/C++, so ignore the specifics of the syntax and focus on trying to understand the concept.

Code: [Select]
.TEST

Text(0,0,L1>Dec)
Pause 1000

(The '>Dec' token can be found in the number menu).

L1 can be thought of as a constant that tells you the start of some free memory you can much around in.  Let's say (hypothetically speaking) that running the above program displayed the number '541'.  That means that starting from the 541th byte in RAM, you have (according to the documentation) about 700 bytes to play around in -- from the 541th byte to about the 1241th byte (give or take a little).

If you want to store anything to those bytes, you use curly brackets.

Code: [Select]
.TEST2

3->{L1}
4->{L1+5}

Text(0,0,{L1}>Dec)
Text(0,8,{L1+5}>Dec)
Pause 100

This would store the number '3' to the 541th byte, and the number '4' to the 546th byte, and display first the number '3' then the number '4'.

Finding a segment of free memory (by using this method, or by allocating program memory/making an appvar, which is more complicated), is the only way you can have lists or arrays in Axe.

Sometimes, though, you just don't have enough free RAM to be able to do anything complex.

You can use square brackets to store raw data directly into your program.

Code: [Select]
.TEST3

[01020A0B]->P
That would store a bunch of hex (in this case, exactly 4 bytes), and store the pointer to the variable P.

If I did...

Code: [Select]
.TEST4

[01020A0B]->P

Text(0,0,{P+2}>Dec)
Pause 1000
That would display the 3rd byte (indexes start at zero), which would be the number '10' (in hex, 0A is ten).

This is a good way to store and read, say, a tilemap or level data.

r1 to r6 are variables, just like A, B, C, and D.  If you pass values to functions, they'll be stored to r1 to r6.

Also, one thing that tripped me up when I started Axe -- you don't need curly braces to store and read from simple variables like A, B, or r1.

101
Miscellaneous / Lowered participation
« on: September 08, 2011, 09:07:16 pm »
Hey everybody.

Although I've been making an attempt to contribute more to Omnimaga, I've really been slowly fading away since pretty much spring this year, and now that I'm starting junior year in high school and trying to juggle a whole bunch of things (I finally got a part-time job ;D), I'm afraid that my participation in Omnimaga will grow even less.

I'm not leaving for good, and I definitely will continue to work on my projects and even attempt to start mini-ones from time to time, but I really doubt I'll have time to do anything major.

Just a head's up.


On a slightly related note, does anybody have strategies for dealing with packed schedules?  I have a whole bunch of stuff to do, and I'd really like to make everything I do as efficient as possible so that I actually have some free time to do stuff that I like.

102
Other / Re: Lego Mindstorms
« on: September 07, 2011, 07:11:15 pm »
Sweet!

Question:  would about 2 months be a reasonable timeframe to build a fairly complex robot?  We're considering introducing the kits sometime in October, and having a mini-competition (just within our club) in December.

Also...

*Michael crosses his fingers in hope

Is there a Python interpreter/compiler for either of them?
I have to admit, I'm a bit of a Python fanboy ;D

103
TI Z80 / Re: Zedd Physics Library
« on: September 07, 2011, 06:55:59 pm »
That is awesome.

104
Other / Re: Lego Mindstorms
« on: September 07, 2011, 06:50:23 pm »
Cool, thanks for the suggestions.

So... RCX is more flexible then NXT, but is slower?

Just to check, both of them DO support C++ (or a C-like language), right?  With OOP and everything?

105
Other / Lego Mindstorms
« on: September 06, 2011, 01:56:04 pm »
My local robotics club thought it would be cool (well, I thought it would be cool, and pushed the idea) to buy several sets of Lego Mindstorms (or something similar) so that newcomers could gain some experience playing and building stuff with them.

I'm currently in the process of researching what kind of kit would be best, but because I'm really new to this, I wanted to get some suggestions on what we should look into purchasing, and if there are any better alternatives to Lego Mindstorms.  Ideally, it should be a fairly versatile and large kit so we aren't limited to building only a few things, and needs to be programmable.

Suggestions?  ;D

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