May 2004 - Posts

• TechEd Water

  In preparing for this year's TechEd, I thought I'd review some materials from TechEds of the past. Hmm, maybe I should post these on ebay… Posted May 14 2004, 03:48 AM by AdamKinney with 1 comment(s) Filed under: .NET Community

• And then there were 4…

  4 blogs.  No really more like 4 blog channels. That's what I'm up to now. My complete blog channel can be found at AdamKinney.com, which from there I crosspost to Longhornblogs.com and weblogs.asp.net and now announcing the latest channel at the recently started XAMLBlogs.com. Crossposting is useful as you are able to reach different audiences and build seperate comment conversations. Its always interesting to see the turns that the conversations can go when they grow independantly. Sort of like living in different parallel universes at the same time… Posted May 12 2004, 05:09 AM by AdamKinney with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Blogology

• Premier XNA Title

  Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a massively multiplayer RPG currently in development by Sigil Games Online, Inc. and funded and to be published by Microsoft Games Studios. Sigil was founded by two major contributors to the EverQuest phenomenon.  In addition to their credentials, they have announced that Vanguard will use the Unreal Game Engine and they will be using the Microsoft XNA platform for development. Sounds like an awesome combination! Posted May 12 2004, 04:33 AM by AdamKinney with no comments Filed under: XNA

• Graphic Support for Books

  While reading DonXml's post on Why Shouldn’t Authors Self-Publish?, I came across on interesting comment by Darrell Norton. He mentioned that typically graphics and images in books are not always in proportion to the quality of the writing of the book. This makes sense, most programmer writers are not skilled with the likes of graphic design and I can't imagine that it would be cost-effective for publishers to keep too many artists on staff for this kind of work. As a designer/developer, I'm interested in how this works behind the scenes.  I've noticed the lack of quality graphics in some books, myself.  I wonder how important this is to the success of the book.  Could it warrant a service where the publisher or the author pays an outside consultant to design the graphics (or at least takes them out for a for beer)? Any input from existing authors?  Anyone willing to pay (or bartering) for graphical support? [Curiosity killed the cat; or at least gives him to much to do…] Posted May 11 2004, 01:10 AM by AdamKinney with 6 comment(s) Filed under: Books

• NextFest for programmers

  I was checking out the WIRED NEXTFest website, which previews a few of the exhibits, like flying cars, robot butlers and Invisibility Coats(think of the Predator movies, not Harry Potter).  And of course, this stuff is very cool and exciting, but it all seems very focused on engineering.  These people make material things that others can see.  I can't completely relate, I spend most of my time pushing bits and pixels around all day (and night). I am just wondering if there is any conference like this for programmers.  Some non-specific (meaning open-source or proprietary) programming convention, where you get to see the most amazing stuff that people are doing with their virtual creations. Is there any existing conference that matches this description?  Any thoughts on if this is a bad or good idea? Posted May 08 2004, 12:38 AM by AdamKinney with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Grey Matters