It starts off assuming no knowledge of programming whatsoever so for me the early stages are a little pointless, though in fairness they do cover some of the thought processes that you’d need to familiarise yourself with both to be a decent coder and to work on games specifically. I’ve made sure to do everything in the books so far, whether or not I think it’s useless given my existing skillset.

This course is relatively new, something I’ve been stung with before when I did my foundation degree in computer and electronics interfacing, but the course tutors and staff seem extremely responsive and ready, eager even, to give help. The forums also are home to some good community information as well as frequented by a few unaffiliated members of the games industry which provide help and advice of their own accord which is amazing of them and much appreciated.

So far, I’m pretty happy with the course and I’m currently on the early stages of the C++ parts, where you learn the language and how to use it. Going through the material, I’ve been surprised by how much C++ I’ve forgotten over the 8 or 9 years it’s been since I last used it actively. The book has been a great help, as have my tutors, in getting back up to speed.

I’ve had some minor issues with the course material, sometimes the questions in the mini-exams are vaguely worded or terminology used isn’t 100% consistent which can course some confusion but the tutors have always been on hand to answer any questions and are eager to correct any mistakes in the material, putting out errata when needed.

I’m looking forward to breaking out into more complex territory soon as I reach more advanced subjects in the course. In the mean time I’m teaching myself how to use various 3D libraries (my eyes currently set on Ogre3D) and messing around with physics engines (chipmunk for 2D stuff and possibly bullet for 3D).

At this early stage in the course I can’t really lodge any complaints as for the most part I haven’t actually learned anything particularly new to me but as soon as I hit that stage I’ll keep things updated for all of you that are concerned this course might be some kind of scam. So far though, the effort put into it and the general quality of responses from both tutors and the community makes the whole scam scenario seem extremely unlikely. As to whether or not the qualification at the end becomes recognised by the industry remains to be seen.

Aero seems to run a little slowly which is quite disappointing considering compiz under Linux seems to run very well now I’ve applied the changes I mentioned in my last post. Perhaps the drivers or graphics card needs driving in some better way similar to the changes I made under Linux but no idea how I’d make them, sounds like I need to do some searching on that one if it’s even possible.

IE8 is still as horrible as IE7. I hate it’s interface, I hate the way it does things and it renders stuff weird in some cases, such as the TinyMCE controls on WordPress’ Post Entry box. I just find it a chore to use and it UI just seems to get in the way of what I want to do. I haven’t used it for doing anything complicated like debugging a javascript app or anything like that but I don’t imagine I’d be in for a fun time if I did given my previous experience with older versions of IE.

I found the font rendering looked pretty shitty by default, but playing around with the ClearType tool made it all render much better and I can’t really complain now, though I think the rendering under Linux looks better.

Conclusions

So far though, no major complaints, most things seems fairly easy to find and fairly well explained by the help text. I think generally the actual system maintenance and customisation tools are much easier to use and far more friendly to new users than they used to be in older versions. Not a bad operating system as far as they go so far, but not tried to do much stuff yet, still only really had some basic usage out of it, not tried developing anything or messing with multimedia of any kind yet so the jury is still out on that one.

• My Google Talk status
• My Facebook status
• My LinkedIn status
• My Jaiku account
• My Twitter account
• My Delicious bookmarks

I can also do the same thing via email as well, and by attaching images I can also post to Flickr.

This all ties together wonderfully with my T-Mobile G1 phone. I take a picture, use the in-built share functionality to send it via email to my secret ping.fm email bot address which then posts it to Flickr and makes a post on all my other services telling people about it.

It’s awsome and also incredibly easy to setup. Seriously, go to ping.fm and check it out.

Dead Set is basically bring brother in the aftermath of a zombie outbreak. It’s fantastic in many of the ways Peep Show is awesome: the terrible cringe-inducing stupidity and awkwardness. Plus anything where you get to see the vacous residents of that stupid show ripped apart and eaten gets an automatic thumbs up. As zombie stuff goes, it’s quite good with the right balance of cheese and seriousness and so me over the top effects thrown in for good measure without trying too hard to be taken seriously. It’s a black comedy really and it does it quite well if you can get over the initial shudder of watching Big Brother, even if only by proxy. Also, zombie Davina McCall automatically adds makes this a must see.

I did enjoy this, not only for the above qualities but als for the apparent sense of disdain the creators have for Big Brother portrayed not only in the characters personalities but in lots of little things throughout the mini-series. Of course, that might be my own biases instead.

Next up, Two-Headed Monster, Collide’s latest album. On first listen, I didn’t like it at all. It’s a departure with kaRIN’s usual almost ethereal style and I don’t like it at all. After a few more listens, about two songs came through as quite enjoyable but otherwise, no, I still don’t like it. I was quite disappointed. After hearing Collide’s work in The Secret Meeting, I was hoping for something more like that, but no, it wasn’t anything like it at all. Of all of Collide’s albums, Some Kind of Strange has to be my favourite and this new one had none of the qualities that made that album work for me. While technically, the album is of a good quality, stylistically it’s terrible and seems to be trying to be something it’s not. A disappointing release indeed. I really hope I get to see another album as strong as Some Kind of Strange released by Collide some time in the future and that this one is just a hiccup and not the start of a new trend.

Well, thats it for now.