About this blog

Alright, since this is my first post on this new blog, I might as well explain what it's all going to be about.

In my entire life, I've created hundreds (maybe thousands?) of small and quick applications (C#, C++, Perl, etc.) just for the fun of it. Art generation, sound and image modification, small game prototypes... Basically, when I have an idea of a small application I'd like to create and I know it will only take a few hours, I do it. (And then I work on it the entire weekend to add new features :P)

At University, I would call these "One Hour Projects", and, very often before an exam, I would find an OHP to create in the hour preceding the exam. That was a very good stress relieving activity!

I also created a website with many of those projects, but since I don't have it now, and have no idea where it is, it will have to wait before I post about those. (It used to be on our University website, but it was closed after I graduated).

Also, while at EA, I created a whole bunch of small applications, but, being a good person, I left all that behind, fearful that EA might realize I created an "Xbox Controller Theremin" application. Oh, wait, I DID keep this one. Oh no! Then I'd better post about it here. :)

One "bigger" application I did at EA was "BuddyProgress". It all started very simple with a progress bar on the screen. You can drag it around, right click, select a Perforce changelist that has not been checked-in yet, and then the progress bar would display the percentage given by (FilesInUserChangelist / (FilesInUserChangelist + FilesInDefaultChangelist)). Since when we were doing code reviews we would drag-and-drop files from the Default changelist to the User changelist, the application was actually giving you an idea of your code review progress.

This might sound funny and useless at first, but we ended up using it for almost every review. Features like midi sound with the pitch going up or down, sending buddy requests (using a file on a shared drive) that would pop-up a message on the other user's computer, auto-update (also simply using files on a shared drive) were then added to the application, just for the fun of it!

Since for me creating those projects is also an important source of motivation in my life, I will probably continue doing so for a long time, and my plan is to share them here on this blog whenever possible.