ThePentiumGuy

Eek, I'm not willing to risk anything from those instructions, sorry :). Yeah I wanted more performance in my PC, rather than paying extra for XP Pro. I do have XP pro, but I heard that if you install XP Pro on 2 computers on the same network then ... heh... problems. Apache it is :). -The Pentium Guy

You're weclome.

Sigh man, I've tried to 'upgrade' the code to the latest version. No luck. MS has changed too much, it's almost as if it's a new version number (9 -> 10 lol). I have an idea btw. I'm going to try this too... I'll look in the documentation and see what has changed since version 9.0a (I have 9.0a, b, and c)... and chart the changes and see if I have any luck. -The Pentium Guy

Hey, I'm using XP Home, and I'm wondering where I download IIS from. Is it a requirement that I use IIS (I'm planning to start ASP.NET) I heard it is very insecure. Are there any other options out for me besides IIS? Thanks, -The Pentium Guy

Nothing yet? I've thought of some ideas (sort of Real-World) -A chat program. (Knowledge of Sockets and Threads). I will use my computer as the server and all messages are sent to the server and then sent to the recepient. Username/Password, Logging in, message limiting. Also DirectConnection, where the user and the recipient speak directly. This brings us to ASP.NET (to set up the server). -Well OK, if the chat program is "Step 2", then ASP.NET is "Step 1". I'll install IIS on that computer. Just as a side note, to learn ASP.NET I'll create a real-time price engine, which will display certain prices on a webpage (localhost of course). I will update the prices (of whatever item) by entering in some values and the webpage will be automatically updated. But the prices will be stored on a database. Which brings us to ADO.NET -An SQL Server will be installed on my computer, with a database of the listed prices. Now this is just to learn how to do ASP.NET ... using ADO.NET Back to the main focus (the chat program): THe username and passwords will be stored on another database, the server will connect to the database and then verify if the username exists (if not then it will return a "Username does not exist" error), and if it does then it will verify the password. If the password matches then it will connect to the IIS server and you can begin chatting. --- So in summary: ADO.NET - To store a database containing the Usernames/Passwords on an IIS server. I realize that IIS is insecure, but for now security is not an issue yet. ASP.NET - To setup the IIS server. My question is do I even need ASP.NET? Sockets - To connect to the server, the server will then send the message to the recipient. A DirectConnect option is available to bypass the server, but you cannot bypass the server completely because you need to sign in, and you need to see if the recipient is online or not. I know it's not as easy as it sounds, but hey I want to learn. Any resources to help me started will be greatly appreciated. But here's a question for you guys: Am I approaching this the right way? -The Pentium Guy

This has been my question for over 6 months now. Me too. I've eventually given up on it, If you wish to use directX 9.0a to acomplsih this, visit: www.robydx.altervista.org (I think). You'll have to use a translator becuase the site is in Italian. -The Pentium Guy

That's the thing, I need some motivation.... to make some type of application. So any receommendation? I'm willing to eat anything thrown at me (ok fine not anything, but... something reasonably challanging, but not impossible(like "Write VB.NET compiler, using VB.NET")). A challange would be appreciated. -The Pentium Guy Edit: Why did my font go white? WYS!=WYG. Scratch that.

Hey all, I think it's about time that I start looking at other aspects of .NET besides graphical. It's been about a year since I've even touched things like ASP.NET and ADO.NET. Of course, I won't stop game programming. But if I choose to become a professional developer, I really should have more experience in other areas as well, but that's a different story. I've found that over time, I've basically lost the language. I'm really not doing things the proper way in Visual Basic.NET; see my tutorials in the Tutor's Corner. I'm not taking advantage of the features which VB.NET offers. I think it's time for a change. Thanks to DaRock for influencing me. Some pointers from the aformentioned person: "[You need to learn] Polymorphism, Inheritance, Stack and Heap management, Event driven programming, and Services." However I usually find that I learn better while applying things. Now I realize that I could learn this by programming a game, but my main goal here is virtu - excellence in all that I do. Just like the Renaissance times - see Da Vinci. The man was not only an artist... but an architect, engineer, painter, inventor. He even scetched things that are used today (for example the primative form of a helicopter - he imagined the blades on the top and formed somewhat of a similar structure to the current heilicopter). Now the extreme side of this is that he would learn to write backwards (mirror script) and used dead bodies to study the vein locations, contours... see David. My question to you is, what should I pursue next? I used to easily dismiss the thought of databases (I used to say "boring, the end") and I found ASP.NET useless. Now things have changed a little. What other areas of VB.NET do you recommend me to explore? It's about time I took the bull by the horns and.... (uhh).... eat it(?). -The Pentium Guy

Lol. Well I meant "MICROSOFT IS RETARDED" in a light, humorous, comical, playable (whatever adjectives you want to use) manner. Becuse they are NOT retarded, they invented windows (....fine, everythin ghas it's quirks though). Yeah I gotta be grateful for that. At least they're supporting vb.net -TPG

I can't find that project anymore though. Well about the Office AssitaNce thing: www.microsoft.com/msagent - nifty little tool. I remember playing with that back in VB6.

Well the crew could have morals "We shall not kill civilians".

I wuold assume so, because upon its OnPaint event it has to call your BaseForm's onPaint event.

Well I do have a right :), but I hope you realize that I wasn't being 100% serious on this whole thread (The problem exists, but I don't care about it hehe). I mean I'm not "condemning" Microsoft, just saying that they made a mistake. Chill :) -The Pentium Guy

Yeah DirectX is very different. Well, I'm not sure about fog effects and opening/closing animations (I don't even know what that is) - but you can do smooth borders, it has something to do with transparency... I gotta look this up. Yeah it's possible to make an addon, if you tried hard enough. Again it has somethin to do with transparency, and you might need several bitmaps to achaive these effects. I haven't used powerpoint in a long time - what effects do you mean? I mean for example, you can make the borders of the form "animate" like a wave or something: From: /\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/ To: \/\/\/\/ /\/\/\/\ and back and forth. You'd just need several bitmaps .... but then again I did this a while ago, so I don't remember how to do this (If only I could find that project....). -The Pentium Guy

Oh. Damn. Hmph, I'm going to personally email microsoft (billg@microsoft.com - jkjk). I might email MSDN Tech Support or post it on their tech support forum. Nah, just kidding. It doesn't bother me too much. But I'm sure: a) They know about this, but they're too lazy to fix it b) They don't know about this. c) They know about this and they're going to fix it immediately. (Lol what other choices are there :P). -The Pentium Guy

Third party? I thought Microsoft provided ListBoxes. I mean the dragging might be the hardest part of your program, but once you figure out where you dragged it to, just add it to the group. The dragging part will be the hardest. -The Pentium Guy

Good point, I'm always used to looking at them like "A huge company" rather than a collection of individuals.

I think the best way to learn is not from books and courses. I find it much easier to do hands-on and do everything on my own, and use the books as a reference. For example, I'm taking a Java course this semester (I'm a sophomore in high school), and I've already flipped through the book and I understand pretty much 99.99% of it, the reason being that it is VERY similar to C#. Whoops, I went off topic a bit there - but my point is, if the course method doesn't work for you, try the hands-on approach. Works great for me. I'm not saying "Quit the course", but maybe try to do some more things on your own that pertain to the course. I find it much easier to type the code out in a book and understand it rather than reading the book itself (the reason bieng that I am not a compiler, just to let you know [ok bad joke]). I'm not sure if you do this, but try typing the code you learn in the course manually. Then mess around with the code and see exactly what does what, making sure you don't just say "Oh this is supposed to do that", not fully understanding what the point of it is. So be sure you understand why they use the code instead of what they use. The best way to do that is to go back and try to find another approach to do the same thing. Should you might fail, you'll realize why the book does things the way they do it. Should your alternate approach work, see if it's better optimized/cleaner/flows better than your code, then ... (don't do this but...) tell the prof that the book sucks and tell him you're smarter than the book :P. And as a last resort, you're (again) always welcome on our forums. We have a great number of experts from all over the world gathered in this community. -The Pentium Guy

Heh. This leads me to beleive that getting MCAD isn't as great as I thought it would be (no offense, but same questions?). DOH. What I wrote above was not positive. Yeah, it was a big change from VB6 to VB.NET, personally - I loved it. OOP was just the way my mind worked. Postive Thoughts: Life sucks, get used to it. No just kidding man :). Positive Thoughts: Some have a harder time with change than others. If there's anything you don't understand or need assistance on, we at XtremeDotNetTalk can help you, welcome to the forums. -The Pentium Guy

Ok, this is SO dumb. When you refernence the DLLs for DirectX: Microsoft.DirectX Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3DX <-- When you import them: Imports Microsoft.DirectX Imports Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D Imports Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.D3DX <-- What the hell? -The Pentium Guy

Yes, See Half Life 2 Yes. Hard, but check the tutor's corner for some of my tutorials, I try to make the "Excruciating process of learning directX" as easy as possible. Some games are programmed in OpenGL (Doom 3 for example) and some are programmed in DirectX (Half Life 2), and it it's very obvious what all microsoft games are programmed in (there might be some exceptions, I'm not 100% sure). Maybe, but can't you do that anyways? You're talking about NonRectangular windows right? You dont need DirectX. So head on over to the tutor's corner :D. -The Pentium Guy

Yeah it worked fine for me in vs.net 2003, i'll have to give the 2002 version (with all 3 versions of DirectX that I have) a try. It could be a problem with the December update... I don't have that version, but I'll give it a try. -TPG

Wow! Someone just emailed me, having the same problem. Some guy on my forum posted, having the same problem. And another guy on my forum posted, having the same problem. Oh my gosh. Has anyone tried downloading the source? (I'll have to get a floppy...damn). Something fishy is going on here. -The Pentium Guy

OH, AA. I didn't notice that. Yeah "OMFG BRUTE FORCE ARREST. IMMEDIATELY. HAKCER. SOURCE CODE STEALER. PWNED!"

Contact the dudes who make the game?