its been weeks, i had a lot of things that i need to do, i know i have finished some of them already but as i looked, it seems like there are still a lot of things i need to do and they keep on coming...

whats weird, not feeling tired of it at all... it feels good when this things become part of me, one of which is serving the community.

Last night was MS Club election, i was elected as External Committee Officer. Not the typical positions I have got from the earlier organizations such as MSNERDS and Philippine SQL Server Users Group but as long as there is challenge, i always see it as opportunity of improving myself.

I am inclined to doing this things because i believe its what makes me grow.

I meet with PH-SSUG 2 to 3 times a week, with the MSNERDS atleast twice a month and this includes some activity we do to service our Filipino Community.

Recently, Nov. 12, we celebrated our first anniversary for the msnerds which was last Nov. 6. We are now 1 year old and hope to grow more. Some pics are posted in our site www.msnerds.net.

i would like to encourage some other folks to serve your community the way some of us do. believe me, its a fulfillment...

yesterday night, i didn't prepare for the introductory meeting and just went there to support Bobbit Angeles to conduct an introductory meeting for the new members of the msnerds...

to my surprise, i though he is not going to make it so i started discussing and when i was about to finished, there he was... bugger...

in line with a the dental system project im doing with my team. Once again, I am faced with another project which is sort of a extension to the previous software we developed for Leighton's Client which is MNTC (Manila North Tollways Corporation). This time, with enhancements of vehicle class builder from which vehicle classfications and specifications can be added, modified or deleted and produced more timely reports for their requirements.

Last October 11, I had a meeting with Leighton's President Tom Grose and their WIM Supplier from Australia Jim Burnell and discussed how my new software will interact with the data given by his Weight in motion devices which are installed in the tollways.

as for me, another challenge awaits...

Yet another busy month. Not that im not blogging anymore, but as much as i want to, the new spoke is running slow. Anyway, what has happened during the past month.
For the MSNERDS, we had NTB (Nerds Technical Briefing, there were a lot of presenters with new cool topics), for me, it was the best NTB so far, and i can see that it will improve as we progress with our group.
After NTB, it was followed by MS Club Meeting led by RD, the club coordinator and then an appearance by Sir Jojo to further clarify some discussions of the meeting.
Last week, an event was held at Adamson University with me as the Guest Speaker with my topic as Windows Vista, there was one sleepless night for the preparation as it was the first time that the msnerds is handling that subject. My talk was followed by Jerome's Network Viruses. As far as i can see, our visit to the university was very meaningful.

woohoo... i just finish with my eyecheck, no problem seen. we have been visited by an eye specialist who offers glasses here in office and conduct eye exams to check if we need their products or not.

i have perfect vision.

at last... after 2 long weeks of waiting. my account has been fixed.

our sales managers birthday, but we were unlucky because his treat has not reach to our department. o well, garrett and i went out for lunch.

hmn, for todays job, i printed all our sales and staffs calling cards, bought myself a ps2 to usb adapter so i can used my a4tech wireless mouse and keyboard with the tablet pc that is issued to me. i needed the mouse because i extended its dual screen capability so i can be more productive. see pic here:

btw, as i post my pic, noticed that the new version is too d*mn slow.

after a long vacation, im back to office, the whole morning, i was working with ms project 2000 for our software development project. it is fun using the software again after quite sometime. the last time i used it was my kiosk project in the previous company i worked for. now im done plotting schedules and assignments for my members.

last weekend was interesting, i spent my vacation biking and badminton. i went to Tia Amare which is a leisure park behind the upcoming SM Mall of Asia near the church Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

You can see other people who does different things like jogging, sipa, biking, badminton, remote controlled cars, and there even was an aerobic class with loud speakers.

im planning to go there next week end.

during lunchtime, i have donut here in office so i didn't went out.

i had time to do enhancements for the puzzler game. added two additional levels, and i suck, i dont know if i made the difficult level very difficult, maybe you can judge it, download it here:
http://www.msnerds.net/puzzlerv2.zip




i have not continued the tutorial here yet but will do if i find some more time. that's all for now... i'm back to work.

today was my second day of a four day vacation i have. i called for sickleave yesterday and today is Quezon City day.

I gave myself a very long rest yesterday.

Earlier today, i was supposed to be attending Microsoft's Kick-off event at Makati Sports Club, but it was a fellow nerds baptismal for his baby girl Ira Pauline, and so i wen't to dennis invitation instead.

good food was served, the had Wok With Liu Kitchennete catering services and our favorite, tempura, we all agreed on this one.

among the other msnerds who were present were garrett and jerome. other members are not qc based so they had to attend work.

the last time i check with the clock, its was 1 o' clock. Time sure flies really fast when you've lots of things going on and busy, this project surely is fun.

hmn, my last look at ms project was almost 2 years ago, and it seemed like im a newbie to the software again. i looked at the inventory and it seemed that we didn't have the latest softwares.

i dig into my cd's and i was fortunate enough to have a demo cd of project 2003, i think i got this from the Office 2003 Launched.

Well, anyway, its good that we apply the standard practices for this project, im still discussing with the rest if will go with SOA. I would also want to go to this path.

Whew, just making the 75% of project schedules consume the whole afternoon, some are still mark tentative since im still looking at the opportunity of having OJT's and train them.

i still havent done some things that i planned for the mini game i created, the puzzler. But still hoping that i could get to that.

last friday, aug 12. i blog something about a project which was given by my boss. as team lead, i asked him if can have ojt's to help me out and ask's permission as well if i can used our conference room during saturdays to conduct an asp.net training.

he's a good boss. he says what ever i need. just take responsibility to this action. and i will.

as a start, started researching soonest to my area of study, assigned specific task to two more developers of our company for them to initially work on. hopefully i could have the ojt's by next week so they can participate.

my boss also talk to some superiors that my main concern as of the moment is this project.

it was a very very busy day, and i bet, a busy 3 months for me and my team.

great job by yahoo, at first, i though the new yahoo search pop up that comes in the words of messenger is only available at the messenger window, i found out as i was browsing, it is available in the web pages as well. cool stuff... now you can spot quick results with just a mouse over...


and another yahoo...

our Kiosk Manufacturer delivered our latest kiosk. The client was pleased and i think they are convinced to purchased another 10 units this coming week. Good News for the company.

Lucky me, will have another commission. Yahoo, im taking my girlfriend out.

We usually go mass at shrine in wednesdays, if she hasn't read this blog yet, then it will be a surprised. i bet she won't, she only reads weekly, too much work and study. Im really proud of her.

im really having fun with the puzzled game, in fact, if i have some spare time, i will enhance it to have several levels.

for those who want to create a similar game, here's some tips:

count how many blocks would you like your game to have, in my case it's 9, allocate one or more for the blank, depending on how difficult you would want your game.

in .NET, you can point to a location

in VB6, im not sure if it has the same feature but i used the left and top properties to define block placements (* note that blocks are represented by command buttons.)

make sure you have the same sizes of the blocks and same distance for the placements.

enumerate the possible locations for the blocks and enumerate the four directions up, down, left, right so you can test if that block is empty, if it does, then move will be allowed for the command button.

    If ClickPos.xPos - 500 = bPos.xPos And ClickPos.yPos = bPos.yPos Then
        Command1(Index).Left = bPos.xPos
        bPos.xPos = ClickPos.xPos
    'test right
    ElseIf ClickPos.xPos + 500 = bPos.xPos And ClickPos.yPos = bPos.yPos Then
        Command1(Index).Left = bPos.xPos
        bPos.xPos = ClickPos.xPos
    'test up
    ElseIf ClickPos.yPos - 500 = bPos.yPos And ClickPos.xPos = bPos.xPos Then
        Command1(Index).Top = bPos.yPos
        bPos.yPos = ClickPos.yPos
    'test down
    ElseIf ClickPos.yPos + 500 = bPos.yPos And ClickPos.xPos = bPos.xPos Then
        Command1(Index).Top = bPos.yPos
        bPos.yPos = ClickPos.yPos
    End If

as you can see here, i have 500 as the size of the blocks.

more codes later...

i want to see some challenge in you writing some codes.

my sister, she studies at adamson, currently, a freshman... she ask's me to help her on her assignment, and it's in visual basic 6.
 
what worries me? its now a thing in my past. but i love the challenge.

we have 8 blocks that has to have numbers 0 to 7, position this way

0 1 2
3 4 5
6 7 _

the main requirement of the project is to load the blocks (represented in commandbutton) in random order, and in everygame, it should be re-shuffled. you win when blocks are put to order similar above. i put underscore to represent an empty block where moves must be place.

now, we already have the solution, some contribution was credit to garrett. my own challenge is to have the smallest code possible. now i challenge you, lets play puzzled.

for simplicity, i have not populated the game with some other features yet, like highscores, timebombs etc.

download the game here.

play it, then lets show some codes to compare it with mine. have fun.

and i will be posting my codes after several challengers.

i made it last night from 12:10AM to past 2:00AM.

the challenge is yours!

i first tried its effect at winword, geez spellcheck and grammar doesn't work anymore, but hey, look on the bright side, now you can see some Filipino words in command prompt when you type ipconfig...

Ugh... I can't share everything. If i do, i will only attract competitors and they could push through the same project. All I can say is, we are preparing for a development which caters a unique target.

Aside from my Kiosk Developments, my boss gave me something to work on, and im ask to present next friday for the framework.

It is always fun being in the development side. You dont just do development but you always learn something different. Sometimes you become Accountant, sometimes an hr manager, sometimes a sales personnel and everyone else to become an effective developer. You all know what i mean. But a lot of times, frustrating, y? because of the responsibilities that comes with your applications.

When i become MG's Lead developer (only 3 of us, Paul - authorware developer and part of LandBank's ESM, Garrett - my girlfriend, a .NET convert from Java), i put my heart in the job, swear to make everything better. As one baby step, re-designed and re-develop MG's existing VB6 systems to ASP.NET to become more scalable, stable, and more functional including dtr, itinerary, technical service, hr, payroll, sales suite, etc. some of which are still under development but has remarkable comments as compared to the recent applications.

will post screen shots when i got back office by monday.