Old news
10th September, 2008 ADCollectionsVisualizer v1.2 now available with support for Generic collections
Another update to my ADCollectionsVisualizer extension for Visual Studio 2005 is now available. This version adds support for all of the System.Collections.Generic classes.
As before, the source-code is included with this release so if you are interested you can download and examine how it all works.
13th August, 2008 TellyPrompter v1.3 released
Version 1.3 of TellyPrompter is now available. This version contains a number of enhancements to the search functions, allowing whole word and phrase searches to be used in your criteria as well as the option to ignore repeat showings of programmes.
Other enhancements include a change to the startup Notification window so that if full descriptions are switched off, the programme subtitle is still displayed and the description can be seen by hovering the mouse pointer over the programmes.
This version also finally fixes the "Parameter name: s" bug which several people have reported to me. If you've had problems with that in the past, please try again with this new version.
There are several other minor fixes and enhancements which can be read about in more detail on the TellyPrompter page.
As always, you can upgrade your existing version quickly and easily by selecting Help / Check for Updates from with TellyPrompter. The new version will be downloaded and installed automatically.
31st May, 2008 TellyPrompter v1.2 released
Version 1.2 of TellyPrompter is now available. Unfortunately the listing provider used up until now had slowly started dropping channels until there were very few left, so this version of TellyPrompter switches to using the Radio Times feed. This increases the channel count up to approximately 170, more than double the previous count.
There are also several smaller features, such as notifications when new channels become available, being able to print the listing data, and the list and grid auto-scrolling to the current programme.
You can get the new version by downloading it from the TellyPrompter page, or by selecting the Help/Check For Updates menu item in the previous version, which will download and install the update automatically.
3rd February, 2008 TellyPrompter v1.1 released
Version 1.1 of TellyPrompter is now available. The main new feature is a rather neat programme grid, which displays all of your channels together so that you can view the whole day's viewing in one place.
Smaller features include real-time updates of the programme list and grid displays, and a new "check for updates" feature to make upgrading easier in the future.
25th January, 2008 TellyPrompter v1.0 released
I have just released the first version of a new freeware application which TV fans in the UK may find useful.
TellyPrompter is a TV listings guide and reminder service, covering 70 UK TV stations and 10 radio stations. Its main purpose is to allow you to configure flexible reminders for programmes you are interested in watching. TellyPrompter will then notify you of all forthcoming programmes each time you start your PC.
You can also use it to browse the next week of programme listings and to perform searches through all of the listings.
There are lots of options and different ways of using the application -- for more information and to download, see the TellyPrompter information page.
1st December, 2007 Retrospec Advent Calendar 2007 now online
It's that time of the year again, and I'm pleased to be able to announce that after a break for the last couple of years, this year we have put together another fantastic Retrospec advent calendar.
As always it's full of Christmassy images based on all your retro gaming favourites, and each day we'll reveal another picture. Just click the door for today to open it.
And best of all, we have a special surprise for the last calendar entry. But you'll have to wait to find out about that... :)
17th September, 2007 ADCollectionsVisualizer v1.1 and source-code released
Today I have made a minor update to ADCollectionsVisualizer so that it is now able to support all classes that derive from Collections.CollectionBase. Also included with this release is the source-code, so if you are interested you can download and examine how it all works.
If you have any suggestions for changes or improvements, I would love to hear them.
25th August, 2007 New web site launched: www.icangames.com
I am pleased to announce the launch of a new web site and a new game for children. The site, I Can Games, can be found at www.icangames.com. From here I plan to release a series of games for very young children, helping them to familiarise themselves with using the keyboard and mouse, and learn to interact with the PC.
The first of these games, I Can Press Keys is also available to download. This game, designed for children aged between 1 and 3 years, offers a number of different animated scenes and sound effects which are activated simply by pressing keys on the keyboard. The game takes over the screen completely, preventing your child from accessing the Windows desktop behind. This means they can use the computer without being able to access any applications or documents that they shouldn't be able to reach. The game is available to download now.
Have fun pressing keys!
3rd June, 2007 New VS2005 Visualizer: ADCollectionsVisualizer
My second Visual Studio 2005 visualizer is now available to download. This provides easy access to the content of a whole range of collection and dictionary objects in VB.NET or C# applications when in break mode. All of the System.Collections and System.Collections.Specialized classes are covered, as are several further classes used by IIS objects in the System.Web namespace.
The collection/dictionary content is displayed in a grid, and can also be saved to disk or copied to the clipboard if required.
Full details and instructions on how to install and use the Visualizer can be found on the ADCollectionsVisualizer page.
24th May, 2007 New VS2005 Visualizer: ADImageVisualizer
I have now released a new Visualizer I have been working on for Visual Studio 2005. It allows you to easily view images contained within variables in your VB.NET or C# applications when in break mode.
Image details are displayed such as the dimensions and pixel format, and the image may also be manipulated and saved to disk.
Full details and instructions on how to install and use the Visualizer can be found on the ADImageVisualizer page.
3rd January, 2007 Updated SnowFall screen saver
I have just released a small update to my SnowFall screen saver. Version 1.1 includes a "quality" setting. Reducing the quality will allow many more snowflakes to be displayed before the graphics start to slow down.
22nd December, 2006 New screen saver available: SnowFall
I'm pleased to announce the release of another free screen saver. This one is entitled SnowFall, and displays showers of beautiful snowflakes across the screen. Get it while it's cold!
22nd December, 2006 Minor Polymorf3D update
I've now released a minor update to Polymorf3D. The only new feature in version 1.2 is that it has support for widescreen monitor resolutions.
22nd November, 2006 Site redesigned
Time for a bit of a make-over! The whole of the web site has been redesigned with a more modern looking appearance, I hope you like it. Many thanks to Peter Jovanovic for his excellent design.
As the site has undergone quite a change, it's possible that there may be some broken links lurking around. If you find any, please drop me an email and let me know.
13th August, 2006 Bubble Bobble level guide
I've been a huge fan of Taito's classic arcade game Bubble Bobble for many years. For quite some time I've been thinking it would be fun to write a complete level guide to all 100 levels. After a lot of mapping and writing, the Bubble Bobble level guide is now complete, with a screenshot, strategy tips and video clip for every single level, as well as trivia and other information wherever possible.
If you're a fan of the game then make sure you take a look, and perhaps you can finally clear out some of those levels that caused you problems all those years ago.
2nd February, 2006 EPOC games now on special offer
I've had a sudden resurgence of interest in registering my EPOC games (Tile Fall, Chain Reaction and Blobs) over the last few weeks, and so I've decided to offer all three games for the price of one game.
Registration is now being handled by PayPal, as the old Neuon site seems to be very broken.
I've also restored all the download links, so that the games can be downloaded once again.
22nd January, 2006 Driving cabinet diary on-line
After having a lot of fun with the upright MAME cabinet, I've decided to make a "cockpit"-style driving cabinet. From scratch. Should be interesting..! My construction diary is online for anyone who is interested in seeing how this progresses.
20th January, 2006 New Retro-gaming section on-line
I've added a new section to the web site to cover my interest in retro-gaming.
Currently the new pages consist of the three articles I have so far had published in Retro Gamer magazine (Play it again, SID, Bubble Trouble and Play to Win) and a page detailing the restoration of my MAME Cabinet.
I hope you enjoy reading them.
15th December, 2005 Polymorf3D v1.1 now available to download
An early Christmas present for Polymorf3D fans! I've just released a new version of this popular screen saver, and this time it's better than ever.
The major new addition is that you can now apply textures to the 3d shape. Two textures can be provided: one that wraps around the shape itself, and (my favourite!) another that is used as a reflection. The reflection looks simply brilliant as the object spins around, looking so real that you'll think you'll be able to reach into your monitor and touch it.
Even better, you can select from a set of built-in textures, or browse for other image files on your hard drive. There's huge potential for customisation, so get downloading now and see what you think.
8th December, 2005 Retro Gamer returns
Retro Gamer has now been resurrected by Imagine Publishing, who are continuing its publication from just where the last issue from Live Publishing left off. The magazine has a new editorial team and a glossy new look, but many of the writers and freelancers from before (including yours truly) are still very much involved in the re-launched mag.
Issue 19 is available from all good UK newsagents now, and should be appearing in shops around the rest of the world shortly. Issues and subscriptions can also be ordered from the new Retro Gamer web site, which is also where you can loads of information about the magazine and the new RG forum.
27th October, 2005 Retro Survival now available to order
The Retro Survival CD (see news item below) is now available to order. The price is 5UKP, plus shipping (which varies depending on where in the world you need it to be delivered to). Only a limited number of copies are to be made, so make sure you get your order in before it's too late.
All the details can be found at the Retro Survival web site.
25th August, 2005 Retro Gamer: The End?
Live Publishing, publishers of Retro Gamer magazine, appear sadly to have gone into administration this week. A spokesperson for Live contacted me yesterday morning to inform me of this news, telling me also that the staff that were employed to work on the magazine had left the company and no further issues will be published.
Myself and a number of other RG freelancers have decided to try to make something positive of the situation however, and have launched a new project called Retro Survival. We have set up a new message board along the same lines as the RG one, and hope that anyone that has an interest in retro gaming will come and join us. The message board can be found at http://forum.retrosurvival.co.uk. If you participated in the old RG forum then both the layout and the user base should seem rather familiar.
We are also planning to release a CD or DVD containing as much unpublished Retro Gamer material as we can get our hands on (work that was completed for the unpublished issue 19 and beyond), as well as "extended" versions of a large number of previously-published articles and some juicy behind-the-scenes information built up over the last year. We plan to release this for a fairly low price (perhaps about the same price as an issue of RG) and hope that it is popular with those of you that enjoyed the magazine.
17th July, 2005 My latest project
Well the programming will have to stop for a while, as something else has come along to stop me sleeping at nights -- my new baby son Kieran. He was born on the evening of Sunday 17th July and is absolutely adorable. :-)
9th June, 2005 Retro Gamer article: Play to Win
The current issue of Retro Gamer (Volume 2, Issue 5) contains my third article, Play to Win. This article explores some of the prizes that were available to gamers back in the 8-bit days. These ranged from smaller items such as a video recorder up to some massive prizes such as Porsche cars, trips on Concorde and tens of thousands of pounds in cash.
18th March, 2005 Donations now accepted
Recently several people have contacted my by email asking how to make a donation to say thanks for the games and information on my site. I have thought a few times about adding a feature like this to the site, but have never done so in the past. These emails have made me wonder whether it might be worth a try in order to reclaim some of my site hosting costs.
If you would like to make a donation towards this, please click here or click the "Donate" link in the menu to the left to read more.
Please do not feel under any obligation to make a donation -- I'm not asking for payment for the software or material on the site!
18th March, 2005 Tokamak Documentation Project
As the Tokamak physics library seems to be back in active development, I have set up a web site to provide better documentation for it than that which is provided with the library itself.
The documentation is on a Wiki server, so anyone is able to read and add to the documentation. Currently it's in its infancy and there is very little information available. I am planning to add to this over the coming weeks and would be very grateful for any assistance that other developers that have worked with Tokamak can offer.
The documentation is available at http://tokamak.xwiki.com/. If you wish to add to the documentation you will need to register on the site; otherwise feel free to take a look at what's already there.
10th February, 2005 Beware of the elephant
My domain has now fully transferred away from Easyspace. I wanted to have a bit of a rant about Easyspace actually: for anyone that has or is considering a domain or hosting with them, I would strongly advise you to look elsewhere. Since being recently taken over, Easyspace seem interested in nothing but sucking money out of their customer base.
If you would like to read more about my experiences over the last few weeks then click here.
7th February, 2005 Domain transfer
I'm in the process of transferring my domain away from Easyspace to a new registrar and web host, so things might not be working entirely properly at the moment. If you find a broken link or missing content, please let me know so that I can fix it. Thank you!
6th January, 2005 Highway Pursuit v1.1 released
A new version of Highway Pursuit is now available to download. This version mostly contains bug fixes and user interface enhancements, but it also contains the most requested feature I received of all -- it's a bit easier to dock with the weapons vans. :)
For full information about what's new and changed, please see the Highway Pursuit history section.
Please note that in a few weeks time we will be switching off the highscore submissions from the original v1.0 version of Highway Pursuit, and will only be accepting score codes and uploads from v1.1. Therefore if you wish to continue to be able to add your score to the online highscore table, we strongly recommend you install the new version of the game.
1st October, 2004 As seen on TV!
Highway Pursuit was recently featured on the Sky One daily computer gaming show, GamezVille. With a little help from my friends I've now managed to get hold of a copy of the show and captured it to an AVI file. If you'd like to see it, you can watch it now on Google Video.
Many thanks to Graham Goring for keeping and sending me the show, and Martin Horsley for video capturing it for me -- I much appreciate it!
25th September, 2004 Retro Gamer article
My second article has now been published in Retro Gamer magazine, issue 8 (the first article was "Play It Again SID" back in issue 4). This time the article, Bubble Trouble covers one of the most enjoyable (and my all-time-favourite) platform game from the 1980s, Bubble Bobble.
If you've not yet had read Retro Gamer and you were into games back in the 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s then you owe it to yourself to take a look -- it's the first magazine that I've been excited about since back in the days of Zzap!64. Issue 8 should be available at good newsagents worldwide, and if you can't find a copy then you can buy online at the Retro Gamer site.
12th September, 2004 Back In Time again
Saturday 11th September 2004 was the date of the latest (and final?) Back In Time Live concert, a great night out for C64 music fans where the hits of the retro era are performed live on stage by some very professional and talented musicians. Just as last year, the evening was a great success, and I've put a few of my photos online for you to take a look at.
24th July, 2004 Tokamak physics tutorial no. 5 online
The latest of my Tokamak Physics programming tutorials concentrates on the Terrain Callback functionality. This allows terrain to be modelled in a similar way to the method shown in tutorial 4, but offers greater flexibility and much better performance on larger terrains.
18th July, 2004 Highway Pursuit Frequently Asked Questions
As I found people were having the same questions and problems regarding Highway Pursuit over and over again, I thought I'd make a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page for the game. If there are other questions that you think should be present then please let me know.
18th January, 2004 Tokamak physics tutorial no. 4 online
The next in my series of Tokamak physics tutorials is now available. This time the subject is using a terrain mesh to model more complex surfaces than a plain flat floor.
2nd December, 2003 Sam & Me
If you're feeling in a musical mood, make sure you pay a visit to the web site of my brother's band, Sam & Me (as featured several times in the last few weeks on UK Teletext). There are now some free demo MP3s to download and I think they sound great, so why not have a listen?
12th November, 2003 Highway Pursuit now available to download
Highway Pursuit, a fast-paced arcade driving game that I've been working on in my spare hours for nearly a year now, is finally ready to download.
You can read more about it here, or cut to the chase and download it now.
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3rd November, 2003 Coming soon: Highway Pursuit
My latest production, a fast-paced arcade driving game entitled Highway Pursuit, is nearly ready for release. I've been working on this since the end of last year, and although it's been a massive investment of time, I'm pleased enough with the results to say it was worth it. Many thanks to everyone at Retrospec for all their help with getting this finished, I couldn't have done it without you. :)
The game should be ready for release within the next week or two, but while you're waiting why not read about the game and have a look at the screenshots?
30th September, 2003 First Tokamak physics tutorials online
The Tokamak physics engine team recently announced that they were releasing their physics library for use for Windows development on a free licence, for both commercial and non-commercial use. It's a very impressive piece of code allowing real-world simulation of objects to be modelled with surprisingly little work on the part of the application developer.
However, its documentation is a bit sparse and getting to grips with it can be a bit tricky. For this reason I've decided to put some tutorials together to show how to get started with developing code to use it.
I'm pleased to announce that the first two tutorials are now available. The first presents a simple DirectX framework into which the following tutorials will build (though converting the code to work with OpenGL should be relatively straightforward). The second tutorial demonstrates dropping a number of cubes above a solid floor so that they collide against one another.
I hope to add further tutorials as time permits but these will hopefully prove useful if you're struggling to get started.
17th September, 2003 Back in Time!
On Saturday I was lucky enough to be able to attend the 5th Back in Time Live concert, held this time in Brighton. It was a fantastic day, being able to mingle with all my heroes from years gone by.
Of particular note was hanging out Ben Daglish and Simon Nicol, seeing Mark Knight (who I went to school with many years ago) playing an awesome rendition of Monty on the Run, and meeting one of the men who inspired me to be who I am today, Rob Hubbard.
I've put a number of pictures from the day online now, you can see them by clicking here. They're all from during the day time; in the evening I was having far too much fun listening to the music to take pictures.
Hope you enjoy them!
23rd August, 2003 Guest book removed
Today I removed the link to the guest book, as it was being filled up with adverts. It seems there are no depths to which the spam-mongers won't stoop to advertise their dodgy websites. It's too much work to keep removing them, so the guest book is gone instead.
On a happier note, there should be another site update along some time soon... :-)
19th April, 2003 GP32 review in ugvm online magazine
My review of the rather interesting GP32 hand-held console (there's an "English" link at the top right of the GP32 page) has appeared in the 5th issue of the uk.games.video.misc online magazine. This GBA-like console should be quite a hit for retro-fans and has a few other tricks up its sleeve too.
If an open, expandable handheld console that plugs straight into your PC sounds like it might be of interest, have a look at the review and then check these sites for more information:
GP32Xtreme : GP32Emu : GP32News : GBAX
17th December, 2002 New Screen Saver: Polymorf3D
After a quiet spell I'm pleased to announce the availability of my latest Windows screensaver, Polymorf3D.
This screensaver displays a shiny colourful spinning 3D object that morphs and distorts into all sorts of unpredictable shapes. It's small and psychadelic, and best of all it's free. :-)
Visit the Polymorf3D page for system requirements and to download. Have fun!
17th October, 2002 Still here :)
For those of you that are wondering, I am still here and the polyphonic ringtone service is still online, albeit with less tones than before. I'm back up to a stunning total of ten tones online -- but there are more to come and some surprises in store too so please do keep checking back.
4th October, 2002 Most of the polyphonic ringtones offline
Unfortunately, after a number of discussions I have been involved in over the last couple of days, I have decided to take most of the polyphonic ringtones on my site offline.
The reason for this is simply because most of the ringtones I have been offering are under copyright to their composers and/or publishers, and I obviously do not have a way to pay them royalties for the downloads, particularly as I am not charging for them myself. Whilst I could start charging, it wouldn't be the service that I had decided to run, it wouldn't be what most of you reading this would want, and primarily it would stop this being a fun hobby and turn it into a business and that's not what I want to do. I can not afford to put myself in a position where I might be sued by a music company, though, it's just not worth the risk.
I am totally gutted about having to do this -- much more annoyed than you will be, I promise... I have dedicated countless hours to working on this section of my site over the last three months, arranging and reviewing the ringtones, updating the site and even writing my own software to handle the mailing list when the volume of subscriptions became more than I could handle manually. The only reason I bought my Nokia 3510 was because I wanted to run this service and now I have to stop.
I also want to thank all of the people that have contributed to the ringtone collection, especially Kevin Mortimer and Simon Dean. I really appreciate the hard work you all put in and am sorry that I'm no longer distributing your work.
I have left the "copyright-free" songs that I had been offering online (though if anyone believes that any of these are in fact still copyrighted, please let me know). These are only a small part of the collection however (eight that I am fairly sure about, of more than 50 that were previously available). As for the rest of the songs, I may consider offering the remaining tones to some of the other free download sites, but I'm not sure if even this still leaves me vulnerable to the music companies.
In the mean time, thank you for all the nice emails you've sent me, sorry I didn't get more of your requests made and sorry the ringtones aren't there any more. Please don't email me asking if/when they'll be back online or if I can email you a specific ringtone that I used to have, as I won't have time to reply to all the messages. I will keep the mailing list running, however, and will post any updates to that as well as to this page.
It was fun while it lasted. :(
1st October, 2002 Themes Tunes page fixed
The Theme Tunes WAP page (which has been broken for the last few days) should be working again. Sorry about that -- I made a small error in the page source and then went on holiday and so didn't have a chance to fix it. :) Thanks to those of you that let me know about the problem.
16th August, 2002 Polyphonic ringtone mailing list
I have recently set up a mailing list to which you may subscribe to receive updates to the available ringtones on this site. The list is very low volume (a maximum of one message will be sent per week) and is free of advertising, etc. For more information and details on how to subscribe, see the "Subscribe to the polyphonic ringtone mailing list" section of the Nokia polyphonic ringtones page.
7th August, 2002 Polyphonic ringtone compatibility
I've had a number of reports telling me that the polyphonic ringtones available on my site also work well with the Nokia 7650 (as well as the Nokia 7210 due for release shortly). If you're lucky enough to own one of these then get downloading. :)
6th July, 2002 New tutorial: How to transfer ringtones to your Nokia 3510
My article on making and transferring MIDI files to your Nokia 3510 is finally ready, I hope some of you find it useful. The article covers everything you need to know to deliver MIDI ringtones to the 3510 via WAP. Some of it is fairly heavy but hopefully those of you that are interested will get something out of it.
I also include some guidelines to making your own MIDI files including details of ModPlug Tracker, which is a free sequencing package that can be used to compose your own ringtones.
6th July, 2002 Nokia 3510 ringtones
I've been slowly but surely updating the range of available polyphonic ringtones for the Nokia 3510, and have now reached a total of ten. Recent additions include the Dangermouse and Hawaii Five-O theme tunes, and there's plenty more too.
I've also received quite a few requests from people asking how they can get their own MIDI tunes on to the 3510. I'm currently putting an article together which will explain how to do this -- hopefully it will be ready very soon. Watch this space!
28th June, 2002 Nokia 3510 ringtones available
I'm pleased to announce a new area of the site: Nokia 3510 polyphonic ringtones are now available to download. I'm absolutely delighted with this new mobile phone and have decided to share the ringtones I've created with anyone else that would like them. As far as I know this is the first site apart from Club Nokia offering this service so I hope you like it.
The ringtones are available completely free and can be downloaded using the Nokia 3510's WAP browser. For full details of the available ringtones and how to download them, see the Nokia 3510 ringtones page.
20th May, 2002 Site redesigned
The site has been redesigned slightly, to provide faster downloads and easier navigation. The frames are gone, which I know will please some people, and the site is driven using CSS. If you find any broken links or strange behaviour, please let me know.
17th May, 2002 New programming article: DirectX8 matrix transformations for OpenGL programmers
Having recently started trying out some Direct Graphics (DirectX 8 3D) programming, I was beginning to find the matrix transformation code a little clumsy compared to the functions I'd been using in OpenGL. So I wrote some simple code to allow me to use the OpenGL functions in DirectX. This article explains what I'm doing and provides the code for free.
2nd February, 2002 New Screen Saver: TwinkleGL
I can't believe it, but it's been over a year since I last updated the web site... There are lots of things I could blame, including (but not limited to): Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, Serious Sam and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Goodbye productivity! But I'm pleased to say I've finally put another release together.
My new screen saver, TwinkleGL is now available to download. This replaces my previous Twinkle screen saver (which has now been withdrawn, mainly due to the monitor power saver crash, which I never managed to resolve -- this problem is not present in TwinkleGL).
As with the previous version, TwinkleGL shows animated displays of particles across the screen, including fireballs, comets and large a variety of more unusual possibilities. TwinkleGL is freeware and may be distributed free of charge. For more information, visit the download page now.
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