Here it is folks, the first of the two weeks the Center is going to be closed during the summer (the second being the last week of July) and this marks the beginning of no Saturdays until the second week of August. Since I’ll be stuck at home for the most part, away from fast internet (relatively speaking), you might not hear from me a whole lot until the 2nd of June, if at all.
So until next time kiddies, have fun and stay safe!
We’re going to be working hard to complete our first project for submission to the Dream Build Play contest. There’s money involved, not to mention arcade publishing deals, so we’re going to aim at getting it completed for the August 6th deadline.
So I downloaded the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) and installed it on my work computer and used it to create a bootable Windows PE that I burned to a disc. I booted my laptop up using the disc and bam! Finally got a command prompt! Time to go old school on this problem.
First things first, I copied all my important files over to my external hard drive. Definately wanted to save them before I did any hacking and slashing. Next, as I had discovered, I preceeded to delete the pending.xml file in the c:\windows\winsxs directory. Supposely, this file is what tells Vista what updates it’s suppose to be installing and without it, Vista wouldn’t try to install/update anything.
After deleting it, I removed the boot disc and reboot the laptop. I waited… and waited… and waited (Vista takes forever to boot, don’t ya know) and bam! The login screen appeared! The computer booted without getting stuck in the infinite reboot bug.
Now, of course, I have encountered a new problem… deleting that file has confused Vista and Windows Update no longer functions. I’m going to have to find a solution… to fix my solution. But at least Vista isn’t stuck anymore.
Okay, so after search for a little bit, I should be able to use Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) to boot up and fix the “stuck while updating” problem. At the very least, I should be able to at least use it to recovery all of my files I need to save before I nuke vista back to the stoneage. If that fails, maybe I can use one of the many other PEs out there to achieve my goal. I will not fail.
So I decided to run Microsoft Update on my laptop (that has vista installed) because it’d been about 3 months since I had actually run it (I keep auto-update turned off), only now I find myself stuck in the same position I was in last year around this same time… Vista has once again gotten stuck while updating in an endless loop of shutdown restarts.
Supposely, this was a problem with a prepatch for Service Pack 1 and that it was fixed by a prepatch for the prepatch, but obviously, it has to be caused by something else entirely, considering that I’ve had SP1 installed on the laptop for over a year now. Vista just more or less sucks, but we all know that (Here’s to hoping for Windows 7 to be better).
Last time this happened, I simply just said “screw it” and reformatted and reinstalled, because there wasn’t anything important on the laptop at the time. Now, on the other hand, there is important stuff on the laptop that I haven’t backed up recently (silly me) that I need to recover.
One option would be to use the Windows Vista disc to get into system restore and roll back before the updates, but sadly, I can’t do that, because all I have is a manufacturer’s recovery disc that will return the system to factory defaults, which is not what I want to do. I’m gonna have to find another option. Anything that I can boot from that will get me a command prompt (or perhaps something better) before Windows even tries to load.
Time to search the internet!
I know it’s been awhile since I’ve done any work whatsoever on Area 51: Warehouse, but I’ve finally started to chisel away at it. It was already a great deal along anyways, I should have finished it up a long time ago rather than getting distracted by other shiny objects.
I’m in the process of finishing up adding the static meshes that I was halfway through from the last time I worked on it. After which I’m going to go ahead and start getting the weapons, items, and maybe even bot pathing into the level before I go back and tinker with the unsatisfactory light that the level has right now.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that I can stay focused long enough to finish the- oh look! A shooting star!
I had a little hiccup today during the 3 o’ clock showing of Laser Magic. About 17 minutes into the show, the laser up and decided to cut itself off. Halting the show, I rushed to investigate the problem, and low and behold, I found that the laser was complaining about its water supply. I thought, “Oh no, the water pump has done decided to go out again.” I rushed downstairs to the basement to check out the chiller, but found that it was still running normally. Water pressure was fine and everything.
I was a bit puzzled to be sure. Well, I couldn’t leave my poor viewers sitting there with nothing to do any longer. I had to make a decision, and so I handed out rain-checks for another free show and apologized to them. After which I called my handy-dandy consultant. Turns out all I had to do was turn the laser switch off and back on to reset it.
He thinks it must have been a bubble in the system that cut off the water supply for just a micro-second long enough to make the laser say, “Oh noes! I don’t have any water!” and shut itself down. Apparently, the laser doesn’t automatically recover from something like this… Go figure.
So in the future, I’ll have to add this to my to-do checklist when something goes wrong.
Over at Turbo Pixels, we have been in the planning stages as we get everything rolling, but it’s pretty much always a learning experience. Our code monkeys are, at this very moment, finding themselves knee deep in C# as they explore all there is to know about XNA and how to bend it to their will.
Before we get started on a major project, we are going to be working on something simple to help us along the path to glory, honor, and all that jazz. The website should be ready soon and you’ll be able to find stuff about us, our projects, blogs, and more over there, so keep your eyes peeled. I will, of course, continue to bring you the occasional update related to Turbo Pixels Software right here.
Just as a reminder about what we’re going to be doing this summer at the Sphere. We’re going to be doing shows on Friday nights starting June 5th and lasting until August 7th at 7 and 8 pm, so come on down and see the show!
This is probably one of the hardest things to do when you’re in a slump. Sometimes the best thing you can do is, oddly enough, nothing. Why nothing, you ask? Isn’t that what you’re doing when in a slump already? Yes! But here’s the kicker: Instead of beating yourself up about being lazy, enjoy your laziness! Now you’re probably thinking how in the world this could ever possibly work, but think of it this way: Do you like to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over… … .. . .. and over? Or eat the same food over and over and over and… well, you get the picture. No, probably not.
Basically, be lazy on purpose. You’ll eventually get tired of being lazy, as odd as that sounds. You’ll want to start doing things because you have too much time on your hands and have finally convinced yourself that you’ve been bored.
(No, this probably won’t work for everyone and some people were born lazy and will not change.)
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