May 2008 - Brian Peek's Blog

The book I am co-authoring with Dan Fernandez for O'Reilly, currently titled "10 Coding4Fun Projects with .NET for Programmers, Hobbyists, and Game Developers", is already up for sale at Amazon!

I'm trying not to be a totally shameless shill, but this is exciting.  Feel free to get your pre-order in early.  :)

Time for another WiimoteLib release!  You'll find the new version in the usual place at CodePlex.  What's new you ask?  Why, check out this list:

• All projects updated to Visual Studio 2008 format
• SetReportType contains an overload taking a new IRSensitivity parameter which will set the IR camera sensitivity when using an IR report type
• Created new WiimoteException type which is now thrown by the library
• Moved InputReport enum to namespace level
• Events now using the generic EventHandler class instead of custom delegates
• Refactored the state structures to use Point/PointF and my own Point3/Point3F
• Refactored IR sensors to be an array
• Added support for the Guitar Hero controller (tested by Matthias Shapiro, Evan Jacovier)
• Test app will run without Wiimote connected (Andrea Leganza)
• ReadData now returns the proper amount of data for requests of more than 16 bytes (reported by David Hawley)
• Test application updated with above changes
• Lots of breaking changes, but the survey on my site said most didn't care about backwards compatibility...  :)

Bug reports and comments welcome.  Give it a try...

I did an episode of the .NET Rocks show last month which debuted today on the site.  Now, instead of only reading my idiotic ramblings, you can actually listen to my idiotic ramblings.  Lucky you!

Anyway, the show is a discussion on 64-bit development with .NET and all the fun that comes with it.  Have a listen...

The Nintendo Wiimote is getting some very mainstream attention lately.  I was interviewed several weeks ago by Christopher Flavelle from Newsweek magazine for a story on developers using the Wiimote for uses other than playing games with their Wii console.  The article should be in the May 19th issue of the International Edition of Newsweek and can also be read online at http://www.newsweek.com/id/136381.  Have a read...

Ever wanted to get a perfect score in Rock Band without really trying?  Mark Single and the folks over at Pure Pwnage wanted to do the same for one of their episodes and wound up using my Light Sequencer from the Animated Holiday Lights Coding4Fun article I wrote to sequence the hardest song in Rock Band, Green Grass and High Tides.  Using the sequencer, a Phidget Interface Kit and some specially modded guitars, they succeeded in getting a 5 star rating at 99% accuracy to achieve the payoff for the sketch.

Check out the original episode, and the "behind the scenes" documentary on how they did it.  Great work, guys!