Microsoft have released a public beta of Tafiti (which means "to search" or "to research" in Swahili, depending on which MSDN Blogger you read), they're new way of interacting with Live Search via Silverlight. It has a few handy features such as the ability to save search results across different sorts of searches (news, web, blog, images, etc) by simply dragging it to the side of the screen - ah, must be some sort of Surface search engine prototype! Another feature is the carousel between search types, which is pretty speed to pull those results down.
Overall, it is very pretty looking and even fairly functional. Unfortunately, Tafiti is a little too impractical to use to replace LiveSearch/Google. The Tree View (do a search of the 'web' type, then a TreeView button will appear up the top) is a fantastic example of where Silverlight (Flash would fall into the same category here) would benefit from hardware acceleration like its bigger brother WPF. Don't get me wrong, its useable as a tech demo, and it is fantastic to see Microsoft encouraging ISV's to develop Silverlight applications by demonstrating what it can do, but as it stands, Tafiti is just too slow to want to use on a day to day basis.
Hardware acceleration doesn't exist in Silverlight, which when I first heard about WPF/E was somewhat surprising. Without Hardware Acceleration, you don't have 3D. You have "2.5D", which can look just as good, but requires a lot more programming to achieve the same effect. Hardware Acceleration, as well as proper 3D, would really heat up the Silverlight Vs Flash debate. I guess one of the issues with implementing that would be - port DirectX to Mac, use OpenGL on both, or have seperate rendering on each Operating System.
Aside from those issues, well done Microsoft, looks cool.
Update: MSDN Blogs are really going nuts for this
This is by no means a complete list, but here are some of the blog posts on MSDN about Tafiti (mostly "we've just released…")
http://blogs.msdn.com/stanley/archive/2007/08/22/tafiti-search.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/singaporedpe/archive/2007/08/22/tafiti-search.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/usisvde/archive/2007/08/21/Microsoft-Introduces-Tafiti.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/jim_glass/archive/2007/08/21/search-a-new-way-try-tafiti.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/nishant/archive/2007/08/21/tafiti-looking-at-live-search-in-a-new-way.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/clare_dillon/archive/2007/08/21/try-out-tafiti-a-new-search-visualisation-application.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/socaldevgal/archive/2007/08/21/beautiful-search-via-tafiti.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/ronang/archive/2007/08/21/tafiti-a-new-search-experience-with-silverlight-and-live-search.aspx (has a video about it)
http://blogs.msdn.com/markjo/archive/2007/08/21/tafiti-com-search-engine-built-on-silverlight.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/architectsrule/archive/2007/08/21/microsoft-launches-tafiti-rich-search-experience-via-silverlight.asp
http://blogs.msdn.com/mithund/archive/2007/08/21/what-is-tafiti.aspx
(Note, not as hyperlinks 'cause I don't want to ping spam. I couldprobably disable it, but I don't feel like wrestling with Wordpress)
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"Small" change to my blogs visual style. I'll call it, as well as the content, a work in progress. I'm pretty happy with how it looks, but even happier with how long it took me (edit: forgot to say how long it took! I think from start to finish, which is Photoshop mockup to unleashing it on the live blog rather than test one, about 3 hours passed). My usual progress of designing a new theme for my blog goes something along the lines of
- Get design right in photoshop
- Send to chickz0r
- Discover I don't really like it
- Half implement in CSS/XHTML
- Can the theme
I've made use of SIFR, since I was too lazy to code up SISR (Silverlight version, duh) - let alone think of a name that might be vaguely acceptable. I think the best I could get was PANSY.
Disclaimer
The site functions for the most part, although its only tested in Internet Exploder 7, and Firefox2. It's optimised for widescreen monitors, but looks okay in Ye Olde 4:3/5:4. It makes use of two gifs, several instances of a Flash file, Javascript, CSS and a JPG. If your browser or computer cannot handle those, I'm sorry, you've been disqualified from using the internet.
For those reading this via RSS, and too lazy to visit the site, here's a screenshot
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At the start of the year, I was aware of Visual Studio Express, but I found it a bit limiting to the VS2005 trial I'd used.
When my OpenGL/C++ unit began for Monash, they supported Visual Studio, but not Express. As it turned out, it was a little hard to get GLUT working with VSE, or something.
I did the logical thing, and asked my uni's techdepartment if they could get me Visual Studio through MSDNAA - which they are a part of.
I got this response back at the start of this month (been slack posting this)
Your request has been closed with the following entry:
Hi Paul,
We're sorry for the delay of this request. Please log the call from the online service desk (http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/itsupport/onlineform/ ) if you still need the Visual Studio.Net and we can arrange the media to be sent out to your home as a loan.
Thank you
Regards,
FIT Technical Services
I waited six or seven months….for that? Visual Studio.NET? Wow Monash, either Microsoft are jerking you around with MSDNAA, or you're being the asses you've consistently been.
Lets not forget to mention the unit I needed it for is well and truly over now.
Five year old software, when two other versions have been released, and the third is in public beta. I'm glad I ended up using a trial of VS2005 before migrating to Orcas for it.
I wonder what msozacademic would make of all this.
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The word liar is thrown around a lot these days and I'm going to use it yet again tonight (perhaps inappropriately)
Monash, my fabulous tertiary educator, have stuffed up materials yet again. This time, the lecturer in charge, Shane Moore (who is one of the few good blokes at Monash), was furious with those in charge - and rightly so, its hard for students to study when the materials you promise them never show up (sound familiar?)
Eventually the material showed up, before the third week so it wasn't a disaster. Execpt, well, not all of the materials showed up.
The materials consist of three parts, a CDRom (UML software), the Study Guide, and the Reader. Of the three, the Reader didn't arrive.
Another student, quiet angry and stressed with the situation, blasted away asking for answers to where his reader was. I piped up that I still hadn't recieved mine, and shortly after Shane responded with the details of the despatch unit so we could chase it up.
It turns out Shane did a bit more than that, and actually chased it up for me a little, to see where my materials were.
Shane shot off an email to me
"According to Despatch, they sent all 3 items to you on 18th July"
I'm believe Shane in thats what they told him, but the hilarious thing is, in the 'Unit Packing Note' (the little slip that goes into everything Monash send out to you - material wise), it has the reader highlighted and "TO FOLLOW" stamped on it.
This is typical of Despatch, who last semester told one of my lecturers they'd be in touch with me immediately when the materials were dispatched. They never contacted me, because funnily enough, the materials were never dispatched for that unit.
Monash: We work hard at sucking
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Games often have bugs in them, usually in the form of not being able to complete a mission or quest, or in-balances like a knife being able to sniper.
While we're probably seeing more buggy games due to how quickly games tend to be pumped out these days, more often than not, these issues get addressed during the support lifespan of the game (at least in the PC arena).
Today I encountered what I must admit is the best bug I've ever seen in a game.
While trying to frag Ryan in FEAR (he had FEAR, I had FEAR Combat - the free multiplayer version), I discovered after about five minutes into the game, that my frame rate dropped from (what I perceived to be) 60 frames a second down to under 20 frames a second.
Given FEAR is a shooter, frame rates as well as low ping can make all the difference.
A restart of the game, fixed, at least for another five minutes. Fine, I rebooted my system, seeing that Visual Studio Orcas had half crashed. Again, once I reached that magical mark of 300 seconds, the frame rates plummeted like Lemmings.
As it did, Ryan managed to sneak a few bullets into me and shoved me into spectator mode, waiting for me to click to respawn. I decided a quick search on Google would be in order to see if I was the only one (search term was "fear slowdown"). The eight result yeilded something I initially dismissed as so rediculous it could never possibly be, that USB mice and keyboards were dropping my framerate.
Given I was on my laptop however, I decided that I'd give this preposterous idea a go, unplugging my Logitech G5 2007 and G15 (I'm a Logitech fanboy, I also run their Z-5400 speakers), and restarted the game.
Two hours later, my framerates continued to be far beyond that which was achivable with a mouse. It's a pity I can't say the same for my score.
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Microsoft have released a public beta of Tafiti (which means "to search" or "to research" in Swahili, depending on which MSDN Blogger you read), they're new way of interacting with Live Search via Silverlight. It has a few handy features such as the ability to save search results across different sorts of searches (news, web, blog, images, etc) by simply dragging it to the side of the screen - ah, must be some sort of Surface search engine prototype! Another feature is the carousel between search types, which is pretty speed to pull those results down.