Rant

Posted: 12 Oct 2006 by Codehead
2 minute read

I have written a few wrappers and objects for OpenGL during the development of AMBER. The first was a general OpenGL wrapper. This used the top left of the screen as the origin for orthographic projections, mainly because I was used to it being there and it avoided problems with mouse coordinates.

Next came the CBFG text class. This was intended to be dropped into other people’s code, so I used a bottom left origin as seems to be standard in OpenGL.

More recently I’ve incorporated my GUI class into the GL wrapper and bolted my text object onto it to provide textboxes, lists, etc…

This is where the problems began, the GL class and the GUI object use the top left as origin and the text class uses the bottom, so all the text in the controls was upside down.

I’ve rewritten the GL class and GUI class to use the bottom as the origin as this is the OpenGL way. However, it seems strange that every other system I’ve used treats the top of the screen as the Y axis origin. Why does GL have to be different? Is there any gain to be had by doing this? Or could I just fudge the projection matrix to use the top as the origin?

Ah well, it’s done now, I may re-visit this during optimisation, but that’s a long way off.

Categories: Projects AMBER CBFG

Tagged as: #OpenGL #Rant

Printer Be Gone

Posted: 27 Sep 2006 by Codehead
1 minute read

The troublesome printer from my last post went back to the store.

I spoke to Olivetti tech support, who basically talked me through the install again. No magic “Hold shift and click this” or “change this registry setting” or any other cool tricks, just the same thing I’d already done quite a few times. No joy, so the printer went back and I got a refund.

I understand that some people need tech support in order to achieve even the most basic tasks. However, it would be nice if there was a support line option like, “If you are a biff, hold the line. If you you have a clue, press 9.” - Then those of us who can find their way around a computer can get support rather than frustration.

Categories: Hardware

Tagged as: #Rant

New Printer, No Internet

Posted: 25 Sep 2006 by Codehead
1 minute read

Yesterday I bought a new shiney new Olivetti ANY_WAY Wifi printer. I thought that it’d be nice to be able to put the thing somewhere other than on my desk, plus I could print from my laptop / Linux box (maybe even from the NDS) or any other wireless device on my net.

The basic printer install was fine, no problems. One odd looking test page later I was in business. However, trying to get the wireless working was a different matter. The installer could not see the printer on my LAN, despite me being able to access the printer’s web config page. So, in desperation I decided to see what Google knew about it. That’s when I found I had no Internet! After a hour or so of digging, it transpired that my connection to my ISP was OK, but my DNS had been mangled. Manually specifiying servers from OpenDNS did the trick, and I’m now back online, but still only have a USB printer.

Now I have access to Google again, I see that at least one other person has had exactly the same problem. Thanks a bunch Olivetti, I’ll give it one more night of tinkering, then it’s going back to the shop.

Categories: Hardware

Tagged as: #Rant