I've been using AntiVir (now called the "PersonalEdition Classic") for almost couple of years and pretty much satisfied with the results. Performances where pretty good even on my old computer (P3@800) and definitely OK on modern hardware. They recently upgraded their UI which makes it slightly better, however updates seem a bit heavy and would definitely take a while on a modem. On the older version (i.e. past a few month) they would regularly update the program by having you download an full installer. Even though it was all automatic that was still several megs to get and the need to go thru an installer periodically. I haven't seen that on the new version so far, so maybe they upgraded their engine -- on the other hand the new version pops up a window with a news flash (aka self-advertisement, ymmv) every time an update runs and that's a big minus point. Over the period I used it I've seen it in action a couple of times.
Now the real problem here is that no end-user is actually going to seriously test these scanners (which would imply getting the lastest crop of viruses and feed them to your box to see what the scanner says, and that's very a bad idea unless your run it in a VM.) Once you have a full setup with firewall and after having ditched IE for Firefox of course, how do you know you are getting infected and protected? If you regularly get hit by viruses and the scanner kicks in, you should question your web practices. If you don't you just have to hope the source is trusty.
That post is probably the best advice I've seen here.
The most important question I think is
"what is your true goal?"
Possible answer include: a- something new and original b- something really usable c- something pretty d- a combination of a/b/c?
Is the goal just to create any game? Being for a class and depending on your TA or professor, I would expect the engine to be more important than the look. (if it were commercial, it would probably be the reverse, ymmv.)
One important detail is how it should look, depending on your true goal. Be warned that if you are not already a designer (i.e. used to draw manually or with computer tools) then stay away from anything that requires a lot of art.
Even something as simple as a Pacman clone or 2d vertical shooter requires a lot of art and that can divert a substantial amount of time from your project. If it's a class project and what matter is more having a complete usable game with a real engine that just pretty static picture, nobody will care if your pacman looks like a blue circle as long as it can travel around and properly collide with walls.
Now for the specifics: some people like card games, some others don't. Personally I'm more into 2D games. They can be easy to program. As a start, you can have a look at a basic game I wrote a long time ago (it clones an old Amiga game) and that I regularly port to different platforms (it's a great way to learn a new language and framework):
This one is in C# and uses DirectX (desktop) or GDI (PocketPC). The engine was written to reasonably easy to understand and adaptable to other languages or platforms and is somewhat described here:
Technically it could sure be ported to work under Linux using Mono and GTK#, although there's some work there especially if you have to learn these APIs too. The whole thing is GPL so feel free to reuse it if you like. I thinking of it more as a way to see how to organize your project (or not.)
Quite seriously: when I'm working on my computer I tend to go to sleep late, usually around 2 or 3 AM -- I am focused, the music keeps me going, etc. Recently my gf started on an early schedule in the morning and thus now typically goes To bed around 10 or 11 PM -- clearly too early for me. But I finally found a solution: read the news (Slashdot and OSNews) in bed on the PDA in the dark. It works wonder for me (generally takes me about an hour to fall asleep) and it doesn't prevent her from sleeping.
Slashdot Mirror
Consider VB.net.
.Net framework under the hood. Syntax familiar to old VB6 coders. You can mix C# or C++/cli later.
.net runtime download.
Pro: As powerful as C#. Full
Cons: 20MB+
I've been using AntiVir (now called the "PersonalEdition Classic") for almost couple of years and pretty much satisfied with the results. Performances where pretty good even on my old computer (P3@800) and definitely OK on modern hardware. They recently upgraded their UI which makes it slightly better, however updates seem a bit heavy and would definitely take a while on a modem. On the older version (i.e. past a few month) they would regularly update the program by having you download an full installer. Even though it was all automatic that was still several megs to get and the need to go thru an installer periodically. I haven't seen that on the new version so far, so maybe they upgraded their engine -- on the other hand the new version pops up a window with a news flash (aka self-advertisement, ymmv) every time an update runs and that's a big minus point. Over the period I used it I've seen it in action a couple of times.
Now the real problem here is that no end-user is actually going to seriously test these scanners (which would imply getting the lastest crop of viruses and feed them to your box to see what the scanner says, and that's very a bad idea unless your run it in a VM.) Once you have a full setup with firewall and after having ditched IE for Firefox of course, how do you know you are getting infected and protected? If you regularly get hit by viruses and the scanner kicks in, you should question your web practices. If you don't you just have to hope the source is trusty.
That post is probably the best advice I've seen here.
l
s p
The most important question I think is
"what is your true goal?"
Possible answer include:
a- something new and original
b- something really usable
c- something pretty
d- a combination of a/b/c?
Is the goal just to create any game? Being for a class and depending on your TA or professor, I would expect the engine to be more important than the look. (if it were commercial, it would probably be the reverse, ymmv.)
One important detail is how it should look, depending on your true goal. Be warned that if you are not already a designer (i.e. used to draw manually or with computer tools) then stay away from anything that requires a lot of art.
Even something as simple as a Pacman clone or 2d vertical shooter requires a lot of art and that can divert a substantial amount of time from your project.
If it's a class project and what matter is more having a complete usable game with a real engine that just pretty static picture, nobody will care if your pacman looks like a blue circle as long as it can travel around and properly collide with walls.
Now for the specifics: some people like card games, some others don't. Personally I'm more into 2D games. They can be easy to program. As a start, you can have a look at a basic game I wrote a long time ago (it clones an old Amiga game) and that I regularly port to different platforms (it's a great way to learn a new language and framework):
http://www.alfray.com/projects/Nerdkill/index.htm
This one is in C# and uses DirectX (desktop) or GDI (PocketPC). The engine was written to reasonably easy to understand and adaptable to other languages or platforms and is somewhat described here:
http://www.codeproject.com/netcf/cfgamenerdkill.a
and
http://ralf.alfray.com/.izumi/Dev/NerdkillDev
Technically it could sure be ported to work under Linux using Mono and GTK#, although there's some work there especially if you have to learn these APIs too.
The whole thing is GPL so feel free to reuse it if you like. I thinking of it more as a way to see how to organize your project (or not.)
Quite seriously: when I'm working on my computer I tend to go to sleep late, usually around 2 or 3 AM -- I am focused, the music keeps me going, etc. Recently my gf started on an early schedule in the morning and thus now typically goes To bed around 10 or 11 PM -- clearly too early for me.
But I finally found a solution: read the news (Slashdot and OSNews) in bed on the PDA in the dark. It works wonder for me (generally takes me about an hour to fall asleep) and it doesn't prevent her from sleeping.
Time to start studying NLP:
2 534159/qid=1090394980/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-270834 5-6640734?v=glance&s=books
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/072
For the free Trillian 0.74, a patch "E" was released today that supports the new Yahoo and MSN.
If you have the auto-download check feature enabled in Trillian, you should be notified automatically.