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All of the data is in different files; SSIS is capable of extracting data from multiple files however for the purposes of this article I am going to stick to the Import Export Wizard. To combine all of the files into one (big) file a quick switch to the command prompt is required: type data\*.csv > .\CodePointOpenCombined.csv Because none of the data files have headers this works fine, if they did have headers some work would be needed to strip those out. Create a new database in SQL Server then follow these steps: ...

In April 2010 the Ordinance Survey released certain parts of their data under special licence which allows for commercial use without cost. All the types of data made available are outside the scope of this post although I hope that the techniques described could be applied to any data set not limited to Ordinance Survey data. In this post I am going to look at Code-Point Open, a list of all UK postcodes with their corresponding spatial positions. ...

I spend about an hour and a half on the bus every day commuting to and from work. It was a huge boon for me when I got my HTC Desire as it opened up the world of Google Listen. I wanted to go through some of the Podcasts that I listen to in the hope that someone else in my position can enjoy them and hopefuly learn as much from them as I have. ...

Danc gave those who read LostGarden a heads up that Spry Fox was releasing SteamBirds (No longer available) for the Android platform. I have been watching Spry Fox since Dan mentioned it on Lost Garden. Due to being plain busy (no pun intended) I never got a chance to try SteamBirds on the web. Now it is on my phone I get a chance to play it while on the bus! ...

Several days into my late Unity3d project I realised that the was a bulk of code designed solely to make an object invisible by fading it out of the scene. The code was not complex although because of the way it was all in one class it appeared complex. After doing some research into the best way to go about making this change, realised it was both convenient and logical to extract the code into a separate script and attaching that to the object that I wished to apply the effect to. This meant that instead of nested if-statements for state management in a script attached to the Main Camera I was able to make declarative statements: ...

It is about 3 weeks on since I started learning Unity3d, and today Makemedia delivered the product we were working on using it. I have thoroughly enjoyed the process and the experience, there is still much to learn however I am much more confident experimenting with Unity3d to see what I can come up with. As I am not going out to see the fireworks tonight, I put together a 3d scene to demonstrate some of Unity Basics particle effects in the form of a personal fireworks display. Move around in the scene using W, A, S, D or the Arrow Keys you can move your head by moving the mouse. ...

I am starting a project next week using Unity3D, I have known about this for a while and have poked around a bit to try and figure out how to do various things. I have been really impressed as to how fast you can get something done with what is basically a free product. There are some superb videos on Unity3d Student which have been invaluable. I think I have got my head around the controls, UI, paradigms and scripting, although not all in one scene. As evidence of my work I have made three balls bounce around the screen, something akin to a carpenter making a door stop perhaps, but I am sure I will learn.

I have two hints today both of them involving changing accessibility modifiers. The first is a feature of CodeRush that I accidentally discovered while testing out the Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tools the second is a great new feature of Visual Studio 2010. For those who don’t know what I mean by accessibility modifiers, those are the keywords you put before blocks of code that define how that code can be accessed, this is all enforced by the compiler giving you nice compiler error messages if you violate these rules. To provide an example the following auto-properties are all have the accessibility modifier “public”: ...

I explained how to get an elevated Command Prompt to perform system tasks in the comments of my post about setting the MTU in Windows 7, I am writing the up a bit clearer and linking it from that post. I have a blog post for Windows 8 if you have already made the move. In Vista and Windows 7 applications don’t automatically get administrator privilege, they either need to request it or the user needs to explicitly start the application as an Administrator. The way to do this with the Command Prompt is as follows: ...

As programmers we are well known for writing bug free perfectly formed code first time round, as such I don’t really understand why DevExpress implemented the code issues feature… no wait… that should be the other way round. CodeRush has several ways to access the Code Issues user interface, first off there is the thin file overview down the right hand side of the viewport. In the code itself there are handy contextual hints too. In this example, this. is redundant and has been greyed out, if you hover over it it will tell you more about the issue and how to resolve it. ...