How to create a heightmap and skydome using Terragen for XNA

In this example, I’m going to use the Generated Geometry Sample provided by the XNA Creators Club as the code base, so we can just focus on creating heightmaps and the skydome.
Terragen is a great scenery generator and best of all, it’s free for personal (non-commercial) use. However, the unregistered version has some limitations such [...]

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Democratizing Game Development

I’ve long been a fan of games and game development. I created my first game over 20 years ago and saved it to a cassette (remember those things we used to have in cars before CDs?) on my Coleco Adam computer.
I also remember creating numerous text driven games for my Apple IIc Plus using Applesoft [...]

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Reinstalling Internet Information Server (IIS)

Yesterday, I installed the required automatic updates from Microsoft and rebooted my work laptop and rebooted. When I started work this morning, I noticed that my Visual Studio projects weren’t loading the web site projects.
Upon further investigation, I found that IIS Admin service wasn’t running and would not start. The error provided by the service [...]

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RIP GotDotNet.com

As a ASP.NET programmer, I’ve visited GotDotNet.com many times since it’s launch in November 2000. The site has gone through some problems and a couple facelifts since then and now it has officially been closed. It was the first ASP.NET community web site and my first ASP.NET reference web site.
There are other great ASP.NET web [...]

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XBOX 360 DRM issues

So far, I haven’t needed to return my XBOX 360, but with the high failure rate, I expect that I’ll probably be shipping it back sometime this year. With the new announcement of the Mass Effect downloadable content (DLC), I’ll be purchasing some DRM (digital rights management) XBOX 360 content for the first time.
Unfortunately, BioWare [...]

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G.I. Joe movie coming in 2009!

Growing up in the eighties, there were only two cartoons that I religiously watched: Transformers and G.I. Joe. Although, my favorite has always been G.I. Joe. I also think that somehow my favorite G.I. Joe character (Gung Ho) somehow subconsciously pushed me in the direction of joining the Marine Corps after high school.
Two Hasbro-related live-action [...]

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Good bye, Netflix

I’ve just decided to cancel my Netflix membership. I’ve been a member for about 3 years now and I’ve probably rented over 200 movies from Netflix over that time.
After 3+ years, I had seen nearly every non-new release that I’ve ever wanted to see along with a few that I really didn’t want to see. [...]

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Don’t forget to vote

Tomorrow is “Super Tuesday” and if you’re living in one of the twenty-four states (and Samoa), then it’s your chance to help guide the democratic process.
Here’s a few trivia notes about voting.
Why do we vote on Tuesday?
The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November was picked to accommodate male farmers in the largely [...]

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