How would you like a free copy of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008? How about the entire Microsoft Expression Studio? Not enough…… how about Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and more?

For once, something that sounds too good to be true really is this good and really is true. Starting today (or soon in some areas), students worldwide will be able to download our professional development and design tools for free! It’s called DreamSpark and it is upon us.

Thank you Microsoft! Having access to powerful, not to mention expensive, tools like the ones DreamSpark provides is an immense help to aspiring designers and developers everywhere. Instead of rambling on, let me just say I can only hope that more companies follow suit and invest in college-level students.

Last month, the class project in Windows Programming 1 was to create some version of Pong that would allow the player(s) to perform basic file operations (creating a new file, saving, loading, etc.) in addition to a few other requirements. Having some friends that were familiar with C++ console programming, but interested in Win32 application development, I took the opportunity to make a “bare-bones” version of Pong that would be easy for them to follow as well as modify. After cleaning up the code and adding some comments, I feel my code is easy enough and pretty enough for other people to view and mess around with.

The game comes with the following features:

• Single and Multiplayer game modes (via same keyboard)
• Customizable ball, background, text and paddle colors
• Frames Per Second, ball position and game resolution on-screen displays
• AI that never misses
• Fully functional file operations

I’m always looking for comments and critiques so feel free to leave me a comment or two telling me what you think about the game/source code. Without further adieu, here is Pong w/ Source Code.

Recently I’ve had the pleasure of working with FMOD Ex, an amazing audio engine developed by Firelight Technologies. Used as the audio engine for popular games such as Crysis, Guitar Hero III and World of Warcraft, FMOD Ex is a high powered engine that comes at the surprisingly low price of free for non-commercial use. 

As of version 4.10.06, FMOD Ex supports the following platforms:

• Windows (32bit and 64bit)
• Macintosh (PPC and x86)
• Linux (32bit and 64bit)
• Sony PS2, PS3 and PSP
• Microsoft Xbox and Xbox 360
• Nintendo Gamecube and Wii

In addition to this, FMOD Ex supports an assortment of over 20 different audio formats.

For more information about licensing, visit the FMOD sales page or email sales@fmod.org

NOTE: While FMOD 3 is still currently supported, FMOD Ex was rewritten from the ground up, making all code written for the FMOD 3 engine incompatible with its successor.

Consolas is perhaps the best looking programming font out there. A monospaced, ClearType font released by Microsoft’s typography team in the summer of 2006, Consolas is an ideal font for anyone who spends long durations of time looking at text. Recommended to me by one of my beginning programming instructors, it’s one of the only fonts I use while programming.

Consolas is part of the Microsoft ClearType Font Colletion (Constantia, Corbel, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas) shipped with Windows Vista and Office 2007, but has been made available to download for programmers who use Visual Studio 2005.

Download The Consolas Font Pack for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003, Vista, XP
• Required Software: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005