August 7th, 2010
Just thought I’d check in and update everyone with my coding progress for version 5.5 of AutoWallpaper.
So far so good, I’ve very nearly completed all the necessary codebase changes necessary to drive the new data store and get the whole thing up to the latest compiler version; which as regular followers will know caused quite a few compatibility issues the last time I attempted it, fortunately with version 5.5 having a completely revamped way of store category and wallpaper data these issues have been resolved. What this means is that AW5.5 will be able to utilise all the latest tweaks and fixes from the most up-to-date version of my programming language. Hurray!
I’m sure you’re still wondering on when it will be released, well I cannot give a firm date as of yet, due to real life work load, but I’m hoping to get in ready for testing in the next few weeks with a tentative aim for a September release.
Tags: AutoWallpaper, AW5.5, coming soon
Posted in AutoWallpaper, General | No Comments »
July 23rd, 2010
As regular readers may know I had laid down some big plans for the coming week, I had planned on devoting all the time needed to complete the AutoWallpaper 5.5 update, and also an update for USB AutoBackup to allow for subscription based licensing, as well as a number of other research and development projects I’m looking into. Well all of that is about to be posponed
My day job inbox has swelled to biblical proportions over the course of the week and one project in particular (I can’t discuss it) has such a short time frame and is so complex that I cannot take my week off and still have time to complete the project. So, with great frustration and regret I have had to cancel my time off.
My new plan is to proceed with the AW update during the weekend and finish as much as I can, however, the USB AutoBackup is needed quite soon for a series of educational licences so that will take precedence.
I will post again when I know more. At present I’m unsure when my next break from work will be
Tags: AutoWallpaper, USB AutoBackup
Posted in AutoWallpaper, General, USB AutoBackup | No Comments »
July 13th, 2010
The temperature during the night in my part of the UK has gone up considerably in the last few weeks and is making it very difficult for me to sleep, or at least get a restful nights sleep. My clock is displaying a minimum temperature of 27 degrees Celsius and during the day rises to about 28-29C.
That is have the knock on effect of making it difficult for me to do any decent amounts of coding. However, progress on AutoWallpaper 5.3 is coming along very nicely most of the smaller routines have now been completed and it only leaves the more complex parts to do. Hopefully I’m still on target for a late July release.
I haven’t had to release any Unity ScriptEditor updates for the last few weeks but I may find new additions when I finally get a chance to begin my own 3D game development (Asylum, and Incident Zero-working title).
Also, I have decided to drop the price of USB AutoBackup to a crazy low $5.99. I will have to change the payment processor from ShareIt to PayPal though, as shareIt will be taking $2.50 + 5% from each sale leaving me with practically pennies, especially after converting to pounds sterling.
Tags: Asylum, AutoWallpaper, price drop, UnityScript Editor
Posted in AutoWallpaper, General, USB AutoBackup, UnityScript Editor | No Comments »
June 5th, 2010
It is here, the significantly faster USB AutoBackup. Please note that the first backup after installing the update will be a full normal backup but after that the speed increase will been very noticable. Also, if you use dated backup folders the first new backup of each day will be a full backup and will take longer.
http://www.arsoftware.co.uk/products_usbautobackup.php
Tags: Backup, update, USB, USB AutoBackup
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May 31st, 2010
It’s been quite a hectic few weeks. With the release of UnityScript Editor I continued a fast paced process of adding new features and fixing bugs and have already clocked up to version 1.6.5. With USE I’m using a slightly different version numbering than I usually use, the .6 is actually the release build number and the .5 is an indication of the amount of changes. So in this case .6.5 is the 6th release and has a few bug fixes over .6.0.
Anyway, I’m very pleased with the current release and the progress of the project and hopefully this will continue and become the number one editor for Unity3d (UnityScript).
The big news this week however is the imminent release of USB AutoBackup 1.5 (UAB). I had a bit of a brain wave over the last few days. As some of you may know if you have a very large number of files on your USB drives the backups can take quite some time, this is because UAB had to scan through and see if each file was different to the backup one. However, in version 1.5 I have massively improved the speed of this process. Using my own 8Gb pen drive as an example, version 1.0 would take about 1.5 minutes to scan through and backup where necessary on startup, but with version 1.5 the backup process takes less than 5 seconds (given that only a small number of files have actually changed). I’m in the process of running through the necessary tests but the update should be out very soon.
AutoWallpaper 5.5 progress is going well; The update was originally scheduled for June but I’m going to have to push that back to July I’m afraid. I haven’t had nearly enough time to sit down and plough through all the code changes required. But don’t worry the wait will be worth it. The update will speed up category processing, massively improve random wallpaper selections, and resolve a few other bits and pieces that have been hanging around.
Posted in AutoWallpaper, General, USB AutoBackup, UnityScript Editor | No Comments »
May 15th, 2010
For those of you that are keen to keep up with the latest AutoWallpaper development; I have begun to work on the next big update – version 5.5.
This update will introduce a massive change in the way wallpapers are handled. This will completely eliminate the occasional bug which prevents large numbers of wallpapers from being included in a random selection. However, this will involve a great deal of re-engineering on my part. I have started this work and the initial tests are extremely promising, the time it takes to display a category listing has been massively improved, but there is still a lot to do.
Now I’m sure you’re probably all wondering, so, when will it be released? Well my current estimate is for late June. I have a lot of other side projects on the go at the moment so it may slip a little, but we’ll see what happens.
I can also confirm that the 5.5 update will be a free upgrade for all version 4 and 5 users.
There will be a new update for the UnityScript Editor at some point this weekend (15th/16th May), this will add tooltip descriptions to the intelliprompt lists (nice) and increase the number of method/function description tips available. I will also be adding a more polished preferences window to allow for a lot more features in the future.
Tags: AutoWallpaper, AW5.5, Unity, Unity 3d, UnityScript, UnityScript Editor, update
Posted in AutoWallpaper, UnityScript Editor | No Comments »
May 5th, 2010
As promised the shiny new, donationware, editor for UnityScript has been released. For all those Windows Unity3D users developing in the UnityScript (javascript) language, check it out now.
Tags: Unity, Unity 3d, UnityScript, UnityScript Editor
Posted in New Product Release, UnityScript Editor | No Comments »
April 18th, 2010
For those that enjoy developing in the popular Unity 3D game engine on Windows (.net required) you may have found, like myself, that the packaged script editor for unityscript (javascript) is rather lacking in features.
So, I am pleased to announce the UnityScript Editor.

This new editor has the following feature set:
• Window state (position, size) is saved between sessions
• Display the current Unity error log file
• Intelliprompt for all functions and objects
• Auto correction of functions, methods and properties. It knows when to use GameObject and gameObject
• Tooltip help for function parameters
• Quick list of the variables you have in a script
• Intelliprompt on variables (var myObject : GameObject; myObject.transform)
• Create new functions quickly by using a common functions dropdown list.
• Look up a keyword or function in the script reference manual by right clicking on it in your script and selecting ‘Look up definition’.
UnityScript Editor should be available in the next few weeks as I’m currently putting together the definition files for the intelliprompt – and there’s a lot of them.
UnityScript Editor will be released as DonationWare. You will be able to download it for free but please consider making a donation to help keep development going and to help me to raise enough money for a Unity Pro licence.
Tags: coming soon, Unity, Unity 3d, UnityScript, UnityScript Editor
Posted in New Product Release, UnityScript Editor | No Comments »
April 5th, 2010
A very quick post to inform everyone that a new update is available for USB AutoBackup. This update corrects a new issue where a profile was created for a folder on a USB drive rather than the USB root. This is an important update so please ensure that you download and install it as soon as you can.
Tags: USB AutoBackup
Posted in USB AutoBackup | No Comments »
March 28th, 2010
A critical update has been released for USB AutoBackup. A bug was found that caused UAB to crash. Basically if you created a profile for a brand new completely empty USB drive UAB would try to copy zero files and crash. Whoops. So, I’ve corrected the problem and released a new update.
The update also fixes the web updater that was keen to take everyone to the AutoWallpaper download page rather then the USB AutoBackup one; and also a fix that allows a backup profile to have a source folder within a USB drive rather than just it’s root.
Tags: Backup, update, USB AutoBackup
Posted in USB AutoBackup | No Comments »