There is a way, however, to make both Dropbox and UDK happy by using a symbolic link between two folders in Windows. Follow this great write up and tutorial by Alex Castle to learn more about how these work. The short version is that a simple command line utility will let you create a brand new folder within the UDK Maps folder which is bound to one of your local Dropbox folders. Here’s the command to run from your command prompt…

mklink /J "C:\UDK\UDK-2011-09\UDKGame\Content\Maps\MyTeamFolder\" "C:\Users\MyUsersFolder\Dropbox\MyTeamShareFolder"

The breakdown: mlink.exe is the utility which creates the link, /J says make a hard link between the two folders, the first path is where you would like a new folder to be created (it should be inside your UDK maps directory) and the second path is the path for your already existing Dropbox folder for sharing.

public class ExampleViewModel
{
	public string ThisPropertyWillBeBound { get; set; }
	public int ThisOneToo { get; set; }

	public string ThisFieldWontThough;
	public int WatchOutForThis;
}

// Takes comma-delimited list of preselected values and selects html checkboxes
$(document).ready(function(){
var array = "<%=originalValue%>".split(',');
for (var i in array)
$("[name=myCheckboxName][value=" + $.trim(array[i]) + "]").attr('checked', true);
});

dir D:\Inetpub\Wwwroot\target\ -recurse -exclude *.*  | Get-Acl | % { @{Path=$_.Path; Access=$_.Access}} |% {$a = $_.Access
$b = @($a | ?{ $_.IsInherited -ne $true -and $_.IdentityReference -and ($_.IdentityReference -contains "NT AUTHORITY\Network Service" -or $_.IdentityReference -contains "MACHINE\IUSR_MACHINE") }|%{ $_.IdentityReference, $_.FileSystemRights})
if ($b.count -gt 0) {$_.Path, $b}
} >> D:\temp\FolderPermissionsWeb.txt

dir D:\Inetpub\Wwwroot\target\ -recurse -exclude *.*

The pipe takes the results and performs another command, in this case Get-Acl. Get-Acl returns a list of all access control levels for the items. So at this point we’ve already got all access permission for all the folders in the search. My first proof of concept included only these two commands and outputed the results straight to the command prompt. It was enough to get the job done since it showed me all access for everyone on those folders!

The rest of the statements are all about pruning the results down to only the information I want.

$b = @($a | ?{ $_.IsInherited -ne $true -and $_.IdentityReference -and ($_.IdentityReference -contains "NT AUTHORITY\Network Service" -or $_.IdentityReference -contains "MACHINE\IUSR_MACHINE") }|%{ $_.IdentityReference, $_.FileSystemRights})

This section achieves that. The end of the first line declares $a as a list of all ACL it could find. I then declared a variable called $b that will contain all the results from $a that match my conditions. I don’t want to see any access that has been inherited, and I only want to see right assigned for Network Service or the machine’s IUSER account (IUSER account name varies per machine).

if ($b.count -gt 0) {$_.Path, $b}
} >> D:\temp\FolderPermissionsWeb.txt

Finally, I check to see if there are any matches, and then append them to my file. The code here is sort of rough, which I will chalk up to being a novice at Powershell. I’d hope to make it shorter and format the output a little more, which I’ll work on.

DataSource='<%#  DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "Tags")%>'

This can be required if you have some sort of hierarchical data. My example came up while loading article posts that contained a list of tags.

Despite my experience, to hear Will Wright talk about his creation is quite an eye opener. Having grown up in a Montessori school, Will expresses a game development philosophy based loosely on the Montessori method. This approach unlocks the potential of the audience by providing them with ‘high-leverage tools’ to allow the player to be ‘building this world in their imagination and extract it from them with the least amount of pain’. He is presenting the game as a toy which the player can play with, and be empowered by.

Hearing his justification, I feel like I’m a little more connected to the game and I can experience it the way it was intended. He created a game that does not drive the player, but let’s the player drive themselves through curiosity. Moreover his use of the term ‘high-leverage’ tools is something I appreciate and agree with. The interface should be intuitive and empowering.

Still, I felt after a few days of playing that I was not engaged. Inversely to Spore’s ideal, other games may introduce a protagonist, or some relatable character that the player can empathize with. This is something the game lacks. Spore creates investment by allowing the player to personalize many, many details of the organisms they represent. But there’s always a level of separation provided by the ‘God’ complex granted by the game. Without a compelling goal paired with a sense of mortal investment, you’re left with the very feeling Mr. Wright was pursuing… the feeling of playing with a toy.

I can’t whole-heartedly condemn his philosophy, especially since I have an invigorated desire to play with Will Wright’s bright and well-intentioned toy once again. On the other hand, as a consumer I often seek an empathy and connectedness. To me, it is very important to give a game the staying power to live on in my memory, and I think this is the sort of thing that comes to mind for many gamers.

In June of 1972, Nolan Bushnell founded the company which would come to be a household name, Atari. By September, he would begin marketing the game Pong. After a shockingly positive test run of the game in a local bar named Andy Capps’s Tavern, Nolan was ready to take the country by storm and begin mass producing the game. But being a free spirit, he ignored some of the finer points of securing his intellectual property… namely all of them.

The first speed-bump came immediately, when Atari was taken to court by Magnavox. Magnavox had created a gaming system for the home named Odyssey, which played a game extremely similar to Pong. The matter was settled out of court, and involved Atari paying a hefty license sum to keep Pong on it’s path to greatness. Part of this interaction could just be chalked up to an industry leader kicking a small start-up, but the facts came down to Magnavox’s attention to the ownership and patents surrounding their product. Bushnell, a driven and talented creator/entrepreneur, was focused more on the creating. In the time following the launch of the game, he overlook filing patents for Pong. By the time the patents were validated, over two-thirds of the market was saturated with Pong imitators.

Was Nolan well off? Yes. Was Atari a successful company despite the missteps? Absolutely. But Nolan was in a lucky position, the market was non-existent. While competitors could pirate his innovations, Atari’s ideas were a step ahead of the curve. They would have the next big idea in the works by the time the market was oversaturated with the last. This approach was effective for the time, and you could even say that the knockoffs were good to the industry, as it increased the visibility. Also, arcade machines were sold in an era of more personal communication, will sales representatives approaching reputable brick-and-mortar locations to sell their machines with a handshake.

In this time, of an established games industry however, it’s not advisable to go in so haphazardly. As you put effort into divining inspiration and honing your skills, you should research what you can do to protect your work. In the digital age where ‘page views’ and total downloads are valued, it’s easy to watch your bottom line disappear. A consumer can just as easily get your product from a competitor that is only a click away. Marketing your work to become the most prevalent and connected, and challenging imitators will keep your inspired creations attached to you and allow your passion and creativity to continue unhindered.

Script controls may not be registered before PreRender

If you’ve gotten this error, before you go to explore the other possibilities, check to see if you’ve overridden the OnPreRender method for your page. If so, make sure that you’ve included base.OnPreRender(e); up in the method somewhere. If this didn’t help, there are a number of other scenarios where this could happen and article about them on the internets.

private static List<Node> FilterList(List<Node> list, Utilities.TypeRequired type)
{
	List<Node> returnList = new List<Node>();

	// Go through each node of the full list and run the FilterNode recursive method
	foreach (Node item in list)
		returnList.AddRange(FilterNode(item, type));

	return returnList;
}

private static List<Node> FilterNode(Node item, Utilities.TypeRequired type)
{
	// Prep return list
	List<Node> list = new List<Node>();

	// call this same method on each of the children of this node, store in list
	foreach (var child in item.Children)
		list.AddRange(FilterNode(child, type));

	if (item.TypeId == (int)type)
	{
		// if the node is of the correct type, set it's current children to the
		// results from above and return the item within a list
		item.Children.Clear();
		item.Children.AddRange(list);
		return new List<Node>() { item };
	}
	else
		// if not, just return the children without the parent
		return list;
}

The FilterList() method accepts a list of nodes, this is considered to be the first level of children under the root node (in this case there is no root node). It also takes an object that I’ve called TypeRequired, really it can be any kind of data you’d like to use to evaluate the differences between one node and another. The method self-references on the children of the current node and so works through the whole tree.

The real trick here is that in cases where a parent node is not a match to the desired type, the children are promoted to it’s place in the hierarchy before the parent is removed. This way qualifying children stay in the list organized in the proper fashion.

// Load the physical file into a byte array

byte[] byteArray = new byte[file.Size];
System.IO.Stream stream = file.GetFile();
stream.Read(byteArray, 0, file.Size);
stream.Close();

// Push the byte array to the user as a download
context.Response.BinaryWrite(byteArray);
context.Response.ContentType = file.MimeType;
context.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=" + context.Server.UrlEncode(file.FileName));