The wether forcast mentioned snow on Wednesday. We had some yesterday and today it is really snowing away. Looks like I'll have to buy a sledge for Lisa! Will be great fun.

Right now I'm sitting, writing about Qt's new animation classes released in 4.6. Looking at the snow, writing about this, makes me wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to implement animations that delete themselves and their items when the item leaves a given bounding rectangle.

Why? Then you can define a bounding rectangle, e.g. the screen, and create snow flakes with randomized animations and just let them drop.

I remember doing something like that back in the STOS/AMOS days. You created a sprite, defined an animation pattern and then forgot about it (as I recall). This was great for the 2D shooters of the time with aliens attacking in predefined patterns. Not 100% sure how the surviving aliens (yes, you have to take bad players into account, including me) where handled. The ones you hit could be taken care of in a collision detection handing function called from the inner loop... well, nostalgia might make me look at this in a forgiving light.

Anyway, the snow is falling. There will be more tomorrow. It will probably be cold all the way to Christmas. Looks like we're in for a white Christmas.

TV Star

Alessandro is the TV star of Qt. Great stuff here.

One month of flying

It has been a month since I started working in my own business. My former employer has been very kind and let me explore this while on a leave of absense, i.e. I have somewhere to return to.

This Monday I sent my first large invoice to my biggest customer. Now, time to wait for the next pay. What have I learned this far?

• Bookkeeping - there are a lot of receipts to handle, especially when starting. Insurances, web servers, car insurance, etc.
• Working from home - it works fairly well for me. I've come up with a scheme to keep myself motivated and actually working. However, a simple business lunch now takes three hours instead of one.
• Money takes time - I've been given offers, signing deals, working more than ever, and my next pay check is still not due until mid January. Worth thinking about.
• Time is not money - at least not yet. By being self employed I'm so much more flexible so that I get more quality time with my family, while making the money that I need (and some extra, but I guess that is for future expenses).

So, one month done, many more to come. This far, I'm looking forward to work every day.