Here’s a new trailer for SWToR that looks amazing. I have my doubts about the game itself, but there is no doubting the fact that Bioware makes some amazing cinematics. Right up there with Blizzard in my opinion. Here’s the video:

That’s pretty impressive. Definitely making me look forward to the game… I’m sure we have a long time to wait though. Anyway, watching that video, one thing stood out for me. Take a look at the image below:

Now look at this very cool guy:

See it? No? Look again, I’ll wait. See it? Darth Dude is wearing a Power Glove! Sweet!

Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch (HD) Camera E-8 from Mark Gray on Vimeo.

This clip is raw from Camera E-8 on the launch umbilical tower/mobile launch program of Apollo 11, July 16, 1969. This is an HD transfer from the 16mm original. Even more excellent footage is available on our DVDs at our website at http://www.spacecraftfilms.com

The camera is running at 500 fps, making the total clip of over 8 minutes represent just 30 seconds of actual time. Narration is provided by Mark Gray (me), Executive Producer for Spacecraft Films.

The code below is some C# I’ve used recently to do some custom querying against a SQL database. I was given a list of about 1600 devices that needed to be imported into the database. Some of the work had been done, so I needed to get a list of devices that weren’t already there.

The code uses a library called LINQtoCSV. You can read more about that library here. In fact, you will find all the information you need there, and then some. This snippet is a VERY basic use of the library.

Depending on what I’m working on, I usually start by writing my “proof of concept” snippets in LINQPad. In this case, I only needed this to work once. In other words, I had no need to keep this code running, no need to optimize it, support it, etc… I just needed it to do the job once.

Here’s a few lines from the CSV file I was given. I needed to query my database for devices using the names below (’2B5-A-1′ for example):

Name,Description,ServiceTag,Model,Owner,Zone,ExistingLocation,Building,Location,SRN,MoveDate
2B5-A-1,110V,,1587H24A1,ATC,1,,QTS,100.17,RIGHT,4/26/2010
2A8-A-1,110V,,1587H24A1,ATC,1,,QTS,100.17,LEFT,4/26/2010
AT-EDBO-3560-D15,SWITCH,FOC1036Z0V1,3560G,ATC,1,,QTS,100.17,46,4/26/2010

Diving into the code, I first defined a class that fit each CSV row, essentially defining my column contents:

class Device {
  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 1, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string Name { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 2, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string Description { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 3, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string ServiceTag { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 4, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string Model { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 5, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string Owner { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 6, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string Zone { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 7, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string ExistingLocation { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 8, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string Building { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 9, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string Location { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 10, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string SRN { get; set; }

  [CsvColumn(FieldIndex = 11, CanBeNull = true)]
  public string MoveDate { get; set; }
}

Then I created a file description defining a comma as the separator and that the first line has column names. Then I created a context and read the file into an IEnumerable using the class from above:

CsvFileDescription inputFileDescription = new CsvFileDescription {
  SeparatorChar = ',',
  FirstLineHasColumnNames = true
};

CsvContext cc = new CsvContext();

IEnumerable<Device> devices = cc.Read<Device>(@"c:\path\to\Book2.csv", inputFileDescription);

Now that the rows are in an IEnumerable, I can loop through them. For each row, I query my SQL database and get the name of the device found. If no device was found, I populate a new List<>. Last, dump that list to the console (this is a LINQPad function), and write it to a new CSV file.

List<Device> notFound = new List<Device>();

foreach(var device in devices) {

  string name = (
    from e in tblEquipment
    where e.Name == device.Name
    select e.Name
  ).FirstOrDefault();

  if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(name)) {
    notFound.Add(device);
  }
}

notFound.Dump();

cc.Write(notFound, @"C:\path\to\new\file.csv", inputFileDescription);

I’m sure there are better ways to do this, but this wasn’t for any sort of a long term project. This is a quick one-off script I needed for a one-time use purpose.

EDIT: I managed to recover them.

Jenny, Jack, and I have made some great memories this year and I can’t wait to see what 2010 has in store for us! Happy New Year everyone (a day early)!

I’ve got a lot of pics up on flickr, but you’ll need to be marked as a friend or family to see them (because of internet creeps): http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanw/