New PC Build

Hello, I haven't posted in a while so I have decided to write a brief summary of what I have been up to. As an avid Counter Strike player, I attend many LAN events. They are extremely fun but can be tiresome when it comes to lugging my Corsair 600T PC around! A few months ago I decided I would go ahead and finally build myself a proper LAN rig that is small and light, yet powerful enough to game on properly.

This build features full custom water cooling, an EVGA GTX 1070, and a case all the way from the UK! The case I chose has excellent features for various layouts, customisation and features an transparent acrylic side panel that I was looking for. Once I found this case, I couldn't tear myself away from it and figured that I may as well just order it, even if it was going to take a long time to arrive from the UK.

The build took a long time with ordering different parts, receiving the wrongs parts (more than once!), a dead pump (yes seriously) and the actual time to build the PC alongside work and everything else I had on.

I am extremely happy with the result though; I currently have it hooked up to my 50 inch TV in my chill / gaming room. It boots almost instantly to desktop and handles everything I throw at it (with amazing temperatures too!). I was worried such a small case, with only a single 140mm radiator would result in high temperatures under heavy load, but so far I have yet to witness this.

I am really enjoying Forza Horizon 3 on this new PC. I bought an XBOX 360 wireless receiver to hook up my old controllers and it works perfectly! Forza is great fun with a controller, but I would love to experience a wheel & pedal. At the moment though, I'm not willing to spend that much for an improvement to a single game / genre. I did order a steam controller though! My full build log is available here.

Full parts list:

CPU: Intel i5 6600K

GPU: EVGA GTX 1070 Founders Edition

Mobo: Asus Z170I Pro Gaming (Mini-ITX)

PSU: SilverStone SFX Series SX600-G 600W 80Plus Gold Fully Modular SFX

RAM: 16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 (White)

Storage: AS330 Panther 240GB SSD (Boot), Corsair Force LE 960GB SSD (Main Storage)

Res: EKWB EK-XRES 100 DDC

Rad: EKWB EK-CoolStream CE140 Single 45mm

Tubing: Primochill Advanced LRT Tubing 3/8"ID x 5/8"OD - Crystal Clear

Fittings: EKWB EK-ACF Fitting 3/8" x 5/8" - Black x 8, EKWB EK-AF Angled 90-Degree G1/4 Adaptor - Black x 1

GPU Block: EKWB EK-FC1070 GTX - Nickel

CPU Block: EKWB EK-Supremacy EVO - Full Nickel

Coolant: Mayhems Concentrate Pastel 250ML - Ice White

Phanteks 24-Pin Motherboard Extension Cable (White)

Phanteks 8-Pin PCI-E Extension Cable (White)

Bitfenix 8-Pin Sleeved 12V EPS Cable (White)

Aurora LED Light Strip (White)

Garry's Mod Last Project - Fancy Clock

Hello. So a while back I randomly stumbled across this piece of artwork on the net and thought it was a cool idea, so I decided to recreate it in Garry's Mod. Inpiration / idea from: The Clock Clock turns a wall of analog clocks into digital art Basically it is an array of analog clocks each displaying certains times in order to display a digital text of the actual time. Uses only E2 (holograms), takes server time and updates every minute. Uses almost no ops on idle, then jumps up to a few hundred when it is doing the animation of the hands ( lasts roughly 10 seconds). Looks cool in the centre of a server / map etc.. Here's a video:

Link to original submission thread with code:

http://www.wiremod.com/forum/finished-contraptions/34358-e2-clock-clocks.html

Work Time Logger

Hello, now that I'm pretty busy working full time, hobby projects are probably going to get a lot less attention. None the less I motivated myself to work on a new project this week which would help improve my workflow at GGG. I created a simple program that would allow me to clock in / clock out for logging my work hours. The program handles breaks, outputting to text file, outputting to excel file, emailing the final time-sheet, running on startup and contains both a small and large interface depending on your needs. I used VS2015 with C# Windows Forms to create it and had a lot of fun! C# is an incredibly easy language and allows you to skip the nitty gritty and get straight into coding the functionality. This is particularly noticeable with the toolbox, properties system and the hundreds of pre-setup classes handling almost anything you need. The only functionality I could not get from the vanilla C# classes was reading / writing to extended excel documents (.xlxs). For this I used NPOI which was very easy to setup and use. I definitely recommend C# as a good coding starter and entrance to writing Windows apps / programs.