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Over 10 years ago, I wrote my first blog post. Since then, I've authored books, had kids, traveled the world, found Trish and blogged about it all.

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Wednesday April 27, 2005

BabyBash - kids love it!

A few months ago, I saw Toby Reyelts' post about a game he wrote called BabyBash. I downloaded it when I first saw it and let Abbie play it. She loved it immediately, and would ask me to play it whenever she saw I was "working" on the computer. Of course, she'd say "Daddy - no working" first, and then say "play Abbie's game?".

Then I lost the link for a couple of months and this conversation turned very sour. A couple of weeks ago, I found the link and vowed to never let it go again. This morning, I gave Jack a run at the game (he's almost 8 months now) and he loved it too! It probably doesn't hurt that they're playing it on a 23" display. ;-)

If you've have small children, you should really let them try this game. Thanks Toby - you rock!

Posted in Java at Apr 27 2005, 04:23:36 PM MDT 11 Comments
Comments:

Anyone else notice that Firefox doesn't open Java Web Start files properly? It keeps asking me save it to disk. Maybe its a configuratoin issue on my end. Worked fine when I opened the link in IE though. Hmmm.. and I really thought I was done with IE. Time to go do some bashing!

Posted by Ramin on April 27, 2005 at 05:56 PM MDT #

When I click on the link in FireFox it asks me to save or open the file. When I choose "Open With" it automatically prompts me with "JNLPFile (default)" as the the default option and then proceeds to run jws properly.

Posted by Michael Zucker on April 28, 2005 at 08:47 AM MDT #

Matt, Thanks for the link, I've been looking for something to let the little guy indulge in some frenzied keyboard action. Anyone know how to disable the Windows key from pulling up the start menu? (not a problem on the Mac) Firefox should be setup to run webstart apps right off the bat, it might be an association glitch.

Posted by Jason Shao on April 28, 2005 at 10:02 AM MDT #

My Firefox launches WebStart apps fine. Goto Tools, Options, Downloads, File Types. Pick "JNLP" from list and click "Change Action". Select "Open them in the default application".

Thanks for the link to BabyBash, Matt. I've spent half the day playing it, and will probably play a few hours when I get home. It's very addictive.

;)

Posted by kelzer on April 28, 2005 at 01:08 PM MDT #

> Anyone know how to disable the Windows key from pulling up the start menu? I tried to figure out how to do this programmatically, but the only information I could find was an article on MSDN about disabling it via registry editing. I could probably include an option in BabyBash to disable/enable the logo key on program start/end via registry editing (yuk). Anyway, here's the info: [Start] [Run] [Regedit] Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout Modify/Create the Value Name [Scancode Map] according to the Value Data listed below. Data Type: REG_BINARY [Binary Value] // Value Name: Scancode Map Value Data: [Enter Exactly as Shown Below] 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 5B E0 00 00 5C E0 00 00 00 00

Posted by Toby Reyelts on April 29, 2005 at 09:14 AM MDT #

Uggh,

Let's try that one more time:

Anyone know how to disable the Windows key from pulling up the start menu?

I tried to figure out how to do this programmatically, but the only information I could find was an article on MSDN about disabling it via registry editing. I could probably include an option in BabyBash to disable/enable the logo key on program start/end via registry editing (yuk). Anyway, here's the info:

[Start] [Run] [Regedit] Registry Key: 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout 
Modify/Create the Value Name [Scancode Map] according to the Value Data listed below. 
Data Type: REG_BINARY [Binary Value] // Value Name: Scancode Map Value Data: 
[Enter Exactly as Shown Below] 
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 5B E0 00 00 5C E0 00 00 00 00

Posted by Toby Reyelts on April 29, 2005 at 09:19 AM MDT #

Matt, Thanks for posting it. Pretty Nice. For Toby: (I tried entering comments in your webpage, but couldn't due to some error) Great.. Loved it. I haven't yet tried it on my 7mo daughter.. will let you know. Yes, I guess a lot of parents would be happy to buy such software at inexpensive rates. I think you might want to release them on a CD or something.

Posted by Muthu Ramadoss on April 30, 2005 at 11:26 PM MDT #

Hi, Sorry for this but I can't put comments on Toby's page and I can't download the game for some reason. Is it to much to ask someone who has the time to send me the game by email, or post it somewhere? By the way, how many MBytes? Thank you.

Posted by bujorc on May 05, 2005 at 09:08 PM MDT #

Bujorc - this is a Java Web Start application, so I don't know if it's possible to "download" it and send it to you. Also, I found Toby's e-mail at the bottom of his blog - just scroll down to the very bottom and click on <strong>© Toby Reyelts</strong>.

Posted by Matt Raible on May 09, 2005 at 02:07 PM MDT #

BTW the game fails for me on OSX with Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException at com.rc.babybash.BabyBash.<init>(BabyBash.java:173) at com.rc.babybash.BabyBash.main(BabyBash.java:607) Its related to DisplayMode returning 0 for getRefreshRate. I've subclassed BabyBash and overridden getBestDisplayMode(). but I'm wondering why noone else has seen it?

Posted by Yuri Schimke on October 12, 2006 at 05:28 PM MDT #

Yuri - my guess is no one has seen this because no one has tried it on OS X. I haven't, and I use OS X all the time. The kids prefer my windows box with the big ol' 23" monitor. ;-)

Interestingly enough, I just tried it on my MacBook Pro and it works fine (I had a 2nd monitor plugged in when I tried it).

Posted by Matt Raible on October 12, 2006 at 05:44 PM MDT #

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