The Year Twenty Ten

Great Scott the future is now here, twenty ten! I have been waiting to see what it would be like to say the date with twenty ten. No more o nine, or nineteen something, but what do we say now? We are now in the tens… that doesn’t sound right. Either way, here is the plans for me this new year.

Signed up for Spring classes both at TCC and UTA, again I will have to drive an hour to class. This time the interesting class will be a web development class. Probably doing some PHP and other web languages.

Still working on the “personal” program I want to create. I need to learn some new material before I move forward with the program, but I will learn it soon enough.

New Year Resolutions

• Drink less Sodas and more Tea/Coffee
• Continue my study on Java and other programing
• As always do well in school
• Keep my options open and continue to be open minded
• Learn how to play D&D better…

Whats on your list?

There have been a lot of fun gadgets and games available this season. I already have the major games that have came out that I think are worthy of playing. Such as Modern Warfare 2, Left for Dead 2, Dragon Age, and Borderlands. On top of wanting a new car like every one else, there are a few tech gadgets id like to have.

• I already have a laptop and decent gaming computer so next on the list would be a new monitor. To be exact a 24″ wide screen. I would use it along with my current 19″ to dual screen.
• Something that I do need to upgrade for my gaming PC is my mouse. This August I bought a Ice Mat Mouse Pad, and now I need a slick mouse to get more head-shots with.
• Next on my list would be a few Dungeons and Dragons books. Now that I have been playing D&D for almost a year now, (with out a Player Guide Book) it would be nice to have one so I don’t have to borrow one. Also a few miniatures for me to play with.
• The only game I don’t have yet is Super Mario Bros Wii. I don’t play the Wii but this looks like a fun old school remade game.

Other than a few small things, iTunes gift card, Amazon Kindle, just money, this completes my list.

Mid Semester & Profile Program

It is about the middle of this semester and I am doing wells so far in my classes. Java is becoming fun to the point where I can actually create something that has a good use. In theory I can create a simple Notepad program, Calculator, and other things like that. I have made some “drawings” of a program I would like to create, and I have already started working on it. The program is going to be a “profiler” program for personal use. To create and edit profiles of people I know, making my own profile of each person I know and the info I know about them. Doesn’t sound all that great but it is something I wanted to create and shouldn’t be too hard. There are other features I want to add later, but first I want just a working program.
What I have working so far is that it saves the info typed into a .dat file. You can open the .dat file and the text fields retain the saved data. The next thing I will add is the ability to view the first and last name of each saved profile in a drop down ComboBox. This way you will have easy access to each profile to edit. Other small details will be added to improve the look and user friendliness of the program.

Dungeon Hunter

Gameloft has been making lots of games for the Iphone/Ipod recently and they just spit out another high quality game. Dungeon Hunter, a game that can be compared to a Diablo type style of game-play, available for $6.99 in Apples AppStore. Using either a tap to move or a digital joystick you run around hacking and slashing monsters with 3 different classes to pick. You have the normal Knight, Rouge, and Mage. The story line is you play a king that tried to resurrect his lover but she came back as evil and killed him and took over the joint. A fairy brings you back to life a few years later to take back what is yours and undo this evil. If I didn’t get the story correct that’s because it doesn’t matter, game-play matters.

I don’t want to judge this game too much because I have only had about a hour of game-play so far and only one class(Rouge). But from what I was able to play which was up to level 7 so far, its a decent Diablo game for the Iphone. The graphics are top notch with detail down to each piece of armor or weapon you equip. Sounds are what you would expect, with some nice knock off Diablo music. The controls take time to get used to, just as every game for a touchscreen device does. The digital stick sometimes is not as responsive as I would want it to be. I keep switching from touch to digital stick.

[Update] Dungeon Hunter has been pulled from the App store to fix a crashing problem when you get to a level called Forge. Will be updated and back in App store soon. (Source)
[Update] Dungeon Hunter back in the AppStore. (Source)

Schooling for Programmers

Chrome

I have been busy with school learning how to program, and this time it’s the type of programing that might have use one day. I have been thinking about adding a page to show programs I work on during the course of my java class. Why not, its nothing special and can serve as a guide for people in my class. There will be some new titles that will come out soon for me to do a abrupt review on but until then I must concentrate on my school work.

If you are a Mac user then I would suggest checking out Google’s web browser Chrome. I noticed that they have a developer copy of Chrome for the mac that you can download. If you are a Windows user they have had Chrome out for a while and very light weight and simple. Its not as stable as the Windows version but its worth checking out.

Developer Chrome for Mac OSX

Update: I forgot to mention the new themes Google Chrome now offers! Thanks Matt Wright for adding that!

Containers of Space

So I spent most of today cleaning out my closet. Its filled with computer hardware, routers, cables, and even a Nintendo 64 and Super Nintendo. My current way of organizing is with a bunch of plastic clear containers, each with organized parts. Example: one container has everything to do with audio. Audio cables, plugs, headphones, and so on. There’s a container for keyboard/mice, hard-drives(dead ones or ones that can be fixed), mixed cables, spare computer parts, and even a toy container with G.I. Joes.

Tomorrow I will be getting some kind of shelving put in so not every thing is in the floor. The point to this post is I want to take pictures of my “computer room” for a my nerd crib type of deal. Details on that later.

Today Gameloft and TouchArcade added some more detail on this Iphone game called Dungeon Hunter. This time some game-play video and I think I’m very excited. Looks like a Diablo RPG type game which I am a huge fan of. Most of all the video game-play doesn’t look too bad. Graphics are nice, animation looks decent, I’m hooked.

Wolfenstein

I am a huge ID software fan and have played and enjoyed every game developed. Now I was hoping for a great online experience with this new version of Wolfenstein but it did not deliver. Single player is great as always with ID’s games, and it keeps me entertained. There are points of the game that can become boring but once I unlocked some upgrades I wanted to keep playing. The upgrades can change a gun completely in my opinion and so forth, changes game-play as well.

Graphics are simple but good enough for that type of game. Graphics are nothing ground breaking but serve the purpose and using the veil powers look really amazing. I don’t really like how they implemented the gaining of veil power, but at the same time I can’t think of a better way. Faster regeneration veil power would be nice but that’s too easy. Sounds are over all decent. Not enough of the old death emotes they made in Wolfenstein 3d.

Wolfenstein (PC)

Quakecon 2009

Another Quakecon is now over, and the days of returning to “normal” life starts. Quakecon is always near August and of course that is when school has to start as well. I my self have enjoyed Quakecon this year, even though I got sick one whole day I was there, but getting sick was something that I will remember that happened at Quakecon in the years to come.

I got what I went for which was fun, peace, and rockets! Also got a little bit more. Games, movies, and insight to what ID Software has to offer in the near feature. This year the new Wolfentstien has been released days after Quakecon and the most important game going around is Rage.

Quakecon attendees was able to see a game-play walk through of Rage which has not been seen yet. For me this was the coolest thing to see at a gaming convention, other than thousands of computers. What I got to see played was really amazing! In my opinion Rage looks like a in-between Fallout 3 and some new generation ID game, which is good because ID does really well with FPS games and Bethesa does well with RPG games.

I already can’t wait for Quakecon 2010 which ID has already gave word that it will be awesome.

Web Design Links

Over time I have found some great websites for Wordpress themes and how-tos. I always like building my own website design and have the skills to do so, but I sometimes find it easier to just take a nice pre-made theme and change it to my liking. In my experience I have learned that if you are good at Photoshop with creating designs then you might very well be a great web designer. Here is a nice article I found on Digg for creating websites in photoshop.

Links for great free Wordpress themes
Some Great Themes
CrazyLeaf Themes
20 Free Corporate Themes

Wordpress website tips
101 Five Minute Website Fixes
5 ways to Pimp out Wordpress

Wordpress Plugins
Plugins for advanced users
Twitter Widget

As I work on redesigning RustyYow.com I will add to my collection of great links.

Spring Cleaning

I wanted to clean out all the storage of websites and files that I have had on my web server that has been collecting dust over 1.5 years. So I did and I’m not stupid I did back up my databases and every thing else that might be important to make the site look the same as always. Although I decided not to restore every thing. I was just going to start over from scratch with the newest WordPress.

Over the year I have been changing the code in Wordpress files to my liking and southern rigging the code, if thats possible. So with me doing that I noticed a few things didn’t work correctly, or at least not the way they were meant to work. So a wipe clean and a new start is in place.