There goes a couple months of my life…

My latest contract was allll consuming, and one of the first things to go was blogging time.  So sad.  The good news is, I’m launching the thing, I’m proud of it, and the client seems pleased as well.  You can’t ask for more than that.  There is that list of revisions they’ve requested though…I’ll get on to that after I’m done here.

The two biggest technologies employed by the project I’m wrapping up are Drupal and PHP…both of which I was relatively new at and both of which I now know much, much more.  Drupal’s been a real pleasure to work with, and I anticipate doing most of my work through it in the future.  Themeing was relatively simple and I added custom PHP code to it without too much trouble.

Anyway, I’ll do a post-mortem when the thing is actually up.

The really important tidbit of information is that Bethesda announced another expansion for Fallout 3.  Be excited.

Here’s the skinny.

Killing aliens…America’s other favorite sport.

Ok.  Back to code.  Nerd points etc.

WETA…how do you get paid to build toys this big?

Check out this full scale Warthog WETA built for the scrapped(?) Halo movie:

For all you uninnitiated and/or socially well-adjusted readers out there, WETA is Peter Jackson’s nerd paradise out of which the Lord of the Rings movies were born.  More pictures are available here.

There’s also a brief blurb on Newsweek’s blog about the abandonded movie that honestly makes me hope that Halo stays a game.  Maybe it could be done well…maybe.

Happy Sunday everyone.

Costs as much as a PC…but it is a PC.

Ubuntu on an eMac G4 has proven to be a collosal pain.  After a week on message boards and a mountain of frustration I have abandoned the thought.  I’ve begun seeking an alternate platform for my home-base open source bliss.  In the course of doing this, I stumbled on Fixstar’s site.  Not only do they create and distribute Yellow Dog Linux, but they also sell harware…including PS3’s with Yellow Dog pre-installed.  Oh the rapture.  You can also install linux on X-box, but the idea of a Cell processor running Linux makes my nerd heart beat a little faster.

If Yellow Dog fails me, Fedora PPC is my next option.  Results to follow.

CSS, PSP, long nights and small sneaks

Whew.  Things are really rolling along these days.  Some tidbits:

In the course of putting together the Viscusi-Elson site I discovered a couple of nice pieces of code.  This is my first site that’s laid out completely in CSS, and I must say I’m beginning to feel very confident with it and very grateful for its existence.  My client wanted everything centered in a bordered box, which is fairly straightforward using tables, but not so much in CSS.  I found this example, which is exactly what I needed:

CSS center using float and clear (select view>page source to see the code and comments.  Courtesy of Perishable Press)

Also, I needed to do a series of slide shows, and since I will be maintaining the site long term, I wanted them to be both high quality and easily updatable.  Enter XML + Flash.  I found this tutorial:

Oman 3d: Creating an XML slideshow in Flash

Very, very helpful.  I went in knowing a little Actionscript and no XML, and walked out with five functional, flexible slide shows.

Last but not least…there are the internal portfolio pages, and for these I wanted to emulate (per the request of my client) the portfolio pages of the Jeffers Design Group , which incidentally are largely driven by php (a language I’m not familiar with).  I haven’t tried it yet, but this open source kit from Millstream looks good:

Crossfade Anything

I will try it out and let you know.

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I recently discovered Sony’s PSP.  I haven’t really picked up a handheld since the colored edition of the original Gameboy came out, so I really didn’t know what they’re capable of.  It turns out that they’re capable of a lot.  Along with my PSP, I bought Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops ,  and FFT:War of the Lions (a nice site, by the way).

Now, FFT is an old favorite of mine, that I never managed to beat on the Playstation.  Its turn based strategy is actually relaxing to me, because there’s no time pressure to make a decision.  The strategy element is fun, as is the story and growing your characters.  It’s good, old school fun.

Portable Ops is also excellent, but for different reasons.  The gameplay is on par with the console MGS games, and the graphics are amazing for a handheld.  Squad based combat adds a unique spin on the whole thing as well.  The cherry on top is that the story is engaging.  Highly recommended.

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That’s it for today!

Free games for a year?

PC Gamer’s Game Radar posted a handy list for cash-strapped or just plain bored individuals naming 365 games that are free to download. How kind of them.

I took a few minutes of my day and looked at Tremulous, the only one from the list that I’ve tried. While graphically dated, its gameplay was engaging, and for $0.00, well, who’s got room to complain? I’m sure there are some gems buried deeper in the list too.

Delicious Seizure

One very dedicated PC gamer built this amazing “custom case” which was featured in the latest issue of Maximum PC.  It’s total overkill and completely enviable.  Head over to The Mod Shop for more pictures and details on the build.

I’m not so sure about the LED front panels though…pushing tacky.  I like the overall idea very, very much.

Two piles of pulp

I’ve been reading a lot lately. And no, it hasn’t been deep, or particularly intelligent, or dinner party bragworthy reading. I’ve been on a shameless sci-fi pulp binge that I can only explain by saying “it’s summer, I read what I want.”

Here’s what I’ve eaten through in the last couple of weeks:

1. Orson Scott Card’s Empire :

I’ve never read any of Card’s Ender series, but I’ve heard talk. This guy has fans. Very loyal and excited fans. So when I saw his name on the cover, and read the promising summary on the back, I bought the book. Then I read the book.

Then I regretted it.

Apparently, this is the bad apple in Card’s otherwise shiny applecart. A few minutes reading Amazon reviews confirmed that many folks felt the way I did about this book. It’s a cartoonish, simplistic, thin, unrealistic, and generally ridiculous blending of politics and sci-fi. The two can go together beautifully, a-la Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but Card bungles the whole concept and this novel falls flat on its face. Disappointing.

2. Karpyshin’s Mass Effect: Revelation:

Ok. I have never, repeat, never read a videogame novel before. I think I bought this because the game looks incredible, but I currently lack the dollars to ahem buy a 360 and the game itself. Since I have an overactive imagination anyway, I figured reading a book about an alternate universe was probably as interesting as gaming in one.

I think I was right. This book is undeniably fluff, but it’s interesting fluff. It’s exciting fluff. It’s also fairly convincing fluff. I enjoyed the characters, the universe, and the story presented in Revelation and I know that the back story presented will be very interesting to be aware of, should I ever end up playing the game. At any rate, the quality of this book has convinced me that I should stop pretending like I’m such a snob and go try out some other books of the same sort. I’m considering the Halo trilogy…

Enough! I’m off to eat lunch.

West Coast design

I just signed a contract with Viscusi Elson Interior Design, a high end company from Los Altos California. I’m very excited to be doing their web site over the next couple of months and will be posting bits and pieces of the work here as it’s approved.

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In other news: UTIII for xbox 360 came out today. This iteration of UT, once again, raises the graphical bar to insanity. I was a big fan of the first UT, but stopped playing when UT2003 came out because I found the gameplay to be far too cartoonish for some reason. It felt more like a nerf war than a tournament. Perhaps this version corrects the problem. At any rate, the web site is a bandwith hogging bag of eye candy. Check it out for gameplay vids and such.

Halo RTS someday?

Check out this from Ars Technica: Ars at E3:Our Private Halo Wars Demonstration

So that was posted like a year ago. E3 is coming up and Halo Wars is still on the map according to the official site.

Gamepro mentions something interesting as well:

In transforming the Halo universe into a strategy game, Ensemble Studios is ironically bringing the series back to its roots. Before its release as the Xbox first-person shooter loved my millions worldwide, Halo was planned to be a PC strategy game. A series of design tweaks culminated in Halo’s eventual rebirth as a white-knuckle console shooter. But Halo’s strategy DNA lived on in the series anyway, evident in the game’s distinctive vehicles and rock-paper-scissors gameplay philosophy.

I never would have guessed it, but it makes total sense.