de Paul Warren

Archive for May, 2007

It’s hard to stay calm as time goes by. Seeing random shootings with no intent other than to hurt others. Violent pranks such as drive-by paintballing. Super companies raising prices just because they can. Vandalism for the sake of boredom. Criminals suing their victims and winning… This world sucks and it’s not going to get better. The only thing that has changed over the past thousands of years is that we have become much more “civilized” in how we act uncivilized.

In an age where having super powers or just being a regular vigilante is popular, I must remain at peace. It’s one of the hardest things to do: to be a victim of injustice and turn the cheek. It’s a simple lesson but one that can’t be ignored. Once I start daydreaming about being a superhero of any kind, even for just the “I’d be cool if I could…” kind, hatred will now have an opening to get in. Who thinks of super powers like: spontaneous kitten / puppy creation, shooting laughing gas out of your eyes, or any of the carebear’s powers? It’s all super strength, super speed, and sharks with lasers on top. And when was the last time you ever daydreamed about dealing justice but you nicely captured the bad guys without hurting a single one?

And without going to the weird super powers, I could simply just be that little bit stronger than the perpetrator. Deal him my own brand of four fingered justice. Being that extra bit faster when they show a weapon. Or possibly the nonviolent method of spinning your own scheme to get them caught in their own plans. Foiling a plot… but really.

It’s not that you can’t do the above and you should just sit and take it. I’ll be one to admit that in tough situations, I’d probably freeze up. But that’s not the point. You see…

It all comes back to Hatred.

And the more you focus on it, the more you become like it.

What is with the changing of the keys? I understand that there are different layout standards in other countries, but I’m sure the 2×3 Insert -> Page Down group has been like that for a while now. The only time it has changed was for laptops. As one who uses all 6 of those keys, I really don’t like when they start moving them around.

I’ve had frustrations with the backslash being beside the backspace, a small backslash with the backspace taking up the remainder of the gap, Enter being L shaped, and a few other minor layout changes. Thank goodness, that I haven’t experienced the backslash being to the right of the Right Shift key!

But those were all 1-2 key repositioning. I use all 6 of the “Home/End” block. So far I’ve pressed Home when I wanted Insert, End for Home, Pageup or Pagedown for End, End for Pageup… although I’ve never accidentally hit Insert as It’s not even in the same area anymore.

All in all, I like being able to type without having to look at the keyboard, but when they keep changing the layout of some of the keys, I have to constantly look after I notice the key I intended to hit produced a different result… because it was no longer the same key. If they keep changing the keys around, I’ll have to get myself a DX1 Input System – Fully customizable keyboard and layout the keys as how they should be.

And so the stage I dread the most. Advertisement. I know it’s a vital step in any success, but I’m not good at it and dread doing it myself. Recently I have finished making a game I have been developing for about 4 months. The first month was steady work where the latter three months were on and off development. The game itself is a strategy game based off of two open source games. It is most similar to the popular Risk games and their variations, with a few noticeable differences.

The game is now ready for the public to play. But there’s one small detail, in order to attract players, I need players. It’s the catch 22. So what I need to do is find some way of having people join but also be patient in the early community life of the game. Do I spend some money to setup advertisements on other websites? Do I offer prizes for the Nth player to join…

I guess I have to do some sort of advertising, but I want to do what is best for the site. I don’t want to attract hundreds of people right away, to only have them leave and never come back because it was the wrong crowd. But I also don’t want to wait 10 years for the game to gain light and catch on either. So I’m off to do some advertising I guess. But if you haven’t seen any of my ads, head on to www.ikonquest.com. Feedback, suggestions, complaints or general comments are welcomed.

My eye is beginning to twitch faster now. I’ve suffered about a year’s worth of inadequate web hosting service. The server is up, the server is down. MySQL won’t work or is broken. Tech Support is responsive 50% of the time. As of this article, the email server is not responding. I was about to make another Support Ticket but guess what… the ticket database was down!! Jeez!

It hasn’t always been like this. I’ve used their service for about 5 years or more. When I first signed up it was great. For several years everything was fine. Then I noticed that things started to crap out. So being a loyal customer, I simply just switched servers and everything was fine again. But I’ve been neededing to do that (jumping servers) almost twice a year lately to keep ahead of the servers going to hell.

Why not move? Well I’m poor. I can’t afford large service charges and the other reasonable ones don’t offer the needed services this one does. It DID work at some point. So it’s not like I had troubles from the start and should have known to switch early on. And when the problems started, I was thinking of just waiting out the problem and it will pass. But in order to move servers to a different provider, I need to be certain of a few things. #1. They must support the version of PHP I want. Too low and I’m not using them. I can’t downgrade all my code to suit them… even with the risk that they won’t be good either. MySQL needs to be high enough too. They can’t be anal about their transfer limits or speeds. I won’t sign up with someone who’s just going to charge me a huge number or cancel my services or automatically upgrade me in the case of one of my sites having a spike of popularity. I’d rather be warned first so I can prepare to respond. I need appropriate access to the files. None of this CPanel crap.

So the only solution I can think of currently is either finding someone who can fit my requirements, or possibly strike a deal with dedicated hosting if I provide the actual server. I’m willing to buy a server if it means my monthly cost is low.

This is really beginning to peeve me though. I’m struggling to develop a few applications, yet I find myself fighting with the stability of the servers more than my own code.

I feel like everything is pending right now. Netfile used by the Canadian Revenue Agency is down and I’m waiting to file my taxes. My laptop isn’t working and hasn’t for a while and I’m waiting for it to be fixed. I’ve recently filed an appeal and I’m waiting on the decision of that. My business is pending as I need to see if I am approved for the self employment benefits. If I go ahead and start the business, I won’t eligible. My current project is taking a lot longer than originally planned. I’m losing my focus and I’m eagerly hoping for the finish date. I have a friend sending me some sketches but he’s ran into some holdups keeping them from reaching me. Getting a new server for my websites will have to wait until I find out if I can get one for a good price. I have other game ideas that will have to wait until iKonquest is finished, and possibly the business has started.

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Being jobless is beginning to take it’s toll. I love being able to sit at home and create the things of my mind, but reality is starting to rear its ugly head and getting in my way. Getting a job cannot wait. But getting one will mean everything else must.

So I’ve been watching Heroes, but as many others, I have had daydreams of having super powers. Whether it’s inspired by comics, cartoons or movies, sometimes even TV shows, my powers are usually unique. At least from my point of view. They probably exist in some character I haven’t heard of before but whatever.

And then there began to show traces I actually did have a power. One I couldn’t control nor wanted. I’m not sure when it really started, but I found I could degrade the technology I was using. Not in the naughty sense , but physically. D-Link doesn’t like me, I seem to defect all cards I get from them.

I saw my first manifestation a few weeks ago (from this post) when I electrocuted my sound card. It took me forever to determine that it was that I destroyed as at first, I thought it was my headphones as it was what I shocked first. Then the speakers as I found out the hard way it wasn’t the headphones. Then I finally decided to test the soundcard and it proved to be the faulty part. It’s been replaced and the new one is working properly.

Concurrently, the laptop has been the biggest pain. A loose screw was shorting out the motherboard, then the motherboard didn’t work or at least it was replaced. Still having problems and it only seems to get worse as the last days for my warranty approaches.

It’s either that or the soundcard issue was a fluke and my laptop just doesn’t like me.