just an update :D

I haven’t posted in about a week and i thought i’d just update everyone.

1) We’ve been working on our site (So Not Soft dot com). Added forums and blogs to it.

2) We’ve been working on others sites (Radcliff Youth Soccer Association) and (Dynamite K9 Academy). Dynamite hasn’t been worked on as much as RYSA.

3) At the day job we’re getting close to the end of the Fiscal Year, so i’ve been doing lots of reports there.

4) It’s getting closer and closer to San Francisco! I can’t wait, it’s gonna rule!

5) I’ve been playing lots of Eve 😛

grumble grumble

“grrr” that’s all i have to say about my personal life right now.

And now on to work-ish related stuff. The RSS Reader that i wrote for e107 has become very popular. It’s a weird feeling knowing that over 200 people in the world are using something you created. Even though up to now i’ve only gotten less than a dozen messages from users, all stating some sort of issue, i’m thinking that for the most part it works great. The issues that i have addressed have been easy fixes and haven’t really taken me a long time to patch up.

Next i want to work on something more related with what the company is trying to do. I think i’ll take up Zach’s recommendation and learn how to write Shaders.

Zero Punctuation may be shallow

I’ve been watching Zero Punctuation for a while and I’ve always found it amusing and at times insightful. But this week, i’m not too sure. He reviewed Eve Online, a game that i’ve been playing for almost 3 years. Now, what he says is very true, there are some awefully boring things that go on. But as you watch you’ll see that he didn’t do any of the things that make the game so fun!

1) Joining a player owned corp is part of the game, staying in an NPC corp really isn’t all that exciting. You don’t have the same kind of togetherness and common goal to achieve.

2) He may have tried pvp, but with only two weeks there’s no way you’ve learned all that you need to know. Then on top of that, to solo PvP, you really need a lot of experience and skill points (could be optional). He could have had a good time PvPing in a group, if he would have tried.

3) He didn’t find his niche, he just jumped in and tried to play. That’s not going to work with Eve, you have to learn what you’re good at and then attempt to build your character around that. And by “what you’re good at” i mean personally, not your character. If you can’t handle the stress of PvP, then you shouldn’t be a PvPer. If you hate mining, then you shouldn’t be a miner, etc etc.

4) I don’t wear a shoe on my head 😛

I guess what i’m really saying is that though i love to laugh at Zero puncutation’s reviews, i’m starting to wonder if i should take them seriously at all? I mean, i kind of figured he’d always pick out the bad parts of games and then exaggerate on them. But maybe with Eve he didn’t even attempt to find what draws people to the game? And if he did that with Eve, are all his game reviews like that?

Or maybe we are all the nerds who are what nerds are to nerds like nerds are to normal people.

San Francisco!

So, on a whim, I decided to go with an old friend to San Francisco next month.

Yeah, not much thought went into this decision, and hopefully i’ll be able to take the time off (I don’t see why i wouldn’t be able to).

IT’S SAN FRAN-FUCKING-CISCO!!

I’ll take pictures, and go to cool places, and maybe run into celebrities, and maybe meet cool internet people! OMGWTF *head explodes*

I’m so stoked right now i don’t know what to write. I mean, i’ve always wanted to go there. It’s right up there with going to Japan! And NOW I’M GOING!

YES *FISTPUMP*

erm.. so, now that i’ve recollected myself…

I’M GOING TO FUCKING SAN FRANCISCO!

Eve Online Killboard Setup

Since the eve-dev website is down, and currently residing over at eve-id.net. And i saw a search string pop up in my blog stats dealing with how to create a killboard.  I thought i’d put together a quick howto on how to set up your very own eve killboard.  Note to anyone who wants to admin their own killboard: The original creator of the killboard no longer works on it, but a community of enthusiasts still maintain and update the killboard system. It’s a community effort to add new features and fix bugs, so there’s no one person incharge of anything (as of 20 March 09 anyway).

First here are some things you’ll need.
1) A host – some place on the web which is willing to let you have some space to put the killboard and the database that goes along with it.
2) A mySQL database backend (preferably at the same place as the host)
3) A schema on said database where the tables needed for the killboard to go.
4) PHP – your host must support PHP (PHP 5 is the most current as of this writing).

Ok, so lets get started!

First things first, you’ll want to make sure you have permissions to create new schemas on your database. What i usually do is create a user just for that one schema and then give it everything but grant privileges. If you have no idea what i’m talking about, i’d say to take a look here. That should get you started on your way to using mySQL and learning how to administer it.

You’ll need to log into your mysql console (if you have remote access to your host). From a terminal window in linux, or command prompt in windows, you’ll issue this command

#/> mysql -u root -p
you’ll be prompted for your root password. enter it and press enter.

Typically, once you’re logged into the mysql console you’ll issue these commands like so:

mysql > CREATE DATABASE killboard;
mysql > GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP ON killboard.* TO ‘user’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘password’;

The schema name for the killboard in this example is ‘killboard’. Notice that i’ve used ‘user’ for the username and ‘password’ for the password for the user. You’ll want to change this to something else, unless of course you don’t mind leaving your stuff insecure. Also, it’s a good idea to leave the host as localhost, since that’s typically where the killboard and database will reside, there on the local machine. This will also keep anyone from using your login credentials from a remote system if they do happen to get your information.

If you don’t have remote access, you may have a cpanel or somesuch that you can log into. You’ll want to create your new database and user with that. Making sure the new user has permissions for the new database.

Once you have your schema set up (there should be no tables in it yet). You’re ready to get the files needed and upload them to your server space. You can get the latest version of the killboard here. If that doesn’t work (as they may have gotten a new host), you can always google for ‘Eve Dev Killboard’. That should get you good results.

After you’ve downloaded the full install (not an update, unless of course you’re updating your killboard, in which case why are you reading this, since you should already know what to do) you’ll want to untar the package, this can be easily done with WinRAR (for windows and my personal favorite) or using tar -zxvf (in linux). After the extraction is complete, you’re ready to upload the files to your host.

Before you commence with the uplaod, think about where you want to put your killboard. Will it be the first page everyone sees? or do you want to put it in another directory? Personally i like having everything in it’s own directory, so for sake of arguement we’ll use /kb (meaning the address will look like http://some.host.com/kb).

You’ve created your directory and uploaded all the files there, you’ll browse to http://your.host.com/kb/install. From there you’ll have on screen instructions, which should be easy enough to follow. You’ll need to know the schema name, username, and password for your database connection, and your Eve Corporation or Alliance name. Other than that it’s very automated and easy to use.

If you do have trouble and need assistance, you can head over to eve-id.net(or whatever site they’re at now, if that one is no longer valid) and go to the forums. Pretty much if you’re having an issue, someone else has already had it and there’s a solution there.

Once everything is complete, make sure to delete the install directory and follow all the other security suggestions the installer gives you.  Now you’re ready to start posting those kills! Good job!

😀

Example Killboard (actually my corps’):Legion of Black Mesa’s Killboard
For the new Apocrypha updates check out this pack someone put together: Full Package Download [Current Ver: 1.6 Apoc 1.1 Content]

A good hint: Keep an eye on the EDK Forums; mods, updates, and new features are being added all the time!

For you WordPress pod pilot bloggers: Killboard plugin for WordPress. Looks like a neat feature to add.

EDITS:

-I thought i should show an example of that the killboard should look like after it’s finished.
-I added in some more detailed instructions for the database creation. Sorry to those that read this before and didn’t get what i was talking about. I tend to be a bit vague sometimes.
-Thanks to the comment by Dave I’ve updated the permissions needed by the user to include UPDATE. It would be silly not to be able to update a record 😛
-Added links to the EDK Forums, especially to the Apocrypha release pack.
-Added link to Zaine’s wordpress killboard widget plugin.

Yay for long weekends!

So my weekend started normal with Friday off. And like normal, i really didn’t do much besides mow the lawn and take my brother to work. I did play some Eve and tried to make some isk for my upcoming carrier. Results were.. well.. mixed. I did make a nice chunk of change, but that went right down the toilet as i bought the Logistics skill and an Oneiros. Then on top of that i sent some more isk over to Deszra, who is building my carrier. So, that put me under 150 million isk. Which, for me, is very low.

On Saturday I slept in and after waking up started reading a book i’d been meaning to start a long time ago, Ringworld’s Children. I read a few chapters and then was drawn back to my computer to play more Eve. I log in to discover that there are red gangs all over Wicked Creek, instead of risking my ship and implants i jump back to Empire space to help with our newly started war effort against Goodfellas (which as of this writing isn’t going too well, efficiency-wise). So i decided to go and make isk the old fashioned way, by running missions and hitting up complexes. Then company came over, and i had to go prep the grill. We cooked and man was it delicious! I grill some whiting fillets and my dad grilled up a pork tenderloin and some brats. Mom made potato salad and tiramisu. Nick made his famous bruchetta, and Andrew kinda chilled out 😛

mmmm, just thinking about it is making me hungry again.

So, today is monday, the last day of this glorious 4 day weekend. I hopped on eve for about an hour this morning, and then spent the rest of the time browsing the internet looking for neat things to do, or inspriation for what new features i could add to any of the websites i work on.

And here’s to me chillin’ for the rest of the day. Ah relaxation, how i love it 😀

So!Soft is alive!

So, you’re looking at the blog of the co-founder and part owner of SoNotSoft LLC. The big day started today as Zach got us registered early this morning. Since then we’ve been doing all sorts of things. Everything from planning what steps we need to take next (like get all our financial and legal things squared away) to what projects we’re going to undertake next (after the games we have planned) to how our website is going to look.

So far i’ve just been working on getting the website set up and running. I’m in the process of installing a wordpress blog for our dev blog, and comtemplating on using e107 for the news, forums, downloads section. I’ve also been thinking about building the whole sha-bang from scratch, but that’s pretty time consuming and i’m sure we’d rather have a prefab site up now, than a custom one three months from now. We can always customize as we go.

So, first thing for me, once everything is installed, is to get the rss_reader on there and ready for download 🙂 Then from there i’ll start working on other stuff.

That’s all i got for now.

Dharma Wants You

DharmaWantsYou.com.

Are you worthy of being a part of the Dharma Institute?

This site is pretty cool. I think it’s like a game or something, but i’m not totally sure. I know there’s got to be something else to it besides just taking tests.

All i know is, playing this makes me want the new season to come faster!

rss_reader update

I made some more changes to the rss_reader plugin I’m writing. I’m foreseeing that it will be totally completed this week, and submitted to the e107 community sometime late this week, or early next week. As long as there’s not already something else out there, i’m sure that people will like it. I mean who doesn’t like aggregating content from other sites?

What the plugin does now:
-Allows users to choose an RSS feed from a dropdown list and have it display on the screen, no page refresh required!
-Admins can remove, edit, and add new feeds for users to choose from.
-Admins can add a menu (widget) which will show the latest feed (only one) from each of active feeds.

What the plugin does not do right now:
-Upgrade properly. If someone has a 1.0 version (which should be nobody), database tables aren’t created when a user would upgrade. I need to find out why this happens, and fix it. This should also eliminate any future problems.

I’ll let you all know when i’ve completed the plugin and have it uploaded to e107Plugins. It will probably be hosted on So!Soft first, which i’ll have to talk to Buzz about.