Just a quick test to see what another program is like. This time, I'm trying out BloGTK 2.0 to see how it holds out. Pretty straight-forward so far! Let's see if it successfully posts to my site, eh? Ready? Go...

I had previously done fairly well with my One Post Per Year policy, but alas, I fell off the train and completely missed aught-nine!! Ugh. I had done a complete revamp of our NearlyEverything.com site hub/network back in November-ish, and had plans to roll in Pointless Rant to the NEcom fold. If I'd have completed that project, I'd have gotten a post fired off right at the end there. Oh well... so much for last year. Ten is going to be so much better anyway. :P

This is being posted from a bit of software running on my Ubuntu desktop (using Blogilo, formerly "Bilbo Blogger") as a test. I'm trying out a desktop client in hopes that it will ease my pains for posting content on my slew of blogs & portals, which could be the answer to my OPPY (see above) problem... hopefully.

So, first of all, let's see if this even works! I still need to re-do Pointless Rant soon, but this will be a good test. Post being sent roughly.... now.

What do I post after going silent for well over a year??!? Well, it goes something like this:

My good friend Gloobert sent me an email and it deserves to be seen by others. I'll get his permission later:

I finally thought about looking up some of my recent faves to see what they were all about...live.

Twi the humble feather

Bob Log III. Lyrics shmyrics, just love the sound.

Ratatat. I don’t have this track on the stuff I bought from Emusic. Must get.

And finally a little country fried goodness:
Blitzen Trapper

Blitzen Trapper (more)

Thanks! Great, fun stuff.

I just had to post on this day. The big "777" of the century! I have nothing else to say besides "yay!"

I just had to drop a link here, mostly to remember where it is. You ought to check out some senior citizens rocking some Sonic Youth like you've never heard before. I genuinely dug this clip... a lot.

This is more of a "note to self" post than anything, but maybe some folks out there are interested in learning about alternative Windows software installer systems besides Install Shield (one of the most common, I think.)

The Nullsoft Scriptable Install System looks very lightweight and powerful, so maybe some of you can find good use for it? ...Maybe you're not a programmer/software developer and you don't know what I'm talking about?? Well... either way, I wrote it down, so now I can find it later. :P

I'm dropping a quick note for myself and other system admindistrator types looking for good info on network monitoring tool. I've been in need of something to help me monitor both local and wide network stuff, so I finally broke down and did a little research. I am currently tired of doing roughly 20 tasks manually to make sure everything's running properly... yeah, stupid waste of my time, that.

So, here's a great place to start, even though it's a bit exhaustive to have such a huge list of stuff... the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center put together this list of Network Monitoring Tools that I figure will just about get everyone to what they need at some point. It's not showing reviews or anything, but it's a great resource. I would rather have had someone saying "get product Z, it's the best," but I'm not always that lucky.

I'm needing to get back to monitoring the servers and services that I mentioned, so I'm grabbing one of these tools in particular to see how the free version works. iReasoning Network's SysUpTime Network Management System is what I'm trying first (though it maybe be massive overkill), if you want to come play alongside me. Beyond that, I'm not sure where I'll go.

Yes, I'm not dead. No, I'm not dead... hmmm. They both seem to mean the same thing. Either way, I'm not dead.

My point is that I've not updated anything here in an awful long while... if you hadn't noticed. In fact, I'm not sure who "you" are if you're even here, since there's nothing much of a regularity about this site, so I don't imagine people are rolling through here regularly. Maybe I can change that, but I'm not sure yet.

I have a lot of sites running at the moment, and the others (non-Pointless Rant, I mean) are needing of my attention ATM. ATM = "at the moment", in case that caused you trouble.

Well, this is a random rant to say I'm still around and there ought to be some manner of posty things coming up in the nearby furturity. I'm not commiting to much here, I know, but it's a start.

If you want to know what I'm working on, check these out:

Game Dev School [www.GameDevSchool.com] - Game development articles and video game development school information. This is also my personal space for my video game design journal... which needs updating too, btw.

Pointless Games [www.PointlessGames.com] - Free online Flash games and fun posts about games. It's getting to be a pretty sweet little community of gaming freaks!

MassMOG [www.MassMOG.com] - Massively multiplayer online game (MMORPG or MMOG, they're often called) news and information.

No Soup [www.NoSoup.com] - At the moment, this is my personal journal/blog about my progress learning about stock market trading and investing. I'm learning the InvesTools investor toolbox and reading a lot of books about stocks & options trading. This blog will be my journal tracking my progress.

Noavel Headstall [www.NoavelHeadstall.com] - This will be a site dedicated to info and sales of the incredible Noavel horse training headstall that my brother Gary is working with and selling. It's really sweet if you're into working with horses. The site's not really going yet, but I figured I'd tell you about it in case you might find it interesting enough to go back to soon. There will be a lot of info there soon-ish.

Sheesh!! That's a lot more than I expected... seeing it in a list like that sure makes it look like a lot of projects! That's also not even the full list. Dang-o. There's other stuff I'm doing that I'll talk about later, but for now, I'm putting a period at the end of this post.

In case you're interested, I've opened up a new site at www.GameDevSchool.com.  It's intended to house a ton of the video game development info I've been collecting over the years... mainly the trove of info about middleware and game design/development tools I've been amassing since about 1998 or so.  I had been working on adding this stuff to a special developer section of MassMOG, but I finally broke down and set up a separate site for that stuff.  I'll be linking over there from time-to-time when I have game developer-centric info to post.

I'm also a member of several academic advisory boards for local colleges & tech schools that have video game design & development courses they're implementing.  That's been a mixed bag, as some of them are doing it right and others are scaring me, honestly.  GameDevSchool.com is intended to hold a database of some of the school programs I've been learning about.  I'm not sure if I'll get into any kind of reviews (how on Earth would I review them, other than conceptually??), but mostly I want to point out what schools are trying to do.  Maybe I can get interviews or comment/forum posts from former/current students... don't know if it will grow to that point or not.

 Anyway, if you're interested in game development and want to know more, GameDevSchool.com will hopefully start to give you some good research links and info.

Run over there if you'd like to check it out, but be sure to come back over the next weeks as the content starts to build up.  Thanks!  :) 

This white paper, What About Flash? Can We Really Make Games With It? is a great read if you're in the business of developing "casual games" or online games and you've pondered the value of Flash in your life. I've been really strongly researching alternatives to using Flash and Director/Shockwave for online games. I just don't like how confining they are with regards to making other bigger games that I want to work on.

I've done a fair amount of work with the Torque game engine by Garage Games, which is very good. It's much more complex than Flash, but that might be just what you need, eh? There are other options too, but give this article a peruse if you're finding any of this topic interesting.