I'm all a-twitter

Sorry about the recent lack of updates. I do have some new stuff happening and I'll report on 'em when I get the chance.

If you're one of the millions who worship me and live vicariously through me and cannot go 24 hours without immersing yourself in the wonder that is me, then you can keep up with me on Twitter. My ID is the very obscure "johnhattan", and my public feed is at the also-obscure http://twitter.com/johnhattan

And I got twhirl running all the time on my main development box, so if you @ me, I'll see it.

I actually rather like Twitter. It's a good outlet for random thoughts that need an outlet but don't warrent a blog-post. And twhirl is a really nice little piece of software.

I also update pownce and tumblr (twitter-clones) under the same ID, but those are done automatically. Of the three, I recommend Twitter. It's the one that's catching on.

New article is up

I'm now working on a more regular writing schedule with Gamedev, and my goal is to post one large-format (approx 1000 words) article or review per week.

And here's the first review from that new schedule. It's the Chumby, which is an adorable little lumpy thing that displays widgets.

http://www.gamedev.net/features/reviews/productreview.asp?productid=702

ordered the video card

Sorry if this machine-build shtick is boring, but I got another piece. This time it's one of those nVidia 8800zyxwvu 500-core video cards. Slickdeals had a rather convoluted deal here that sounds like this. . .

1. nVidia 8800 video card = $190 - $30 rebate
2. Microsoft Windows OneCare = $30 - $30 rebate
3. $20 rebate if you spend $200 via paypal (which is why I bought #2)

Total = 190 + 30 + 5 (shipping) - 30 - 30 - 20 = $145

And that's pretty good. My only worry is that two of the rebates are being handled via TigerDirect, who are the folks who bought the CompUSA name. And Tiger Direct rebates are generally abysmal and take forever to arrive if they arrive at all.

OTOH Microsoft rebates are the best in the business. They have always arrived and typically in three weeks, well ahead of the standard "wait 8-12 weeks" frame.

So even if only the Microsoft one goes through, I get the video card for a net of $195 which is still pretty good.

My biggest worry now is that this computer's gonna contain so many fans that it'll slow down the Earth's rotation when I turn it on, forcing the planet into a more distant orbit and dropping the planet's temperature to a couple degrees above that of the cosmic background radiation, thus killing us all and leaving our anguished cries to echo through the cosmos for eternity.



On another note, I wrote up the test Chumby app for my article on Chumby development that's set to run next week. It's a cute app, and I think it'll be a hit. You'll get to try it out next week, because part of my article regards how to make a Chumby app that'll function both on a Chumby and in a web-page.

Machine build update

Well not really an update per se, as I haven't done anything on it since last time. But since the universe apparently tilted towards me yesterday, I got an email from a PR-guy who was wondering if I'd be interested in reviewing a computer case, specifically this huge thing.

So I'm gonna review it. It actually looks like a reasonably good case, and at a not-bad price (circa $99). A couple of years ago I reviewed a testosterone-laden red computer case with a big dragon on the front, and I had a hard time giving it a serious review. This case, however, looks quite a bit more practical than the dragon case, despite still being festooned with blue LED's.

So that thing's gonna show up and I'll take lots of pictures of the unboxing and the build along with commentary about the case itself. Should be interesting to see how it works out.


Although this does pretty-much kill any kind of apples-apples price comparison. I can't much post a "How to build a quad-core 8-gig machine for $500" with the case conspicuously absent from the price-list.




On a completely different note, I got one of the funniest-ever Nigerian scam emails yesterday. It's from the "fedex delivery company", and the gist of the email is that there are several big boxes full of money waiting for me over at a Fed Ex office, and I can release the boxes into my waiting arms after paying a modest release fee.

But, being the skeptic, I'm not quite sure this actually came from Fed Ex. I'll let you be the judge. This is exactly how I received it, lack of paragraph breaks and all. . .


Plot 5,Okoi Way, Victoria Island, Lagos Nigeria. Direct Line: +234-8029148658 EMAIL: korea_fedex_shipment1@post.ro DATE: 15/04/2008. Customers Service Hours--Monday To Saturday: Office Hours Monday To Saturday: Attention, Attention, Attention. The fedex delivery company are hereby passing an essential massage to all our valuable customers to be very careful while presenting their receivers residential address to avoid wrong delivery. This is the fedex delivery company mailing you as per your parcel that was brought to this company to be delivered to you by one Mr.Jesselucky along the delivery process there came a misunderstanding between you and the Nikon Insurance Company in regard of their request as per their insurance certificate which happens to be course of your parcel pending for the past one year. Meanwhile we are hereby happy to inform you that the fedex delivery company has finalized everything with the Nikon Insurance Company of Nigeria as the company organization has also listed 24 valuable parcel's to be intact in their office after the released of the parcel's from the Nikon Insurance Company. We are happy to inform you once again that your parcel that contain the sum of 500,000 (Five Hundred Thousand Pounds Sterlling) is among the 24 parcel's listed which is now in our office and also with your name as the receiver despite that we lost your private residential address, which is an indication that you can now re-send your residential address back to the fedex delivery company where your parcel can be delivered to you without hesitation with this e-mail (korea_fedex_shipment1@post.ro) Meanwhile remember that the sender of this parcel Mrs. Pandera Williams & Jennifer Smith still owes this company the sum of $110 before the incident occurred, know you that this company has spent out of their incomes in the process of recovering back your parcel's So dear customer we once again appreciate your patronage in our favor. Without hesitations you are to pay the required sum of $110 via Western Union Money Transfer or Money Gram so that your parcel can be delivered to your residential address before it accumulate a demurrage after one week only, as you know your parcel is not just an ordinary parcel but with a huge amount and I think you understand what I mean by accumulating demurrages? Which you will not allow to happen to your recovery parcel that was almost gone if not for the love that the good God. We assure you that your parcel will arrive at your country in two days time and it will get to your door step the second OR third day as soon as this company receive the balance left by your sender and the tracking number of your parcel will be sent to you via e-mail immediately so that you can track it yourself to see your parcel coming on the way and you will also know when it will arrive at your country because we operate in trust and loyalty in your favor. And also the fedex delivery Company is hereby to inform all their customers by eradicating all their communication with the scam mails that are going all-over the world be careful with their e-mails so that your parcel will not be in danger with their evil plans.The fedex delivery company, provides access to a growing global marketplace through a network of supply chain, transportation, and business related information services. PAYMENT INFORMATION OFFICE . Receiver's name..................John Williams Receiver's Country................Nigeria Receiver State........................Lagos Text Question..........................To who Text Answer.............................. John Reference Number......................Ten Digit Numbers Sender's name............................??????????????? The fedex delivery company is one of the world's great success stories, the start-up that revolutionized the delivery of packages and information. In the past 30 years, we've grown up and grown into a diverse family of company's -a FedEx that's bigger, stronger, better than ever. WAITING TO READ YOUR E-MAIL. YOURS AFFECTIONATLY. Mr. GRISSIN.FEDEX DELIVERY MANAGING DIRECTOR. For the Ikeja Branch Manager fedex delivery company Lagos -Nigeria.

Building a new machine

Ahh the bottomless fun of building a new computer.

Actually a little background. Shelly's the official AutoCAD witch around here. And the projects she does on AutoCAD (actually Civil 3D, which is a special super-extended version for Civil Engineering) are absolutely enormous. And they take up gobs of memory and every bit of processor you can throw at it.

And now AutoCAD 2009 is now in the channel, which means that Civil 3D 2009 is gonna be arriving very soon.

And this software is not cheap. Very not cheap. Five figures kind of not cheap.

In looking at ways to improve the workflow a bit, it's clear that one of the bottlenecks is the hardware. Her three year-old 3.8 Ghz hyperthreaded machine is still a very solid computer and was the hottest thing on the market when we bought it, speed-wise it's now about the class of a $400 machine. Also it's hit the memory wall. It's got 4 gig, which is as much as the motherboard as well as XP can handle.

I found a quite-nice article by a guy who built a quad core 8 gig server for $900. I figured if I can improve performance for that kind of price, it's easily worth it.

Only problem with the article is that the video card is a mite anemic, which is expected as it's a server machine. Figured if I could cut a few bucks off here and there I could upgrade the video card.

Also I got a Vista 64 license on the way (which supports lots of cores and memory), so that's just kismet.

So I'm buying up bits. I'm not in a huge hurry because the new Civil 3D and Vista 64 haven't yet arrived. Figured there's not much point in building a machine just to wait until the software arrives, and migrating existing Civil 3D from one machine to another is a pain and requires you to call up your AutoCAD reseller who then has to call Autodesk and convince 'em you're not a pirate.

Fry's had the CPU on sale last week for $180. They also had a similar case and power supply for $85, so I'm gonna grab that today. I'll probably get the memory and motherboard by mail-order because motherboard features aren't something I fully grok and Fry's doesn't sell the exact motherboard the guy mentioned on his page. The folks on newegg think that motherboard is the dog's bollocks (to use a Texas vernacular), so I figure that's a good choice.

I'll probably get a hard drive locally. The existing computer currently has a 75 gig drive that's only 2/3 full, so I'm not gonna kill myself getting a giant drive. 120 or 160 gig drives can be had pretty cheaply nowadays, so that'll save me a little.

Thus far, I think this is my parts list.

- Intel quad-core CPU (same as that guy's system) ($180)
- MSI motherboard (same as that guy's system) ($130)
- 8 gig of memory on four simms (same as that guy's system) ($160)
- Similar Antec case and power supply (Fry's had an all-black one on clearance) ($85)
- 120 or 160 gig SATA drive, whatever's cheaper (around $90)
- one of those huge nVidia 8800 leafblower video cards (around $200)
- Nice front-mounted multi-card-reader-thingy instead of a floppy drive ($30)
- CD/DVD burner taken from an old computer we no longer use (free)
- Vista 64 (included in our MS subscription pack)

Total - $875

And that's pretty good. According to the folks on the Autodesk forums that Shelly frequents, Vista and versions of AutoCAD after 2007 are good pals. And we've noticed that ourselves. Shelly's running a second Civil3D on her little cheapo Vista laptop (because according to their license, that's allowed), and it runs very well.

So hopefully that'll fix some problems. As I told Shelly, if $900 can make a $10k piece of software run twice as fast and twice as stable, you do it.


Now I just have to get the parts and put it all together, which is always a hassle. Ain't looking forward to that part.

Logo results

Okay, I got the entries here. I downsized 'em, but this is still gonna be an image-heavy entry. First off, we have an entry from ukdm. . .

While it's clearly just my little clipart spaceship with the border removed, I do like the big concentric circles in the back. Gives it a bit of a kitschy "outer limits" feel, although I don't know if that really works in space. It's inspired by this movie poster, which certainly fits in with the theme I was going for.



Next we have our venerable gamedev artist Noaktree. While his rocket looked a little more Estes than I'd hoped, I loved the strong text. Here's his.



Next is Suzanne. While I do like her use of color and the power you can get from only using one color, it didn't really have the cheesy science fiction appeal I was seeking.



Next I have David Baumgart. He posted several entries, and I did like the look. I especially liked the planet and the use of text that interacted with the rocket.











Next is gamedev user "demosthenes". While I liked the color-scheme, which reminded me of a 1960's pulp science fiction novel, most likely with the word "Mars" in the title, it otherwise didn't feel right.



Finally, I have an entry from Steve, posted at the last minute. While I appreciate the effort, I fear that Space Invaders are overused. I'm also not convinced that the canonical Space Invader bitmaps won't be declared to be IP of Taito.




So that's where I am. I think the two rocket logos (Noaktree and Baumgart's) are my favorite, but neither rocket had the bottomless kitsch of my existing clipart rocket. It just looks like something made out of an old coffee-can and held up with wires in an impossibly cheap movie.

So I grabbed a couple of the ideas and slapped together what might eventually be the canonical logo.



We got planet in the background. I originally wanted Saturn, but I thought that'd draw too much attention to itself, so I went with cratery moon and turned the alpha way down. We got Noaktree's text. And we got cheesy-looking rocket that looks like it oughta be supported with wires.

I took out the rocket's flame because I thought that if I ever went with a Flash version for a splash screen or something, I could add some rising puffs of smoke. And you just know you can't have a cheesy sci-fi rocket without the obligatory "smoke rising in space" effect :)

So I think this one is close. Mind you, this is just something I slapped together in a few minutes, so I know it's got a bit to go.

Noaktree, if I can get a vector version of the text, that'd be awesome. Everything in that logo is vector save for the text. I might change the text to brick-red, thus giving it a bit more of the "The Day Mars Invaded Earth" feel.



As for the prize, since I plan to borrow (and have borrowed already) most liberally from Noaktree (aka Neil Kemp) and David Baumgart, I think it's only fair that they split the prize. Since Neil's in the US where shipping's cheaper, he's gonna get the box-o-trinkets.

And since the box-o-trinkets isn't worth $100, it wouldn't be fair just to split things down the middle. So I'm splitting the whole mess into four pieces. Neil gets the box-o-trinkets plus $33. David Baumgart's getting the remaining $67.

Neil's getting a check with his box-o-trinkets. David's gonna get his piece with paypal.

Everybody happy?

Good. I got games to write :)

Contest reboot

Well, in my last entry I mentioned my disappointment with the number of entries I'd received in the contest. And two (i.e. half) of the entrants chimed in that they wouldn't be averse to rebooting the contest.

And I'm rather at a crossroads about the whole thing. There wasn't an entry in the contest that just made me say "oh, that's the clear winner". At the same time, every entry had something that I liked. I liked the use of text in one. I liked a particular bit of cleverness in another, I liked the background in the third, and I liked the color scheme in a fourth.

So here are my options as I see 'em. . .

1. Restart the contest entirely. Keep the existing entries as entries in the rebooted contest, and hope that I'll get some more entries. I'm not hopeful about this, mainly because nobody seemed to think that the timing of the contest was a problem. I didn't get anyone saying "I'd like to enter, but a week just isn't enough time". I fear that running the contest again, be it for another week or another month, will only garner me one or two more entries. People just don't seem enthused by the idea, and I've never been a fan of letting something linger beyond its usable life.

2. Declare the contest over, award the prize to my favorite entry, and get on with my life.

3. Divide the prize n-ways (maybe with a little extra added so no entrants feel they were rooked out of a better prize), post all the entries with comments about what I liked about each one, and then see if I can cobble together a meta-logo that'll be the best of all worlds.

Right now I'm leaning towards number 3. And I'm doing that mainly because I don't like the idea of borrowing an idea from a losing entry without giving the logo (and by extension the entrant) some kind of recognition. If I go with number 3 then everybody's equally disappointed.

And maybe if I post all the entries with the comments about what I liked or didn't like, I can work with the community to come up with a "mashup" that'll become the canonical logo, perhaps by roughing out a logo and inviting people to tweak it.



And finally, I'm not blaming anyone but myself for my own disappointment. I really could've picked a better contest and/or better prizes. It was just a little trifle that I thought might be fun, and it fell on its face.

Reminder

Logo contest ends today.

Just a reminder, I'm looking for cleverness more than just technical skill. If this is something you can initially rough out and can make an improved version later, then do so.

Also if you've already entered and you want to enter another one, feel free.



Shelly's on the last day of a project-from-hell, and I stayed up too late last night.

I need more coffee.

Me being bummed

The Code Zone logo contest ends tomorrow. Unless I get a flood of entries in the next 24 hours, I'm going to declare the contest to be an utter flop. I'll post the entries and crown a winner and award a prize, but I'm pretty disappointed in the number of entries.


Safari on Windows is official and, ACID scores notwithstanding, it is a steaming pile. The only reason to have this thing on a windows machine is if you're a webmaster who wants to see how your page looks on a Mac and don't actually wanna buy a Mac. Otherwise it's the most jarring unintuitive thing around. Imagine for a moment the consumer backlash if Microsoft released Office for the Mac and it was a pixel-for-pixel clone of the Windows version, right down to the Vista-style titlebars. The fanboy angst would reach the heavens!

But it's not really an issue. Safari really doesn't have a reason to exist on Windows marketing-wise. Firefox is excellent in Windows, and you'll need to have more than slightly better handling of javascript esoterica to unseat Firefox's nigh-unlimited customizability and extensibility.


Speaking of which, the new Firefox is pretty good. Google Browser Sync doesn't work with it (and appears to have been abandoned), so I'm trying Mozilla Weave. Good so far.


Also I'm now using NetVibes instead of iGoogle because NetVibes has better google calendar support, go figure.


I might tweak the scoring for ConFusebox 2 a second time because one of the metrics is still too high. Mind you, this is closing the barn door after the cows are out, but so far only a couple of cows are out, so it shouldn't be too bad.


Intel/Microsoft are apparently releasing a mini-laptop. It runs Windows and is dinky like an OLPC and is $400 and I just don't get it. I bought an Acer laptop at a Black Friday sale for $350, and it beats the pants off Intel's offering at every turn except for two things -- size and lack of rotating storage. Are Flash-based mini-laptops really so compelling that people are gonna pay a price-premium for 'em? I mean, I can understand selling mini-laptops for education at a really attractive price-point, like $150-$200, but once you get your laptop into the $400 range, then you're competing against real laptops. And in an apples-apples comparison of features, the mini-laptops are gonna lose.

But at the low end of the scale, like $200 and below, the main competition is against PocketPC machines, and the tables turn. Save for phone-capabilities, a mini-laptop can beat the pants off a Windows Mobile device, and that's where they need to be.

But hey, I'm no marketer. I'm also not the target market for these critters so what do I know.


Speaking of which, Maggie's still having great fun with her OLPC. She discovered that, while some Flash sites are slow, Strongbad emails play just fine. She likes the songs he sings while he checks his emails.

She sent Strongbad an email last week. Gotta watch that kid.