Pauls Rants & Revelations

I just finished the C&C3 demo and I was really quite bummed. I mean, just when its getting good, the demo ends. What the hell? I was just about to see how we respond to the Philadelphia exploding and then, and then… nothing. Erg. Now I have to wait until end of March to see how it all plays (literally) out.

Oh, you wanted to know what the games is like? Sorry, went off there for a bit. Anyways, the game itself is the best C&C that EA has come out with yet. It has the overview (also know as the God view) of the battle field just like all the other C&C games (with the exception of Renegade)  and an almost the same, but totally redone and upgraded player interface with all of the really nifty bits like the Ion Cannon, Jump troopers, and a whole host of new Nod trumping goodies conveniently placed with large buttons on the left side of the screen.

There are, of course, new unit additions like the Zone Trooper, Commandos,  and Grenadiers (for the personnel of the GDI side) and a really great new vehicle called the Mammoth.  This mammoth is not the same as the one in Firestorm as it is a treaded ground vehicle. But it is more powerful than the old mammoth and, guess what? You can build more than one of them. In the skirmish demo I build a whole army of them and it was really great to watch them plow through the city destroying everything.

The game play itself is much the same although much smoother and the user interface is much improved once you get used to it.

The graphics, oh the graphics, are probably the greatest improvement. Where before you had pre-rended out sprites of the vehicles and troops, this time everything is rendered in real-time. The buildings, vehicles, even the ground troops are all 3d models rendered in great detail in game.  Kudos to EA for that as it is just plain kick ass to watch as well as play.

In the demo I didn’t get a chance to  see what kind of new Nod stuff there is. Until I captured their construction yard (tee hee). I played a skirmish, left an enemy power building unscathed, and took over their construction yard. Seeing as I spoiled some great new things about the GDI side, I’m not going to give away whats new in Nod town. But if you get a hold of the demo you can take over their constructor and see for yourself.

:You can get it here if you subscribe to FilePlanet 

:You can get it here if you just want the game without download restriction from Gamers Hell

Overall, I cant wait for March 28th. I am really interested (fanatically interested actually) about whats in store in the later levels and what the Scrim are all about. You can also pre-order the game here directly from EA Link (which is similar to Steam from Valve for those who don’t know) when it comes out. Im not sure about using the EA Link as it feels like a knock-off of Steam. Its the same basic principle just a different company and its hard, being a Steam user for a few years now to use something so similar from another company. Call me crazy.

Enjoy the demo if you choose to wait through the 1.2 gigabyte download, or wait for the game to come out on March 28th to same all the excitement.

-Cheers

Since we are in the market for a house, I have been talking to realtors in the area about the general costs and what exactly they are looking for in ideal buyers. Most the the advice is fairly standard (decent credit, down in the back, pre-approved loan), but when I asked about the cost trends in the housing market, I get different answers from different agents.

Some say that the costs are going back up again, as foretold by a 3% jump in the average home price from January to February.  Other say that the costs are going down as indicated by the decrease in home sales in the last 3 months. There are varying stories citing varying sources and none of them are of any help really. Even news and real estate sites can give you different stories; and depending on how connected the site is to feeds and the MRLS database, possibly several different versions per day.

I would just like to find a reliable news source that gives accurate information about real estate in my area. If I find something like that Ill let you all know, and if you find something that may be helpful drop a line here please.

-Cheers Mates

I was cruising around and came across this site: http://flare9.com/

The company (if it is that) is selling an easy to use site builder that has all of these great features and is so easy to use that anyone, regardless of skill level, would be able to get their website up in minutes. Out of shear curiosity I checked out their video tutorials (which you can also view here). My first thought after seeing this was, of course, WTF?

My second thought was that this looked remarkably like the WordPress back end. Not just in form but in function. The funny thing is that if you go to their demo site (flare9r/demo), you will see that they are in fact using WordPress. Its a much changed, much bastardized version, but it is WordPress underneath all of the Flare9 branding.

My third though was “Why?”. Why would they rip off WordPress? Its great as it is. And if they went to all of the trouble to remove the branding, change the WYSIWYG editor, and a host of other tweaks, why couldn’t they have changed the “/wp-admin” folder as well to properly hide their intellectual theft?

Now, I don’t think it would be as bad if they said that it was run by WordPress, or if they weren’t selling it; but they don’t, and they are. For the low price of $300 for setup and $40 a month. That in itself is an outrageously high fee when compared to services provided by Media Temple or Go Daddy and anyone who is taken in by these blokes is either stupid (a probable scenario) or, well, no, they would just be stupid.

In short, beware of Flare 9 and their attempts to peddle ripped off software to you or your friends.

And finally, one last question comes to mind. I wonder if a reach around is included in this digital butt raping? It would be the least they could do after convincing idiots to buy a ripped off, re-branded version of a free (and much more honest) blogging/cms system.

-Cheers

I came across this while cruising Digg. Since I’m a Barak Obama fan, I though it would make a nice addition here.

Originally posted on USNews.com

Compiled by the U.S. News library staff.

1. Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu. His first name, Barack, means “blessed” in Swahili and was also his Kenyan father’s name.

2. He says he hasn’t liked ice cream since working at Baskin-Robbins as a teenager.

3. His childhood nickname was Barry.

4. Obama is the third African-American senator since Reconstruction.

5. He married Michelle Robinson, also a Harvard Law School graduate, who supervised him while he was working as a summer associate in a Chicago law firm. They have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

6. As an Illinois state senator, he sponsored a bill to require the police to videotape interrogations in capital crime cases. Illinois was the first state to do this.

7. A school in his father’s hometown near Lake Victoria in Kenya has been renamed the Senator Barack Obama Secondary School.

8. He loves playing Scrabble.

9. Obama and his wife bought a house on Chicago’s South Side in June 2005 for $1.65 million. It has four fireplaces.

10. His heroes are Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Pablo Picasso, and John Coltrane.

I’m not sure what the point is about saying how much he spent on a house (and the number of fireplaces), but other than that I thought it was an interesting list.

-Cheers

“You’re A Rock Star!”

That’s the theme for PostieCon 07. Why? Because bloggers and internet personalities are fast becoming the movers and shakers of the information age. Bloggers attract millions of visitors to their sites for nothing more than to hear (or read) what they have to say. It’s the ultimate megaphone for your voice and what’s more, people actually value what bloggers have to say.

But what is this PostieCon that you speak of, sir? PostieCon is a conference designed to help bloggers and internet personalities extend their reach and get their name out there into the spotlight. It helps teach bloggers how to increase their notoriety and monetize their sites so that they can create value for their voice, but also add revenue to it as well. But aside from the fame and potential fortune, it also teaches you how to be a better blogger. The organizers have invited some of the biggest names in the blogging world so that you can gain insight from them and apply it to your blog. That’s why the theme is “You’re A Rock Star”.

The dates for this conference on blogging are set for June 1-2 in sunny Orlando Florida. The website has more information on the event such as who’s going to be speaking and a full schedule for the event. You will also get more info on what exactly the conference is about and it will show how it can help you in your endeavors to become an internet Rock Star!

If you are a blogger, or are thinking about becoming one, then I highly suggest that you attend and start getting your name out to the masses. Just click the badge below or follow the link to the PostieCon website.

I just got word that a video tutorial I did on Paypal basics was published by Associated Content. They haven’t posted the link yet, but I already got paid for it so it should only be a few days. Ill post when its live on AC.

In hindsight, I could have done a little better on it I think. The narration is a bit too low, but my boom mic only bends so far. I’m compiling a list of WordPress tutorials next for submission so keep an eye out for those when cruising the AC site.

-Cheers

WTF is up with all of the domain names being taken away? Why the hell do people buy up thousands of domains and try to sell them for many times what the registration cost ($15 usually) is from companies like Dotster of GoDaddy? Its in-fucking-sane what one of them would go for were I actually stupid enough to buy it.

OK. Let me back up a few steps and explain. I’m looking into starting another website and was searching around for domain names that would suit the style of the site. I searched for about 45 minutes and was greatly disheartened at what the results were. Of the 80 or so domain names I searched for, only 5, yes 5, were available. And of those there were only sporadic TLDs available (like one had a .net available, another a .org available, and so on). I’m a little partial to the .com’s (having been a Dot Com-er back in its heyday) so I get a little miffed whenever a name I want is taken for no reason.

Now, I don’t get miffed when someone has bought it an used it as a store front, or a company site, or a dedication to some old ladies dear departed Shitzu. These I am fine with. But when soulless, ass-hat companies like Buy Domains have purchased it for no other reason than to put up a page that says “This domain is for sale”, then I start getting irate. Irate to the point of contemplating serious bodily harm to the jag off who thought of the term “domain parking”.

Heres an example from my own experience:

Last year I wanted a very specific domain name for a very specific project my partner and I were working on. This was to be a community site with no ads and no monetization at all. We needed that domain as it embodied all that the site was going to be. I looked, and sure enough it was already registered, and by none other than BuyDomains. A little irked, I emailed them asking how much the domain is going for. I get a response an hour later saying that the domain could be mine for the low low price of $1,500.

Out of curiosity I checked the domain records and see it was registered in 2003. I give the guy a call and ask him why the domain is thusly priced. He said that it was a very popular name and that as so it carried a larger price tag. I asked him how many inquires he gets for that particular name, he lies and says 10 or so a month. I ask him how many people offered to buy it, he said “Well, none. The name is for sale, isn’t it”. I told him I would give him $50 for the name. He said no.

Its little wonder why the 360 or so people before me hadn’t bought it. Frustrated, I just added a dash to the domain name we really wanted and bought that one. I don’t consider it spending $15 so much as denying BD of $1,485.

How is it that these domain squatters think they can make money off of buying these names? One of the companies I talked to about it said “It only takes 1 purchase to negate the cost of buying 200 others”. Yea; you let me know when that one purchase goes through mate.

And even worse, possibly, are the domain negotiators like Sedo.com who offer to broker a deal between the owners of a wanted domain and you. They are worse as they are taking a commission from the guy screwing you over. “Hey, heres a $15 name, they are charging $2000, I talked them down to$1400, and my commission is only 20%”. Dingle-berries, all of them.

I understand the principle behind their business tactics as it is the same thing with land owners in the early 19th century here in the US. Buy a big plot of land, then sell off small chunks at profit. Well, most of the internet “land” they are peddling is murky swamp filled with snakes and dysentery. And you will be stupid to take them up on their “generous” offers as they are nothing more than under-handed snake oil salesmen in Kenneth Cole shirts (with no tie of course).

The next step in acquiring the domain for the latest project is to go with a weird spelling like Scrybe or Joost did. Thankfully for them, its working out OK as its a very Web 2.0 style of thing to do. But for me, no, I just cant do it. I’ll use Ajax on my sites, I’ll throw in an inordinate amount of gradients into my designs, I’ll even go with the slightly too large footer with nothing in it. But the name is too important to swap out an ‘i’ for a ‘y’ just to get a bloody entry in a registrars record books.

In short, I may just have to stuff the project all together if I can’t get the name (yes, its that important to me). Either that or just add a subdomain to my site as I have total control over everything under iGonzo. Perhaps BD would be willing to donate the name in exchange for a link?

Yea, I’ll hold my breath until that happens. It looks like I will have to either A) wait until I win the lottery or B) wait until these domain stealing web-ticks go out of business. I’m thinking B will happen sooner.

Oh, and if anyone from Buy Domains is reading this, please email me and let me know if anyone has registered the domain I inquired about in January 2006. I would be REALLY interested to go and meet the biggest moron on this planet.

-Cheers

No, I’m not talking about suspicious looking acts of weirdness, I’m talking about sunglasses (now get your mind out of that gutter).

I love Oakley products more than I would ever admit publicly. My favorites were the 1999 Pearl White Straight Jackets. They were the best fitting, most comfortable shades I have ever worn, and I wore them all the time. That is, of course, until I broke them. It has been several years since I snapped my lovely Oakleys, and I have not work sunglasses since (honest, my wife thinks Im crazy about the whole thing).

Anyways, with the wholly too early spring approaching, I thought I should try to find something to cover my eyes as this promises to be a long and bright summer. One shop I found for discount sunglasses was OpticsPlanet.net. They had a really nice looking pair of shades that I thought were quite nice (you can see for your self here), even if the brand was a little more obscure. But hey, everyone starts somewhere. They also make sunglasses for golf, motorcycle goggles, and more if you’re interested in that stuff (I’m not a big golf fan myself).

Anyways, check out the site and the sunglasses I want. And if anyone has a pair of Serengeti brand shades, let me know how they are working out for you.

-Cheers

EDIT: I changed my mind. I think I want the Bolle Swisher shades now.

Since Duncan’s birthday landed on a Thursday this year, we had is “official” party on Sunday. We invited a bunch of his friends from school as well as family. All the kids there (about 12 total) had a great time with games and, of course, birthday cup cakes (he likes them better than regular cakes).

It was also great to meet the parents of all of this friends. They were a pretty interesting and diverse bunch of folks from pretty much all over the world (well, a few parts of the world at least). Anyways, here are some pictures from the festivities. Sorry if they are a little gray; it was overcast today. We’re just please as punch that it didn’t rain.

I went and saw ’300′ this afternoon. I went alone as my wife had errands to run and she wasnt really interested in seeing “a gore movie”.

Anyways, after about 20 minutes of previews (none of them good) the movie finally started. I must say, from the moment the Warner Bros. logo appeared until the last credit stopped, I was completley taken in by this movie.

For the 3 people on the planet who havent seen the preview for it, 300 is a movie based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller, which was based on the very real Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas defended a pass with 300 Spartan soldiers  against an insanely overwhelming force of invading Persians.  The short story is that the Spartans, including King Leonidas, were killed to a man, but the Persian casualties numbered in the tens of thousands. It is regarded as the most famous last stand in history and is referenced often in poems, stories, and even military training.

The movie itself is a masterpiece. The imagery matches the graphic novel very closely in terms of color and composition and the characters are real and engaging. It made me wish that I was there with Leonidas, even though I knew he was going to die. But maybe thats just the romanticist in me.

From a historical standpoint, it is as accurate as anything Hollywood has produced. The events and character integrations agree with historical accounts and records and, from the maps that I have been able to find, the backdrops are as close to what the pass looked like as one could get.

The action in the movie, once it gets going, is, as my wife says, gory and brilliant. The battle scenes have a lot of slow motion shots but they only serve to heighten the action and show off the fighting ability of the characters. The first part of the movie is of course about building the story but this is also expertly done with great narration, character development, and a few well placed breast shots (gotta love those Spartan chicks).

Overall, this movie was well worth seeing and I would see it again if I can find someone to go with. Most of my family isn’t really into this sort of flick (or history for that matter) so I may have to dig up a friend to accompany me.

Oh, and “friend”, if you’re reading this, when I call you to go to the movie, dont give me that crap about you’re busy as I know for a fact you have been “busy” since 1998.

O.K. Enough praising. Go see this movie.

-Cheers