Archive for September, 2009

Moodoo Update!

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

So a few of us have been playing MapleStory again, as well as doing a bit more gaming on our PS3s, so I thought it might be a good idea to do some maintenance on the Moodoo website. Leaving phpBB installations out of date is exactly the sort of thing I used to chastise users for when I was helping to administer a friend’s machine that was essentially used for charity hosting, so I figured I’d better get off my butt and update.

The chief problem with keeping the software updated is the various Mods I applied to it break the automagic updater… so I decided “to hell with it”, I took an online backup of the database and just installed it again from scratch, then restored the backup.

Next I restored our modified eMuza theme, and re-edited it to remove the mods for SEO and the Portal, both of which I deemed unnecessary. I had to update a few of the images because the eMuza theme author messed something up with them (PNGs saved as .gif for example), and Firefox 3.5 really doesn’t appreciate such things. After messing around with that for a while, I made a discovery which I got really excited about but no one else seems to get.

Playstation finally got their heads out of their asses and gave us proper web integration with PSN! That means that on our forums, where users enter their PSN ID, I can now have it link directly to their profile where you can see their games, trophies, levels, etc. For an example, you can view my PSN Profile.

Hopefully they keep moving in this direction because I really like game systems that help bridge the gap between communities and the games they play.

My sole wish that I have left is the ability to run dedicated servers for different games (which is probably more a product of the game publishers than SCEA themselves) – for example CoD4. I love that game to death, and PC users can create dedicated servers… however PSN games are full of users who create a room, only to disconnect 30 seconds later… users who vote off unpopular maps (I am a reasonably high level in CoD4 and I probably have enough minor digits to count the number of times I’ve played the ship level). If I could run a dedicated server for Moodoo players who play CoD4 on the PS3, I’d be in hog-heaven. :(

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Guitar Hero 5

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

My brother in law bought Guitar Hero 5, so while he’s at work we make off with it and have a little fun…

…and having fun we are!

He only got the guitar set, but we were having so much fun with it we’re thinking of buying the entire Guitar Hero World Tour band set so we’d have all the instruments, plus there’s a lot more songs on World Tour I’d like than there are on GH5. I honestly think with GH5 they were trying to go for more diverse musical tastes, but some of them just aren’t fun to play. Sure, a rock music collection isn’t truly “complete” without Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” but I think the Guns n Roses remake would have been a lot more fun to play.

In general, the same goes with several of the songs – Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” is fun, particularly for folks with low, monotone voices like myself, but the Social Distortion remake would have made it fun for everyone else.

So we’re taking turns switching between vocals (using a crappy USB voice chat mic) and the guitar, and just having a good time. So a few of our online friends could listen in we were broadcasting it over Mumble, which turned out to be pretty embarrassing at times – about as socially adept as your friends seeing your forum posts about colon cleanse reviews. :(

Overall though, choices of tunes aside, GH5 is worth the money. I’ll probably even buy my own copy when it comes down a bit.

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Doctors… grrr :(

Monday, September 28th, 2009

So I’m not sure if I’ve written about this or not, but my wife is approximately 12 weeks pregnant. We’ve been going a couple weeks in a row now so the doctor can try to find the heart tones on the doppler, but so far they’ve been elusive.

The resident who was seeing us at our last appointment said some really stupid stuff that kind of upset my wife. Right after they couldn’t find the heart tones, she started talking about how we were almost over the hump of where miscarriages most likely occur.

I realize she was just trying to reassure us nothing was wrong, but it’s not the kind of thing my wife wanted to hear at that particular time.

There’s the pre-med/medical school path, training to be a Nurse or Certified Medical Assistant, all the way down medical coding training courses – none of them seem to be able to teach bedside manner, and I guess it’s just something you just have to learn on your own.

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Search Engine Marketing

Monday, September 28th, 2009

So we’ve been doing more marketing stuff for Sabrienix, and it’s been going reasonably well – we’re still at the top of the results pages for many of the terms we’re mainly interested in!

I’m a firm believer in doing things the white-hat way when it comes to SEO/SEM… we try to cover as many of Google’s best webmaster practices that we can, and then we concentrate on just creating things people might want to link to (this site being a notable exception of course).

I also understand that (particularly for AdWords purposes) hitting more broad terms will usually give you faster results, and more targeted click-throughs… for example “life insurance from Wholesale Insurance” is a more targeted anchor phrase than “insurance”, and while you might not hit as broad an area, the people who do see the link are more likely to click on it.

So we’ve been trying to aim for more targeted keywords like “Mumble Voice Hosting” instead of the more generic terms, and we’re competing pretty well on those terms.

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Our Laundry room is a mess! :(

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

It’s gotten awful – I think it’s because it’s one of those rooms where you only go for a specific reason, and it’s not a thoroughfare, but it seems like crap just piles up out there.

We’ve got a boatload of tools out there which all need sorting out, and then there’s a bunch of miscellaneous crap. There’s a pile of insulation that needs installing in the attic, and air conditioner filters that we’ll probably never use.

So I think today I’m going to do battle with it. ;D

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Authority – Superiority Complex?

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

You know what I hate?

It’s this game, that some cops do. Not all of them, I fully acknowledge there’s plenty of good cops out there who just want to keep their community safe… but there are some people out there who are complete and utter douchebags and seem to think it’s okay because they put on a uniform every morning.

The game I speak of is where the cop says something untrue, and expects you to agree with them just because they’re a cop. You’re sitting in your car in a parking space snacking down on a donut, and the cop knocks on your window with his night-stick. He asks if you just came out of that store over there that sells weight loss products, to which you reply no. “Yes you did, I saw you” is what he says.

How many of us have been there?

The cop will basically get away with calling you a liar, often repeatedly. They make leaps of judgment, using their authority as a pry-bar trying to get you to crack – to make up for them not actually having to do any real police work.

They do this with impunity, because “cops are always honest” despite the fact we’ve seen evidence to the contrary many, many times before. You want to show him the box of donuts you’re half way through killing, and ask why you would possibly have been in said weight loss store… you want to ask where he learned the skills required to be a detective… you want to tell him to piss off and stop calling you a liar…

But what you end up doing is finding the meekest way to get out of the situation you can, in the hopes he doesn’t make your life worse in some way – because even the most honest citizen is always doing something wrong, and everyone has a fear of authority when they’re put on the spot.

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