Tag Archives: websites

Changes Are In Place

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So, in case you haven’t noticed, the changes I alluded to in a previous post have taken place. Criticalgames.com is now up and operational (though not yet fully organized and certainly not populated with content). I’m really excited about it as a project, and look forward to doing stuff with it soon. I am a little concerned that my IRM for nadreck.org doesn’t seem to be functioning as I was expecting, but that might be propagation stuff… I’ll wait a few days before pinging the service folks at FutureQuest (whom all have been MORE than helpful through this process… go buy a package from them, will ya? They deserve your business!).

Until then, I’ve posted a quick greeting message on the Critical Games front page, and will only be lightly futzing with organization until I finish my schoolwork. If I finish it quickly, I may post an actual essay or article before heading to UberCon, otherwise it’ll have to wait til I’m in Vermont (or later).

And no, don’t worry, I don’t plan to stop posting here. This is my blog, and will continue to be my central place for personal and informal writing. DO expect a little maintenance work while I clean up links and such, though.
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BIG Changes Coming

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For those of you who’ve been reading a while, you know that I picked up some domains about a year ago that I haven’t had an opportunity to do anything with mainly through lack of cash to do it right.

No, I didn’t suddenly come into money. However, my web host recently expanded the features included in my webhosting package, meaning that the services came to me, instead of vice versa. Awesome awesome.

So, sometime in the next few weeks, I will be changing my webhosting package into www.criticalgames.com. Criticalgames.org and .net will also work. Nadreck.org will also still work, but only after a fashion: it will redirect you to nadreck.criticalgames.com, which is where I’ll be hosting my blog from then on.

I’m pretty happy about this, though I apologize to folks who will need to update their links list. This arrangement allows for a lot more flexibility for professional growth (game design and writing on gaming, et cetera).

Our nadreck.org addresses will still function (or so they say), so this shouldn’t affect email at all, save perhaps during the actual transition.

Anyway, just wanted to share. I’ll post another update when the site is actually about to go under the knife (so to speak).

Less Than Two Weeks to Closing

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Sorry I haven’t been posting regularly recently. Part of it is hecticness involving school and packing for the move and financials, but the other part is a lack of motivation to post. The weather is back to being in stasis (clear blue, mid-80s, every day), I haven’t been working much (not that I can really talk about what I play, anyway), and I haven’t really done anything interesting in a while. That’s not to mention the roofers banging on my ceiling as they retar the roof of the apartment and the mind-numbing heat actively conspiring to keep me from getting anything productive done.

That said, here are a few updates as to what’s been going on and how things have been going. I’ve managed to keep up with school, and have two packets left to the semester. I’ve been taking a beginner figure drawing class over at University of Washington for the past few weeks each Saturday (my last class was this past Saturday), and I’ve got a sketch-dump up here. (For what it’s worth, that’s an entire sketch dump of my sketchbook, not just classes or even since class started.)
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Chase Me

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You have dishonored my dog! (Why? because it’s fun. Apologies to those on dialup.)

I’ve gotten pretty used to the new Movable Type at this point, though there are still a few tweaks I need to do (like adding internal site navigation again). Expect those back up sometime in the not too distant future, but in the interim, I’ve re-uploaded my Online Communities essay[PDF], so if you missed it the first time, feel free to check it out.

I’m actually a little irked about that essay. The PDF as it stands is just the core essay and the bibliography. The cover letter, the cover page, the table of contents, the appendices… are all gone. For some strange reason, I didn’t manage to save them last time I reformatted my hard drive or something, because it’s all GONE. I only have the PDF that used to be on the website left, because I had it in a tarballed archive I’d made of my site prior to the last major housecleaning. This is extremely upsetting, and I’m not quite sure what to do about it. The only idea I have is to borrow the copy the school has next time I’m on campus, and scan it all in as text. (This might involve an intermediary step of photocopying it all, since they’re not willing to release those essays from the building.)
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Upgraderrific

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I ranted about the high prices and subscription-based model that Movable Type had implemented for MT3 a while back, and said that unless things changed, I wasn’t going to upgrade to it…

Well, they fixed the pricing structure. So I upgraded. I’m just using the free version for now (no money to really spare at the moment, and for the moment at least I don’t need the paid features), and will be working out the kinks over the next few days.

In other news, Eli and I found a really nifty coffee shop in downtown Bellevue with free wifi access. (Oh the joys of http://seattle.wifimug.org.)

Errata

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First: I’ve been wasting far too much time over the past day or two reading the back archives (all 1300+ entries) of Neil Gaiman’s blog. It’s delightful reading, but damned if there isn’t a lot there.

Second: Kurt Vonnegut weighs in. An interesting read, and I’ll leave it at that until someone chooses to comment about it. Thanks to Mickey for pointing it out to me, and thanks to whoever pointed it out to her.

Toodles, I’ll post more later.

Orkut and Star Wars Day

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Before I continue: yesterday was Star Wars Day, so in honor of that — May the 4th be with you.

I just also wanted to give a quick shout out that I’m finally in Orkut, so feel free to add me as a friend if you are a member or end up joining. It is yet another community service — a mechanism to keep in touch with friends, network with people, and find dates if so inclined. It’s actually pretty nifty, and allows you to join or create community user groups so people can join communities about their interests. I very quickly joined about 20, because they sounded interesting — we’ll see what comes of it.

I even found an old classmate of mine from High School, whom I haven’t heard from or about since graduation. He was a hell of a nice guy, though, and I’m glad to be getting back on each others’ radar a bit.

That’s all. Short post, huh?
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Other People Writing Well

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I recently decided to try out NetNewsWire Lite, which is an RSS newsfeed aggregator. One of the subscriptions it comes with in its default listing is Wil Wheaton’s blog. (Yes, THAT Wil Wheaton.)

After downloading the new version of Safari and restarting, I loaded it up, and discovered a new post by him… decided to read it, if only because the title interested me (“Shipbuilding” is a rather good Elvis Costello song).

I’m damn impressed.

Animation Fascination

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My animation fascination continues. Someone recently posted a link over in the PA:AC to a music video done for a Canadian band called “Pilate”.

While the music is “emo”, which may not be everyone’s bag (I liked it, but I have indie/emo leanings), the video is interesting and well crafted. For those not on broadband: it’s an animated music video of a little ghost riding around in the back of a taxi, taking pictures. You can find it at: http://www.pilate.com/media/qt_alright.html.

Enjoy.