And it’s not like I really feel like sitting down and doing something ‘useful’ right now. So I’m going to settle for the next best thing – listening to some good music, learning some new graphical techniques and maybe coding a little. Because even if these things aren’t directly useful, I’m hoping I can get in the mood to do something. If not, I’m still learning.

I’ve (re-)discovered Last.fm recently. And I’m wondering why in the hell I stopped using it. Although, using three music programs concurrently seems a bit excessive. I have to ask myself a couple of questions before sitting down to listen to music:

• Do I know what I want to listen to? Yes – go to next question. No – Last.fm
• Do I own what I want to listen to? Yes – iTunes. No – Check Spotify for it.
• Is it on Spotify? Yes – Spotify. No – YouTube and get frustrated at having to physically change tracks every 3-4 minutes.

So, listening to random things on Last.fm at the moment. Which is always good. And I’m learning how to make realistic-looking planets using photoshop. Which may lead to a celestial-type desktop background at some point, if I can actually make any of it look decent.

And at some point tonight, I intend to start messing with some stuff in Flash. It’s been a while since I did any ActionScript, so I think a recap can do no harm. Also, I really need to print off CSS3 and HTML5 cheat-sheets. No idea where I’m going to stick them, but they’re useful things to have knocking around.

Epic D&D session tomorrow (supposed to be about three hours, good times) so I’ll have to finalise my character backstory tonight. Looking forward to finally using my smexy transparent dice. Ah, the geekiness.

~ Godders.

On the plus, I’ve discovered Smashing Magazine and it’s a fantastic resource for anyone who wants to design or develop websites. I’m really enjoying messing with some of the new HTML5 and CSS3 features.

So yeah, I’ve been playing a hell of a lot of cricket this week. Essentially from when I get home until when it gets dark every day after work, it’s great. Except we keep losing all of the windies and we broke the ball that swings. Darn. Tennis balls are rubbish to bowl with >_>

My bowling has been good though, I’m in really decent form. And bowling fast really needs some level of fitness. At the moment, I struggle to bowl more than a spell of four or five overs at full pace. And the last couple of such a spell would be pretty inconsistent anyway.

I ordered a DVI-I Male to VGA Female adapter the other day, and it arrived while I was at work today – using two monitors is brilliant. I’ve been asked why, and having used two monitors previously it’s almost impossible to go back: You just don’t have enough space on one monitor!

I mean, look at it – If you’re coding, you can’t have your code up and your preview up at the same time (this applies to both programs and webpages) and if you need two bits of code open at the same time it’s just awkward. Then we can consider that I’m currently trying to learn XNA Game Studio stuff from tutorials, and now I can have the tutorial open and my code open at the same time and not have to alt-tab between them.

Anyway, I intend to go sort out my music (I’ve bought five albums recently that I’ve still not stored on my pc haha), I know this is quite a short entry but I’ve really not got a lot to say.

~ Godders

Having my own business is one hell of an attractive idea, and being able to earn money from using my personal programming and designing skills would be absolutely amazing. These two ideals, in my opinion, go hand-in-hand. I could draw you out an idea of what I want the website to look like, and even how I would begin to go about making the thing, just from my brain refusing to let me sleep last night.

But it begs a few questions:

1. Is it worth the time effort? Especially over the next year when I should be working hard to make sure I get my grades for University.

I think it is. It’s not like I do a whole lot of homework anyway – any work I do tend to be in topics where I don’t know things and hence for interest as much as for my teachers.


2. Would I actually have the capabilities to run a business? And isn’t it cheating calling a one-man-band a business?

Any business requires an idea, and I have that. Ok, ideas for what products I’d actually make aren’t quite specific, but it’d be making video games: In all probability, these would be flash-based games that earn revenue from advertising; cheap windows-based games that people would buy online (emphasis on cheap); or Xbox 360 games distributed on Xbox Live Arcade. The second question is beyond my scope to answer, but it would be adding a whole new level to anything I produce – would you rather buy a product from John Smith, or from his company that has a flashy website and no mention of the fact that it’s him on his own?

3. Would I make any money out of this at all, or would I be wasting my time?

Well, the advertising idea would certainly make money – no matter how little – and more importantly, any of these ideas would make money after the games cease being useful for me. Let me clarify: once they’re finished and I’ve learned any techniques that I’m going to from making them, they then start earning me money. The way I see it, that’s the perfect way to have it working until I finish University.

But yeah. All of this is summed up in an article I was just shown: Ramen Profitable, but I was thinking of it anyway. It’s certainly an idea, and I can just do what I normally do: Make programs and learn new techniques. The fact that I’d be earning money on the side is honestly just a bonus. It could well be a good experience for me, though I’d certainly not be starting until I’d produced a couple of games that I consider web-worthy, and messed about with a website until I had something that looks great.

But I’d be interested to know what you think: If you just read this, tell me. I don’t care if your comment says I must be off my face to think of this, or if you think I’m less skilful than a dead rat – I’m asking for you to think of the cons that I’ve mostly neglected to cover, and whether or not you think they outweigh the advantages.

~ Godders.

It was a bit of a shock when I then found out that it appears you can only make games using Visual C# (maybe you need plugins or something to use other languages, I don’t know) but I don’t really mind – I just ploughed on and figured I’ll learn C# as I go. Which turned out to be a good plan.

Because the tutorials on the XNA website are so slow it’s unreal. I don’t mean in terms of buffering, I mean they assume you’re completely incapable of navigating your own screen. They have to recap in painful detail exactly where a menu is (despite having a goddamned video. I have eyes, thank you very much. And they work too, funnily enough.) and all of the important parts of the last video. You know, that video that I just finished watching.

It’s fair enough aiming the tutorials at people with no C# experience, or even no programming experience. But we’re not retarded. Honestly. Plus, it’s all in American. They really kill our language. For example, what is #? It’s a hash, or a sharp symbol. Not a pound. That looks like £.

Anyway, that’ll do for an XNA-directed rant for the moment. In other news, I still have the same job as yesterday and the day before. This is promising, no? Today, I was updating the content of one website. And then tidying it all up with phpMyAdmin because the backend is useless and has no edit page. A minor annoyance, but it’s more than counterbalanced by the fact that Macs are pwettiful.

My job means that I’m not really getting all that much done: No Xbox 360, limited coding, no Mech, Stats or Pure Maths and no social contact. Fortunately, night was created for a reason: for people with jobs to not sleep because they’re doing things they would otherwise have done during the day.

Not to mention the fact that I’m enjoying both the work and the atmosphere. There’s a lot of banter that goes on, plus random pictures sent around on iChat (for example: this was pretty funny, if inappropriate) and I’m finding new places to eat in Huddersfield every day. We went to a noodle bar for lunch today.

None of us ate noodles. Anyways, back to the frustrating tutorials.

~ Godders.

However, once things are downloaded (Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition has a whopping seven-and-a-half hours to go at the current rate) I can start coding again. This is something I’ve been looking forward to for ages, i.e. since I stopped having a Windows-based PC connected to the internet.

Now, this summer for me presents a real opportunity to develop my programming skills. I’m working full-time in web development which will provide a fantastic platform to become proficient at XHTML, CSS and PHP with the opportunity to throw some Javascript in there too. But that’s not the only thing.

Microsoft have got an initiative called Dreamspark. Essentially, it’s a way for students at high school, college and university to get their hands on free copies of their proprietary software. We’re talking everything from Visual Studio (2005 and 2008 editions) to their Robotics software, Server software and one particularly interesting piece of kit: XNA Game Studio 3.0

This allows people to develop games for Windows Live. That includes Xbox Live, by the way. It provides full support for achievements, Xbox 360 game controllers and all sorts of funky multiplayer stuff. Admittedly, the free subscription that you get from Dreamspark doesn’t allow you to publish the games you make, but as a learning experience I think it’s fantastic.

It’s also possible to make these games in any language that supports the .NET framework which means I can develop my skills not only in the language that I am fluent in (VB.NET) but also in the one that i’m not so confident with (C++).

I’ve got a real buzz though, am really looking forward not only to working but also to actually being able to code again within a good environment.

~ Godders