IComeFromTheNet.net

Well I have renewed my subscription to World of Warcraft, I originally began on the games release in November 2004 and kept at it till about April 2007. To say the least the game did get the better of me. It’s time sink design drew me in like no other, my poison was raiding, I was involved for almost a year and a bit with a new guild that followed the ZG,MC,BWL,AQ progression path, though my tier 2 Trans shoulder did also alluded me.

After the expansion pack Burning Crusade, I levelled my Priest to 70 but became disillusion with the new direction and after a guild disbandment the game became lacking lacking in that special something. I freely admit that I pushed too many hours into the game, though never dropping a credit average for my university degree which is part testament to the ease of same of the early classes. With harder classes on the way and a desire to expand my knowledge continue my credit average ended my subscription.

Come end of 2008 I have improved my knowledge gaining a strong understanding of CSS and HTML, Learning important OOP concepts, experienced the ExtJs javascript library reviewed general OOP design patterns also developing  a strong understanding of C# and web-development on the ASP.Net framework gaining valuable experience through university on XML and XSLT.

I have a blog with some customizations of my own with more exciting projects to come, I have toyed with office development with VSTO (finding many limitations) and various other projects and reading. 

I am looking forward (fingers crossed) to another year of post-grade study at UWS, and with these self improvements and a new WOW Exp WOTLK felt now possible to enjoy once again a guilty pleasure.

I have renewed after some important improvements were made to the game,

• New Xpac , a gear reset and a new chance
• Only use one mana/health pot in a boss fight reduce consumables necessary.
• Enchanting and now enchant onto scrolls to sell or send to alt characters.
• The Big Improvement: while not yet implement has been confirmed dual specs, very important for a healing class like the priest.
• New character class

Crappy Mock-up 1

Part of my Work-Experience at FD was to develop a cool looking web-site as part of that process I have been developing mock-up using Gimp.

I must say my talent really is my code and my Business sense not my designs. I'm just not the worlds greatest artist.  Below are the early and late mock-ups.

I have just Completed my First week, at FDS(Family Development Services), they are a charity which provided help to children with learning disabilities. This is all part of a work-placement program offered by UWS as part of my Degree

They current have 2 web-sites a older Geocities page at here and a newer .au domain at http://www.fdsinc.org.au/.

They have request me to develop a new professional web-site.  Which will make for an interesting few months.

My quick plan is to encourage them away from the static pages an other a CMS, the existing backbend is php so it looks like Joomla is a good candidate.

I have am going to give a presentation on there options on Wednesday 27th August. I still need to develop a budget and write some points down. I have a working Joomla on my laptop I will show them how easy it is to add and manage content.

I also have an essay due on Tuesday that same week, I am halfway through, I might have to take the option for a third week to finish it properly. Especially considering the crappy way I feel at the moment. 

I wrote some user profiles for FDS this week here's a copy :-)

User Profiles.doc (36.50 kb)

After the announcement of Diablo 3 by blizzard, I was in need of an action RPG fix and after some search of the Daibli3 boards I found Titan Quest

From the Developer Web-site:

From the co-creator of Age of Empires, Brian Sullivan, comes an all-new action role-playing game set in the mythical worlds of ancient Greece and Egypt. Amazing visuals and fast-action gameplay deliver a true cinematic gaming experience. Lush ancient world settings crafted in near-photo realistic detail provide the player with an extraordinary canvas on which to set forth on an epic quest of the ultimate good versus evil.

Brave the trials of Titan Quest alone or bring a group of friends to share the glory while playing through the thrilling story-driven campaign.

Journey to fabled locations such as the Parthenon, the maze at Knossos, the Great Pyramids, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Overcome terrifying monsters and mythical beasts. A streaming, seamless world awaits, with over a thousand pieces of unique and legendary equipment to outfit your character.
A flexible class system allows almost limitless ways for the player to develop their character.

Skills can be customized and never become obsolete. With addictive, fast action gameplay and tons of unique loot, epic gaming has never been so good.

Let just say that I was very impressed. I was having so much fun that I bought the X-Pac Immortal Throne for 34.00 a couple of days after.

I currently Have after two weeks

• 25 Champion (Nature,Warfare)
• 20 Hunter (Hunter)
• 13 Harbinger (Dream,Warfare)
• 18 Druid (Storm,Nature)

I found that since each level gives 3 skill points that you very quickly get a feel for the class combination, The game has 3 Acts adds a fourth with the X-pac, My highest level character is still only on mid act2.

I have add soo much fun creating characters and handing gear found around, I have not found the need to rush into the other acts.

I would recommend to any Action RPG fan that is a fan of PVE to buy this game.

PS

The best and only fan-site is found at http://www.titanquest.net/.

Star-Trek Books

The Farther Shore (Star Trek Voyager, Book Two of Two)

[Christie Golden,http://www.amazon.com/Farther-Shore-Star-Trek-Voyager/dp/0743467558]

Distant Shores: A Tenth-Anniversary Celebration (Star Trek: Voyager)

[Marco Palmieri, http://www.amazon.com/Distant-Shores-Tenth-Anniversary-Celebration-Voyager/dp/0743492536]

Homecoming (Star Trek Voyager Book One of Two)

[Christie Golden, http://www.amazon.com/Homecoming-Star-Trek-Voyager-Book/dp/074346754X]

Sci-Fi

Count Zero

[William Gibson,http://www.amazon.com/Count-Zero-William-Gibson/dp/0441117732]

Spook Country

[William Gibson,http://www.amazon.com/Spook-Country-William-Gibson/dp/0425221415/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218849898&sr=1-2]

Storm Front

[Jim Butcher,http://www.amazon.com/Storm-Front-Dresden-Files-Book/dp/0451457811]

Technical Reads

Beginning Joomla!: From Novice to Professional

[http://www.apress.com/book/view/9781590598481]

Title for Fun

Sword of Damocles (Star Trek: Titan, Book 4)
[ http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Damocles-Star-Trek-Titan/dp/1416526943]

The Veiled Prophet (Diablo: The Sin War, Book 3)
[Richard A. Knaak, http://www.amazon.com/Veiled-Prophet-Diablo-Sin-Book/dp/0743471245];

Technical Reads

Pro JavaScript Design Patterns
[Ross Harmes,Dustin Diaz, http://www.apress.com/book/view/159059908x]

I must admit I am loving this Javascript book.

Here is the Table of Contents for the book

PART 1 Object-Oriented JavaScript

• CHAPTER 1 Expressive JavaScript
• CHAPTER 2 Interfaces
• CHAPTER 3 Encapsulation and Information Hiding
• CHAPTER 4 Inheritance
• CHAPTER 5 The Singleton Pattern.
• CHAPTER 6 Chaining

PART 2 Design Patterns

• CHAPTER 7 The Factory Pattern
• CHAPTER 8 The Bridge Pattern
• CHAPTER 9 The Composite Pattern
• CHAPTER 10 The Facade Pattern
• CHAPTER 11 The Adapter Pattern
• CHAPTER 12 The Decorator Pattern
• CHAPTER 13 The Flyweight Pattern
• CHAPTER 14 The Proxy Pattern
• CHAPTER 15 The Observer Pattern.
• CHAPTER 16 The Command Pattern
• CHAPTER 17 The Chain of Responsibility Pattern

After putting the job off for a few months I have have a new phone (Nokia 6500 Slide), it was really an impulse buy at $400 from my local Vodafone store.

I was looking for a phone with Bluetooth (very common now) and a camera above 3 megapixel , both of which this had. It is also a 3G phone, which helps with the future proof. It also looks cool to.

The coolest feature is not actually related to the phone, I purchased a new mp3 player some weeks ago the Samsung  YP-T10, this player also contains a Bluetooth option.

This Bluetooth option allows the phone to connect to the mp3 player as a remote headset. The T10 can then be used to make and answer incoming calls using its own inbuilt microphone.

I did have a problem previously of missing calls when listening to mp3's, not any more :-) 

Interesting Links

HTML or XHTML: Does It Really Matter?

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/html-or-xhtml-does-it-matter

I found this article an interesting read , however I disagree with James Edwards option on XHTML's legacy, simply forcing cleaner syntax on the Internet is an achievement in itself, it really does not matter that the content type is normal html, using xhtml valuators can help to overcome issues with testing and the benefits that clean markup provide in improving  browser page rendering-consistency is worth learning a few new syntax rules.

Handling Flash Crowds from your Garage

http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix08/tech/full_papers/elson/elson_html/index.html

This is a research article on developing web-sites to handle large surges in traffic, what the author called Flash Crowds, I am only part way through, the main content of the article is short analysis of current content distribution networks, a good read so far.