Off The Walt

I’ve been working on the largest website I’ve ever done… DDO Source.com. DDO is an abbreviation for Dungeons & Dragons Online. I’ve been a D&D player for more than 20 years and eventually found my way in to DDO. It’s a pretty good game, but there’s not a lot of documentation for it and the tutorial is lacking in a lot of parts. There are various community resources in different places, but there’s no single centralized resource. New players are expected to feel their way around and depend on the community and many just leave.

My goal was to create a website that brought all the resources available to new & existing players to a single source. I’ve been working at it for more than a month and have found lots of these other resources to have out-of-date information or things to be completely erroneous, let alone with decent grammar. I’m getting permission from the folk that have the existing focused (on one part of the game) resources and bringing them to this single source. I have a feeling that this’ll take me a couple more months, but it’ll be one of my best contributions to the internets!

DDO Source.com

It turns out I’m not so much a writer… don’t get me wrong, I can write, I just don’t like to do it all the time.

I’ll be focusing on my podcasting and a new project I’ll be working on slowly across the new year… it’ll teach me video editing, something I’d been wanting to learn for some time.

Not that I update this, my personal blog, on a daily or even weekly basis, but I’ve been especially quiet on it for the last two or so months.

I created a new blog called Geekdar.com and hope to bring concise news stories to other geeks’ attention without wasting their time.

Geekdar.com will feature humor, movies, toys, video, pics, retro and damn near everything else geeks like.

Give it a shot, but only if you’re a true geek!

www.Geekdar.com

The economy isn’t very hot and we’ve got a new president with some interesting methods (not a bad thing!) in the White House and American is aging well. America, you’re a beautiful lady and let’s look forward to a couple more centuries!

A local recruiter put a test job post on a national job board and although it was a test post, I thought I’d have a bit of fun. The title of the test post was "King of Mars" and the text of the body illustrated the test post and not to apply, but a nerd with free time can be a terrible thing!

I think I’d be a really great King of Mars, but I’m a bit apprehensive what with the oxygen shortage there. I understand that Kuato is leading the rebels in fighting the megacorps there, trying to maintain a steady stream of oxygen for all.

I also think the arrival gate at the spaceport needs to have better security… this woman kept going on about her being here for 2 weeks as I was leaving the last time I was there, it was really weird, then the whole place eploded just after I passed the blast doors! Crazy! We’d need to improve the reliability and training of the guards there like really quick, perhaps cross-education with Fort Lauderdale’s TSA would be the solution.

I would need my own personal supply of oxygen up there in my spire high above the red landscape. I’d need to make sure it had a little spaceship to launch me out into space toward Earth should an uprising occur. This part would be non-negotiable. I’d also like 7 (it’s a cool prime number) Fembots, but I’m willing to negotiate the number as I know resources are constrained lately and space (even cargo) is limited on freighters as of late.

If the position is open or as an alternate to the position for which I’m applying, I’d like to nominate my cousin, Barry, for Queen of Mars. Barry tears it up a couple nights a week in South Beach. I don’t know know what he means when he tells me he’s a queen, but he walks really weird and I’ve seen movies where the queens walk weird, so I think he’d be a good choice. He’s very moody and has a great collection of makeup and accessories, just in case a bunch of women want to look pretty! What a thoughtful guy!

As for a Court Jester, there’s a really tall guy I see on the Earth news channels every once in a while carrying a dialisys machine and walking around the desert with a bunch of guys and they are constantly praising a Balla’. It’s weird, my brother talks about Balla’s all the time; he especially likes Tu Pac and Eminem. Are they Ballas? I also think he sneaks in time listening to R. Kelly, but we’ll discuss that another time, I think he’s got an appointment with Dr. Phil for that one.

It seems a trend to have a ‘first animal,’ so I’d like a T-Rex. John Hammond owned a couple islands in the Pacific if I remember correctly and he grew them. We’d avoid the raptors, they were a bit too aggressive for my tastes. There would have to be a royal decree made immediately upon my taking the job that people could not tell said pet that they love him or he loves them and none of that nonsense about a happy family. I’m just letting you know all this now, so it’s not a surprise later on.

I suppose a scheme to conquer Earth would be inevitable, so at that point, I’d need to upgrade my job title from "King of Mars" to "Emperor." It seems like the thing to do to wear a black cloak and walk around speaking in a raspy voice. I think this is something I could accomplish in time, but I’d have to practice. Are there training programs in place to assist me in said training? While the king is expected to have a great army, I think I’ll have to make all my troops wear white plastic armor. It’d have to be resistant to the red sand/clay of the surface, otherwise they’d all be pink and it’d seem like my cousin Barry was running the army. On a related note, he did say the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy in American armies was intriguing. I’ll have to ask him about that. We’ll need to make sure the armor offers a good field of vision as other instances of said armor have had limited success in other galaxies far, far away where the troops constantly bump into things. We need to think smart from the start to ensure the medical supplies aren’t used up too quickly. Medical consumables will likely be in limited supply when the siege of Earth begins and I can’t be giving asprin to every foot soldier that has a headache because he kept bumping into walls and low-hanging entrances.

While it’s on my mind, the first peasants that claim they didn’t vote for me must be put down immediately. We can’t have a rebellion on our hands.

If you’re considering me for the above named position, I can provide references stating my ability to act with dignity in high-pressure situations and delegate work to underlings. Thank you and have a great day.

Walt Snider

Let’s see if I get hired!

Most of you that know me know that I operate the largest independent podcast group in the world, Kore New Media .

I used to literally have 17 WordPress blogs for show notes, news and more for said podcast group, but found that I was "in the weeds" (to use a hospitality term) on a regular basis. Eventually I figured out how to get all my podcast feeds running out of a single WordPress installation (thanks to Blubrry PowerPress WordPress Podcast Plugin and an assist from the staff there) but recently when trying to update a category (I wanted to get interviews from beneath Kore Movies to a global category) I couldn’t find it to edit.

After a search of the toobs, I found David Cumps’s blog where he details how he fixed the problem.

It involves messing with the database and I’m lazy, so I didn’t wanna do that bit. He does mention that you can fill in the description after doing the database bit and then going manually to each category the way WordPress sees it, as a cat_ID and refilling the info in:

After I’ve done this, I visited my admin section and noticed the Descriptions were filled in again. But there was no Name, and all my posts still had empty categories linked to them.

To fix this, visit http://your-site/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1 where 1 is the category id to edit. Fill in a Name and a Slug, the url name for your category, and save it.

Repeat this process for all your categories, until they all have a Name again.

What I did was cycle through 77 categories on Kore Notes.com by updating the number at the end of the URL: http://your-site/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1

I eventually found the offending category, updated it to have no parent and it suddenly showed up in the category list the way it should and sorts just fine on the public side of the blog.

Thanks to David and as he says in the opening of his blog post, I put this up in case others need help and are lazy like me. (He didn’t say he was lazy though!)

There was a confirmed case of Swine Flu or the H1-N1 Virus at Hallandale Elementary School here in South Florida. For those of you not down here, Hallandale is the city farthest South you can be in and still be in Broward County (Miami-Dade is next).

Fortunately for my family, we live in the farthest North city in Broward County, Pompano Beach, but this still has us concerned. Do we keep the kids out for school until this blows over? Do we lock ourselves in the house and stock up as if there were a hurricane coming?

*sigh* Why can’t people stop shaking hands and sneezing on people? All I want in life is a healthy family with two kids to carry our hope to the next generation. Stop doing things that get in the way of my dreams.

I became fascinated with Stephen Hawking when I was young. If you don’t know who he is, he’s essentially the King of Nerds everywhere. I would argue he’s the smartest human to ever have lived.

This week is young, but the scientific community unamiously cried and then was relieved as Professor Hawking took ill and then began to recover. I’m very glad this giant among men is recovering with family.

Here’s a brief speech of Mr. Hawking at a TED conference in 2008. He’s got a great sense of humor!

Most don’t think of Hide the UPS as a fun game, but crawling around on all-fours at midnight to locate the beeping box is such a great pastime here at the Snider household!

Saturday a family had a birthday party at the park behind my house. They let some balloons go which found their way to the electrical pole outside my home. I don’t know if it’s related to the aforementioned game, but it’s interesting in its own right… the resulting explosion was poop-in-your-pants scary. It shook my house to the point where furniture flush with the walls (particularly my son’s desk, which he was sitting at!) was pushed back from walls about an inch!!!!! Wow!

So the power in the neighborhood has always been wonky. This lead me to buy a number of UPSs (basically battery backups, normally associated with computers) to ensure the television, Wii and other thingies in the house still function and don’t take damage from the surges. Last week I was randomly thinking, wondering how many I actually had in the house. Last night/this morning I found the answer.

The sound of UPS alarms throughout the house is a common thing, you even learn to sleep through them after a couple of months. This morning, they didn’t stop. A glance out the window told me the whole neighborhood was out of power. Soon the family would rise from the dead if I didn’t do anything about the beep beep beep beeps playing at odd intervals throughout the house. This would make for a cranky Snider clan. Daddy sprung into action! Well… argued with his body until it listened…

I knew I had a UPS on my computer, but forgot I had a second one for the modem and second monitor. 2 UPSs so far. I have one that my server and wireless phone share. 3. The TV gets one, the Wii and DVD player both get another one. 5. All was well, I was crawling back into bed when I thought I heard another one… it was coming from the office… my wife mumbles into the pillow that her computer has one, too… that’s right. Hit that switch too. 6. Getting in bed and snuggling with my wife, I heard another one… we don’t have any other expensiveish electronics in the house… what was it? I wandered throughout the entire house stopping in place and waitiing for the beeps to echo off the walls. After 15 minutes, I discovered a very well protected… table lamp! 7.

I wondered when I would realize I had too much technology. 7 UPSs. That’s enough.

As I’ve been a computer tech for many years, I get asked a lot about what type of computer to buy. Here’s a handy guide for you to run through if you don’t know what to buy:

Who to buy from?
Dell. Period.
I’ve been buying Dell machines for years. Nearly every IT professional uses them as well. The components are generally a grade above the competition and the machines are usually easier to perform maintainence on.

How much stuff do I need to buy?
If you want to do anything but the latest games and graphic design, generally the cheapest you can find. Honestly. You can get a computer these days for less than $500 that comes with a new display (aka monitor). Let’s work through a few more details though…

Windows vs Mac
I can fix both machines and they both are good and bad. Personally, I favor Windows machines. Sure, you can be trendy and buy a Mac, but look at the software you use at work and see if it’s available on the Mac platform. Unless you’re in design as a profession, chances are no. I’m a senior webdesigner and I use all sorts of art and design applications and I personally have found that they, as well as most other programs, are better on a Windows platform than a Mac. This is my personal preference, so YMMV.

Windows Platform
If you go Windows, you’ve got 3 different Operating Systems to choose from:
1. Windows XP. Venerable but trusted. Several of my machines still run XP. It’s very stable and does what most want it to.
2. Windows Vista. Shiny and good. Vista got a bad rap because manufacturers, not Microsoft, didn’t catch up. Vista had some issues here and there, but it was not Microsoft’s fault. I have a machine with Vista and it runs just fine.
3. Windows 7. 7 is rumored to be out Summer of 2009 and is essentially rebranded Vista. Honestly. Microsoft is trying to recover from the negative image Vista obtained and move forward with a new name.

32-bit vs 64-bit?
The bottom line: buy whichever is cheapest.
A slightly longer explination: the number of bits is how much information the processor can process per clock cycle (there are 16 clock cycles per second).
If you’re going to want more than 4 gigs of RAM, you’ll need 64-bit.

RAM (aka memory)
If you’re getting Windows XP, 2 gigs is fine, 4 gigs would be a bonus.
If you’re looking at Vista or 7, you will need 4 gigs minimum. 6 or 8 would really future-proof your investment.

HDD (aka hard drive or storage)
If you’re not going to get every music track, get the smallest size available. Most of my clients never use 10% of their drive. If you have internet-savvy kids, you’ll want to go larger. Most people won’t use more than 10 gigs their entire life. I’ve seen internet-savvy kids use in the thousands of gigs (basically 1 thousand gigs is called a terrabyte or TB).

Display Adapter (aka video or video card)
Are you going to play those really intense shoot-em-ups? Do you need to have 2 or more monitors? If no, whatever comes with it is just fine for you.

If you need 2 monitors, look for a "dual head" display adapter.
If you need games, look forward to spending at least the price (sometimes 2x!) of the computer’s price again on the latest and best.

Display (aka monitor)
Let’s get some terms out of the way… "Flat Screen" is not the same as "Flat Panel". The original displays (CRTs or cathode-ray tubes), when they were huge had a curved glass front. Eventually a method to have a flat piece of glass came out called "Flat Screen". Now we have these skinny little panels 1-2 inches wide. These are called "Flat Panels". They also have flat screens, but that’s not what you call it.

Why do you want a new display even though your huge old CRT display works just fine aside from that smudge no amount of Windex can get off? It’ll save you on your power bill. Not only does that huge monster cost more to power, it lets off copious amounts of heat which your A/C has to combat, costing you more money!

More programs, games and website are being designed with the 16:10 widescreen format in mind. Things won’t look right soon enough if you don’t catch up. 19" is the standard of today. If you’re buying for someone with poor eyesight, you may want to go bigger.

Software (aka applications and programs)
You don’t need to drop tons of cash to make your computer do what you want. There are tons of free games and programs out there. You don’t need Microsoft Office, you can get by with OpenOffice.org.

Conclusion
Don’t spend money if you don’t need to. You shouldn’t expect to spend more than $500 on a machine. It’s easy to spend alot but you really don’t need to.