Archive | Blog

RSS feed for this section

Blog Posts.

New Blog Post, Host, Why Not Both?

When I started out on the web in 2008 with a little site called Freshbytes, it was a different time and place. I needed somewhere to host the website, and there wasn’t much out there for affordable hosting for a high school student. I initially chose to go with BlueHost, which was fine — say what you want about shared hosting, but it was plenty good enough for the simple WordPress website I wanted to host, and even turned out to be more than OK for the additional WordPress websites and other static websites I started up later on (including this one).

I eventually moved away from the US-based BlueHost to the Australian-based VentraIP. Not for any particular reason, besides wanting my hosting in Australia. There’s actually very little difference between hosting in Australia and hosting overseas, besides a shorter route for what I assume is most of my “audience”. A large price disparity meant I couldn’t host in Australia from the outset, hence having to go with BlueHost, but in 2010 I made the switch, and have been hosted on VentraIP until recently.

The way I get by without a full-time job is keeping my expenses low. I don’t drive, smoke, drink, or take drugs, and part of keeping my expenses low involves looking at my recurring expenses every now and again, just to see where we’re at. It’s why I’m not a full-time Spotify subscriber, even though I enjoy the service occasionally and it’s, what, $12 a month?

Recurring expenses are a tricky thing. In the old days you’d pay for a bit of software and be done with it, at least until the next major version came out or you needed to upgrade, but these days, everything is a subscription. You can subscribe to Spotify for music, you can subscribe to Office 365, and while you can’t subscribe to a copy of Windows just yet, there are rumours that will happen in the future. You pay on a monthly basis for your mobile and internet and while that’s all well and good, you have to factor those in when you’re looking at your finances.

I never used to do an annual review of everything that I’m paying on a recurring basis for, but with the subscriptions and recurring expenses staring to pile up, I thought I’d take a look. Sometimes subscriptions are better value for money, and sometimes they aren’t. For example, I used to pay every year for each new major version of Lightroom, but when Adobe came out with the Creative Cloud Photography plan which included Lightroom and Photoshop for around the same price I was paying for Lightroom, it made sense to move to that instead of just paying for Lightroom alone.

Continue Reading →

Magic, Part Two

IMG_1783When we last left our intrepid explorer on his quest for the glorious Sarkhan pin at PAX Aus 2014, he had just gotten his card stamped after taking a really weird picture of himself as part of the three tasks he had to accomplish before gaining the pin and taking over the world. Wait, maybe not that last part. One down, two to go.

After getting my picture taken and getting one of the three stamps needed for the Sarkhan pin at PAX Aus 2014, there were just two other events I needed to complete. Spell-slinging, duelling, or learning to play Magic were the options available to me, although there was one more I can’t remember for the life of me. In any case, I had no idea what spell-slinging or duelling was, and I was pretty sure I wanted to learn how to play Magic, so the choice was between spell-slinging or duelling.

With the primary goal being acquiring the Sarkhan pin in the least amount of time, the “learning to play Magic” line was a little too long for my experienced line-gauging eye. I did notice a collection of iPads setup in the Magic area, and after confirming with a passing attendant about how they were being used for the “duelling” part of the Magic exhibition, I joined the queue (which was, thankfully, much shorter than the learning to play line).

Just so we’re absolutely clear: I already knew how to play Magic. The Pokémon Trading Card Game might have been all the rage when I was in primary school, but in high school, Pokémon had all but died out, and Magic was the flavour of the month. I was intrigued by the card game the older kids were playing in the library every lunchtime, and before I knew it, had two Magic decks of my own and was spending the inevitably-too-short lunchtimes playing with and against some of the older kids.

But all that was many moons ago, and like Pokémon, I fell out of the Magic scene after a few years. I stepped up to one of the iPads set aside for duelling, and when presented with the screen asking whether I had played Magic before, I selected yes. At that point I fully expected get my arse handed to me from a computer, what with its perfect decision making and innate knowledge of the game. Luckily, I had overheard a Magic staffer saying you’d get a stamp on your card whether you won or lost the duel, so my fears about losing and having to do it all again were assuaged. With my newfound brevity, I started playing Magic on the iPad, an experience that was entirely new to me.

At first, I was losing. Pretty badly — the hand I drew had nothing usable, and I was still putting out lands when my AI opponent started doing damage. Nothing serious, just a few chips here and there, but enough to put me on the back foot. Combined with the trepidation and unfamiliarity with Magic on an iPad, I wasn’t really sure I would be able to win.

The Magic iPad experience itself was pretty standard — like any game, Magic follows a set of rules which can be codified and turned into a series of steps, much like an elaborate dance. Only in this case, my AI opponent held the entire ballroom captivated with his delicate footwork, and I was just doing the ol’ two-step in the corner.

Eventually things started turning in my favour and after a while, I had the upper hand. A few more turns later, and I had won the duel, defeating the boss. I resisted the temptation to do a small victory dance and instead settled for calling over one of the Magic staffers over, showing him my win. He grinned and congratulated me on a job well done, and rewarded me with a hole punched in my card, over the section that said “duelling”. Two down, one to go.

Continue Reading →

Blogvember 2014 Wrap Up

Despite not hitting my target of a post per day for every day in November, I’m not going to call Blogvember 2014 an outright failure. As far as actual posts go, I wrote the same number of posts during November that I did for an entire year previously — 24 posts in November, 24 posts from October 2013 to October 2014 — which kind of explains why Blogvember was so needed. In terms of getting back into writing, Blogvember was exactly the kind of thing I needed, both to reassure myself I was capable of writing blog posts, and in terms of getting stuff up on my blog.

But all that said and done, writing is still undeniably hard. It’s not that I don’t have stuff to write about, as evidenced by the past month, but that actually getting words down into text form is something that just doesn’t happen without forcing it. That is, I can do it, but only if I’ve exhausted all other options. Only if I can’t sleep. Only if I haven’t played through as much Dragon Age Inquisition as I can tolerate. Only if no friends are online in Dota 2, and I don’t feel like queueing solo. You can see where this is going.

A lot of the time, it just comes down to motivation. I have no problems with getting paid to write, or writing as a hobby — but personal writing that only my blog audience sees is something entirely different. I have plenty to say about Dota 2, but finding the motivation to put those words down is hard. I have a few thoughts on Shadows of Mordor ready to go, but lack the motivation to finish it, or any of my other reviews. I could finish my story on getting the Sarkhan pin at PAX Aus this year any time I want, but what’s the point?

I want to write one thing every week. One thing every week doesn’t seem unachievable, especially seeing as I’m do daily news pieces for a number of outlets. But perhaps they’re part of the problem: after doing ~1400 words on Apple and consumer technology every day, I just can’t bring myself to bash out another couple of hundred, no matter how fascinating the topic.

I would have been an OK arts student. But apparently, a terrible writer.

These words are not a part of Blogvember 14, but they are related to the topic. Read more Blogvember posts, if you’re so inclined.

Magic, Part One

IMG_1795There’s this thing at PAX called Pinny Arcade, right, and it’s wonderful. It’s like a little subculture of PAX attendees who are obsessed about collecting and trading lanyard pins, almost kind of like Pokémon. You can buy many of the pins at PAX events or from the online store for little effort, but the most coveted ones are the ones that you have to trade other collectors for: Penny Arcade staff, some easier to find than others. Some, like the Sarkhan pin you see above, can be earned through a series of events. This is the story of how I came to earn the Sarkhan pin at PAX Aus 2014.

At first, I wanted to trade someone for it, it being the Sarkhan pin. I was wandering the area for panels with a few friends; they were searching for PAX Aus XP QR codes, I was mostly just killing time until the next panel I wanted to see.

An enforcer was standing outside one of the panel rooms, and I was drawn to his glittering lanyard of Pinny Arcade pins. After a quick glance, only one caught my eye: Sarkhan. I asked him if he wanted to trade, and pointed towards the mean-looking dude with flames. He seemed momentarily confused, as if this was the first time anyone had ever asked him that question before, before answering with a question of his own: “you know it can be earned, right?” I asked him where, and he said downstairs, at the Magic exhibition.

My companions at the time had heard about this, and informed me three tasks had to be performed before the pin was awarded. This being day two, one of them said the pin was actually easier to earn yesterday, on day one, as only two of four tasks had to be performed, but now, it was three out of five. Feeling a little like Hercules and his labours, I parted ways with my companions and wandered downstairs, passing through the many glittering attractions of the expo hall before arriving at the tabletop area, just past the console and PC free play areas.

Upon arriving, I made my way to one of the Magic areas, as they were cordoned off into various sections. I must have had a lost and/or confused look on my face, because I was soon approached by a guy who asked me if I needed any help. I asked him where I could perform the deeds to earn a Sarkhan pin of my very own. Looking pleased I was not there to collect his firstborn and merely after a collectible pin, he directed me towards another desk, currently staffed by a man and a woman. I thanked him for his assistance on the matter and moved on.

At the desk, I was greeted by the woman, who asked me what I was after. I stated my intentions on collecting a Sarkhan pin, and with a knowing look in her eye, she handed me one of the cards that contained the instructions for the five tasks. I only had to perform three, and from memory, I could choose from learning Magic, taking a photo, duelling, spell-slinging, and one more that I can’t quite recall.

Being the non-nerd that I am, I opted for taking a photo as that seemed the “easiest”. The goal was to get the pin in the shortest possible time, and I was thankful that PAX was such an inclusive place: they knew that a lot of people wouldn’t be up for the nerdery of learning to play a collectible card game, so they had an all-inclusive activity that everyone could enjoy. I donned a silly hat, picked up a sword, and stood in front of the camera as it took a photo. Looking at the photo now, and I wish I hadn’t chosen such a girly pose…

With the first of three tasks completed, I had my card punched. One down, two to go.

Wow, two PAX Aus posts in one day? Yeah, it happens when you’re six days behind in daily blog posts for the month of November.

These words part of Blogvember, a thing I just made up right then about getting back into blogging. You can read more words about Blogvember right over here, but the gist is that I'll be attempting to post something up on the blog every day in November 2014. Read other Blogvember posts.

Perception

DSC01210There was this one time at PAX Australia this year, when I was in the line to get some playtime with Far Cry 4. When you’re in lines there’s not that much to do — sure, if you’re queueing with a friend you can talk about what you’ve seen or are going to see next, but if you’re by yourself, you’re either smashing out some StreetPasses on your 3DS or doing something solo on your Vita and getting mocked for it on Twitter. But I digress.

Anyway, I was in this line, and it was almost my turn. There were perhaps 3 or so people before I was up, and the line was moving at a pretty steady pace — Ubisoft had between 8 and 10 consoles set up for the demo, and each person got maybe 10 minutes of play time, so it wasn’t too bad. From where I was in the line, I could see a girl playing the game.

I feel as though I have to preface this with “I’m not a sexist or anything”, because even though that should be pretty clear, what happened next could have easily happened to a guy, and I probably would have felt the same way.

With that out of the way, there was a girl playing Far Cry 4, and the thing I noticed was that she was dying, a lot. Like, over and over again. At first I thought she was just bad at the game, but then realised that wasn’t possible as the game wasn’t out yet, which meant everyone was bad at the game. My second thought was that she wasn’t familiar with console shooters — I know I’m definitely not, having two sticks to work with is confusing as all hell for someone who’s more experienced with a keyboard and mouse.

When I stepped up to the plate and had the PS4 controller in my hands, I was crazy bad at the game, too — I just kept dying, over and over again. Running into a guard unexpectedly and dying. Biting off more guards than I could chew, and dying. Trying to jump over something that couldn’t be jumped over, and dying. Glancing at the people who were doing the demo at the same time as me told a similar story, as they were dying a lot as well.

The interesting thing about the whole experience is that my brain automatically jumped to the conclusion that someone was bad at the game, even though no-one was particularly “good”, either. Like I said earlier, it could have happened to a guy or a girl, but it begs the question: did my own perceptions jump to a conclusion based on gender? Maybe. And if so, that’s kinda messed up.

These words part of Blogvember, a thing I just made up right then about getting back into blogging. You can read more words about Blogvember right over here, but the gist is that I'll be attempting to post something up on the blog every day in November 2014. Read other Blogvember posts.

Books

Ever since I half-heartedly made a resolution to read more books last year, I can count the number of books I’ve read on one hand: four. Two were for an English unit I took as part of my degree, and the other two are Matthew Reilly titles: first The Tournament, and just recently, The Great Zoo of China.

Four. Four books in close to 18 months. Three physical, one digital.

I’d say it’s because I don’t have enough time, but that’s not entirely true. I have plenty of time most days, and do absolutely nothing with it when I should be looking for work, actually working, or at the very least, writing.

I think a lot of the problem is that I have trouble doing all the other stuff that goes into reading a book, namely the process of actually finding something to read. Reading stuff by your favourite authors is easy, because you already know what their stuff is like. All you have to do is pick up a copy of their latest work and go to town, even if it’s 12am and you have to work tomorrow.

Finding new stuff to read, on the other hand, is much harder. First, you have to decide what kind of book you want to read. Fiction, or non-fiction? Then if you’re reading fiction, you have to decide what kind of fiction you want to read: do you want to read about romance with vampires, magic, or perhaps sci-fi? Do you want to read thrillers, crime novels, or all of the above?

And once you’ve chosen what you want to read, how do you decide what author to go with? If only there was something like IMDB, but for books, that gave recommendations for similar movies/titles you enjoy based on the ones you do.

Or maybe you’re not going to choose what kind of books you want to read, and just want to work your way through the New York Times Bestseller list or something. That’s cool too, even if you’re going to pick and choose.

It sounds like I’m making a whole bunch of excuses as to why I’m not doing more reading, and to be fair, I kind of am. But at the end of the day, there’s only so many hours in the day and days in the year, and you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to waste time reading something I won’t enjoy, or something that doesn’t appeal to me.

These words part of Blogvember, a thing I just made up right then about getting back into blogging. You can read more words about Blogvember right over here, but the gist is that I'll be attempting to post something up on the blog every day in November 2014. Read other Blogvember posts.