• Notice of Impending Maintenance

    Posted on by suguay

    It is time to notify you of impending maintenance to this site.

    As I have previously posted, the software that I am using on this site has been updated and this version will not update to that version easily, at least not as far as I have seen. So…

    The time has come that I will be backing up the site, taking it down for, hopefully, only a short time, and putting it all back up. With any luck, though I am choosing the painfully slow and tedious method of doing this, it will go reasonably smooth. 

    If you are in and IT department any where you will know that that statement has probably just doomed me to weeks of frustration and terror. Hopefully not.

     

    I will post a notice about a week before I take the site down.

     

    For those of you that do visit, I apologize for the upcoming inconvience. However, you can look forward to a lovely article on the adventure afterwards. 

     

    Thanks for your support.

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in The Point of this Site

  • Revisiting Entropia with a Different Point of View

    Posted on by suguay

    I recently revisited Entropia Universe and more specifically Planet Calypso. What I found interesting was that it really holds true that the more things change the more they stay the same.

    If what I have seen and the release notes are any indication, then the developers are putting a lot of time in creating and improving content. If you were in Entropia a couple of years ago and are just going back, in many ways it’s a different world.

    So far, I’ve seen air vehicles, new loot, new beasties, and missions. And with the exception of a couple of the really early missions, I haven’t found much reward in doing the missions. This is a little frustrating. In addition, at least on of what I would consider an early, mission has you up against some beasts that as a new player, with an entry level weapon and no armor, are nearly impossible to kill. You spend a lot of time dying. Something I get tired of doing.

    If, by the time you get to this point you still have a weapon and some bulles then you’re in luck and you might get to take one down. Remember though, one shot take a lot of bullets. If you haven’t got PED to buy more bullets this is going to be really frustrating.

    This is where we get to the part where the more things change, the more they stay the same. Even with all the added content and game play, this game still requires cas to play it. Yes, it’s “free” to play in that there is no monthly subscription fee. And it’s possible that if you put a lot of time in doing things that farner low value rewards then you can build up enough cast to step up a level. However, if you do’t have the patience for that, then the onlyway to get to greater rewards is to deposit cold, hard, real world cash in exchange for PED so you can purchase better gear, or more ammunition or both. 

    This really isn’t anything new for Entropia Universe. However the drastically increased number of bullets required per shot for low level weapons makes the need for cash even greater and more pronounced.

    Previously, I’ve look at all this more from a game play aspect with a little bit of a filter on the economics. There are a couple of additional ways to look at this. As a concept, in gener, I’ve probably looked at this in a previous article. Here I want to address it as something a little revolutionary, a job. I also want to point out it’s devisiveness and thus it’s similarities to social network games.

    First, the concept of playing Entropia Univers as a job. One of the concepts of Entropia Univers is the idea that the in world currency has a stable exchange rate to a real wold currency, in this case the US Dollar. So in theory andy game money you earn can be turned into real world cash for things like paying your rent. Entropiais not the only online world to do this. Second Life offered a similar opportunity though the exchange rate of the Lindoen to the US Dolar is variable. With Entropia, Mind Ark put in place, constraings that make getting money out of the game non-trivial. This keeps everyone who’s made a little money from removing it too frequently. So to make it worth while to get money out, you really need to have a lot of money in the game. In addition to that, it’s only really worth it if you have put little, or better yet, no money into it. To get a lot of money without putting any money in is going to take a lot of hours doing a lot of low paying in game work until you can build up enough in game capital to increase your earning capacity. To do this and expect to one day be able to regularly take money out of the game, playing Entropia must be treated as a job. If you are at the point where you are regularyl exchanging PED for USD to pay your real world expenses then Entropia Univers and whatever you do in it has become your job.

    Stop and think about this a moment. This really is mind blowing. This isn’t earning a living playing games competitively. This is earning a living directly from your activities in a virtual world. 

    On that note, I think I’ll look at the siilarities to social network games in another article.


    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Games Land

  • Update Regards WP to Twitter

    Posted on by suguay

    I made mention in my article on Word Press that I am using a plugin called “WP to Twitter”. At the time I noted that it didn’t seem to work for articles that were scheduled to post instead of posted immediately.

    I am please to note that an update has since been released that appears to resolve that issue. My most recent scheduled article did indeed issue the Twitter post when it published. 

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Software Used - Other Software

  • Working with Word Press

    Posted on by suguay

    I just setup a new blog and decided to try out WordPress.

    I am using WordPress 3.2.1 at the moment using one of the templates that comes with it.

    Installation was a breeze as I use GoDaddy for my hosting company and as part of their service they have a service called “Hosting Connection” which allows for reasonably automated installation of various software for your website. I’ve used it several times before for other installations including this one.

    Just getting started isn’t too challenging if you have dealt with other Content Management Tools. I started with Joomla! and so have had some experience with setting up or selecting the different plugins and widgets and such. For a novice this will take a litle getting used to though I don’t think one would find it too challenging. 

    One of the key things about WordPress is that the template is what defines your layout capabilities, at least without digging into the code. If the template is a 2 column template with 2 widget areas, that is what you get. There is no deciding you want it to be 3 columns and you want more widget areas or you want them in different places. So remember that when you are looking for a template.

    There are lots of free templates out there and you can browse through them, though that can be tedious and not quite as friendly as I would like. Unless you have a keyword to search on your search choices are limited to certain subsets such as ‘most recent’, ‘most popular’, and ‘recently updated’ or something similar. There are still plenty to look through and you can even view a preview of them. 

    I recommend starting with your template because it will determine what your layout will be and what options and segments you will be able to include on your page. I had started setting it up and then tried loading a template I created using a tool, only to find out it didn’t support some things I had already decided I needed. 

    I have added a couple of widgets. Just like the templated, there are lots of widgets already created and available for free. Searching through these is a little easier as they tend to be divided out by categories such as ‘social networking’, ‘shopping’, and stuff like that. I have an advertising addin installed called “Adsense Me” that gives me six or 8 sections to put in my advertising code and they are all widgets that I can then just drag to my widget locations, including before or after the text. It seems to work well so far. 

    I am also using “WP to Twitter” to automatically update my Twitter feed when I post an article or a link or if I update and article. This took a little bit to figure out how to setup because you will need to get some keys and codes from Twitter so it has permission to post for you. But once you get that it’s pretty easy. You can use a variety of url shorteners as well or you can let WordPress do that for you. The only downside I have encountered with it so far is that if you schedule the article to publish at a later date, it doesn’t register this as a publish when it does post and so it doesn’t send out the notice. For me this is a small problem since I tend to have a bunch of things to say all at one time and in order to not flood the page or my readers with a lot of new stuff, I will set things to post a day or so later. My current solution will be to either leave it as is, post a notice to Twitter myself, and or post a notice to Google+ myself. This last option might be a good one as there is a public circles option. 

    It was fairly easy to add my analytics code to the template. Google gives good instructions and it’s not too hard to find in WordPress. You’ll need to go to the Themes section under Appearance and then to the Editor to find the spot to add it. It might take a little to find it because it doesn’t just jump out at you. Fortunately I was already poking around in things so finding it was going to happen anyway.

    With WordPress, creating static pages to hold your information like a bio or about us or the legal disclaimers is really easy. They call them Pages and you create them much like you create a regular posting.

    I haven’t found an easy option for the Contact Me part yet. I think I may just add a Contact page and then put the contact information there.

    If you use custom HTML code for something, like a Paypal tip jar or something like that there is a built-in widget for HTML code so that’s easy to add as well. You insert the code you want and then drag it to one of your widget areas.

    If you decide you want to remove some widget but don’t want to lose your settings for it you can drag it to the Inactive Widgets area instead of the Available Widgets area and then it’s ready for you to use again when you want it. If you would rather remove it and delete it’s settings just drag it back to the Available Widgets area.

    With a few exceptions, making layout changes won’t require you to save settings before the changes show up on the site. Pretty much, you drag a widget to a spot and it’s there for the next person to see.

    WordPress sites have a distinctive look to me. Regardless of the template being used I can almost always spot a WordPress site. Depending on your view this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The sites tend to look clean and crisp with a well positioned layout. Very few of them tend to look like they were thrown together in Hotdog using the most outragous color combinations the person could come up with. WordPress sites generally look good.

    I have always thought that WordPress was a very basic Content Management or Blogging tool and with it’s ease of use and setup, in many ways it is. But don’t be fooled and don’t let that keep you from using it. With the number of Widgets and Plugins that have been created, and that can be added to a WordPress site, this is far from a limited tool. While I haven’t had a need or gotten far enought into it to review all aspects of it, however; from what I’ve seen so far, and from some of the other WordPress sites I have seen, it is an application that can be as simple or as robust as you need or want it to be.  

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Software Used - Other Software

  • Cha – cha – cha – Changes

    Posted on by suguay

    Changes are afoot. Not just in the world in general, though to be sure there are plenty of those. What with the uprising in Egypt, Japan being shifted 8 feet, the uprising in Lybia and so many other events, it would be hard to say that there isn’t a lot of change going on in the world. There are also changes coming to my world and therefore to this site.

     

     

    As you might have noticed from a previous post my interests are changing. I have taken up music and guitar playing again and I find it taking more and more of my time. As a result I spend less and less time with the games, online or otherwise. Because of this you will find a lack of new posts to the games section. Really, I can’t see trying to write about something I’m no longer participating in, it’s just not right.


    These changing interests also leave me spending less time scouring the web for new website tools or things like that. However, I do still support a couple of sites and mine of course so there is the possibility of my running into some software or software component that I will feel compelled to share. I just don’t expect a lot of that.


    Along with this change in interests comes, for me, a change in location. I will be leaving Florida to go a little ways north. Not far enough north for me to be dealing with the frozen tundra, just far enough north though to get four seasons instead of the two and to no longer be directly impacted by the breezes from the Gulf of Mexico. There is the added bonus of no longer “trying to reason with hurricane season” as Jimmy Buffett sings. I’m not completely escaping the hurricane zone, I am, however moving far enough out of the bulls eye that the need to be ever vigilant and make the yearly trip to the store to restock the hurricane kit will be no longer necessary.


    I am excited about the relocation. I come from a family that moved fairly regularly in my youth and so to discover that I have spent the bulk of my adult life living in the same metropolitan area was a little disappointing to me. So, when the opportunity came to relocate I considered it a blessing. I still consider it a blessing.


    The thing about relocating is that it’s all new, (provided you are not relocating back to someplace). There are new places to see, new people to meet, new things to do, and the opportunity to be a new person yourself. You can change your hair, your style of dress, the types of things you do and not worry about what your current friends think because they will be farther away and might not notice as quickly and you will be making new friends who won’t know any different.


    So, along with my already changing interests comes the natural change of interests and focus that accompanies a change in scenery. This may give me more material for the blog section of this site, where you can find additional personal musings and ramblings. Then again that too may be a changing interest. Who knows? To be sure though, changes, they are a coming.


     

    Support artist. Buy their music.

    Keep music and arts education in our schools.

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in The Blog!