[Daniel] Subversion: Day 2

Day 2 with Subversion yielded more pleasant surprises, such as how detailed the history is, how easy it is to move back to prior versions and how to resolve conflicts in files. I also learned that nothing is ever really deleted, even if you remove it from the current working version, which is pretty neat.



The unhappy side of this was demostrated late this evening. As current as most of the Mac OS X 10.4 system is, Subversion isn't even INCLUDED with it. Not even an older stable version. Very strange and short-sighted, in my opinion. Subversion is not so new that it should at least be present so I'm a little confused. I'm working on compiling the software now. Hopefully, I will get it all up and running soon.

[Daniel] Subversion: Day 1

I had my first experience with Subversion today. Subversion is a prominent, open-source source control management suite, which means it's software dedicated to keeping track of changes to just about any set of files. It maintains a complete history of all changes from the beginning of the file to current.



The bulk of the Subversion usage is done by programmers, who are typically in the position of working on the same set of files with other programmers at the same time, causing what's known as concurrency issues. This means Bob and Joe both have the same file open. Bob makes a change then saves. Joe, who still has the original unchanged file open, makes a change and saves, overwriting Bob's changes completely. Subversion handles things so that when Bob saves, it tracks his changes to the original document. Then when Joe tries to save, Subversion will either merge their changes if they don't conflict or warn Joe and allow him to figure it out without destroying anything.



This is great for me in two different ways. One, it lets me keep track of all the changes I ever make to code (especially if I screw something up). Two, it will eventually enable me to work with the guys at work with less hassle as well as with Tony, who happens to be a great programmer and quite far away. Makes the whole "Hey, are you editing ____?" issue a little difficult. =D.



And for just day one with it, I'm already doing remarkably well, with two different sets of code already placed in version control and easily making changes/additions/deletions. Easy, gentle learning curves are nice.



Best part: it was originally designed under Linux but has been ported to Mac OS X and Windows. Plus there are lots of nice GUI tools out there designed to handle it easily (even though I think I like the command line better). Very cool.

[Daniel] Video Game Review: Atlantis

Atlantis is an independent game developed by FunPause. Like beloved games of yore, Atlantis is based around a simple premise. On the screen, there is a channel through which multi-color balls flow from a start point to an end point. A small "pusher" moves at the back of the stream, pushing the balls toward the end point. Your ship hovers at the bottom of the screen, moving back and forth via the mouse. The objective is to fire balls upward into the channels and eliminate chains of three or more before they reach the end point.



While it's a simple mechanic, the game proves to be quite interesting and rewarding. Balls are eliminated when you match three or more of them in a row. When they disappear, sometimes the balls will flow backward, possibly eliminating more chains. Another excellent addition is a wide variety of powerups you can receive. Mostly appearing during certain events (such as eliminating a "pusher"), the powerups range from a targeting sight to show where your ball is headed to a reverse flow powerup that causes all the balls to start rolling back to the start.



The controls (mostly just mouse movement back and forth and click to shoot/switch colors) feel really quite nice, very snappy and precise. Similarly, the graphics are equally good, with smooth animation, interesting effects and very nice particles. This game bleeds polish at every level. And with over 81 levels, there's more than enough to play.



There were few flaws I could find with the game. The biggest problem I had was nothing technical but simply not understanding what causes chains to sometimes snap backward and other times not. It seems to be pretty random and it is not explained in the small tutorial or anywhere on the website. Also, the powerups seem to be equally random. If this were the case, it would not be an issue for me and I would be content. But I continually try different things while playing in an attempt to influence those events, which is a tad frustrating.



Overall, Atlantis is a fantastic game, with simple controls and gameplay anyone young or old could appreciate. It's truly an addicting game. A demo for both Windows and Mac OS X can be downloaded from the FunPause website and provides an hour of play before registration. I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys puzzles and classic-style gameplay.

[Daniel] Baby Steps

Tonight I fixed something that has long bothered me about Snow-Wolf: the reliance on the position: absolute CSS. Everything on the page, prior to tonight, was "pixel-perfectly" located on the page. I threw that away because it was very limiting for us. So one of the new additions to the site is now a footer and everything is floated and margined. The result is virtually no visual change but it's a big gain in flexibility, which I am happy about.



This is not to say everything is perfect, as the Love page is a little messed up yet and I have yet to check the site in IE. That will have to wait until tomorrow when I get on a Windows based computer. If nothing else, there should only be small corrections to be made.



I also got some work done on the unannounced project as well. Not that it means much to anyone right now but it's shaping up a little.



I've got to get some sleep now...

[Daniel] I'm At A Loss

No news on the Archive. It's up, it's kinda running but certainly no search and none of the advanced stuff I want to be present. I wish I had an excuse but today was simply a lazy day.



The hike was extremely fun. It was nice to get out of the apartment and I really enjoyed it. Gorgeous view, well worth the weeks I've been waiting to do it. Bear also really seemed to enjoy it, especially all of the climbing around.



Projects for the week: finish off the Archive (I MEAN IT), brush up on everyone's favorite acronym Ajax and begin in earnest to get something going with an as-yet-unannounced project.

[Daniel] I'm At A Loss

No news on the Archive. It's up, it's kinda running but certainly no search and none of the advanced stuff I want to be present. I wish I had an excuse but today was simply a lazy day.



The hike was extremely fun. It was nice to get out of the apartment and I really enjoyed it. Gorgeous view, well worth the weeks I've been waiting to do it. Bear also really seemed to enjoy it, especially all of the climbing around.



Projects for the week: finish off the Archive (I MEAN IT), brush up on everyone's favorite acronym Ajax and begin in earnest to get something going with an as-yet-unannounced project.

[Moriah] Hiking!

We took a fun hike this afternoon in the late September heat (106°F!). So we packed up some water bottles, brought Bear's water dish and headed out toward the Capital of Texas Highway bridge. There are some beautiful cliffs along the river there that have several trails and viewpoints. While it was hot, there was also some shade from all the trees. It'll be beautiful to go back out there when the weather cools a little! We saw many boats and skiers out on the river today. Apparently, everyone wanted to take advantage of the hot, sunny afternoon. We took some pictures of the area. You can check them out in our Gallery. We'll take more pictures when the weather cools down a bit and we can go out for a longer period of time. But it sure was fun to do something different for a change and take a little adventure on our weekend off! Of course, now Bear is pooped out and sleeping half on the futon and half off. What a crazy little dog...

[Daniel] More Upgrades & Archive

I'm refactoring the codebase, especially the objects, behind the site a little tonight. The front page actually already uses the new code by the time you read this. If some things are down or not working properly (which, incidentally, you should not see), please be patient and it will shortly. I will have a basic version of the archive up tonight, also using the new code. Last night, I passed out at 11ish and didn't have time to finish.

[Daniel] Holding Down The Fort

We're staying in Austin. NOAA is predicting that Rita will continue turning north and will likely not hit us at all. Furthermore, the traffic was crazy today as it was. So we're going to stay here and hope it doesn't turn nasty.



Work has begun on the archive pages. I hope to have a basic version up by the end of the night.

[Daniel] Seasons

Finally, after two years in the making, Snow-Wolf has seasons. It doesn't serve any truly useful purpose but I think that computers should change with the seasons just like everything else. All of the code and stylesheets were actually put together and built in several weeks ago but it's nice to see that it worked and handled the change all by itself.



Rita's dropped in strength and may not hit Austin at all. The meteorologists have changed their minds several times today alone so it's difficult to tell what is going to happen. I think our plans will remain the same however, spending the weekend in Dallas/Fort Worth instead of remaining here.

[Daniel] Gallery Is Back

The gallery is back up and running. Basically, I cleanly wiped out all of the old data (save for the pictures themselves). I then dropped each of the 44 tables created and used by Gallery in the database. Then I reinstalled all of Gallery. Finally, I recreated all of the albums and re-added all of the pictures. Total time consumed: 1 hour. But I'm glad to have our pictures back up and happier still with Gallery 2.0. Lots of nice features and really well done. Too bad it weighs in at 25 Mb without the pictures. So many features I don't need or want. But rolling my own would NOT be a good use of my time at this point so I'm not going to pursue that any further.



In other news, everyone's favorite tropical storm-turned-category-5-hurricane Rita is on her way. By Saturday, we may be getting slammed as they expect it to still be a category 1 by the time it reaches Austin.



It's very strange to think about. The worst weather we had to deal with in Wisconsin were tornadoes. No hurricanes, mudslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, nothing. Now, it's a different story. Kinda freaky, especially as Houston is being evacuated as I write this. The lines of traffic on CNN coming out of Houston boggle my mind...

[Daniel] Gallery Is BUSTED!

For the fourth time in as many tries, ugrading Gallery has failed. They just went 2.0 this last week (we've been using the alpha/beta releases) and I wanted to get the new code up and running. After downloading and unpacking (and backing up the old directory just in case), I attempted to upgrade. When I saw Beta Upgrader at the top, I thought something was messed up. So I tried to install instead. This kicked me out halfway through, telling me to go through the upgrader (which still says Beta) instead. So I go through the upgrade and it bombs out. Fine! Delete the old folder, re-unpack Gallery and try to upgrade again. No dice so try the install. Stack Trace (think Blue Screen of Death but less of a drama queen)! So I try moving the old folder back, to no avail.



So! The gallery is down and won't be back up for a day or two. In addition to this, my computer at work started crapping out today before the internet went down for the last two hours of the day and my iBook was frozen asleep when I got home. After panicking for a few minutes about the potential of a dead iBook, I pulled the battery and left it sit for awhile. Finally, after putting the battery back in, it decided to cooperate and reboot. I'm walking away from computers for the night now. My headache grows worse by the moment...

[Daniel] PyWeek And A Headache

As promised, I am posting the results of the PyWeek competition. The only item of real mention is that I placed second out of twelve for (Individual) Production and seventh out of 26 for that category. Overall, I placed 18th out of 26. The full results can be seen here.



I placed better than I thought I would, especially given I was one person and didn't have a whole week to really commit to it. I wish I had produced something that was a little more fun and inventive. But not bad and a lot of fun.



Outside of that, I have a killer headache. It's lasted over 6 days in a row now. I think it's coming from the CRT monitor I have to use at work. I'm too used to LCDs and I think that's what's causing my headache. =(



Nothing new for the site tonight. Still shooting for an Archive by the weekend, provided Rita doesn't come and dump on us. Earlier this morning, NOAA was predicting it was headed our way but now it seems to be turning further north. We'll see by the weekend.

[Daniel] RSS Feed Is Back & DB-Powered!

The work for the evening consisted of rebuilding the RSS feed generator. I've checked it out and it appears to be working. It should be much more stable and reliable now that it's powered off the database as well as the site, as opposed to the old way of using regular expressions on a highly-irregular front page. :)



The next thing up is the archives. All the entries were put in before we decided to go live with the new system. However, the pages (and code) to display back entries is not yet done.



When I'm done with it, it should be glorious. There will be no less than all entries available, as many to a page as desired. There will be a full-text search (to find those "exciting" old Snow-Wolf entries about what I ate last night) of all entries and a couple other fun features.



Until that's done, the old archive pages will remain in place but will not be updated.

[Daniel] Snow-Wolf: Now With 100% More Database!

This is a test of the Snow-Wolf setup. We're moving to a database-driven setup that allows us to blog more conveniently. And yes, I did think about just using existing blogging software such as MT or WordPress. However, none I have seen would've allowed us to run two blogs side by side and I didn't feel like doing heavy modifications to a codebase I am totally unfamiliar with. This system will be lightweight enough to handle our needs for now.



Additionally, as we initally prepped for, Snow-Wolf should change its theme with the seasons. Watch for it this week!

[Daniel] Crazy House Guest

Living in a totally new location 1,400 miles south of your previous location yields some interesting new experiences. Tonight, for instance, we had a house guest.



Not just any guest though. A small, orange, 3 inch long little lizard snuck in with us as we finished our evening walk and came back in the apartment. Moriah freaked out because she didn't really see what it was and thought it was some crazy big insect. I came over, ready to squash it, only to find this cute little lizard hiding under her shoe. Putting it back outside was a completely seperate matter though. In the end, some herding and some cardboard did the trick and the lizard is happily back on the side of our building. This place is fricking crazy...

[Moriah] Austin Flute Club

WOOHOO!!! I did something kickass today; I auditioned for the Austin Flute Club's Flute Choir and was accepted! We start the season's rehearsals

tomorrow and have several performances already set up for the fall and spring. I am totally excited to be playing again! We'll just have to see what my arms say about this...

[Daniel] PyWeek Is Over!

The competition is over. I ended up finishing my game and had everything I wanted in it. I was not totally pleased with it as it ended up not as much fun as I had hoped but at least I finished it. For next time, I will be allocating more time to actually playing the game, especially early on, to ensure that it really is a game and not some boring piece of software. But making a specification was the best thing I could've done for myself and I had a TON of fun.



Final Hope Dev Journal & Screenshots



Sometime either this week or next, I will post the full source code and installers for the major platforms so people can try the game without installing Python and PyGame. For sure Windows and Mac binaries.



I also may write a more elaborate post-mortem but that's for another day.



Oh, and when the rankings are complete (Sept. 17th-ish), I will post my final ranking, just for posterity.

[Daniel] PyWeek: Final Hope v0.8

In what is possibly the shortest time between releases yet, I present Final Hope v0.8 ("More Power!"). New to this version is the Power Pack, which add an additional 50% capacity to your existing pack.



I have one release scheduled for tomorrow and one release for Saturday. Big bits are adding a story screen, a tutorial and a couple other small refinements. Finally, one early bedtime this week. =D

[Daniel] PyWeek: Final Hope v0.7

Sporting a new font, an updated sprite and the new Run mode, Final Hope v0.7 is done and posted. I'd write more but I gotta try and complete the powerups yet tonight.

[Moriah] New Photos Of Bear And Austin

Just a quick note to let you know we have new pictures of Bear and Austin up in the Gallery. Check 'em out!

[Daniel] PyWeek: Particle Engine

THE PARTICLE ENGINE IS COMPLETE AND IT WORKS FANTASTICALLY!!! I went from never having ever seen any code for a particle engine to creating relatively complete one in under 24 hours WITHOUT using anyone/anything as a reference. I am feeling great right now!



And, even better, I am back on track with my spec. =D