Event Overview:
One day without accessing the internet. One day to show the big corporations that we can exist without them. The fat cat needs to go on a diet, and you can help. We need to take a stand and show the corporations that we are not just sheep. We are more than a status on a social network. More than a six figure annual bonus.

Your rights, your freedoms, your very essence as a human being is being sold to the highest bidder, and all anyone ever cares about is sharing with the world that they just had toast, or they’re dying their hair red and they hope it doesn’t turn out shitty, or what studid show is on and what they think about it. You have so many opinions about people, shows, books, movies, school, haircuts, pets, drama, rumours, funny pictures, sad pictures, that you fail to realize that all of these things are necessary for you to remain oblivious to the fact that it’s only a matter of time before everything that you own and cherish as a human, your basic human rights, and everything that they mean will soon be a denomination folded up in somebodies wallet!

Ryan: “Invite your friends. We need to show the world that the cashcow known as the internet is sustained by us, and us only. Maybe then big money-making companies, who make their money from us using the internet, but wish to control what we think, say, and do on it will get the hint that we aren’t fucking around anymore. Think of this as an Occupy Wallstreet for the internet! We need to take a stand on the streets, and on the wire! Time is running out.”

We hope you will join us in this decisive strike.

Best regards,
Nito

Subject: FDIC notification
From: no.reply@fdic.gov
Message: Dear customer,
Your account ACH and WIRE transaction have been temporarily suspended for security reasons due to the expiration of your security version. To download and install the newest installations read the document(pdf) attached below.

As soon as it is setup, you transaction abilities will be fully restored.
Best Regards, Online Security departament, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Subject: ACH Payment 2318207 Canceled
From: account.manager@nacha.net
Message: ACH Payment Canceled

The ACH transaction (ID: 51800395),
recently initiated from your checking account (by you or any other person),
was canceled by the other financial institution.

Rejected transaction
Transaction ID: 8574210513218
Reason for rejection: See details in the attachment
Transaction Report: report_082011-65.pdf.exe (self-extracting archive, Adobe PDF)

13450 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 100 Herndon, VA 20171 (703)561-1100 2011 NACHA – The Electronic Payment Association

These emails contain an attachment. Do *NOT* download or open this file. It will install a variant of the Zeus or ZBot trojan on your system. They aim for account information, mostly regarding banking. Again, if you receive an email do not open the attachment. If your email provider allows you to mark it as a phishing email, do so and then delete it (if it hasn’t been already).

First: Click “Account” at the top-right of the page, and then “Privacy Settings”.

Second: Find “Apps and Websites” at the bottom of the page, and click the link entitled “Edit your settings”.

Last: Find “Apps you use”, which should be at the top of the page, and click the link entitled “Turn off”.

After confirming, you should now have an app free news feed on Facebook. Enjoy.

So what is SolaceNet?

We hope that it will become the number one destination for gamers world wide. Social networking for gamers, by gamers is pretty much the basic concept of it. Now we know there’s hundreds of ‘gaming social networks’ out there, but none of them can actually pair you with other gamers you may know from specific games (and we don’t even need your email and password to find them!(Sorry, I just really dislike that type of spam – which is what it is)).

But why reinvent the wheel?

Good question, and the answer is pretty straight forward.. If you have no competition, there is no real motivation to improve and expand. That’s the philosophy that all businesses *should* have, though they usually don’t.

Do you see companies like Facebook or Twitter as competition?

In some ways, yes. Facebook and Twitter are two great social networks, but they’re not really setup for gamers. If I wanted to post that I just earned an achievement on XBL, I’d have to connect a third parties web application to post it for me.

So you’re opposed to using third party applications?

Not at all, I encourage the integration between websites. However, having multiple social networks do the work that could be done by one is wasteful in my opinion. Centralizing all data without having to create, set up, maintain and keep track of multiple accounts sounds a lot easier and cleaner, doesn’t it?

Dennis Fong has already created two gaming social networks. How do you plan on competing with someone with that much experience under their belt?

Yeah, Dennis created two of the largest and most well-known gaming social networks, but it comes back down to the motivation to improve and expand. He has virtually no competition. XFire was purchased by MTv, and hasn’t had any major overhauls since. He then turned around and developed Raptr that trumped XFire in every aspect. So aside from that, there’s no one to compete with. A few social networks here and there, but they’re all platform specific – XBOX here, PS3 there. We have quite a few things on SolaceNet that will make us a strong competitor with Dennis and his team of developers over at Raptr.

Can you be more specific when you say “a few things”?

At this point in the development stage, I can’t disclose every part of SolaceNet. Competition is all about knowing your competitors and creating something bigger and better after all.

Where can gamers go to check out SolaceNet?

Gamers can head over to SolaceNet.com and sign up. We’ll be giving everyone who signs up now exclusive access to our alpha and beta versions of the website and software.

First here were our choices..
Tom Richards (Dem), who used to run RG&E until he sold it off for a nice fat severance (I read 24 million dollars), leaving ~200 people jobless. ‘Nough said…

Bill Johnson (Independents & Working Family).. This guy ::sighs:: He was our former mayor, who thought it would be smart to purchase a ferry to run from here to Toronto, CA. The ferry first crashed on its maiden voyage out of a port in Australia, then crashed again in NYC. We sold it, not once, not twice, but three times, buying it back for more than we sold it twice (this means we lost more money). And then he had the audacity to say that he would purchase another ferry if it were privately invested if he won this election… Yeah, he came in second in the ballots – go figure..

Alex White (Green).. I’ve met Alex, and I’ve spent time getting to know him (prior to his campaign). He’s a highly intelligent person, who probably would have done more for the city than any mayor we’ve had in the past 30 years. This was the only one actually giving ideas and suggestions that would help build our city back up into the colossus that it once was. He went live on the net to campaign, allowing free and open suggestions and questions, without any bias, and answered honestly, without pause. Another plus? He didn’t slander – at all.

Out of the three candidates, Alex was the only one that would have brought real change to our city.. So why did Mr. Richards win? Well let’s look at the psyche of a voter.

Voters are more likely to vote for names that they have heard more. Alex wasn’t as well funded as either of the other ‘big dogs’, and didn’t get as much coverage. Johnson and Richards were both on every other commercial in this city. Richards and Johnson were both well known prior to the election. My grandmother (Dem) said something that irked me, but goes with this.. “Not too hard of a choice.. Guy [Johnson] who wants to bring another ferry, guy [Richards] who was in office with Duffy (most recent mayor), or a nobody [White].”. Obviously, she didn’t do her research on White, and just went off what others said.

A voter, especially the older ones, are diehard party voters. Since there was no Republican candidate, I assume that the percentages were split between mostly between Richards and Johnson (Based on talking to Republicans, my estimate is ~ 63% Richards and 35% Johnson, leaving 2% for White. A greater percentage were against Johnson as mayor again).

The main point of this post, is to try and rattle you out of a state of disillusion… People need to stop following what everyone else says and does and think for themselves….

Pros:

Cons:

Overall, this game rates around a 6 for me. I think it definitely has potential if the developers worked out the core issues, and either went with or redesigned the engine they’re currently using. Also, I understand from a sales point of view that micro-managing your character(s) keep a member playing, which in turn continues to generate revenue, but come on.. The amount of mindless grinding to get ahead is ridiculous. And if you have no vehicle and your waypoint wasn’t set, you could find yourself wandering aimlessly through the wastelands trying to find where you’re supposed to go – which sometimes isn’t bad, since you need to collect so much “scrap” and what-not to craft anything you need, or to just make a few extra chips so you can purchase the manual to learn how to craft the upgrade.

If you enjoy post-apocalyptic games, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy this. However, if you have a short attention span or you get upset quickly over little things, you may want to stay away from this game until they work out most of the kinks. Also, if you do end up getting this game – there is an in-game item giveaway over at Alienware Arena. Enjoy.

Let’s take myself for example. As a project manager, it’s up to me to make sure that each project I undertake is developed in an orderly fashion with the highest quality and rid of any bugs we can find before it goes live. If it’s not on time it’s my fault, because I didn’t push myself and the rest of the team hard enough to finish with-in the deadline or I didn’t give correct instructions on what needs to be done. If the quality is crap, it’s because I didn’t force the graphic designer to put their heart and soul into the project. If it’s riddled with bugs, it’s because I didn’t make the team test it enough before letting it go live.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Your subordinates are just as guilty as you are, because they didn’t come to you with questions or concerns, or they didn’t seek extra training, but even if that’s the case, it’s still your responsibility to go around and check up throughout the day. Ask them if everything’s going smoothly, if they need any help or if they need extra guidance.

In the military we used the saying “shit rolls downhill”. Which basically meant that if someone in a leadership role got “chewed out”, then the rest of the squad, platoon, company or battalion would as well afterward by the initial person that got “chewed out”. That has to be the stupidest fucking concept I have ever witnessed. I understand that you need to maintain a level of “alpha dog” over your “pack”, but come the fuck on. Negative reinforcement is bullshit, and society has shown time and time again that it brings you barely any real results. The only way negative reinforcement works, is if you can actually do physical or psychological harm to the person (fascist dictator type shit), which is illegal in the US (aside from the military and their corrupt ass-backwards style of the legal system).

Basically, in short.. Don’t treat your employees like shit, and don’t just sit there and point fingers at them because *you* fucked up. Remember that without your employees, you wouldn’t have a business – period.

Friday I started work on the function to automatically collect data for any given game within our database. This required a modified version of the scraper script I wrote for MetaCritic.com. Pulling a game from our database, I rewrite it to MC’s URL standards ie. “Random Game Name: Goes Here” should be sent as “random-game-name-goes-here”. After rewriting the name, I simply pull the page with all the games details, parse through it and grab all the data to populate that specific row. I ran into a minor snag while pulling the publisher’s line. I had written a simple str_replace for single whitespace, but hadn’t thought they would use tabs – how stupid of me to think the developers of another website would actually use web standards. So I wrote an additional function to clean up any type of whitespace that I may encounter, be it a space, linebreak, tab or anything else.

Saturday I focused on the administration panel. I quite enjoy working in HTML5 and CSS3, and I have written the front-end of the admin panel in them (We can’t write the main website in html5 and/or css3 since not all browsers support them, yet). I started and finished the dashboard, member management and game management pages. Since this is a public blog, I can’t go into much more detail than that as it would be a security risk. I also went out to the Pittsford plaza with Nikki. Parking was horrendous. I drove around the parking lot for about 10 minutes before I found an empty spot. Parking at Wegmans was easier, and I didn’t have to back out – always a plus for me.

Today (Sunday) I set my focus on cleaning and consolidating code on the pages for the main site and space within the database. I had a broad idea of what I wanted to accomplish, so I set to work. First thing that had to be done, was removing the vast amount of space being used within the database for the timelines. I simplified it by creating a simple string split into three chunks (a|b|c). Not only will this save us an average of 82% space over a life-time, but it simplifies our job and allows us to create dynamic posts. Whereas having set posts would consume more resources trying to parse them all out piece by piece and use more space within our database. Checking the type of post (a), allows us to use the correct display template. B and C are used for the actual dynamic data, whether it be a user, game, or something else.

Now that I had written the basic string for dynamic posts, I had to convert the old code over and test it out. I hit a snag that had me randomly cursing to myself. Turns out I had missed a single character in one of my regex matches. Hate it when that happens… Fixed it, tested and works – yay! All posts are now dynamic, and can be changed through an array which can have strings added or removed at any time through the admin panel.

Think I’m done for the night, since my eyes are starting to tweak meaning that I need a break from staring at my lcd’s.

What can wait, and what can’t?

Sticking strictly with the original idea(s), notes and layout(s) is always the best way to develop a project, but there may be times when you sit down with your team or client and more ideas come up. You have to decide what can wait, and what can’t. There’s a few things you need to consider before you make the decision to archive the idea for after release.

Is it a necessity?
Does it need to be integrated in order for the website to function correctly?

How long will it take to write and integrate?
Time is always a big deal in the development stage. If it’s going to push your projected release back more than a month, you should make sure it’s something that has to be there prior to launch.

Will the database and SQL statements need to be edited or rewritten?
Having to go back and edit or rewrite SQL statements may seem trivial, but after your application is live you’re looking to decrease downtime. Changes to the database structure can prove to be more of a problem than it would be to spend a little more time on the initial development.

These are only a few questions that you should be asking yourself, your team and the client.

Your undivided attention.

Each project should get your undivided attention. This is why smaller web companies and teams tend to thrive more than their larger counterparts. Taking one project per team at a time will put you and your team(s) under a LOT less stress, and allow for the fastest completion of a project. Dealing with client’s one at a time is a lot easier than having an inbox or voicemail full of questions or ideas for multiple and then trying to sort them out in a timely manner.

Wait, what? I didn’t get that email..

Make sure everyone’s on the same page. It’s not fun trying to explain to a client that you’re behind because of no communication or someone not completely understanding what needs to be done.

Large companies make me lol irl.

Big companies tend to take mass projects at once, which put their developers (if they aren’t outsourcing to another country, which at least 1/3 do) in an extremely stressful situation as they’re usually assigned to more than one project at a time. Large companies tend to only see clients as dollar signs. Have you ever actually read some of the contracts these guys make you sign before they agree to developing your dream? Most have clauses stating that even if you back out of the development or postpone it, full payment will still be due. This – in my professional opinion – is wrong. I understand the need for profit, and that when a client cancels a project, you’re potentially losing out, but charge for work completed, not as a whole. This brings me to my next topic – source rights.

Source rights are the rights to the actual source code, images, etc. Many companies will charge you an additional fee for this, starting around $1,000 (lowest I’ve seen). This is mostly used for free advertising, as they can (and most likely will) place their companies name and web link on your front page. For the people that understand the basic concept of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you know that free link placement on your index is never something you want, unless it’s reciprocal. Even then, it depends on the quality of the web page yours is on.

If I were to create a social network right now, ask you for your name, home address, telephone numbers and email accounts, then go on to say “All information entered within this network can and will be broadcast to whomever asks for it.”. How many people do you think would enter any information? Social networks are not meant for sharing personal information outside of its own network. People do not want their information shared, and if you do so without consent of the user, you’re liable to all sorts of lawsuits.

His points were all directed towards the “openness” of the internet – being able to access all points of information without restriction. This is still done to a point – yes, even on social networking. See, there’s this little thing called personal security settings.. A user can choose to allow information to be picked up from search engines, and any other crawlers that may scan that site, but to allow for all of a users personal information to be shared.. Well now, you may just as well create a new database account, post the credentials for it on your front page and let everyone have at your members table.

And his views on Apple, although I agree with him, are pointless. You don’t sign up to Ebay to shop for goods sold on Amazon, do you?

Seriously, some people need to think about the foolish things they say before they talk – especially when it’s going to the media, and ultimately on to the web where it does what? Gets shared freely without restriction to the whole of the web.

Good game, dumbass.

You can view the article expressing Tim Berners-Lee’s views here.