ThatJoshGuy.com

Okay, I guess Instant Messaging would be the correct term.   Someone finally got around to creating a working clone of the Facebook chat system, which I have greatly admired for it’s low profile and unobtrusive format.  Normally I try to code everything myself, but my JavaScript skills are less than adequate for something like this…

Thank god for CometChat!  This is a near-identical system that integrates with any website or forum.  The setup didn’t take too long once I understood what they were looking for, and I’m very happy with the result.  My one complaint is that it runs on jQuery, and I made extensive use of the Prototype library on the arcade and well, they don’t’ play well together.  For some reason though it’s not an issue on another site I run… odd.

Regardless, I now have a fully-functional user chat system that integrates with my friends list and doesn’t annoy me… Yippee!

IronWookieArcade.com – Home

Wow… Who knew that Microsoft could create something that worked well?

I’ve been playing around with all the Windows Live stuff, and I must admit I dig it.  The Windows Live Gallery works rather well (even though we don’t get TRUE facial recognition… ahh well, maybe next time) and the Gallery Sync keeps all of my photos in order between my desktop and laptop including tags.  Very cool!

Speaking of Live Sync, you can use it to keep any folder synced up between multiple computers, even someone else’s.  You can give someone else access to a shared folder (say, a folder of family pics) and any time you or they add a file to that folder, everyone gets an identical copy.  It’s a neat thing that has been done many times before, but never before has it been this well integrated… and it works.

I’m using Microsoft’s Writer add-in to write this blog post as well.  No real reason for it, except you can post to almost any blogging platform right from IE, and it will insert a cool link for you (see below).  Again, fairly useless, but it works well and does speed up the process a tiny bit.

Joshua Shreve’s Profile – Windows Live

As for the Windows Live site itself, well, it works.  It is cool in some ways, because it can tie in with Facebook and other social networking sites to not only update content there, but also display it all on the live site as well.  Kind of a catch-all for the folks that are all spread out.

And did I mention that with the Windows Live Toolbar, you can create custom  buttons and share them with everyone on the net?  I just made one for the wookie, lol.  It’ works very well indeed.

Good job Microsoft.  i dig it, if only mostly for the Gallery!

Here’s a quick little preview of the game I’ve been working on.  Not much to it yet, just developing some ideas and a visual style.

Click here to view the Game Test

And it’s about time too… I started work on a little platformer this week, and it’s looking good so far.  I won’t say much about it yet, as it’s still very early on, but it should be a fairly good little distraction.  Of course, any platformer is jsut a tribute to Mario, but I hope to develop enough of a story and visual style to set it apart from the masses. 

I think it will be more of an adventure style game than action, but we’ll see…  Updates shall be forthcoming!

Doh! I hadn’t realized that friend requests have been broken on the arcade for like, three months! Dang it all. Ahh well, it’s fixed now, lol.

I finally got around to adding recent tournament wins to the arcade profiles.  Its not like it was hard to do, I just never got around to it.  I’ve realized something about myself… When it comes to programming, I enjoy the part where you get things to work.  That’s awsome… but then you have to make it user-friendly, becasue after all its not for YOU, its for the USER.  I hate that part.

My advice: Imagine the dumbest, most computer illiterate person you can… Imagine that they will do everything wrong, every time… now make it work for them.  If you can do this without killing anyone, then your chances for success will double.

Alrighty, the Facebook integration works!  Sweet!

Now to find something to blog about…

So i’m going to try to keep a blog on all of my little projects and distractions… Supposedly it will tie in with facebook automatically as well (what will these wordpress developers think of next?).  If you see a lot of stuff posted in the next few days, it’s just me filling in the blanks