It has been roughly 36 episodes of the show now, and a fresh problem that was brewing has come to a head.
Storage.
Initially, when using my old webcam, it wasn’t so much of a problem… but then April came along and I switched to 1080p source and my storage pressures began to mount with every new episode.
You see, depending on how much I fluff my lines and amount of dialogue I spew out, an episode can devour between 10 and 30GB when you add the sources for each item. Despite my network capacity sitting at about 5TB, much of that is devoted to my rather large library of DVD rips and game ISO’s/maps/mods (all of which I own a paid for copy) - you see, I’m too lazy to compress them, and I now rue my penchant for “special editions”
Thankfully, I was forced to replace the 750GB HDD in my main rig due to bad sectors earlier this year and still had the buggered HDD to replace on warranty. So I raise the RMA and ship it off. Luckily, the store I purchased it from (since it was an OEM HDD) no longer stocked that model and was able to upgrade the 750GB into a 1TB for no extra cost - I really do love the pace of technology at times!
After a little pondering as to where this new drive was going to call home, I settled on plumbing it into my main windows rig - well, it can’t physically fit into my server (already sporting 2.75TB) and my NAS box is out of the question since it requires a pair of drives.
Drive in, formatted, shared and filled with the current archives with little trouble… until the 700GB is swallowed up at some point. Though, with any luck, I’ll have the cash to spend on a better and more long term solution. Think I need to start a Drobo fund >.<
Well, as the dust settles on moving from Leeds to Sheffield, my attention returns to working on Vertical Slice.
Not only did I finally crank out a new episode
But I’ve also been tweaking the new website over at dev.verticalslice.tv, not to mention filling it with all of the episodes produced so far. The plan is to migrate dev into being the new www and sliding the old tumblr based one into being a blog for the podcast.
Of course this means setting up a host for it, which I’ll get round to later on.
I’ve also split off the videos into its own account on youtube, this way I’ll be able to keep vertical slice content on its own and let me continue to upload utter trash without getting in the way.
Then there is the facebook presence.
So far, it had only been a group… A poorly visited group.
So, instead I have set up a fan page and hope to keep that updated and running instead of the languishing group. Of course, I could always do with extra fans - especially when you can secure a decent URL once you hit 100 fans.
Well, last night I suffered the C:\ on my main rig corrupting, guess that explains why the system had gone a little wobbly before I tried to reboot it.
This means I’m spending the day on my macbook while I have the HDD connected to my server for a little data recovery using Arax Disk Doctor, which has saved my arse a few times now (at a reasonable price too! No, I don’t work for them nor do I get any kickbacks!).
So, everything I was working on needed to migrate to there which means I discovered something… the text editor that comes with OSX sucks balls. Seriously, it totally screwed up the html/php I was working on causing the development site for Vertical Slice that I was playing with to break and not load. So, off I went hunting for a real editor.
I finally discovered a free one (since there are so many simple apps that people are trying to charge $70 and upwards for on OSX, definitely a better ecosystem on windows and linux). The editor I eventually decided upon is called Smultron. Well worth grabbing a copy if you want to edit html/php on your mac without paying stupid prices.
Oh, yeah… I kinda let slip about the next bit of news. I’m working on my own site for Vertical Slice rather than using tumblr to power it. This way I’ll be able to control how things look. Sadly, I don’t have any skills with PHP and SQL so I went on the lookout for an opensource CMS that lends itself to vlogging and came up with nothing.
There’s plenty of them for creating video sharing sites, but nothing specifically for a vlog. So, having had some experience with wordpress and being unimpressed with podpress, I thought I’d get down and dirty with a basic wordpress site.
The result is a totally stripped down interface crying for some tarting up sitting over at dev.verticalslice.tv. I’m trying to learn how to pick out parts of a post and arrange them into the site in the order I want - which is proving to be a difficult task when you lack a brain capable of writing code.
At the end of this endevour, I plan to release the theme for free so that there is a theme out there for a simple vlog site without having to pay a fortune.
Why bother with this when tumblr is doing a good enough job? Well, partly because I’d love to have the freedom to mod the site as I wish and partly because a friend of mine is offering to host it for me since they’re starting up their own business as a GSP (Gaming Service Provider). Basically they’ll have some servers in a datacentre, set them up with game servers and then rent them out. They’re looking to launch the service soon. I’ll post a link when I can remember what he said they were called >.<
While I have been stuck on my macbook today, I have done a couple of things. The first is to throw my hat into the ring for the Rocketboom Talent Search.
I think I’ve made a solid application and could certainly pick up where Joanne left off, though a little nagging voice in the back of my head is telling me “you don’t really stand a chance”. I guess we’ll see, I totally loved my time writing for them and feel I could add so much more than the other applicants, but then I would say that.. wouldn’t I?
The second thing was to finally get my interview with the code monkeys finalised and uploaded. This was my first ever interview and was the first time for Adrian, the guy I interviewed, so we both had nerves, lost our trains of thought and plenty of giggles at the camera (which I had placed in a very poor location).
The important thing for me, at least, is that I have finally conducted one and learned a hell of a lot from the experience. I hope you won’t be too savage when you do watch it - you will watch it, won’t you?
So, aside from waiting to see how the talent search goes, I’m stuck with the horrors of reinstalling the OS onto my main system and setting it back to how I like it.
That’ll be 4 hours of my life I can’t get back again
In preperation for when I finally get my hands on the cash I’m owed from my now ex place of work, I’m looking around for a new camcorder to finally provide decent quality video footage and help take Vertical Slice to the next level.
Currently I’m using my trusty Logitech Quickcam Pro 5000 for the video, which has allowed me to get the taste of creating my footage in digital files rather than piss about with tapes, which is one of the reasons why I won’t use my old minidv camcorder - the other being its worse performance than the webcam when it comes to lighting!
So, my choices are between a flash and a HDD based camcorder without breaking the bank (looking at a limit of about £250 to £300).
Problem is, I don’t really have much experience looking for these so a little advice would be greatly recieved. If you have any suggestions please drop them off into the comments
Well.. it has been a busy time over Christmas and deep into the first month of 2009.
I have put together the idea for a new video games show called Vertical Slice, have resurrected the Buttonmasher Test as one of the weekly shows for it and I have a live event planned for Leeds!
Hoping to kick things off on the first wed of February - I just need to advertise it.
I’ve also begun trying to figure out how to use the Source SDK and playing about with UnrealEd 3. Hopefully Valve will release the SDK for Left4Dead and I can try creating a space based campaign!
Here’s the couple of videos I produced recently:
Buttonmasher Test 13
Vertical Slice - Pilot
Also, I got my hands on the Multiwinia limited edition box set.. here’s a bunch of pictures for it.
A mission of NASA’s titled “Glory” is a satellite that will record levels of aerosols (natural and human made) and measure the amount of solar energy being radiated into the Earths atmosphere.
It will also be carrying with it a microchip containing all the names of people who sign up at this site.
You’ll have to hurry up tho, cause signups close on the 1st of November.
You’ll also get this little certificate of participation… still not as cool as being able to name an entire mission tho!
I appologise, I’m 5 days late for this since it happened on the 22nd. Please check out the OneWebDay site for the 2009 event.
For this years OWD I thought I’d cover the 14 or so years that I have been a citizen of the net.
Has it really been 14 years?
More than anything else, the net has really impacted my life and changed the way I do things, the circle of people I interact with and alters my world view more in 1 week than years without it.
Yet, I have to remind you that our great internet is under threat. The freedoms and borderless existance the internet represents has countless countries and corporations scared and concerned.
Through the abuse of technologies such as DPI, web proxies and QoS we are encountering ISPs that will restrict the use and/or bandwidth of specific apps and filters certain dangerous information under the guise of anti-piracy, anti-terrorism and chilld protection campaigns. Yet this is the digital equivelant of burning books (blocking access) and misinformation (altering the data in the stream before it reaches you).
Then we have the assumed - grossly mistakenly - beneign use of DPI in order to extort money out of your privacymonetise their customers in behavioural tracking and analysing in order to serve you ads by scum such as Phorm in the UK and NebuAd in the USA. I recommend everyone reads The Register’s fantastic coverage of this governmental corruption laden scheme. Your jaw will struggle to get up off the floor once you see what is being done under the guise of “improving your net experience”.
Because, in their twisted little minds, the net is such a better place when the adverts are relevant to our interests - ignoring the fact that 99% of people consider ads on the net to either be noise or simply a stopgap measure to fund a cool site until a real revenue stream can be found.
If you happen to visit a site that finds its way onto the government No-No(tm) list then you can expect a knock on your door and your equipment stolen.
Your crime? Reading and learning.
By all means, keep tabs on things but knowledge should never be restricted just because some people might use it to do bad things. This is a very slippery slope that we really shouldn’t tread.
Information should be set free, hopefully the taste of freedom we have gained so far will be strong enough for us to fight for it.
For if we don’t protect it, the greatest development of the modern world will become a sterile, government and corporate sanctioned waste of time.
An otherworldly conversation between some ladies working in a Cafe and myself got the cogs running in my head.
The subject was of accessories. They were, without trying to sound stereotypical here I assure you, complaining about the shady dealings of a market stall operator and their knockoff fashion items.
Having nothing better to do, I chimed in and innocently suggested they should just stop going there if the guy is being a little underhanded in his already dodgy commercial practices. This was greeted by crows of "but where else can I get £600 handbags for £150 from?".
£250 worth of what exactly?
Jaw. Hit. Floor.
600 quid for a fucking handbag? What else does it do apart from dangle from your arm and be of insufficient capacity to hold even a quarter of what you wish to carry around with you?! Is there a new kinda bag that provides bidet functionality? Maybe it handles your stocks and shares portfolio while you’re staggering around in a drunken stupor?
"They’re accessories" one of them indignantly retorted.
But what does it do that warrents such a price tag?
I mean, my 24" monitor cost about as much as that bloody handbag but it enriches my life with information, revenue and more. A handbag that cost more than my recently purchased PC? Madness, surely!
What drives a person to spend that much on what is nothing more than an extra bit of material. If it were encrusted in gems and prescious metals I could begin to understand a weighty price tag.
However, it sparked off a line of thought I didn’t expect. Trying to rationalise away what appeared to me as insane spending habits struck upon my own habits.
Electronic accessories. Sometimes with just as little purpose behind them as the item that just this moment astounded me by its price tag.
My £80 Logitech MX Air gyro mouse. I don’t use it for anything more than a remote control for my TV PC in the bedroom. Hardly value for money.
My Wii that sits there, unloved and gathering dust because I’m struggling to find games that really grip me.
Another £180 I could have spent on something else! They would have spent that on a pair of designer "distressed" jeans where it already looks like it has been ravaged and pissed on by someones nutcase dog.
A drawer full of USB doo-dads that looked cool or filled a pretend function that I didn’t need anyway.
The multitude PDA’s I’ve owned in my life. Foolishly thinking that I could do so many cool things with but, inevitably, all end up in the same drawer as my USB skype phone or that cute sound activated "robotic" dog I just had to have for £20.
I couldn’t explain away much of these to the ladies who are equally as stunned to hear that I thought anything more than £50 for a handbag was excessive as I am to discover a handbag that costs a stonking £600. Regardless of whether it was made in the same Indian sweatshop as a £5 handbag, which is pretty much the same in the technology world, since most of the £20 mp3 players will be made alongside the expensive ipods and irivers. The similarities are mind bending!
Sure, some of my toys can provide entertainment and functionality that easily beats a pair of high heeled shoes or a scarf but they both end up on our own version of my dis-used gadget drawer eventually.
So, instead of outraging at the cost of a pair of flipflops (How on earth can people charge £30 to £60 for them?!) maybe we geeks should remember our own "accessories" obsession and afford a bit of compasion to those dedicated followers of fashion.
After all, could you explain to them why an optimus maximus keyboard is worth the huge cost when to them, it’s nothing more than a keyboard you can buy for £5?
Loha, with it being International Talk Like A Pirate Day, I thought it was a perfect charrrrrnce to break out the pirate costume and spend the day remembering pirates.
This is cause, well.. as I mentioned on FriendFeed yesterday, I actually have pirates in my family!
Specifically a guy named Benjamin Hornigold who is known for training up a lesser known pirate called Blackbeard!
Then, as if that wasn’t enough my other parent is from Viking stock!! No wonder I’ve always had an affinity for water and the sea in particularrrrr
Anyway, here’s some more pictures of me looking darrrrrrrrft!
£250 worth of what exactly?
