Category Archives: Rant

Babies, First Flight Overseas

2:33
So here I am in the international departure lounge for my first international flight. I’m writing this about 2:33pm. My gate opens at 3:10, with the plane taking off around 3:40.

CJ and I did the duty free store – there was hardly anything. CJ tells me to wait till I see Sydney’s duty free area – much better a selection. That said, I’ve never seen such a big bottle of Baileys or such a big bar of Toblerone in my life.

I’m listening to the Daily Source Code on my iPod. I really like listening to podcasts – they fill time so well, and there is always something interesting to listen to. IT Conversations especially.

If you can’t tell, I’m rambling. I try to blog when I have something interesting to say, but today, I’m blogging for the sake of blogging. An almost-live thought-dump if you like, seeing as I’m not posting this till I get onto some sort of internet connection.

I’ve told a few people that I used to have this recurring dream that I’d be flying to somewhere in the world, and I’d get to the other country, get to customs and I’d forgotten my passport; I’d left it on my desk at home. Of course, that’s not possible, because you need to show your passport before you get into the international departure lounge, but I was pretty scared that I’d forget something pretty important by the time I got to Australia.

I’m pretty excited about getting to Sydney. The flight is just a necessary boredom between here and there, even though I’ve never left New Zealand before; yes, this is the first time in my life.

I hope I can get a bed at wakeup tonight. The place looks pretty trendy from the website, but if I get there about 8pm on a Wednesday night, I’m concerned that they won’t be able to put me up.

. . .

So here I am on the Airbus A320 to Sydney. I don’t know what time it is, because I don’t know what time zone I’m in right now, and I my cellphone is off. (EDIT: When I wrote this, I didn’t think to look at the time on my laptop.) I’m in row 5 behind, the 2nd row from the front of the main cabin, behind Business Class. I can’t recommend this seat, because the front row of business is equipped with bassinets for baby travel, and there’s three babies traveling with us today. After 3.25 hours of this I can imagine I’ll be all “Argh! SHUT IT OFF SHUT IT OFF!”

It’s lovely above the clouds. I wish I could tell you how high we are.

OK, on goes the podcasts – damn babies.

11:33
So I got into Sydney about 5:30. I say 5:30 because there was a HUGE line at customs. But once we got into Sydney proper, we drove off to the centre of town to the Mercure where CJ was staying. The bellhop at the Mercure gave me bum directions to Wake Up, and I ended up walking around nearly the entire railway station. Man they have some really long pedestrian subways in Sydney; so long infact that in this particular subway there were two buskers who weren’t within earshot of each other.

So eventually after asking some random people where this place was I found it. It’s a really nice place – trendy, and really busy. I’m in a six-share with five other girls.

So I went to wake up’s bar “Side Bar” – a fitting name for a guy who’s a web developer. I ordered the special of the day (Steak & Kidney Pie + a pint – WTF, I hate kidney!) and grabbed a seat with some randoms. Backpackers are friendly people, always ready to strike up a conversation – I guess this is of necessity, as people don’t know anyone, and are looking for people to hang out with. I met two people from the US, one from Denmark and one from France.

Right now I’m lying on my bed typing on the laptop. It’s hard to keep my head up, especially with all the beer I just consumed. I should save this and go to sleep. BTW, I’m typing all this into Word, as there’s no public wifi available from this room.

Actually, there is, but it’s pay wifi, so I went and hunted down a AUD$20 Telstra PhoneAway card. So I’ll post this now and hit the sack.

No photos as yet. Will take photos at the conference tomorrow

Life Outside Rant Web Essentials 05 1 comment

Comment Spammers from Australia

Dear comment-spamming morons at foundagency.com.au, and their customers who probably didn’t know better at allrealestate.co.nz

Hi. I don’t appreciate it what you’re doing with the blogs that I manage, subverting its intended purposes so that you can make money, by creating comments on my stories for the sole purpose of having a link to a site you are “SEO-ing”.

My blogs are:

  • http://www.webfroot.co.nz

You might notice that both of these blogs use the rel="nofollow" attribute on links entered using the comments form. Google openly IGNORES any links with this attribute applied to it by not giving any of that page-rank goodness to the target site that you’re trying to achieve. More information here at the Official Google Blog and Google’s site itself.

While I appreciate your SEO company has hungry employee mouths to feed, I’d appreciate it that you’d take your scum-of-the-earth “optimisation techniques” and retire them.

What I am demanding you do:

  1. Continue to use Ethical SEO techniques, but stop using the unethical techniques, like the link spamming you’re doing right now. See Wikipedia’s entry on Search engine optimisation for more info on ethical and unethical SEO techniques.
  2. Stop mis-using other people’s blogs to pimp your wares.
  3. If you MUST spam peoples blogs, at the very least, don’t waste your time with blogs that use rel="nofollow".
  4. Remove my blogs from your un-ethical blog-abusing SEO machine.
  5. Stop selling lies to companies that you can improve their ranking on Google.

I’ve posted this communication on my blog for all to see at this URL. And you’ll note that the links to your websites have rel="nofollow" applied to them.

Screw you guys,

Brett Taylor

UPDATE: Zak from The Found Agency just contacted me on my cellphone from Sydney, and after a short friendly chat I have provided him with the comment records from my databases. He was really friendly and deadly serious about looking into it within their organisation, which is a real credit to FoundAgency. I really appreciated the call, Zak 🙂

As the email address on the comments entered was the main reason for tying the comment to The Found Agency, it’s true that they could have been framed. I checked their site, and saw they did SEO stuff, and one of their clients was a real-estate website. It could have been entered into the form by anyone — but it got past my spam filter, so it’s unlikely that it was automated.

He also saw that I was coming over to Sydney next week for WE05, and invited me to The Found Agency offices to see what they do and how they are not blog spammers, which I intend to do. If it turns out that I was wrong, I guess I’ll be buying Zak a beer 😉

HAPPY ENDING: Turns out Zak is buying the beer 😉 It turns out that a new employee got over-eager to impress at his new job, and that employee has now been put to the task of collating a list of the sites he posted to, and I’ve been told that The Found Agency will be apologising personally to the owners of those sites.

Good has been done here. A problem solved. I’m going to be dropping by The Found Agency while I’m in Sydney, and I’ll report back. I hope that I’ll be able to come away from this meeting and recommend The Found Agency in the future! They certainly took this seriously and are taking excellent steps to rectify this occurance, which is highly commendable.

Blogging Internet Rant 2 comments

John C. Dvorak vs Creative Commons

I think John C. Dvorak, a prominent column writer for US PC Magazine missed the point of Creative Commons in his latest column. Did he even WATCH the flash animation? Has he read Free Culture? Screw him. He’s spreading FUD.

He would have learnt that Creative Commons is a way to grant everyone permission to use your works in certain ways without giving up your copyright, encouraging a world where you don’t have to hire a pack of rabid lawyers just to clear permissions. “Permission is already granted”.

Creative Commons is about encouraging creativity. Because creativity always builds on the past. But the past is wrapped up in red tape. So we have CC licences that allow those who would build upon your work to cut through that red tape.

It’s not hard to understand. Less Lawyers = Good Thing.

Sure, adding a CC licence to your blog might be ‘trendy’, and I can safely assume very few, people, if any, are going to take my blog posts and build something new and exciting from them. But what’s wrong with saying “I don’t mind if you do”, even if the chances of that happening are slim-to-none?

John C. Dvorak, I thought you were cool, working with Chris Pirillo on that book of yours and all. I do realise this is an opinion piece, but come on, it feels a bit premature. You really should do your damned research.

Blogging Creative Commons Internet Rant Reading Comments are closed

Web Designers and Typography

This is a rant.

Design is a mis-used word today, and leads to much confusion in the Web industry today. I consider myself a “Web Developer”, because I’m a developer. But people categorise me as a Web Designer. Yes, I design things, but I don’t do asthetics as well as I do functionality.

According to Web Design From Scratch, Design is a spectrum. Something that is well designed will be an appropriate balance between Asthetic design and Functional design. Designing the Asthetics is the art of creating something visually conveys an emotion or brand. Designing the Function is the art of making something useful.

Even though I’m a programmer and focus on the functional end of the spectrum of design, I rely on the so-called “Web Designer” (who is in charge of asthetics) to make the application look good, and every time in my life I have been sorely disappointed.

Why is this? Web Asthetic Designers too often focus on the “wrapping of the content”; That is to say all they do is the graphics that surround a body of text. They might stipulate a font, colour and point size for the text, but that’ll be it.

What about Bullet points? Blockquotes? Sub-headings? The asthetic design of web forms? Text-boxes? Buttons? Photo positioning and balance? Captions? Source Attribution? Even simple things like link colours are sometimes forgotten.

Too many times I have recieved a “letterhead” — a webpage design that is essentially a blank piece of paper save for an asthetically pleasing header and navigation. Don’t get me wrong, I need someone to do that part, but I also need someone to tell me how to fill that blank space in a manner that doesn’t clash with the template.

As a programmer who appreciates asthetically-pleasing, yet gloriously-functional-design, but as someone who is less capable to create the asthetics (but doing his best), I would appreciate a web designer who can provide a great site presentation and provide a style guideline for laying out content within the template they provide. Is that too much to ask?

—

People say you can tell when a programmer has designed a webpage because it doesn’t look pretty. One web agency I worked for it would call it “Programmer Art”. But I can tell when a designer has half-designed a webpage, because the programmer’s user interface is clashing with the design of the site.

Oh, and don’t think I’ve forgotten that Programmers also have a responsibility to make their applications user friendly. But that’s a whole different rant.

Internet Rant Web Design Work 7 comments

Finished Doukutsu Monogatari

Yup, I finally finished Cave Story! Not to spoil it for you, but there are some REALLY nasty bosses towards the end.

For those who haven’t read the post on Webfroot about this game, , Doukutsu Monogatari (Japanese for “Story of the Cavern”) was developed in 2004 in Japan. It’s probably the most fun freeware game I’ve ever played and finished to some degree (more on that later). Now, I’ve played the english fan-translated version, and thoroughly enjoyed it — it’s got a great start, the gameplay is superb, and the plot is intriguing and fun.

The Hook
You start the game with a cut scene of some dude in a room with what seems to be a broken teleporter trying to chat to someone through a computer who isn’t there. The game starts. You’re in a room, weaponless, and there’s a door, and you know nothing else. You soon find a weapon and then more of this dude chatting away. You eventually figure out what to do next and you’re dropped into a village of cute sentient rabbit-like ‘Mimigas’, or what’s left of them, and the conflict is revealed. The sheer mystery of everything in this game is a fascinating start, and draws you in like a good first chapter of a book, and doesn’t stop.

The Line
Cave Story is a platformer game that looks distinctly like a game you’d expect to see on a NES, except this game is for the PC, and was made in 2004. It’s got instant retro charm. Even though the graphics are all really beautiful, cute 2d sprites, all the characters, monsters and scenery graphics are highly polished, and definitely draw you in.

You start with a simple pistol, and as you kill things, orange triangles drop charging the weapon’s power bar up, with it eventually levelling up into a more powerful variation. Each of the weapons in the game levels up three times, with the different weapons forming a powerful arsenal, which feels out of place with the cutesy retro graphics. Some weapons (like the secret ‘Bubbler’) are crap until you get them to level 3, but I found myself sticking to the machine gun and the missile launcher when I really needed it.

The sheer number of monsters keeps the game fresh the whole way through. Some of the monsters reappear on each new level — initially you think you’re up against the same monsters you faced in the previous level, they’re just a different colour. But no, they either move differently or shoot or fly or something unexpected, which really keeps you on your toes. Some non-boss monsters only appear once or rarely, like the haunted door at the end of the first level and the eye-bricks that crush you, which is adds strangely to the mystery of this game.

There are some good fun puzzles sprinkled through the game that you have to solve to proceed; these help grow the plot and game universe, but are standard adventure-platform fare, ranging from “figure out how to open this door” to “find components for >npc< to build you >plot advancing item<. You have a small inventory which you can use to change weapons while pausing, but it mostly serves little purpose save for activating a few important items.

As you progress in the game, more details are revealed about the character you’re playing, where you are, what is actually happening with all these Mimigas being abducted by an evil doctor and his minions.

The relationship between the powerful #2 Misery and her incompetent sidekick Balrog is entertaining; the conflict between Sue and the other Mimigas is mysterious; the strange presence of a handful of humans who look nothing like you; and the strange qualitys of — the game is one huge mystery! The sheer number of truly interesting and charming characters who you will care about are all interwoven in a great tapestry of a story, which will keep you trying to defeat that next tough boss. The plot, along with the gameplay, are the best parts of this game.

The music is also really neat, with a distinctly chip-tune feel to it. Looking and listening to the game, people will ask if you’re playing an emulator 🙂

Oh and the BOSSES! This game has enough bosses to challenge even the mightest of small corporations! They do start out easy, but by the end of the game, you’re wondering if the boss after boss after multiple bosses will ever end, and you’re praying for a savepoint!

The Sinker
According to the translators, the game has three distinct endings, two of which I have found. After reading a walkthrough of what I just did, apparently the third way is the true hero’s ending to the game, which thankfully the walkthrough tells you how to activate the plotline switches, but doesn’t guide you through the true ending. The two endings I have found feel downright disappointing and like finishing a Sonic game without the Chaos Emeralds, respectively, so I’m probably gonna play through the entire game again.

The game has a single save slot, which sucks because I can’t just go back to that plot switchpoint. Also, this means you sholudn’t save the game when showing the start of the game to your friends (not that I got bitten by this one).

The Verdict
Cave Story takes the best parts of the old and now-dying 2d platformer genre, injects a heafty dose of original challenging gameplay into it, showers it in fascinating characters, weaves into it an immensely intriguing story, while still staying true to it’s console inspiration to create an incredibly fun game to play and conquer, one you’ll want to be playing again in a few years time to relive the story.

The game is freeware, but puts many of the modern shareware games I can think of to shame. 10 years earlier and released on the NES or Mega Drive and I believe this would have been a mainstream classic.

I recommend this to anyone who misses the Commander Keens, Metroids and Castlevanias of yesteryear, and enjoys a good story.

Doukutsu Monogatari weaved it’s way into my heart. An underground independant gaming classic. A Must Play.

Vitals:

  • Windows 98, 2000, XP
  • Requires DirectX 5.0 or better
  • Also available for Mac
  • 6MB when installed
  • Download Windows English 1.0.0.5 from the Doukutsu Monogatari page on Home of the Underdogs

More Information:

  • Studio Pixel — authors of the original Japanese game (see Doukutsu Monogatari page)
  • Aeon Genesis – the translators of the game (see Doukutsu Monogatari page)
  • Doukutsu Monogatari on Webfroot
  • Doukutsu Monogatari on 1up.com
  • Google Search for “Doukutsu Monogatari”
Games Rant 16 comments