Month: August 2010

Categories
Video Games

Dragon Quest IX Sentinels of the Starry Skies

Dragon Quest IXPicked up Dragon Quest IX a few weeks ago at Toys R Us, they had a fine deal where you got a $15 gift card with the purchase of the game. I was very proud of the fine deal I had gotten. I always was a fan of the JRPG since I played the first Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest series was called Dragon Warrior in the US) back in 1989 for the NES.

The mechanics and gameplay were what would be expected in such a game. It did make really cool use of multiplayer with up to 4 simultaneous players using Nintendo DS’s. This was really well done and it’s a shame I really didn’t play it on multiplayer much, as you could tell that the game was really meant to take advantage of multiplayer. If I were in 5th grade multiplayer wouldn’t been a must.

The graphics and sound were very impressive for a DS game, some of the finest I have played. Story was pretty solid too, and actually funny at times. I did get a little chuckle a few times. Between the main storyline and all the side quests there is much gameplay to be had with this title.

Categories
Development

Took care of pesky Smart Quotes with utf8_encode()

For the longest time I’ve had our writers at work who always copy from Word docs with Smart Quotes have our RSS feed balk when it encountered the Smart Quotes. I took many stabs attempting to replace them with standard quotes to no avail. It was one of those problems where I never really devoted a great deal of time at solving as it didn’t occur often enough to take me completely away from whatever issue I was then working on.

I just realized that the PHP utf8_encode() function which encodes an ISO-8859-1 string to UTF-8 does just that. Just a simple little function that’s been around a very long time was there just and I had overlooked it.

Now I just apply that function before outputting the data and so far so good. Just figured I’d share if someone else was running into this same issue.

Categories
Development

Automatic WordPress Backup

I just downloaded and installed the very cool Automatic WordPress Backup plugin. It automatically backups your WordPress blog to the Amazon S3 service. Since I already have an S3 account (which is awesome too by the way), this was an ideal solution for me.

Downloaded, install and setup took no more that 5 minutes tops. Not only was this incredibly easy to setup and manage, but it’s great to have backups not on the same server as my host or kept locally either. The only potential drawback would be that your host must be a Linux server, but this of course is not a problem for me.

If you have WordPress blog and an Amazon S3 account then this is most highly recommended.

Categories
Design

Building a Lego Sculpture Tips

I’ve recently completed a life size Lego sculpture of a Jack Russell Terrier as well as the head of a capybara. Using Legos as a creative platform has turned out to be even more fun than I anticipated it would be. However it can be a lot of work and get expensive rather quickly, so I will share my tips on how to build a Lego sculpture.

  1. Like any project you need to have a plan in place before you begin. Give it some good thought about what you would like to construct. Sketch something out on paper first or use the Lego Digital Designer to help you prototype before actual building. Discovering that something might not work in the planning phase could save you much time and money.
  2. Color – there is a limited color palette that is at hand. For instance, you’re going to find it to be very difficult if not impossible to find certain brick colors (good luck with purple). So be sure to be aware of any color limitations that you might run into.
  3. Amount of bricks necessary. This can be very difficult to gauge. I highly recommend using the Lego Digital Designer to assist you in figuring out just how many bricks might be necessary. I find that no matter how many bricks you have, you always somehow seem to need more.
  4. Next you’ll need to acquire bricks. You might want to start off asking people if they have some lying around that they wouldn’t mind parting with. This didn’t work out so great when I attempted, but free bricks is worth a shot. If you’re really serious you’re going to have to stock up at a Lego Store or online using the Pick a Brick. Stocking up of Brick Buckets always helps too.
  5. Now I begin the fun part, building. I tend to start with the area that will be the most detailed, then build around that. I found that approach to work best for me. Also be sure to give much thought to strength and stability when stacking bricks.
  6. That’s really it. I will ask others for their opinions and then make any adjustments if necessary. Usually end up needing to scrounge up even more smaller bricks to get more detail into the sculpture.
  7. Have fun and show off your masterpiece to everyone you know!