Author: Joe

Categories
Video Games

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

A Link Between Worlds

I do think A Link Between Worlds might be my new favorite video game. Not only was it a sequel to the Link of the Past that c

ame out so many years ago on the SNES, but it was just really good. It brought back all the old awesomeness but also new and great too.

It also was pretty challenging as well, which is refreshing. Too many new games are simply easy to beat. I do kinda miss those impossible spots when I was a kid, and this had a few tough ones. There was a lot of thought put into some of the puzzles.

I knew I was really enjoying this when I went out of my way to collect all of the little Maiamai creature things. I was kinda doing my best at the end to extend the fun instead of defeating that last dungeon.

Excellent game, and yet another fine reason to own a trusty 3DS. Perhaps one of my all time favorites.

Categories
Adventure

2013 Holiday Gift Exchange

Holiday Gift Exchange 2013

It’s kinda hard to believe but this was the seventh Holiday Gift Exchange we’ve had it work. What really set this one apart to me from previous exchange’s was easily the amount of turnover in participants this year. We lost a lot of great stalwarts due to retirement, or employment elsewhere.
With all the change, I felt this would be the second most important exchange besides the very first one that set the precedent of awesomeness. This exchange had to work and work well if it were to have any hope of carrying on.

Even with several new faces this year, our numbers were still down a bit with nine participants. However, those participants really brought a great deal of energy and fun to the event. It was great!

What really added to the fun was the amazing amount of steals this year. I really should have counted them all, but they just kept coming. It was very funny and really made things interesting.

Wine and gift cards seemed to be very popular. Star Wars themed mugs is what I would end up with. Darth Vader, Chewbacca and Yoda mugs to be specific.

I was extremely please by the success of the event and thrilled that everyone had so much fun. Good times!

Categories
Books

Fantasy Life

Fantasy LifeAs a former player of fantasy football (I believe 6 seasons under my belt), I was interested in reading Fantasy Life. Though I’ve been happily retired from playing fantasy sports, I thought it would be fun to read through some tales involving fantasy sports, as I was a c0-commissioner of a league as well as a player.

Most of the stories and examples in the book were spot on to experiences I had during my playing years. The ridiculous intense competition, sense of community, etc. it was all pretty spot on to what I went through.

However, what I never liked about fantasy sports and what ultimately led me to retire was what I felt they were taking away from sports.

I never liked how fantasy took the focus from the team and put it on a player. Gone were the days of sitting back and watching a competitive game with friends to now flipping through channels and staring at websites all after noon just to see a touchdown in a meaningless game.

I do miss the days of watching a game for the drama and excitement of how it would unfold, not knowing the conclusion until the last whistle. However fantasy sports has taken that aspect of watching sports away a bit whenever I watch with friends now. This book kinda reminded me of that loss.

Categories
Books

Dogfight – How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution

DogfightWhile I’ve been quite a avid reader the past few years, every now and then I find something new that’s really in the field I work in. I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed Dogfight at my library and immediately decided to give it a read.

It details the ongoing battle between the iOS and Android platforms. From how the iPhone was created up until the current battle. I especially found the early iPhone development stories to be most interesting. I can’t imagine how much fun (and stress) it would be to be on a team developing a completely new product. That’s got to be insanely rewarding.

The author did a pretty solid job of not favoring one side too much in the book. While I don’t agree that there has to be one winner in the mobile phone battle, it was still a very interesting read. I do believe that there is enough room for two or even three platforms to exist. I don’t think it’s quite the same as the Windows vs Mac battles of the 80’s and 90’s.

Even if you don’t work in technology you might want to give this one a shot. We all pretty much use smartphones and this does give a good tale on the high stakes events that are still ongoing. Very interesting.

 

Categories
Video Games

Pokemon Y

Pokemon YI know I’m a grown man, but I still had to play Pokemon Y on the 3DS. There’s just something a bit addictive about the formula to those games.

I started my quest with Chespin. I wanted to start off with someone a lot different for me than in previous games. Plus he looked kinda cool to me.

I was very much impressed with the increased visuals used on the 3DS. Everything was finally made more modern and in 3D. It was really cool to see the little critters rendered in 3D. They just seemed better.

While this wasn’t a very challenging quest (I think I lost once), it was still a fine quest that was taken. It’s a great little way to pass a little free time here and there.

The formula still works, and the upgraded visuals and overall quality were very solid.

Categories
Development

Display a Field Image Outside of the Content Region in Drupal 7 Using Views

I had a project where they wanted a big header image to appear on some of the content pages, above the content. I knew this wouldn’t be too difficult to do, but I was a bit initially stumped as to how best to do it using Drupal 7. I didn’t want to have to install too many modules for it to work, so I decided to start with Views as that module would be installed on the site anyway (of course).

Turns out this is pretty easy to do using Views.

  • First I added an Image field to my Content Type. Then I set the display to Hidden for that field. Easy basic Drupal Content Types stuff so far. Nothing fancy.
  • Then I created a View. A block in this case, and had it display the image field I had created.
  • Under Advanced, I clicked on Contextual Filters. From the list, I chose Content (Nid). I want to filter out by the node id of the current page being viewed. Simple still.
  • Next under the contextual filter options under the When the Filter Value is Not Available  I chose Provide a Default Value and Content ID from the URL from the drop down options.

This simply gets the Content ID from the URL of the current page you are on and then passes it to the filter.

Very easy to setup and works just fine for me!