Categories
Video Games

Super Mario 3D Land

Super Mario 3D LandI did pick up a Nintendo 3DS a few months back when they dropped the price. But I really hadn’t played any of the 3DS titles on it just yet. There really wasn’t anything that great that had been released in my opinion.

However, when Super Mario 3D Land was released I was sure to pick up a copy right away. I mean, it’s Super Mario in 3D after all. Something I’d of given many rupees years ago to of experienced.

The game was great, and really showcases just how amazing 3D gaming on the 3DS can be. Nothing felt forced or gimmicky, it just works. The production values are top notch, like you would expect from a top tier Nintendo title.

At first the whole 3D can be a bit daunting, but just a few minutes in you’re easily immersed  and can judge jumps like a pro.

The first bBowser fight was really impressive to me. The fire that he throws at you really jumps off the screen and adds an element of hurry to your actions. I felt like a little kid, it was great.

The only drawback is that the game isn’t very challenging to a Mario veteran. However, it’s not so simple as to bore.

An amazing game and a reason in itself to buy a 3DS. Very impressed and looking forward to more A-grade titles.

Categories
Development Projects website

Christ Episcopal Church of Somers Point

Christ Episcopal Church of Somers PointA few months ago one of my co-workers, the Admiral told me that her mom’s church was having issues updating their website: http://christchurchsomerspoint.org. Apparently the guy who developed and was assisting them with their site had gotten busy and was no longer able to support them in a timely manner. She asked if I’d be interested in working with them, and I said sure, why not.

My contact Mark came from a tech background. This really made explaining options a breeze and he had a very realistic expectation of what could be expected. He wanted to stick with the current site design and navigation with incorporating a modern CMS (content management system) so that they could manage the site’s content on their own.

After a short meeting and review, it became pretty apparent that Drupal would be a perfect fit for their CMS needs. I gave him a quick Drupal demo and he agreed as well. He was actually very much impressed and excited with what Drupal would offer them out of the box.

I also suggested that they try out Dreamhost for their hosting needs. Dreamhost offers free hosting for non-profits, and free is very hard to beat. I wasn’t sure if the free shared hosting plan would be good enough to support a Drupal site, but thus far it’s been great and looks to be a perfect fit for them.

The majority of their content needs were rather basic, but they did want the ability to upload and share mp3’s of their weekly sermons. Thankfully there were some great modules available that we were able to build upon.

Here’s a list of the modules used by their site:

  • audiofield
  • calendar
  • ctools
  • date
  • entity
  • file_entity
  • libraries
  • media
  • pathauto
  • token
  • views
  • views_slideshow
  • webform
  • wysiwyg

As you can see most are the standard site modules, but the audiofield was a new one to me and really solved the issue of uploading and playing mp3 files. It worked great.

I built the site on the Zen theme, which really made things easy to get started. Just chunked up their existing site into regions and blocks and styled things up from there.

After meeting with them to train them on using Drupal to manage their site, they were extremely pleased and enthusiastic to get started. It really felt great to know that I was able to deliver such and excellent solution for them at a very affordable price. I’m really glad I took on this project and can’t wait to see how well they do keeping content up to date.

Categories
Adventure

Mutter Museum

SkeletonsI asked the Shepherd to come up with some destinations for a recent adventure. Apparently he recently heard about a strange museum somewhere in Philadelphia. With a little bit of searching we came across the Mutter Museum. We were now determined to seek out this fine establishment.

The plan had us departing no later than 10:00 am. This meant I would have to call the Shepherd at 9:30 to wake him and possibly come over and manually wake him if necessary. Amazingly, when I called him that morning he was already awake and ready to go. If you know him then you may not believe the previos sentence, but honestly it is true.

The ride over wasn’t too bad, there really wasn’t much traffic to deal with. It took us a few extra turns to get there, but nothing too out of the way.

Paying for street parking was very difficult. It wouldn’t accept my debit card despite several swipes nor would it take our $5 dollar bills. Apparently there was a $4 limit on it. Luckily I did have some singles and began to feed them one at a time.

This took a very long time, for some reason it was a struggle for this wretched machine to take my money. Finally with my fingers numbing from the frigid cold it just shot out our parking receipt. And when I mean shot out, it went onto the street and the wind took it for a little ride as well. Eventually I was able to pin it down with my foot, but I’ve sure I gave some people a very entertaining show attempting to pay for parking.

We walked a block the the museum and used 2 interent coupons the Shepherd printed out to save $2 each on admission. I’ve never seen him so organized, and frankly it was rather strange. But I saved $2 and that was nice.

Inside it was very nice, but sadly no photography was allowed. We were both shocked at just how busy it was. We clearly expected to be the only fools to partake in such an adventure on this day, but apparently others shared our interest as well.

The various exhibits were for the most part extremely morbid. I can’t say that I was a fan. While I can see the medically value in documenting and sharing such things that were on display, I felt at times dirty for viewing many of the exhibits.

There was a wall of skulls, with some dating back hundreds of years. Samples of Einstein’s brain were featured as well.

The most disturbing exhibits to me were the numerous jars of fetuses and siamese one’s on display. That was very creepy. Also the assortment of old tools was strange as well. They had there tongs that were used to crush a babies skull, yuck.

Oh, and cast of a 70 pound cyst creeped me out as well. It was huge.

Afterwards we walked around Philly for a little bit. However it was freezing outside and extremely windy, so that didn’t last very long.

On the way home I realized that we were near The Pop Shop, which is a restaurant that I went to previously with NGM after a run a while back. I suggested that we go there to get a bite to eat. It was just as amazing as I had remembered. I got a humongous grilled cheese and ate more fries than a man should be able to.

All in all a very successful albeit bizarre adventure. And I’ve very glad for my health.

Categories
Books

Steve Jobs

Steve JobsI was very glad when I saw that the library had the Steve Jobs biography available. I’ve been really looking forward to reading it since it’s release.

Despite being a rather lengthy book, I read through it pretty quickly. I’ve always been a big fan of Apple since we got an Apple ][ in our 2nd grade classroom. When Mr. McClaren came in to demo it to our class, it was truly one of the highlights of my young life.

The book was great. Despite already knowing a lot about Steve, there was very much in the biography that I didn’t know already. The book also wasn’t too slanted to one view in my opinion. It really seemed as though the author kept if very objective as an excellent biography should be in my opinion.

Even though I knew that Steve passed away not too long ago, it was very sad to read towards the end. Because it’s a book, I strangely was still rooting that somehow there could be a different ending.

If you have any interest in Apple, business, or just want an interesting read, I highly recommend this.

Categories
Adventure

Christmas 2011

Just finished up the exchanging of gifts with the family. We had Anthony on Skype so he could partake as well. Still amazes me the communication tools we have at hand.

Everybody seemed to enjoy what I had gotten them. I had a Wal-Mart gift card sent to Ant (I think that’s the only store down in Florida where he lives), an espresso maker and a sauce pan for my dad, a Macy’s gift card for my mom, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Halo Anniversary for Frank.

My dad thought that the espresso machine was a really big purchase, but I calmed him down when I told him how cheap I got it on Black Friday at Target. He proclaimed me the greatest shopper ever.

I also got Elvis the Dog a holiday platter which he went crazy over. It was the duck one and he went for the dinner roll first, then the corn on the cob.

I got some pretty cool stuff from the family this year too:

  • Nike+ SportWatch GPS
  • NorthFace Bionic Jacket
  • Coleman Portable Electronics Charger
  • sling chair
  • snow shovel
  • socks (3 heavy pairs)

All in all a fine exchanging of gifts. With no crazy stressful fights or anything like that.

Categories
Books

Ghost in the Wires

Ghost in the WiresWent back to some nonfiction for my latest read. Noticed Ghost in the Wires in the new arrivals sections. Since it claimed to be about the adventures of the world’s most wanted hacker and there was a forward by Steve Wozniak it was worthy of a read.

As a web developer I found it to be very interesting. While for some reason I was expecting more of some crazy hollywood hacks (even though I know how fake they are in the movies), it was very interesting to see of off the old fashioned social engineering techniques that were used. I always tell people that most hacks are a result of human error (giving out passwords, login, etc.) and the author certainly confirmed this.

The author’s hacks were great. It’s amazing to hear of his workarounds of the phone services. Very impressive stuff. Most of it was just a little bit before my time, but I would recall hearing some of the tales as he told them.

I also really enjoyed remembering all the various tech that was so prevalent in the 80’s and early 90’s that I sometimes forget about. VMS, Sun, some really great times.