Categories
Development

Google Visualization Pie Chart

Haven’t played around with the Google Visualization API in a little bit, so I was quite pleasantly surprised to learn of some very nice new features and improved documentation since my last encounter. Mind you, it was very impressive to me 18 or so months ago, but now has gotten better in so many ways.

First off,  the getting started examples are great and can get anyone with basic web skills making static or interactive charts in no time. The Code Playground is also very useful to play around with, making changes and seeing the result on the fly is very convenient.

The new pie chart is great. It’s improved appearance and tool tips are very welcomed. It has a much more polished look to them.

Here’s an example I threw together in just a few minutes.

Categories
Video Games

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2Finished playing through Mass Effect 2, and have to admit I’m pretty sad to be done it. It was one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played in a very long time. Improving on the first one which was great itself in most everyway.

You know a game is really good when you play through every side quest before going through the final chapter, I really didn’t want it to end. The characters and choices that you must make are amazing. I was honestly really sad when Tali died during my final mission. She was a very loyal Quarian and her sacrifice was not in vein.

I made my character and Engineer, figured that would be a bit different than using some of the more typical classes. The leveling up system and loyalty quests were a really cool idea. I also enjoyed mining various planets to unlock power-ups etc. I thought that was a very cool approach.

Production values by BioWare were amazing. I couldn’t imagine how much effort went into making this. Even the voice acting was spot on, with Martin Sheen voicing the creepy Illusive Man.

I’m really considering playing through this again, it really was that good. Best sci-fi experience around (movies, tv, etc.).

Categories
Books

Foundation Drupal 7

Foundation Drupal 7I’ve been reading up on any and all documentation since I’m in the process of moving a very large site over to Drupal 7. I picked up a copy of Foundation Drupal 7 in hopes of getting a better understanding of what is new in 7 and pick up a few tricks along the way.

I find The Friends of Ed books tend to be geared more towards the designer than the developer, and in this case I am initially approaching the Drupal 7 in terms of our site content owners and less a deep technical understanding. In that regard the book was pretty solid.

The author does a fine job of explaining content types and fields and when to use them. He also goes over what the core modules do and how to configure them as well as briefly mentioning some very useful contributed modules.

While I can’t say I learned much that wasn’t already available in the online Drupal documentation, reading and following along with the examples in the book did help me understand some of the new features in 7.

There were times I wish the author would go into more detail regarding configuring a certain module or working with a content type, I do understand that this book was aimed more towards a beginner and not so much a web developer.

Categories
Video Games

GoldenEye 007

GoldenEye 007A few months back, Target was running a buy 2 get 1 free video game sale, so I figured I’d pick up GoldenEye 007 for the Wii as one of the games. The original on the Nintendo 64 was one of the all time greatest games in my opinion. The multiplayer bouts were amazing, and really set the standard that is still followed today. Back at Micorplay, GoldenEye was one of the biggest tournaments we held (that and Twisted Metal 2, haha good times).

I’ve recently finished the campaign mode, and thought it was very impressive. The levels are challenging, but not so hard that they’re frustrating. The music and story do a great job of making you feel like you’re part of a story and not just shooting at things. I was pleasantly impressed.

I haven’t really tried out the multiplayer or online play yet, which is weird since that was I enjoyed so much about the original. As far as Wii shooters go, this one is probably the best I’ve played. There’s a lot of stealth involved, which really makes things interesting and challenging. A very solid game and worthy follow up to the classic N64 game.

Categories
Development

Drupal 7 hide taxonomy

Drupal 7 Manage DisplayI’ve just begun upgrading a Drupal 6 custom theme to Drupal 7. And after a couple of attempts at cleaning up my theme (ok, numerous attempts), things started to render correctly.

However, I did notice that the taxonomy terms that I had removed from node.tpl.php in my Drupal 6 theme were now appearing in 7. After some investigation, I did notice that while logged in as admin, under Structure > Content Types > then manage display for the respective content type you could make certain Fields hidden.

While it took me a little bit of adjustment to find at first, this is great. I just set the Label and Format to field I didn’t want to display on my Page to <hidden> and all is well again.

Categories
Video Games

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Kirby's Epic YarnOne of my favorite games I’ve played recently has been Kirby’s Epic Yarn on the Wii. While it might come across at first as a little kid’s game, it’s really a great and fairly challenging platformer.

I was extremely impressed by the artwork used in the game. Everything has a fabric or pattern feel that really looks amazing. You can go beneath the fabric at times, and pulling strings changes the landscape is very cool too. It sounds pretty strange, but really worked well.

What really makes it great is the co-op play (unless you’re being Kate-ed by your teammate – aka being blamed for everything and anything bad that happens while playing). The ability to control both Kirty and Prince Fluff on screen at the same time is very similar to playing New Super Mario Bros. (and that’s a very good thing). This is the perfect game to play with a casual gamer.

Prince Fluff is amazing, and if I were ever forced to get a tattoo he’d be a serious consideration. Even after beating the game there’s still much to go back and complete if you’re a perfectionist. Some of the optional challenges are very difficult. A highly recommended fun 2 player game.