New Machine

posted on july 30, 2002, tags: tech

Lots of down-time lately. I finally purchased new computer parts (no, not Apple), and upgraded my crappy old PII 350. Now I'm cruising with a P4 2.26GHz machine with lots of DDR RAM. Yay! It's nice and fast, but the road to building my new box was one full of little problems. Now, a fresh install of XP and plenty of removing and replacing hardware later, I'm all done. My only problem now is that my sound card seems to be getting interference from something in my case (seems to by my hard drive), and is giving me some static when anything is playing (ie: music, games, etc).

Anyway, Flash stuff is actually smooth and flashy, games like Warcraft III actually work, and 115-layer Photoshop documents open instantly. Thank god.

Saw Austin Powers in Goldmember over the weekend, and liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I read tons of bad reviews, but was pleasantly surprised. If you liked the second film, I would recommend seeing it. Then again, I think most people will anyway. It's sorta one of those things.

CurrentlyHearing 1.0

posted on july 24, 2002, tags: plugin

After much time spent packaging, working and testing my Winamp plugin, it's ready to go. At this moment, it's waiting approval on Winamp.com. But you don't have to wait for them to start using it!

To download CurrentlyHearing 1.0 right now, click here. The file is roughly 440k, and only works on Windows systems running Winamp 2. Winamp 3 users, sorry, but you'll have to wait for now.

Please give me your thoughts, suggestions, complaints, and anything else related to this plugin. I'd also love to see it in action on your websites, so send me some links!

Also, I've added a board for discussion relating to the plugin over on the forums. Feel free to stop by.

I hope you enjoy the plugin as much as I did making it.

Magic the Gay-ening

posted on july 22, 2002, tags: site

That's right, fuckers, I'm magic. And I'm not just magic once. No, no. I'm magic twice, bitch! In your face.

Actually, I think Magic the Gathering is some of the gayest shit I have ever seen. Never once did I play, and never once will I. But if I did, I would drop Maniacal Rage on your ass!

Thanks to Courtney for pointing out this extremely gay coincidence.

Random Items

posted on july 21, 2002, tags: entertainment

I'm in a very random mood:

New Chili's commerical starring N*Sync. Sorry, but this is stupid. I've got no real problem with the group. If I had to choose a boy-band to listen to, it would be them. But for their first product endorsement, Chili's is a ridiculous choice. There's nothing worse than hearing people who make millions of dollars a year sing "I Want My Baby-Back... Ribs."

Saw Eight Legged Freaks last night. It was entertaining. Completely goofy film, but entertaining none the less. I actually liked it more than MIB II.

Currently Hearing, my Winamp plugin, is doing really well. Everyone beta testing it has had success, and I'm really excited to release it. I need to build a quick site for it (something very simple) and finish the example files for server-side implementation. PHP and Perl are done (on that note—I haven't written Perl in a long time... it was an interesting experience). ASP and CFML will be done tonight. Also considering adding a 'song history' feature for those who want it. I would like to hard code the amount of songs saved, though. Right now I'm thinking 5, but maybe people could comment on this?

Jack's website (which I said would be updated regularly) has been forgotten about. That will change in a day or two. I have a million pictures, just need to do something with them.

Beta

posted on july 18, 2002, tags: plugin

My Winamp plugin, Currently Hearing, entered official beta stage this evening. It's working perfectly so far on my machine, and I look forward to seeing how it works on others'. If things go well, I'm on track for a release next Monday. Yay!

ManiacalRage Version 239865

posted on july 18, 2002, tags: site

Well, one of the things I've been working on the past few days is now done. This new version of the site. Hope you like it. It's gotta a lot of little tweaks to sections that will hopefully make a few things better, and you should definitely play with the coloured buttons in the bottom left corner.

Sorry to Netscape 4 users, but you're getting the boot this time. You'll experience a plain-text version of this site from now on. I know that a web developer should be able to make his site work in every browser, but I don't want to anymore. People using Netscape 4 don't deserve the time and effort. At least you could upgrade to NS6. This site looks perfect in 6.

There are still a few little visual glitches in Opera 6, which I can't seem to get rid of. They aren't that noticeable, though, except to me. Also, I haven't tested this site in the Apple environment yet, so feel free to email me if you're looking at this in OSX. Let me know how it looks. Send me a screenshot, even.

Winamp plugin is next on the list of things to get accomplished this week. I hope to get it ready for testing tonight and then release it to the world by next Monday.

That's that. Let me know what you think of the new design.

Various

posted on july 13, 2002, tags: entertainment

Working on a lot of stuff. Also, things going on lately that I'm not at liberty to talk about for a while. All will be discussed in time, don't worry. And it's nothing bad, if that's what you're thinking (or hoping).

Winamp plugin has been on hiatus for the past few days, as I've had other stuff to do. Hope to finish it by the middle of next week, though. Since I've never written a real program before, I've had to learn a new language and it's been difficult but fun. I hope the outcome will at least be worthwhile to a few people.

We saw Men in Black II last weekend. I was disappointed. I liked the first one a lot, but this movie just felt like more of the same, only less funny. It was entertaining, but not as good as I think it probably could have been.

Also, if you haven't yet checked out or submitted to the Desktop Thread on the forums (click here), you should stop by. It's fun.

Winamp Plugin

posted on july 8, 2002, tags: plugin

I've been working non-stop on my Winamp plugin for the past 4 days. About 14 hours a day. It's crazy. I'm damn near close to releasing it to some people for testing, and then it will be available for download here.

It's a very simple concept: it outputs the current song's title (ie: Artist - Title) to a file and then uploads that file to the server of your choice. From that point you use your programming language of choice (PHP, ASP and CFML will have sample files for now), or use an include (shtml) to display the song currently playing. If Winamp is off, it will display "Nothing." Simple. But harder than you think to develop.

Anyway, as soon as I'm ready, I'll start a short beta-testing period. Want to be involved? Email me your info.

Great Television

posted on july 3, 2002, tags: entertainment

The Shield is another absolutely wonderful television show I missed last season. But, just as with 24, the miracle of iO On-Demand has saved me. Steve and I have been watching the first season—we're two episodes from the end—and it's terrific.

If you missed this show last season (and don't have On-Demand), make sure to tune in to FX next season and catch it. I can't wait.

Believe me when I say that next season's viewing suggestions will definitely include this show.