Four Island

I now have definitive proof that I have no life.

You know that site My Life Is Average? To put it bluntly, nothing that goes on there is average. It's all "I jumped out of a third-story window and survived!" and "I handed a piece of dog poop to my teacher and got an A!" It used to be funny, but now it's all lies. Most of the posts are so crazy that they can't possibly be real and I don't understand how they made it on to My Life Is Average.

So, I created "My Life Is Actually Average", a place where boring and usual things happen. This is a place where stuff that is ACTUALLY average occurs! It's so boring, it's actually sort of funny! :P To show how obsessed I've been with this website (that I thought of like 4 days ago), let's see how many posts have already been posted: 129. Lol. A few were submitted by other people, but most of them were from me.

Yes, you heard that correctly, YOU CAN SUBMIT STORIES YAY. :P They don't necessarily have to be true (the "actually" in MLIAA implies stories that are intrinsically boring, not true), in fact, most of my posts are modified versions of posts on My Life Is Average. But you're free to write true posts because they're much more likely to be average! :P

Anyway, I'm weird. It's true. But, go on My Life Is Actually Average! Post your boring stories! It'll be fun! Lol. :P

It's the end of the week once again and once again, I have put off updating the poll of the week until very late! Omigod! :P Also, once again, I have only posted once during the week, but this time I have an excuse: I want the Annetenna post to stay on the home page for as long as it can. Hopefully, though, I will post multiple times next week. ANYWAY, here are the poll results!

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes? Yes. - 5 vote(s)! NOT A CHANCE YOU FREAK I HATE YOUR THOUGHTS - 2 vote(s)! If I knew what Endlenge was, I might, you know, be able to answer - 4 vote(s)! Who gives a ****? - 0 vote(s)!

People seemed to warm to the idea of me reviving Endlenge. That's nice, and I hope I can do it some day. However, as Bluemonkey pointed out in the comments, it wouldn't be a very good thing to do right now, while I'm struggling to complete a project. I say struggling because I am a massive procrastinator. Yeah.

Do you ever get that feeling that it's 11 o'clock and you haven't written much all day and you're feeling kind of tired? And then do you realize that it's a Friday, you haven't written much all week and you're 39 minutes away from destroying a month's worth of posting effort? Yes, this has happened to me quite often, most notably during last year's Kirby Week (I invite you to look at the time that post was posted :P).

Anyway, it's happening right now and the little Spongebobs in my head are running around and screaming "WE THREW OUT HER NAME!!!!!" Lol, no, but I'm sitting in bed, overheating slightly (the computer is on my lap) and trying to write something, anything (well, not anything, because my blog has standards (lol, sentences like that make me think of My Weird Social Commentary and the aforementioned Kirby Week post and I shudder)), to prevent myself from failing my annual goal. Yes, I am taking my annual goals very seriously this year. I have only failed one so far and that was the "post 2 True Falsity stories a month" goal, and that's even possibly excusable because I'm thinking of possibly discontinuing and archiving True Falsities. If, by the end of the year, True Falsities is not longer active, I can't really say I failed the goal, so I'll just say NEUTRAL.

Wow, is it getting hot in here? No, that's just the laptop. One of the great features of my new laptop is that it doesn't overheat. Well, obviously, it's new. But my old laptop overheated on a regular basis. In fact, now that I am using a different computer for general use, I decided to use my spare (and slightly broken) computer for other purposes, and chose to use it as a development computer. And then I discovered that running WEBrick caused the computer to overheat. So, I do my Ruby on Rails programming on my general use computer now.

Speaking of Ruby on Rails, I have some news! A few weeks ago, when I announced that my top-priority project was Xidet, a lot of people were annoyed. Okay, one person was annoyed. Lol, maybe a few people, if you count the voices in my head. Anyway, the consensus was that The TGS Website was more important and has been promised for longer. While it is true that the idea to restart Xidet just suddenly popped into my head one lazy Thursday, the original Xidet announcement was posted in March of '08 while TGS was not started until April of '08 (not to mention the The TGS Website, which was not conceived until MUCH later).

However, while Xidet quickly died out (it wasn't official until January of '09, though), The TGS Website had much more promise and my first attempt at it in '08 seemed like it might be going somewhere. Plus, TGS is (surprisingly, considering the slow reaction time of some of our members....) an active project which should have a website to support it. So, I've rearranged my project queue. The TGS Website is Number #1, while Xidet has falled to Number #2. And yes, I have been doing some workingness on it. Check out my awesome codingz at the TGS Website project site! Lol, that wasn't vain at all.

Ah! That reminds me! I would like to inform everyone of a momentous occasion that most people forgot about! Yesterday, February 18th 2010, was the first anniversary of Pillowcase! One year ago yesterday, I sat down on my bed and wrote Bluemonkey's Saga, went insane and later made it into a real comic! Obviously, I am insane, but Pillowcase is yay! I am excited about how well it was received last year and am pleased to leak the rumor that it may possibly be starting up again very soon! Stay tuned for more information!

Wow, would you look at that! My lonely ramblement/massive digression has landed me a post! A weirdly random one, but an actual post! You know, I do think I'll post this. Especially as I now only have 16 minutes. And rest assured, I will, from now on, make every attempt to release my weekly post early in the week so as to prevent this procrastination problem from happening again. Thank you all, and good night!

Wow, the results of this poll were really very useful to me. At least you all agreed that nobody else would post on True Falsities.

Yes, it's time to archive it - 2 vote(s)! No! Keep posting and others will follow! - 0 vote(s)! Pretty much, but you still have to post - 2 vote(s)! Indifferent - 2 vote(s)!

Incidentally, I recently failed one of my annual goals by posting to True Falsities only once last month rather than twice. I did have a post called "It Is Abstract" planned, but I never finished it. So, basically, I have no idea where to go with True Falsities.

Anyway, Four Island 3.0! If anyone has any splaztastic ideas for it, do tell! :P

This is mainly just a message for the people whose sites I host, but if you aren't one of those people, you may still read this post. Don't worry, I won't hurt you. Come back! What are you doing? :P

Anyway, for those of you who I'm in contact with, you may know of a dilemma with my server. Specifically, it's running under Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition when Ubunto 9.10 came out months ago. So yes, it's running an old version of Ubuntu SE.

So, in lieu of the fact that, due to complications, my monthly server backup was not run on January 1st, January 31st became The Grand Upgrade day. I backed up the server and then I upgraded every out-of-date piece of software on my server. Then, tomorrow, February 1st, I will backup the server again. Sound fun?

It's just amazing how much old software was sitting on my server. First of all, Ubuntu 9.04. Second, all of the Wordpress blogs (including hosted sites and my website projects) were running 2.8.4 instead of the latest, 2.9.1. And I just discovered the other day that The Projects Site ran Redmine 0.7.3 when the latest version is 0.9.1. Gasp! Possibly the worst is that Wikipinia ran MediaWiki 1.11.0 while the latest version is 1.15.1! Yes, that's right, most of my hosted sites were using web software that was two or three years old.

Upgrade was horrendous, though. It took a total of seven hours (start to finish) which included installing Ubuntu 9.10 TWICE, running back and forth between rooms two floors apart to download RubyGems and a lot of near-panic moments. Possibly the worst was during the first Ubuntu install: because of the disgustingly restrictive environment that my server is in, it couldn't download any of the files that msttcorefonts needed to upgrade and I didn't even need that package! Because of that, the upgrade failed and the server was, for want of a better word, bricked.

Anyway, The Grand Upgrade is now complete and my server is running up-to-date software! Hooray! It was a success! Hopefully, the next time a new version of Wordpress or Ubuntu comes out, I'll upgrade ASAP instead of waiting for January 31st three years later. :P

No, I'm not parodying a song that I don't like, I'm actually asking if anyone remembers Xidet. If not, let me remind you. Xidet is a text editor. A text editor that is so freaking customizable that it isn't really a text editor anymore. Xidet is basically just a window with a textbox in it but it revolves around the concept of plug-ins so much that you can do pretty much anything with it by writing a plugin. To quote the odd little conversation that the voices in my head just had:

Voice 1: Hey, what's Xidet? Voice 2: What do you want it to be?

Voices in Starla's Head

Yes, I'm that zen. Anyway, Xidet was originally conceived due to my extreme frustration at NetBeans, the IDE I was using at the time to develop Tetrgi. While NetBeans and I have since made up, recently, I've just been very annoyed with the existing text editors. Especially now that I'm starting some Ruby on Rails projects, I really just want a text editor that is simple yet extremely productive. As in, I've already got all of the keyboard shortcuts memorized and it knows exactly how I like to format my code (so many text editors disregard my strange formatting style! :P) and I can deploy projects from within the editor and such. How is this possible? Well, my revised idea for Xidet is:

1. We start with a window with an empty text area in it. Yep. That's Xidet.
2. Then we bring some plugins in. Xidet will come with a default set of plugins that add things like File and Edit menus and the ability to save your document. These plugins will be installed and enabled first-run, but they can be removed if you want as they are plugins (though why on earth you would want to do that is beyond me).
3. Bring in the big stuff. More plugins can be written like a syntax highlighting framework, followed by plugins depending on that plugin that contain the rules for highlighting certain languages. And the thing will be that not only can you choose which of the huge matrix of plugins you wish to install, but they will all be totally customizable from Xidet. You can choose which colors the syntax highlighters use or select from a series of pre-defined sets. You can choose which keyboard shortcuts do what and how to auto-format your code. Anything's possible if you only beliiiiiieve! :P

Yes, 'tis awesome. I know what you're thinking, though. "It's the classic Hatkirby shift of interest! She always comes up with some project that's better or more important than the one she's currently doing!" Well.... yes. :P But this time I'm serious. The productivity that Xidet will provide will make it much easier to work on The TGS Website (which is my "current" project :P). I promise! I'm just very excited about this new idea because it would help enormously.

I would also like to know if there's anyone out there that knows Java or Ruby that would like to work on this project with me. It would be insanely cool to be able to collaborate with someone using version control and Redmine. It'd be like:

Voice 1: Okay, there's a bug in the plugin dispatch method. I'm going to write a ticket about it and assign it to you. Voice 2: Great. I'll work on that tonight. * later * Voice 2: I've completed the change and marked it complete! Voice 1: That's awesome, but your recent commit conflicted with mine! Voice 2: Oh well, I guess it's time to merge our changes!

Voices In Starla's Head

Yeah, maybe I should stop sharing what goes on in my head. :P

The Gates Of Sleep! For those of you living under a rock, The Gates Of Sleep is my band-name-alias-type-thing-with-lots-of-dashes. One day, while playing the Debut Album game TimTam posted on the Fourm, I got the band name "The Gates Of Sleep", the album name "I Might Be Wrong" and an album cover depicting four glasses of differently colored liquid. And I thought it was the coolest thing ever and that it should be a real band/album.

So guess what I did. Yep, I gave myself more work. I started making music for this album. My first song was called "You Are So Wack" and sampled various songs, as did my second song, "Just Dance Under My Umbrella". I wanted to have some original work, though, so I then created "All Alone". Then, one day while making ice tea, I got the idea for the song "Ice Tea" which became extremely popular for some weird reason. :P I actually ended up making a video for it.

10 more songs and 2 bonus tracks later and I finished my album, "I Might Be Wrong". You can listen to it online at its website. Beware, though, it's very weird. :P Actually, making this music was very fun for me and I'm considering coming back with a second album next year. I've already got the album name and cover art for it. :P

By the way, this is the 250th post on my blog. :D

Okay, so last night, Drifty and I were talking about how I give myself a whole ton of work (Four Island, The Sabrina FanWiki, True Falsities, Pillowcase, Endlenge, whatever story I am currently writing for Four Fiction, KFM, FourPuzzle, my annual RPG and more....) and she dared me to do the following things in one day:

• Make 3 Pillowcase comics
• Write a Four Island post
• Write up an episode of Sabrina
• Write a True Falsity
• Finish chapter 1 of my novelette
• Work on my current programming project

Now, it's 3:56pm and I'm just completing the final item on the list. However, I didn't exactly follow the bet. Instead of making 3 comics, I made 6. Instead of writing one post for Four Island, I wrote 3! (The other two will come out daily, as per usual)

I didn't, though, write up an episode of Sabrina. I had decided that I was going to do that task first, and I went to the FanWiki to see which episode I needed to do next, and it was very evident to me that I hadn't visited it in a while. Every single page had been replaced with spam. And I mean replaced. The original pages weren't in the history so I couldn't revert the spam. So, basically, the Sabrina FanWiki has died. That's why it's been removed off of the Website Projects list. It amuses me, though, that I procrastinated from that project for so long that I didn't even notice it being covered in spam.

I still think I won the bet, though, Drifty, because I doubled my Pillowcase output and tripled my Four Island output. So you have to follow up with your side of the bargain. :) Oh, and my awesome True Falsity? The Gates Of Subliminal Messaging. :)

Hmm, no one voted for Pillowcase? Interesting....

The Blog - 0 vote(s)! Pillowcase - 0 vote(s)! Endlenge - 1 vote(s)! Other (specify in comments) - 1 vote(s)!

Incidentally, I have just started working on Pillowcase's third season. I don't want to put a date up in case I can't make it, but expect Pillowcase to revive around the end of November. :)

You may have heard of FourPuzzle. Sounds familiar, right? If it doesn't.... then you may have a point because I can't seem to find the post on Four Island about it. Anyway, FourPuzzle is my grand project. I know I already had a grand project that majorly failed, but I'm sure about this one. FourPuzzle is (going to be) a C++ library that allows you to easily make an RPG game.

"Right," you may ask, "but what does that have to do with the title of the post?" I'm getting to that. See, I started implementing FourPuzzle around November of last year. In Java. Yes, it was originally a Java library. When I had implemented about half of the specification, I came to an important realization. Java is slow. Mmmmhm. It's awesome library and cross-platformness came with a price. A price that didn't work out so well in a game.

So, I stopped development on FourPuzzle in March and sort of forgot about it. Then, when it became time for me to start working on my yearly RPG, I remembered FourPuzzle and though "Hey, it would be great to make this year's RPG in my own engine." So I started trying to implement FourPuzzle in various languages to see how it would work. C++ lasted about 5 seconds before I realized how complicated that would be. C#/Mono lasted a bit longer, but it simply wasn't cross-platform enough for me. Then, I discovered Qt.

Qt. Is. Awesome. It's a C++ library that I like to explain as "Java for C++, without the Java." It's cross-platform. It has a huge amount of classes and functions that I can use (some of which have names very similar to their Java counterparts. I mean, really, FontMetrics and QFontMetrics? :) ) It has a resource compiler. It has a UI designer. It has everything. I am in love. :)

I had previously disliked Qt for the sole reason that KDE was written with it. For those of you who don't know, I use GNOME. GNOME PWNZ. :) But Qt is not responsible for how it is used. Qt is awesome. And it will be used to implement not only the FourPuzzle library, but also an editor program that will allow non-techie people create a FourPuzzle game without having to touch a single line of C++. Stay tuned for details :D