Projects on John's Random Review

PKHunter Postmortem

Sun, 30 Apr 2017 23:19:37 +0000

After a long run, Asheron’s call has finally shut down for good. As such, I’ve also shut down the data processing for the 2 related site’s I’ve run for ~15 years: TrophyHunter and PKHunter. Here’s a post about statistics, info, and details about PKHunter. At some point i might do a similar post about TrophyHunter. There’s a little less stats involved there, but the final kill map looks a lot more like Dereth than the PK-only kill map

Project: Toy Car Garage

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 06:00:26 +0000

Like I said last time I built something, every time Laura and Easton (and now Barrett) go somewhere for a week,

I end up doing some project that consumes all of my free time, and half of my sleep! I finally have some time to sleep in and relax, but no; I do a woodworking or home improvement project instead.

This spring, same thing, for the third year in a row. The project this time was a “garage” for all of the toy cars we have.

Trying out TFSPreview

Thu, 31 May 2012 06:09:36 +0000

For my home development projects, I’ve been using the “Basic” setup of Microsoft Team Foundation Server for years. I have it running on my “server” box in my garage, but pointed at a Sql Server Express database instead of a full Sql Server install. (Apparently, there’s going to be an explicit TFS “Express” version in TFS11?)

Aside: why am I not using something like github? To keep my stuff private, I’d have to pay ~$7/month for 5 repositories. the way I have things setup in TFS right now, I’d have more than that, requiring their $12/month plan.

Updating my office, again!

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 06:52:32 +0000

About 5 years ago, we redid my office. Well, now that there’s another little being on the way, my office is transforming back to bedroom form. So i had to update my office again. This time, there ended up being a little… well, consolidation. An entire room of stuff is now in this:

Over the years, “Nerd Central”, as my office was once known, has slowly gone from 3 computers, 2 monitors, 2 printers, a television, surround sound receiver, a small mixer to manage the sound output to one set of speakers, and a huge random assortment of other electronics down to just a single desktop computer and xbox with a single monitor and computer speakers, and the 2 printers (one inkjet, one photo)

Project: Theater Cabinet

Mon, 30 May 2011 06:03:11 +0000

I don’t know what it is, but every time Laura and Easton leave for a week, I end up doing some project that consumes all of my free time, and half of my sleep! I finally have some time to sleep in and relax, but no; I do a woodworking or home improvement project instead. Last May it was redoing the stairs. This year it was a cabinet for the theater room for dvds, games, books and things. We couldn’t use a floor standing one, as that corner of the room has an electric fan forced heater that requires clearance space. So the cabinet had to be a wall mounted one. Sounds like a project!

Hardware upgrade, websites (mostly) back to normal.

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:06:21 +0000

After a hardware disaster, corrupted backups, professional data restoration, a hardware upgrade complete with more hardware failure (somehow a new power supply i bought at FRY’s was DOA!), everything is mostly back to normal. Everything is running on newer builds of php and mysql, with 4x the processing power and 4x the RAM. I’ve seen mysql crash a few times already, though, so we’ll see how that goes.

If you see somethinng missing or broken, let me know!

Project: Closet Doors

Fri, 30 May 2008 06:20:14 +0000

Back when i wrote the post about building a pantry, i said that i thought i had used every tool i owned for that project…well… for this project, i used every major tool i own except one: my miter saw. I would have used the miter saw if it had a sharper/newer blade. And if i had a better place to use it than on the floor. And if I had a better one. For the closet doors project, I even bought some new tools that i didn’t have before!

Before:

After:

For more details and more pictures, follow the jump!

What i did on my Labor Day Vacation...

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:47:41 +0000

A follow-up on the previous post, where Dad, Jimbo and I built a new deck. After a couple days of rain and some crap falling out of the trees, we realized that the spacing of the deck boards was a little too close. In some places the gap had basicly closed and the boards were touching. But the bigger problem is the crap that falls out of our cedar trees and firs. it was already getting stuck in the cracks, and basicly becomes impossible to get out. So this weeend, Laura and i redid all the decking. well, not all, because the first board stayed where it was, and one board about 2/3 way we didn’t move at all.

How I spent my wife's summer vacation...

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:35:23 +0000

Recently, Laura took a couple weeks of the summer to travel to Australia with her mom, because her dad had to be there for work. While she was in Australia, my dad and brother came out to WA to help me build a deck. Or, more precisely, my brother came out, and we helped my dad build a deck for me. :D

Before

After!

For more pics and stories, follow the link!

My first REAL constructioning!

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:49:13 +0000

Construction? This weekend i did my first real carpentry project ever. I built shelves and drawers for our kitchen pantry. If i wasn’t a huge fan of the New Yankee Workshop i don’t think i would have even known where to start! I never took a shop class in high school, but i did help my dad build some things back in junior high/high school (i tried to get out of that as often as possible though!) I wish i would have paid more attention then! I think i used almost every tool that i own this weekend!

Bobble-shelf

Wed, 02 May 2007 05:40:01 +0000

I built my first thing over the last couple weekends. I use the term “built” very loosely, as in this case, “building” meant routing one edge of a piece of oak, painting it, and screwing some brackets into the wall. :)

I was originally going to make the brackets, in fact i used the jig saw to make one, but then couldn’t find any keyhole anchor things that were the right size, and while looking for those at home depot, i found metal brackets that match the brushed aluminum style of other stuff in the office.

Updating my office!

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 04:45:36 +0000

Since the FIOS guy was going to have to, in all likelihood, drill a hole in the wall to install our super high speed innerweb, we were going to have to move everything in my office. Since we were going to have to move everything in my office, we decided to paint my office, too. Once the office was mostly empty, we saw how horrible the carpet was, so we looked into redoing the floor with new carpet, or maybe some laminate floors. We settled on some blue colors to match the world map on the back wall, and some “hemse” laminate “click” flooring from IKEA.

To see how it all went, follow the link!

My XFire "Gamercard" hack.

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 23:09:11 +0000

With Xbox Live, you can get yourself a snazzy little “gamercard” for your website/whatnot by inserting a little html. XFire has the same kindof thing with their “miniprofiles”, but i like the look of the live version better, so i did a little hackery.

XBox Live version

A famous person's gamercard.

My Xfire version

XFire Gamercard

Specifics after the jump! bonus points if you know what “famous person” HiroProtagonist is. :p

Paper mache Bobblehead halloween costume

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 05:18:20 +0000

Our paper mache Bobblehead halloween costumes were the best halloween costumes EVER! About 40 hours of work, several weeks worth of newspapers, 2 giant balloons, 20 little bottles of paint, 5 lbs of flour and some hot glue make a pretty good costume! More details and pics inside!

PK Hunter architecture

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 05:58:21 +0000

Asheron’s Call is a MMORPG by Turbine Games. Originally released in 1999 and published by microsoft, in 2003, the franchise was bought entirely back by Turbine. A 3-rd party utility application, Decal, was created by players with some programming savvy, which allowed other programming end users to create plug-ins that integrate with the AC client. This allowed for the automation of tedious in game tasks, tracking of statistics, drawing of extra things on the screen, and any other number of things which Turbine would not, or could not add themselves. (for a list of the large number of plug-ins, see sites like Decal Dev or AC Heaven)

I have written 3 plug-ins for Asheron’s Call using decal; one which tracks monsters you kill and “trophy” items you recieve, and submits it to a website (Trophy Hunter), another which acts as a shopping cart when interacting with players who are running special “Trade Bot” plug-ins to act as vendors (Bargain Hunter), and one which tracks Player vs Player kills (PK Hunter). This article covers some design and implementation details that third plug-in, PKHunter.

Mac Plus database server!

Sun, 24 Apr 2005 07:20:59 +0000

My Mac Plus case mod is complete! Its the most powerful Mac Plus ever in existance! (Athlon64!)

4/24/05: updated with pics

Updates to BargainHunter

Sat, 02 Oct 2004 19:43:00 +0000

I’m back into playing AC (Asheron’s Call) again, so i need to go back through and update all of the plug-ins i’ve written! Since Trophy Hunter and PK Hunter are all working fine, but Bargain Hunter wasn’t working completely, so i had to update it first! BargainHunter 2.0.1.0 does all kinds of new things! Colors for imbues, more filtering options, keyword filtering, it works better than ever!

Mac Plus case mod

Sun, 22 Aug 2004 22:11:41 +0000

Modding a mac classic case to hold this web server. I already have the LCD monitor in it, now i just needs to squeeze the rest in. Pics up soon, hopefully.

Strategist

Wed, 03 Mar 2004 22:02:16 +0000

I just registered the domain, so that might not be working yet, but i added a link to the strategist site to the bar on the left. Its amazing, i hadn’t worked on this app since 7/11/2001! All of the performance issues i had then INSTANTLY went away just through the miracle of time!