Too few hours in the day //Jafoca.com

This morning I spent a good amount of time attempting to get a decent twitter widget set up on this site to simply put my Twitter status into the widget sidebar. Fun part is I can actually justify this pursuit as work – we have been asked to integrate Twitter into a website we are currently working on that will be powered by Wordpress.

For a while now I have had Twitter integrated here – both directions. I use WP to Twitter to do Twitter notifications of new blog posts – it works quite well sofar – it integrates with the cli.gs URL shortening service automatically – which works great although requires signup for an API key. My only real gripe with this plugin is that it does not allow you to move the “WP to Twitter” field, which is shown when creating a post. I wish I could place it directly below the content area of a post, as I am editing, so that I would not forget to customize the Twitter message.

The other function I want to have (and our client wants) is a widget in my sidebar with recent Tweets.

My requirements for this are the following:

• Define number of tweets shown
• Light weight
• SOMEWHAT intelligent handling of URLs, including @usernames, and others
• Somewhat Customizable (CSS style wise)
• More or less plug and play (it should work when I install it)
• Available from the central Wordpress plugin directory

And now… on to the reviews…

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So I found a fascinating article on Kotaku today about the concept of “mature video games”.

Quick summary: Maturity in games should be about more than gratuitous nudity and ‘adult’ language.

I totally agree.

Two of my favorite games ever include Mass Effect and The Witcher arguably fall in the proper category of “mature” games.  Why?  Amazing story, adult themes, in depth character development.  These are things I crave.  
Mass Effect 2 is on the horizon now, and I am seriously thinking I might have to buy an Xbox 360 again if it doesn’t come out on PC at the same time.  Thats right folks, I bought an XBox just to play Mass Effect.  And it was one of the best experiences of my gaming life.

Just recently I have also ventured away from my reading norm, consisting mostly of Tom Clancy.  I started reading a series by Karl Schreder, Sun of Suns is the first book.  I found reading this sci-fi, space operaesque book truely rewarding as – it is a significant step up in maturity level from my prior reading.  Since discovering this new series, a renewed interest in scifi literature, and overall more mature content matter, I have been reading more than ever!  I have finished the (existing books of) the Virga series, loved them, and now have moved on to Counting Heads by David Marusek

Anyway, that was a long and winding way to say that – for adults, adult content makes any medium more rewarding.  Games and books, its all the same.  I played thru Mass Effect in 1 weekend, I was so engrossed in the plot line, characters, interactions, etc.  And now I can’t wait to get back to reading Counting Heads – it has been keeping me up much later at night than is wise.

Heh – forgot one perl I was going to include yesterday.  It seems like my taste in books is ‘growing up’ rapidly, the question becomes will video games grow up to accommodate their aging fanbase as-well?  Mass Effect was protested because it had a, not shown but alluded to, sex scene!  I didn’t mind that I didn’t get to see any alien private parts, however the story line leading up to this scene was absolutely engrossing – I get goosebumps and shivers just reminiscing about it now.  All the tension, all the emotion – Mass Effect made it real.  I want more.  BioWare, the developer of Mass, has promised just that.  Please, I beg, some of you other developers produce games that are mature, in the mature sense of the word.

Mature content is vastly different than crude content.

So I bought Fallout 3 around Xmas time.  I am only about 1/2 way thru and it has been a fun little experience.  The game is a post nuclear war apocalypse RPG/FPS – combining some of my favorite game genres.  I like FPS games with STORY.  This has it, it is good.

So I have noticed that Bathesda, the development studio, recently released an expansion called Fallout 3 Operation Anchorage where you apparently get to fight some communists in alaska.

Anyway, I bought Fallout 3 thru my favorite gaming platform, Steam.  Its great!  I have the game legally installed on my laptop and on my desktop, i even managed to set up a system to sync my gamesaves between the two.

Well, Bathesda released the expansion ONLY THRU Microsoft’s new steam platform rival, Games for Microsoft Live.  So to get the expansion I would have to move my current game files into a different folder, install a new client, buy 1000 microsoft points (the expansion itself costs 850, but points are only purchasable in quantities of 1000, what BS) and download the game.  After that I would have to repeat some steps to get it working on my laptop.  I also wonder if it would then require that I log into Seam and GFWL (isnt that a awful acronym to say) both to play my expansion.

Ugh.  Installing a new DLC client just to get an expansion is not for me.  Too much of a pain in the rear.  Bathesda, stay away from GWFL if you want any more money from me.  I hope this isnt another stupid attempt to “thwart piracy” that has gone horribly awry.  

BTW, I am not a MSFT hater either.  I just prefer not to be told where I have to buy stuff, especially if its an addition to the stuff I already have.  ”Here is your dvd player – we don’t carry the cable however…”

Many of you that know me will also know that I have long been somewhat of a fan of Windows  Vista.

Why ?- just to name a few reasons

• My hardware has always been up to date, and therefore supported by it.
• It looks MUCH BETTER (less juvenile) than windows XP
• Vista media center is pretty nice, when my hardware keeps up
• UAC is annoying, but can be disabled by those savvy enough (read: if you can’t figure out how to disable it, you probably need it’s protection!)

So on that note I have to say that I am pretty geeked for Windows 7, which was released to beta earlier today.  Its not that it is going to be amazing, it seems more like they are using W7 as a chance to fix the errors of Vista, which is fine with me.  Mostly though, I want it because it is supposed to be FAST.

I want that 30 second boot up, the lesser system requirements,  and the slimmed down background footprint!

Unfortunately though, my chances of getting in on this beta testing seem to be dimming.  MSFT has stated that it will only release 2.5 million copies of the beta test, and there are many ravenous geeks out there waiting to use the “comeback” os, so many so that the Microsoft Tech-net site that is releasing the software has been down for the past hour!

Makes me wonder about why the beta showed up on BitTorrent weeks ago already….

In an interview with Wired’s Game|Life blog, a VP from blizzard stated that the game will not have player-hating (haha I used that term in a proper form) Digital Rights Malware Management components installed.

Instead of punishing loyal fans, and I am certainly a fan of Diablo, Blizzard has opted to keep the same verification measures used in Diablo II, which includes verifying the game for online use only.

“Pardo: The thing that I think helps us, is that since our games have such a huge multiplayer component, Battle.net really is our most effective DRM.

If you wanna play online on Battle.net with other players you’re going to have to have a legitimate copy. That’s really kinda been the thing that’s always saved us from a lot of the PC piracy that I think hurts a lot of other single-player-only games.”

Gamers Win!

Blizzard gives us a fair balance of features in return for restrictions.  You can not just steal the game and get the best experience from it, you give up a little to gain access to the multiplayer parts (the fun bits).  Spore may hopefully have taught the game production businesses a valuable lesson.