I’ve been wanting a few books and a drawing tablet for quite some time. Now I’ve finally ordered some of the items.
Using vector graphics editors has grown harder and harder using a mouse as I explore and discover new and improved ways of creating new artwork, so I went on the lookout for a cheap second-hand drawing tablet. I ended up ordering the Aiptek Slim Tablet 600U Premium II, which I got at a bargain price.
I’d love the Wacom Intuos4, but that’s a little too much over my price range. Maybe later…
I’ve also ordered some books from Smashing Magazine‘s series of books for web developers.
Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog
Smashing HTML5
I’ll be ordering Smashing Book #1 and Smashing Book #2 later. I’ve had a look through some of their pages, and I decided I just can’t find a single reason not to buy them.
The reason I ordered Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog is because I very much enjoy working with WordPress, and I would like to learn as much as I can and become a better designer/developer for the platform.
HTML5 is coming at us full speed these days, so I thought I’d better suck up as much knowledge as I can now that it allows developers and designers to create so much more impressive and awesome experiences in their projects. Why not grab a copy of Smashing HTML5, then?
Once again, I’ve redesigned Ca9ine.com
This time there was a good reason for the redesign other than “I felt like it”.
I recently revealed my business and its project, Feed The Gamer. Prior to that I created a Behance profile and added the project publically visible. I also proceeded to update my LinkedIn profile fully, adding my Company -Norvard WebMedia with Feed The Gamer listed as an IP displayed from Behance via LinkedIn, and set it as current employment alongside my daytime job.
So I thought i would be better to have my blog actually look more professional, though designed in my own taste and style, representing me in a more professional way.
I won’t stop being myself, though; I’ll still write and say what I feel like, when I feel like it.
The new layout and design is based on the 960 Grid System (960.gs) created by Nathan Smith.
I’m still developing and tweaking stuff, even contemplating a color style switcher, so I’ll go ahead say that the new Ca9ine.com design is still in BETA.
I decided I want to hardcode or “hack” most of the features of the blog, rather than adding a ton of plugins creating the look and functionality I’ll eventually end up with. In fact I really don’t care much for a bunch of external plugins and scripts possibly slowing the entire site down. A challenge I’ve also given myself regarding the redesign is to use CSS instead of images on close to every element to achieve the design I’m after.
I’ve written about Feed The Gamer earlier on my blog. Hell, I’ve even tweeted about it daily for the last 6 or 7 months. I’ve tweeted links, and I’ve tweeted the news feeds from Feed The Gamer almost non-stop. All the time while trying to make it look like I’m just an avid reader. It’s time I come clean and “reveal” the “truth”.
Feed The Gamer is my project.
It’s an idea I had about 8 months ago. An idea now turned into a company.
The idea was quite simple. At least it was simple at first;
I realised that there are absolutely no websites out there that collect, aggregate and publish a combined feed from all the major gaming news websites around the intertubes. So I figured I’d try my hand at this. As “simple” as that.
My first concept was via Facebook, believe it or not. As it is free and you can create a page in a matter of minutes, I thought to myself that this might be innovative enough to limit it to the Book of Faces, and let’s face it, it’s still just a pet project. I spent countless hours coming up with an awesome name, and finally, I saw the light and I christened my divine project “The Gamer Feed“. After being very satisfied with myself for coming up with such an awesome name for my project, I started creating the Facebook page, complete with more divinity in the form of a horizontal banner with the shiny new name slapped on it. The idea was starting to take form.
The time had come to start figuring out how to do all this, how to make the news magically appear on my brand new Facebook page. Eventually the letters R and S sprung to mind, where combined they form the abbreviation RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication. So I started searching for Facebook page plugins that would do this satisfyingly. After much hair pulling, I found one plugin that was close enough; enabled it, syndicated a few sites through it and proceeded to publish the page, as well as giving myself a good pat on the shoulder for a job well done.
Roughly 2 days passed. The page saw no user interaction. I decided if I coerced a few friends on Facebook to Like the page, this would remedy itself. It didn’t. More days passed with still no user activity, and even the “friends” didn’t seem to pay The Gamer Feed any attention, much to my dismay. And to be honest, Facebook just didn’t cut it for this kind of project, nor does it allow for much freedom in terms of how you want it to act, look and feel. Facebook in the end is just, well, Facebook. Nothing more.
So, I took the idea further;
Development of a website began, several issues regarding the look and feel had to be overcome, a logo was needed and the project desperately needed a new name, because let’s face it, The Gamer Feed just isn’t very cool, in fact, it’s a dead boring name.
I started with the logo, which I normally don’t do when designing, but this time I knew what I wanted. Since the main “selling point” is feed aggregation, I wanted to tweak the standard RSS icon into an old school gaming style logo while keeping the RSS icon’s main design feature, so a Space Invader instead of a dot was used, and the colors kept very simple and clean.
Whilst designing the logo, I knew I had to think of the new name before I could complete the final logo design, so I gave it another brainstorm which resulted in today’s “Feed The Gamer“; a mere rearranging of the words, nothing more advanced, and suddenly the brand was created.
The site itself, in the beginning, or rather the first beta stage, was just created like a simple blog. But the features and the content had to be fully functional from the start, and it had to auto update constantly whenever a new feed was published from its respective source. This proved to be a challenge at the time, some feeds even broke the entire layout of the site, and the syndication would randomly just stop updating. Sometimes duplicates flooded the site, and several feeds never got published because they missed their schedules somehow, so I had to keep an eye on it at all times, even when working to fix the very same issues.
During the first beta stage, Feed The Gamer gained quite a few readers and subscribers. Subscribers gained from using FeedBurner to further syndicate a combined feed of all the feeds syndicated to Feed The Gamer. Something I thought was a longshot in terms of it ever gaining popularity, but to my surprise did in fact become very popular. Feed The Gamer’s readers and subscribers numbers were nothing compared to other major sites, of course; but it was on a steady rise.
I was ready to take it even further;
This time a full redesign of the site; a full magazine layout, beta stage 2. All the feed sources categorised into a fully functional “Specified” archive. Meaning any given feed’s source got it’s own section/archive. All feed items got the source’s logo and brand attatched to their headers, a link to take the reader to the original article at the source website and all the tags from the source intact.
A few weeks after the redesign, the user count sky-rocketed. From a mere hundred a week, to several thousand a week. Much thanks to social networks -and media like Twitter, Reddit, Digg and believe it or not, Facebook.
Feed The Gamer was a success. It made me decide I wanted to go all the way, so I formed a company; Norvard WebMedia, a company which now is the proud owner of Feed The Gamer in its entirety, a company with more plans ahead for Feed The Gamer.
Beta stage 2 isn’t over, nor is the site or concept finalised, it’s merely moved to stage 2.5. Feed The Gamer has even been approached by major gaming news sites to feature their feeds. Other industry professionals, including developers of major triple A titles have commended the project, some even use it daily and recommend it further to others. So stay tuned, there’s more to come.
Now, of course, this was the short version.
I’m not willingly giving away all my trade secrets and efforts.
But all in all, Feed The Gamer turned out to become so much more than I expected, and it just keeps growing! I’ve even spread word of wanting contributors and coders on board. So, once again, stay tuned, there’s more to come!
It may seem there’s some time passed since my last entry.
You may be right on this matter.
You just may.
Be right.
Right?
Anyway!
Christmas just passed. It was quick and painless, thankfully.
My kids went all ballistic over too much toys wrapped in noisy paper, so ballistic they were in fact just confused in the end. They just didn’t know where to begin unboxing nor did they know what to play with first, so they just stood there with a silly grin and just like their dad, they had that glazed over look in their eyes. I was just drunk, though.
Just kidding.
I was merely tipsy.
No, really. I was just tired. From all the noise.
That the wife made. Yes, the wife…
Or I overate.
Now I am on the toilet writing this little entry. I won’t categorizing it under the Bog Blog this time, as I had a little too much to say about how long it’s been, the confused kids and the noisy wife.
Well, that’s me updating the blog, showing the internet, which probably doesn’t care anyway, that I’m alive by blogging my arse’s heart’s content to you the good folk of the interwebs.
I was cleaning out some old boxes full of music I used to spin on the decks back when I worked as a DJ, and I stumbled across some old tracks and remixes I produced years back. I worked as a DJ professionally, but producing music was just a hobby of mine, and on a amateur level at that.
Still, the music brings back some fond memories, and I’d like to share the old tracks with you lot.
I’m at current installing all my old music production software, so that I can dig deeper into the old projects I never “released” and to create some uploadable music files from the finished projects that never saw the light of day either.
You’ll be able to listen to my tracks on my SoundCloud profile as I upload them.
And as a taste of things to come, here’s an old remix I did:
I’ve also ordered some books from Smashing Magazine‘s series of books for web developers.
