May 2005 in the Life of Ben (Blog)
Proposed Addition to Project Cerbera (28th May 2005)
Nothing too dramatic, I just want to write an article about why hybrid vehicles are largely impossible in GTA 3 and GTA Vice City which will go into the Tutorials once I start it. There was some other stuff which I wanted to write about but my head is too blurry for me to remember. It could well have been that I intended to write this, in which case I have now written it. A job well done.
Viral Infection (28th May 2005)
On the evening of 2005-05-26 I woke up at about 1800 feeling really ill. I stood by an open window for about an hour but when I thought I’d better go downstairs and tell my parents I was feeling ill, I suddenly felt really ill and only just made it to the toilet in time to vomit into it. With much vigour. I hadn’t vomited in years (literally!) so it came as rather a shock. It has strengthened my resolve to never start drinking alchohol, so I guess there’s a silver lining to every stomach.
After I was done and had washed my mouth out (yum) I took my temperature with a digital thermometer. The readings I got were 37.8°C, 38.2°C, 38.2°C and 38.3°C. On the morning of 2005-05-27 it was 38.7°C which we figured was bad enough to warrant a trip to the doctor’s. My understanding is that about 37.0°C is normal and about 39.0°C means you need urgent medical attention. So now I’m drinking even more water than usual, not eating much and regulating my temperature with paracetemol.
Dammit, I think I just turned my news section into a blog.
Upcoming Project Cerbera Redesign (26th May 2005)
Now that the layout for my website design company has been rigorously tested and developed, I am seriously considering converting Project Cerbera to that layout. Not sure what styling cues and colours I would use for the Project Cerbera version but there are so many benefits over this new layout that I really do want to make the switchover.
It would not be easy but with TextStudio becoming more and more capable of performing specific batch operations across hundreds of text files, it would probably not take that long to do. Probably less than a month, even with all the other projects I am working on.
MultiSlayer v4.5 Progress for GTA 2 (26th May 2005)
When I released v4.2 early this year I thought that was the end of it. But since the creation of GTA 2 Game Hunter by Sektor I have once again teamed up with the very best online players to take this project to a whole new level. I am working with Illspirit to create a neat image for people to print out and use as a map in the same sort of way as the original GTA cities have done throughout the series.
I do not intend to release this version until June 2005 because I want to make sure that absolutely every bug and innaccuracy is gone. This will hopefully be my most professional modification yet. I started it way back in July 2003 but from the brilliant gameplay it offers and the resounding compliments I keep receiving from the people who test it, I really think it has been time well spent.
Company Finally Named: “Easy Design” (26th May 2005)
As well as settling on the name for my business, the domain is being registered and a new hosting account is being set up for it. It has taken a few months to get things rolling. Making the layout for the site consistant across browsers and avoiding endless mysterious rendering faults in IE5/6 has led to a lot of lost sleep on my part. However, now it has come together and the layout is robust enough for use here, on Project Cerbera.
Project Cerbera Updates (13th May 2005)
There were a lot of muddled-up acronym tags on this site which should now have been fixed, plus some new ones have been added. Generally done a lot of tidying up and straightening because it had been too messed up for way too long.
Returned From Felicity’s (9th May 2005)
I spent last weekend at her house (2005-05-06 to 2005-05-08) and am really looking forward to going back again. She is quite a bit more emotional than I am used to but then I’m used to being around things are totally emotionless, so it makes a nice change. We've started to learn each other’s sense of humour and were in hysterics a few times. Sure beats moping around at home by myself! c{8¬P
Upcoming Project Cerbera Rebuild (9th May 2005)
I have been secretly developing a whole new website design which I intend to deploy in June or July this year. I will probably stick to the monochrome colour scheme but it will use a few different shades, rather than just being a big sheet of white with text which is nearly black. The new design uses a sidebar and the main header takes on the role of site title, article title and the breadcrumb trail. A breacrumb trail is a row of links to show the levels you have navigated through to reach the current page.
I am not entirely sure where the search box will go. If possible I will keep it in the top-right of the page.
Acronym Fixes (9th May 2005)
There are quite a lot of acronyms (sets of initial letters instead of the entire words) on this site and some of them are conflicting with each other. There are also a lot of spelling errors, poor grammar and clumsy writing which I want to straighten out at some point. Finding the time to fix these things is a real problem since the site for my business is really the top priority and requires a lot of work to promote my services.
With well over 150 pages it would take a really long time to fix all these little faults but once they are fixed I won’t have to worry about them. The business website definitely has to come first for the time being, though.
UK General Election 2005 (6th May 2005)
For some more details about this set of countries, you could check my Misc - UK Information page and find other sites on this subject from the Links - Factual page. I voted for the Liberal Democrats because after watching how all the parties have operated in the House of Commons on BBC Parliament over the past couple of years, they have provided the most sensible opposition to Labour. They were clearly not going to become the government in this election (our voting is not proportional and is based on the change in votes rather than the votes themselves) so I voted to make them a stronger opposition.
There have been a few Liberal Democrat governments here in the past which have made some great changes to our country, so they are by no means an unrealistic party. Indeed, their performance in local seats has shown they have both the intellect to discuss government plans sensibly but also have the practicality for dealing with the nuts and bolts of real communities.
Third Visit To Felicity (6th May 2005)
I am going to be leaving to spend the weekend with her in a couple of hours. I have to do a minimum of 35 hours per week on my business, so I’ll probably have to spend a few hours shuffling through paperwork while I am over there. Urgh.
TextStudio Development (1st May 2005)
My text file tailored around batch operations with hundreds files for websites and other applications is coming along really well. I am at the point where most of my time is spent refining the existing features and adding in and alternatives, rather than just fixing errors. Icey from the Gouranga! Forums has been really useful in identifying things to improve or add as well as doing beta testing. Segosa also helps sometimes.
Currently I am focusing on allowing multiple items to be selected from the transfer lists and also from the Open File dialogue window. I will start on a centralised settings form soon and making file filtering easier to work with. Adding in a really flexible date convertor is something I am playing with in the background.
My Business (1st May 2005)
I am currently developing the website from which I will advertise my services as a professional website designer, hoster, domain registrar, optimiser, upgrader and so on. There are some serious rendering issues in IE5 and IE6 which I am determined to solve before I start using it. It works fine in FireFox, Netscape 6+ and Opera 7+ so it is just a case of nudging things around for IE. That browser must cost internet business a vast amount of money from the time wasted having to rebuild standards-compliant sites so they work in IE.
I made a topic in the WD&P area of GTAForums called Fixing Rendering Problems in IE5/6