Significant progress has been made in the area of making a website that actually could have value to my friends and family for the purpose of gaming coordination.  Over the last 3 months in spare moments, I’ve accomplished most of the bullet points I laid out 2 months ago.  This post would serve as an overview of what’s been done since then.

This post is long due to the pictures.  I’d like to say that I do not consider this project complete.  I believe with the coming of Diablo 3 and other games, that this may be a useful tool for coordinating game time with my friends and family.  I have the thought of making this a non-game specific site for those I game with.  The site is specialized in purpose, completely malleable and I look forward to seeing it get some use.

If anyone wants to help, I won’t turn them down, though…

Home page

A fairly standard home page.  I query the Steam and Facebook APIs for the images of my Steam Avatar and Facebook profile picture.  The Facebook icon links to my Facebook profile page.  The Upcoming box on the right will show any proposed gaming that has been entered.  The events are clickable (as will be shown further down), offering information about the event that was clicked on.

Profile Page

This page allows people to enter in a SMS texting address for notifications, or Facebook/Steam IDs for connection to their respective APIs.  As I learn more about Facebook and Valve’s software and what I can do with it, I hope to be able to have interaction with their services.  Texting notifications will be further explored on the Notifications page.

Events Page

This page serves as the entryway to various event actions.  I made the buttons big so those viewing from a mobile device would have an easier time clicking the buttons.  I found it easier anyways.  The buttons are pretty self-explanatory.

Scheduling an Event

This page will allow people to schedule an event for the upcoming 7 days or later, and at any time.  Events are organized by the type that they are.  At the moment I only support Internet Gaming and LAN parties.  If this becomes used, I would like incorporate board gaming, pen & paper RPG, movie nights, or other things.  It really depends on who starts using this, if anyone.  The “Later” and “Other” buttons allows for more glandular control of the event scheduling.  A modal calendar and time selection screen are available when those buttons are clicked.

Event Calendar

This is simply a calendar page that will show the next 30 days events starting from “today”.  The calendar automatically increments the days.  Every event is clickable to show more details.

Event Detail Popup

This picture represents what both the home page and calendar will do when an event is clicked.  It will give you more information for the event, tell you how many people will be attending if they have indicated so, and allow you to RSVP as well.  RSVP-ing or cancelling are both controlled by clicking the button in the lower right corner.  Internet Gaming only shows the attendance, while LAN parties will tell you the location and if it is entered in the system, will give you a link to Google Maps.  Declaring your attendance is in effect as soon as you click the button.

Event Attendance

This page is where you land if you click the “attend” link on the Event Detail Popup.  This page will give you the same information as the pop-up, but will also include a list of anyone who has either said they will attend, or cancelled that declaration  This would have been nice in the raid roster days. 

Event Notifications

Knowing that people aren’t on the Internet all day long, I built an automated notification system that people customize.  A person will click a series of questions in the middle and build the kind of notification they want.  It can be just for LAN parties or just for Internet Games.  It can be for a specific game.  There are two methods of notification at the moment: E-mail and SMS text.  Yes, if an event is scheduled and you have a notification rule to be notified, you will receive a text on your phone.  I have tested this with my brother Josh and my own phone for over a month.  A future goal of mine is to expand the rules as to why one is notified and expand the methods of notification (e.g. RSS, Twitter, etc.).  This is one of the neater things in my mind.  The Summary on the right will explain in “Friendly” terms what rule you are building. 

Email Example

This is simply an example of the email that is sent.  I can add more pizzazz later

Forums

With my experience with First Strike’s forum, this was a breeze to set up.  I know I did a better job this time setting it up.  Forums are a staple of most sites such as these.  I did use the Facebook signon feature that this board supports.  Basically, if you’re signed in on Facebook, you can click a button when registering and it will populate everything the forum needs from Facebook and log you in.  I have to admit, it’s pretty slick.  Sneaky Facebook….

This is the end of the post.  If you made it this far, you might as well go sign up now, if you haven’t already!

The kids and I played some more Earthdawn last weekend.  This was after I ordered another campaign box off of eBay to actually use.  I have one in the original packaging that I don’t want to open.  Maybe it’ll be worth something this way.  Maybe….probably not.  The campaign box I’d received was used already so I didn’t feel bad giving it some more use.

Anyways, based on using my character generator, some unexpected, useful feedback and cool features I’d seen other places, I decided to update it.  I’d found a few bugs while using it, and tweaked a few things I wanted to tweak.  I also added a “Character Memory” feature.  The idea is that the program will remember every character it’d ever loaded until you close it.  Then, a GameMaster could print out a character summary sheet of all the characters that had been loaded while you had used the program.  The idea seemed pretty neat and it made it a lot easier for me to track the numbers used by player characters.  It also could be used for NPCs as well.

I also took the friendly warning I’d received from another Earthdawn advocate about the possibility of copyright infringement to heart and altered some of the text to not be word for word from the source book.  I also added a change log.  The change log is part of the installation now, but if anyone is interested in it I can post it here.

Download EDCG2011 1.0.1.0

I’ve gotten over the stigma of buying another e-book reader after having the last one stolen from our home last 4th of July.  I ended up buying a new Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet.  I chose the Nook over the Kindle Fire due to the superior hardware and the declared ease of unlocking the tablet into a full Android tablet.  After a few months of himming and hawing, Heather told me to shut up and get the thing. Ha!  I'm eternally thankful that I have a wife as good as her. 

This particular tablet doesn’t feel cheap.  It has a book like texture on the back, and while light, it doesn’t feel brittle as some other portable devices.  The screen is very clear and the interface snappy.  Most of my decision making process was based on what I would actually use the tablet for.  I’d pined over the Asus Transformer Prime for a while, but I eventually had to accept the fact that I wouldn’t get $500 worth of use out of the machine.  I don’t travel all that often, and I have constant access to a computer at home and work.  Therefore, I didn’t need a GPS nor Voice Chat.  Even at the price of the Nook, it was one of the main stopping points for a long time.  On the other hand, I was generally disappointed with my last e-book reader purchase that was nearly always sluggish.

Seriously sluggish…Borders is liquidated now…

Anyways, I have my Nook tablet on all the articles on how easy it was to root.  Low and behold, by the time I get one B&N decide that they don’t want their device to be as rootable as before after Amazon locked down their Kindle Fire from the same type of unlocking mechanisms.  Luckily there is a forum that has a few dedicated people to keeping the “open” in open source software.  After a couple hours of reading through forum posts, I felt confident that I could perform the operation myself.  I took some notes while working and felt they should be published, maybe if I need to do it again.

Now some people out there might balk at the idea of downloading unknown software from an individual, but the way I see it, if a person puts himself out there for his software to be used, he runs the risk of identification just by registering on a forum.  The fallout of trying to be evil wouldn’t be worth it.  Also this solution has been out there for a while, so if there was some malicious intent, I wouldn’t be the first to hit it.

Step 1 – Download the files needed…Easy Enough

Step 2 – Plug in my Nook…Again Easy.  What was an added bonus in my mind is that Windows reads the Nook as two separate drives.  The internal memory on the Nook and a card reader for the SD card inside:

Step 3 – Use the Imaging software to place the new bootable image on the SD card.  There was a piece of software provided in the downloaded file to allow for this.  Things weren’t too bad so far, because I can always reformat the SD card and no harm done.

Step 4 – Placed the “Updated.zip” file on the SD card, as instructed.  Copy and Paste, baby.

Step 5 – Nook Factory Reset: At least that’s what I thought it must have been.  I turned the Nook off and turned it back on while holding down the big “N” button on the bottom.  The screen on the tablet just flickered on and off and if I wasn’t paying attention I wouldn’t have seen it.

Step 6 – Load the new Image: As per instructions I removed the SD card, and put it back in.  Turning on the Nook, it followed the instructions again, showing the Nook loading screen and then what could only have been a custom loader screen. 

Step 7 – Load up software.  Navigating through the menu, I found the menu options as described although they weren’t word for word.  There was an option to “Install ZIP from SD Card”.  This the moment of no return.  I push the “N” key to accept this leap.  It gave me another chance to back out with 8 answers, 7 of them being “No”.  I selected “Yes” and waited.

Step 8 – The updated itself only took a few seconds.  It asked for a reboot, which could only be done through the text menu.  The power button on the side was inoperable.  I told the software to reboot and hoped everything had gone well.

Once it the tablet was back up and running, it was better than I thought it would be!  The system still contains all the Barnes & Noble software, including their book library, but now I have the option of removing it.  I also have access to Google Play i.e. the Android App store and to the Amazon book store as well.  I have the option to sideload any data (apps, books, music, videos, etc.) I want.  In essence, I can use the tablet how I want, and not how I’m told to.  I’ve already gotten more reading in than normal, have more exposure to the Android market and could play Angry Birds…..if I wanted to. 

I was given a physical stomach ache at the use of Facebook to send a message to some friends of my regarding the release date of Diablo 3 (May 15th).  The idea was the suggestion of some coordinated game time, either by way of LAN party or general time coordination.  E-mails don't work!  It seems that e-mail is only used in a corporate setting with the expectation of consistent communication.  

 So I re-activated the account and sent my message.  Already I get the paranoia with regards to my actions being analyzed and recorded.  I know this happens, I know this is how Facebook makes its billions, but again, I have no say in how my data is used or allowed to be seen by.  In my mind, that is fundamentally wrong.

 I've sent my message and hopefully, something positive will come from it.  Usually communication with friends and making plans with them is. 

I found this extension while setting up my computer using Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Among other things I needed to set up my web browser of choice: Opera.  While skimming through the extensions list out of curiosity, I was struck by the cool little logo of the extension Ghostery.  After applying this extension, it appears to do what it says it does, and the web seems a might speedier.

This add-on apparently will inform you of and block known 3rd-party advertising cookies from your web browsing experience. As a person who values his anonymity online, I immediately installed it to see what it would pick up. I compared the same website between Opera with Ghostery installed and Internet Explorer 10 without it installed. The advertisements that existed on the website in IE10 did not appear in Opera. There weren't any advertisements at all to replace them with either, to my liking!

I realize that advertising literally puts food on peoples tables, but until I’m given the choice to opt in or out of these advertisements on my personal computer, options like these will always be in demand.  For those who do value the Internet as it is and not how information hounds would want it to be, the use of this plug in seems to be an obvious choice.

It's been a month since I started putting free time into KVD.  I have spent an hour here and hour there adding functionality and tweaking design. Entering events is available now, showing up in the available database and on the screen.  I tried to make it simple, without a lot of text entering  The forum is functional and colored, I think, to something useful.

I still want to add:

• Event notification
• i.e. Person one enters an event for Left 4 Dead 2 on Saturday and Person two who would like to be notified when L4D2 on Saturdays is going to happen gets a text sent to his cell phone or an e-mail or *gasp* a tweet.
• I'm still not really sold on Twitter, but it appears that it's here to stay, at least in the Smithsonian.
• Event RSVP-ing
• The same scenario above except Person 2 wants to communicate that he will indeed be available to shoot zombies with Person 1.
• Calendar page
• An overall look at the month or next 4 weeks of scheduled events.  It seems like calendars like that always end up being pretty hard.  I consider it a personal challenge.
• Facebook Signon integration
• Although I squirm at the idea of using Facebook (read this NY Times opinion article to understand), there is no denying it is commodity of the times.  If Person 2 is signed into Facebook automatically, using the Facebook Connect API, I should be able to translate that into automatic authentication on KVD.
• Steam information availability
• Using Person 1's Steam Community ID, It's easy to retrieve any public information he's allowed, even it's just showing his Steam Name.
• Content Entering and Aggregation
• I would like to extend this to something beyond just a game scheduling agent.  Something like Movies we enjoy, rate them ... or ... collaborative design of our own stories or games.  Or a repository of YouTube videos we enjoy.  Something to move beyond organization of culture and content that is limited to the folder on a local computer.

Some may ask why I feel the need to build this myself.  

First, I enjoy the creation of software.  The act of software design and creation almost feels artistic in a way.

Second, I think there is a benefit to the idea that you personally know who owns the website you are visiting.  To follow that idea, I believe the walled garden approach Facebook has taken with the the personal data people freely give away is bound to come crashing down or even worse becoming so integrated in our society that is not thought of as a problem but as something that people just have to settle for and in the end, accept.  I refuse to be a lemming in that regard.

Last, I haven't found anything like this kind of functionality on the Internet that doesn't come with a price or isn't exactly what I want.

It's just spent time, right? 

The kids and I played some serious Earthdawn two weekends ago.  I’ve taken it upon myself to record and manage the game, chronicling the adventures and keeping the character sheets up to date..  As anyone can attest, this is a rather large burden by usually taken up by those who are playing the characters.  My situation is different in that the age range of my players is seven to eleven years old.  The probability of that job getting done correctly isn’t really in my favor, no matter how enthusiastic they are about playing Earthdawn.  I  am thanking myself several times over for writing a program to make this process much less time consuming. 

Our group had finished a great adventure and Legend Points (the method of progression in this game), were awarded.  I ran 3 of the kids through the program to find a need for an easy to implement feature, leveling up their talents (i.e. in game abilities) without having to remove and re-add talents.  I’ve added that feature, and fixed a couple bugs found in the process.  The new version is available for any to use and can be downloaded here.

While surfing the Internet this last weekend, I came across this blog that had many resources that were freely available for Earthdawn group use.  They had a few character generators on there, but it didn’t appear to be a recent post.  Perhaps my work will grab the attention of others?  I’m not ready to present it at this point, as it seems that whenever I use it or read about similar projects I want to improve it.  The blog did link to a very interesting looking compendium of adventures that could be used by characters at the level the kids are.  I know that the idea of “just” using someone else’s creation may seem inadequate, but we’ve just finished a 6 month long adventure, taking 15 pages of chronicling.  I feel like I can let something else do the creative part, at least for a little while.

I bought this domain last Friday.  For those in the loop of what plans I have in store, it should make sense.  Once the DNS and Name servers are all taken care of, I’ll start putting together a site.  Until then, I’ll probably just put a parking page there until I’m ready to go.  I’ve changed domain name registrars from GoDaddy to NameCheap due to their SOPA stances.  Bad move, GoDaddy…  I’ve been spending a lot of time in with MVC3 at work and it seems like a great idea for rapid development, due to already having the experience.  Another option would be HTML5.  I’m hoping this will satisfy a hunger I have to design/create something.  I’ve been doing it at work and it seems I just want to keep doing it.  I still feel like there is so much in front of me to learn.

I have deactivated my Facebook account and deleted my Google+ account.  In the same vein as when I deleted my MySpace profile, I feel these services are not for me.  I do not believe in the being the product for other corporations data mining.  I don't believe in the concept of "trending" and being told what is currently the idea of the moment.  People who want to get a hold of me have the means to do so.  Over the years that I've had these types of services, I come away with two thoughts.  The first of which is that they are no different than AOL's walled garden approach to the Internet in the 90s.  The second of which is they exist only to push other people's ideas of relevancy on me, either corporate marketing or personal cries for attention.

I have no need of either.

I began this programming project early last year after digging out my 1st edition Earthdawn RPG book to play with the kids.  I had forgotten how long the character creation process was with this game.  I suppose computer gaming has made me spoiled.  What had started out as an attempt at fun turned out to be several hours of plugging in stats for each of their characters and filling out of character sheets.  This started as a source of fun, but after the 4th character the tedium mounted to a point where I felt something needed to be done.  Some may feel that this “adds to the experience”, but when you have a few kids just wanting to play a game, I really didn’t think there was anything added.  After that particular day, I remembered that I had found an Earthdawn character sheet generator while surfing the web several years ago and had used it when I played.  I found that I still have the file, but unfortunately it wouldn’t run on Windows 7.  So, me being a “do-it-yourself” kind of guy at times, took it upon myself to write a new version of this program for my own personal use, and for anyone else who wanted to use it.

After several months of on again off again programming, it turned out to be an enjoyable experience.  I explored several aspects of program development I’d never done before, learned some new tricks, and completed my first program from design to deployment, omitting work projects.  It appeared to me to look like a “real” program, and perhaps it would be useful for those few who still play the game.  I’m not active on any Earthdawn boards, so I doubt this will get much, if any, exposure, but I don’t really care.  Every programming interview of merit has asked me about personal projects I’ve completed, and I would now count this as one of them.  If I’m doing this on my spare time, I must be on a correct career path. 

The program allows a user to plug in numbers dictated by the original source book and calculate the various statistics about your character.  It fills out a character sheet, and generates it in HTML.  It allows you to save a file for the program itself (I called it an EDCG file) or “Export to HTML”, taking your information and publishing it to an html page that can be viewed or saved to eventually be printed.  You can fill out your talents, skills, spells and inventory.  This turns a 2 hour process into a 10 minute process, which really was the goal.

I do feel it is an accomplishment to “complete a program” and this fulfills a personal goal of mine.  This could be used by anonymous people.  It could be useful, albeit in a niche market.  This entire process makes me want to do more and learn even more about program creation, particularly in the animation department.  I suppose it’s a good thing to be software developer with these kinds of ambitions.  I suppose I could rework this to be a web application or a mobile application, but that would be for another time.  I’m on to another self improvement project, but for now, this program should be good to go.  My son and I went through several “Q/A sessions” where he’d try to break it and I’d fix what he’d found.

I’ll get a page up eventually with more detail.

Here’s a download link

Enjoy!