IAM Blog Engine

As I started to develop much more complex applications for work, more and more bugs started to come up. It got to the point where I couldn’t reliably keep a written or simple list of what I had to do and what was not working. And I definitely couldn’t keep it in my head. Luckily at work we had a FogBugz account. FogBugz for those of you who don’t know is a pretty advanced bug tracking web application made by Fog Creek (Joel Spolsky’s company).

At first it took a while to get used to the work flow of FogBugz, but once we all started using it at SNM I really got into it and it helped me out greatly. However as I started to use it more and more I started to see problems in the interface and general application. It just took to much time and clicks to make bugs and close bugs. Now I think most of these problems are not really Fog Creek’s problem, they made an excellent enterprise level bug tracking system. However using it in the small scale (two people) I think makes a lot of the features of FogBugz redundant and adds a lot of extra complexity.

So after spending some time experimenting with the FogBugz API I started to formulate an idea to make my own interface that would stream line the process. I wanted to see a simple list of bugs, ranked and color coded by priority with the latest message about the bug and a button to assign it to someone else and to close it. So after spending some time getting used to the API and building the interface I created a simple Django application that let me interface with the API and store simple user information in the servers memory. Here is a screen shot of the end result:

I was pretty happy with the first version. It let me quickly see what I had to do and check off things when I was done. This got me thinking, is there a market for a really simple ‘to do list’ or bug tracking web application for people like me? I think so. There are definitely quite a few other applications out there that do what I want but I have yet to find one 100% targeted at people who want something simple and to the point.

We’ll see what comes of this idea. I’ve wanted to try to start developing my own apps for a while, and after thinking more about what I could do with a bug tracking application I really think I might be on to something. But then again maybe not. I’m never going to learn if I don’t fail a few times anyways.

If you do use FogBugz and you want to check it out please do and let me know what you think, http://buggie.bmdev.org I don’t use any database at all to store any of your data it all lives temporarily in the server’s memory. Also if you want to check out the code you can see it on GitHub

(Cross posted from my blog)

Before:

After:

We are starting a new project at work and with it we are going to use our custom CMS, Stratus, as the back end. In our last project we heavily re-factored and streamlined the latest build. But the interface has had little or no changes since its initial version. So after I had the scaffolding of the CMS in place for our new project I started to make adjustments to the UI. The first major thing I did was change the colors around a lot. The old UI used whites, light grays, and light blues all over. The only background color is used in the header (as you can see in the first image above). While this isn’t a ‘bad’ interface at all I felt like the interface was not adding anything. It didn’t hold you back from using the CMS but it didn’t help you either.

Because this is a commercial CMS and we always are making it for a specific project we work with the client and show them how to use it (a luxury that most web developers don’t have, and one that none should rely on) UX is not high on our list of priorities. However after thinking about what I could do to make this CMS better (out side of the backend code) I realized with a cleaned up interface we could cut back on a lot of the time we took explaining how to use the CMS to clients and make the CMS less of a chore to use. The first thing I wanted to do was to use color to create a visual hierarchy in the interface. The thing that is most important on the page is the current elements you are working with. For example if you are on the ‘Categories’ page the thing that is most important is the actually category elements. To do this I made the header a dark gray background and the rest of the site a lighter gray background. The only use of white is the center content area (following our categories example, where the categories are listed) making that the very clear center of attention. Besides making the background of the main content area white I also used darker more saturated fonts in the center to further enforce that this is the most important area on the screen. The real challenge here (that resulted in a lot of back and forth between TextMate, Photoshop, and Chrome) was keeping the interface as a whole coherent. When I made the sidebar and header too light and blending in too much it make the center content area overpowering.

While there is still a lot of work to do in the UI I found it to be a really refreshing and an interesting challenge trying to create an interface that needs to be very extensible. Meaning the interface needs to keep up with the complexities of the CMS. If we decided to add a grid based list of a specific object the CMS’ UI needs to deal with that.

An idea that linked both of our readings together this week is the idea of education being independent from the gaining of knowledge. In fact, both readings posited that modern education exists only to reinforce the class structure.

I am not the first in saying that, during this week’s reading, I was reminded of “Fight Club.” Part of the reason is because the readings, in particular “A Hacker Manifesto,” and “Fight Club” both reject the current way in which our society is structured. The “Manifesto” says that in the not-too-distant future, people will have liberty from the class structure thanks to hacking, the idea of taking something old apart and turning it into something new. In “Fight Club,” people will have liberty from the class structure by adopting eschewing modern culture and returning to the traditional roots of human society.

Though these seem like opposite means to similar ends, the “Manifesto” indicates that they are not. It is stated that hacking creates something new from the old. Even if the attempt is to return to humanity’s primal nature, it would not be a return to the past; it would be an attempt to build the past from the pieces of the present, creating something entirely new. This, according to McKenzie Wark, would make Chuck Palahniuk a hacker.

Last week I left off at Viper manor with about three different game saves. I found that just within the first big part of the story you can gather about 8 different characters. There is a lot of variety as to how you can start the game. I decided to stick with my party of Guile, Kid, and Serge. I made it to a ship that was shrouded in fog. This was a pirate ship led by another aquirable character named Fargo, He kind of reminds me of my uncle, in pirate form. In this part of the game i really enjoyed the water effect that was used. it is just a waving blue image. Very simple but it does the job. The lack of music in this part of the game adds to the suspense in the story. Eventually, when the crew gets attacked by a ghost ship, it is up to Serge and the gang to save their arrrggg..ses and gain their trust. To be honest I did not like the ghosts that were used in the game. The ghosts seemed too playful and cartoony. This game is cartoony but I expected the ghosts to be more, “dark” shall we say? After dealing with some not so great ghosts I headed towards Mount Pyre, but it is made of Lava and I Now need to get Ice Breath from a Dragon. I guess I’ll have to do that.

From the Adobe AS3 Tour page:

———————————————————————————-

Join internationally renowned ActionScript expert Colin Moock for an intensive full day of free ActionScript 3.0 training.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to learn how to program from one of the world’s top ActionScript instructors. Open yourself to a world of new possibilities through Moock’s unique methodology for demystifying intimidating concepts and code.

Based on Moock’s best-selling Essential ActionScript 3.0 (O’Reilly, 2007), this one-day event covers the fundamental skills you need to program for Flash Player and Adobe AIR. Topics covered include object-oriented programming, classes, objects, variables, methods, packages, conditionals, loops, operators, functions, event handling, displaying things on screen, and compiling and running programs.

Whether you’re a new Flash developer or just looking to formalize your ActionScript 3.0 knowledge, you’ll leave the day invigorated with new ideas and equipped to face new challenges.

This exclusive free event is sure to fill up so register early.

Attendees will leave the day with:

• exposure to all major concepts of object programming
• an understanding of classes and objects
• an understanding of how to structure and write an ActionScript 3.0 Program
• exposure to the Flex Builder 2 development environment
• a pamphlet reviewing the days major concepts

Sembo Kensuke and Yae Akaiwa use sound and video processing, software programming, hardware circuit bending, installations as well as live performance. “With enough crossing over, exonemo continue to blur the lines of discipline and if you ask them whether they are designers, programmers, visual or media artists, you’ll find they don’t really care.”
Exciting and interesting interviews, and information can be found on this site daily. I found this Interview with Exonemo very interesting. There are also many links to videos and examples of their work. Check this out!

Bookmark this site on your computer!
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com

Interview with Exonemo:
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009766.php

XNA Game Studio Express (Xbox)

Mitch Walker (Program Manager for the XNA Framework) discussed XNA Game Studio Express, walked through some code for cross-platform programming (games that will play on PC and Xbox), and talked about some of the new features that will be in the next release.

The Game Design Challenge: The Needle and Thread Interface

Three top designers tackled this year’s Game Design Challenge (David Jaffe, Harvey Smith, and Alexey Pajitnov) -the challenge has been going on for several years at GDC and is coordinated/led by Eric Zimmerman. This year’s challenge was to create a game using a 2×2 square of cloth, a plastic needle, and thread. The three ideas generated were radically different and the designers explained both the end design and their creative process.

Embodied Agents in Dynamic Worlds

John O’Brien (Lead Engineer, Red Storm Entertainment) and Bryan Stout talked about agents navigating through dynamic environments. Topics such as dynamic search techniques, graph and mesh modification strategies, and on-the-fly navigation and avoidance techniques were discussed.

Women and Games in the Future

A panel of speakers (Don Daglow, Sheri Graner Ray*, Carrie Heeter and Kimberly Ann Sparks) talked about women in games (past, present and future). Interestingly, the panel said that one of the biggest concerns right now is the lack of women game designers. Some audience members joined in and said that in their companies they see the same trend – they have women artists, programmers, etc., but have very few game designers that are women.

*Sheri Graner Ray is the author of Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding The Market

The Imago Effect: Avatar Psychology

Harvey Smith’s talk covered topics such as identity, archetypes and how representing yourself is a multi-layered process. The speaker referenced and discussed many ideas addressed in the Game Culture course.

Stormtroopers

LucasArts was at GDC

Microsoft’s Game Developer Day

The first session had a lot of tips on producing games that will run on Windows Vista (security features, changes to DirectX, installation, etc.)
The second session covered XNA Game Studio Express and included a live demo of creating a single game that can then be played on either Windows or Xbox 360. Caveat: you have to pay $99 a year to create games for the 360 (enrollment in the XNA Creators Club – you can read more about the benefits of this at the XNA Team’s Blog).

Physics for Game Developers

The second half of the day Jeff and I switched to the “Physics for Game Developers” session. We slipped in at “Numerical Robustness for Geometric Computations” and stayed through two collision presentations.
The presenters of this session very kindly put all their slides online. They also have the presentations from previous years on their site as well.

Columbia College Chicago’s Booth at GDC

We got the booth set up tonight with two flat panel monitors showing student work, brochures about our program, our recent newsletter, and free 512mb usb drives (ultra cool with game.colum.edu on the lanyard). We also have some posters with photos from our motion capture studio, our game research lab, and screenshots of student work.