roncli.com blog

I decided to jump into Microsoft Project to organize my list of projects. My god, do I have a lot of projects. Not counting weekly tasks, I have 27 projects. Twenty-seven. When am I going to find time to do them all?

I suppose that's what Project is for, finding the time to do them all. It's not very encouraging at first glance, but when I glaze over the details, things do move along, if slowly. I doubt I'll ever complete all 27 projects, though, as certain projects, such as the D3TL 2003 upgrade (yes, I know it's 2006), D3DSN, and MediaSmarts probably isn't going to happen. They are the absolute lowest on my priority list right now, although I will at the very least review where these projects stand before June is out.

My goal is to get PwnedCars done before my vacation in June - by the way, I'm leaving for Melbourne, Australia on June 17th - and get some significant progress done on the new roncli Productions website. After that, I've got some long-term projects, including Cent, which I've mentioned here before. Since I've actually had to use C++ at work, I'm a bit more comfortable with the language, and hope that can help me get more done on Cent.

Here's a large (but incomplete, I must have some secrets!) selection of the 27 projects I have, for your interest:

modplug.roncli.com - Where ModPlug used to be hosted before the first crash, this box now holds some websites for MisterX (Kim), and its future is unknown at the moment. It probably will turn into a hosting box for the next modplug.com, but that's up to Kim & LPChip. (By the way, modplug.roncli.com technically isn't an address, it's just my designation for the computer itself.)

reborn.roncli.com - Reborn is my router, running FreeBSD 6.1 just like the ModPlug box. It's also my network's backup server with 300 GB of storage space. It backs up everything, including my MAME collection, OSMusic.Net, and all of the photo's Kathy's got stored on her computer.

successor.roncli.com - This is my main computer, and the reason it's a project is because I want to reinstall Windows. Yeah. That's going to be a fun day or three.

www.roncli.com - This is the Windows server where all my ASP websites live. The only thing I need to do is figure out how to backup the databases so that Backup can pick them up and put them onto Reborn.

Outpost Music - My music group that I haven't really done much with in a year and a half. Well, it's high time I got the forums working. I'll likely work on that after vacation.

The Nightstalker - Not to be confused with http://www.roncli.com, http://tns.roncli.com is solely devoted to my music. However, there's only 2 songs listed there right now. Considering I've released over 50, that's got to change.

Chess - Not sure what to call this yet, but I'm really interested in making a site with Java that will allow people to solve chess puzzles, play games, chat, and more. Definitely a long termer.

Cent - I really haven't come out and said what this is, but it's my dabbling into CrystalSpace to see if I can write a legitimate 3D first person shooter. It uses Crystal Space as its rendering engine, so once I understand it - and I understand a lot of it right now - writing the necessary code should just be a matter of time. How far I go with it depends on how well it runs.

Solar - Solar is a TCP/IP Text Processing Engine. I can hear it now. Huh? Basically, it is a telnet server that allows multiple connections, allowing them to interact. It would be great groundwork for a MUD-type application, but I really haven't had any plans to do anything with it. Putting it in as a project at least gives me an opportunity to improve it.

ChessCli - This is definitely being called ChessCli, and is my attempt at creating a WinBoard chess engine.

Outpost IRC Bot - Not sure if I even want to continue this project, but it was designed to be a cutthroat one hour compo manager. I had a lot of ideas for this about 4 years ago. Whether I can recall them, well, who knows.

roncli.com Logs - I'd really like to expand http://logs.roncli.com, as I'm recording a lot more information than I'm displaying. I'd also like to work on the performance and get this thing smoking along.

Torrent Keeper - Frustrated with the lack of true multithreading BitTorrent applications, I started Torrent Keeper about a year ago. It hasn't gone anywhere, but I figure this will likely follow Backup and Due Process as one of the first few roncli Productions offerings.

Word Field - A silly idea of mine that I'd like to follow through on eventually. Combine word scramble, mine sweeper, and some aspects of Press Your Luck, and you've got a good idea what this game will be like.

D3TL 2003 - As mentioned above, I started to do an upgrade of D3TL in 2003. The database was really badly designed, even though it was much better than just updating a Flash file every now and again. Problem is, I don't play Descent anymore, and given that there hasn't been a real game played in months, I might be better off saving an idea like this for Cent if I ever finish it.

D3DSN - This is the Descent 3 Dedicated Server Network. Yes, it's still up. No one uses it though, because the software's buggy. When I went from Visual Basic 6.0 to .NET, I really messed up with some timing issues. What I really need to do is add true threading to that application, but the last time I tried to test it with Esa, I ended up giving up because he wasn't seeing the new web services for some reason or another. Again, if I ever pick this up, it will probably be for Cent instead.

IsItUp - Recall September of last year when I high-tailed up to Lubbock, TX, to escape Hurrican Rita. While I was up there, I was interested in whether or not my servers were up. So, I wrote IsItUp, an insanely simple app. I might expand it a bit, but probably will end up being released as freeware.

Numbers - Some people write "Hello World". I write Numbers. I've written this game in many languages, including TI99-4 Basic, Macintosh QuickBasic (OS 7.0 days!), C128 Basic (dual screen!), and finally Visual Basic 6.0. It's a rather addicting game, and over the years I've added some features to it that make it even more challenging. I want to do something with it, I just don't know what yet.

roncli.com Blog - Yes, the very same one you are reading! I'd like to add some things to the blog, maybe my BOINC stats, maybe my Google Calendar agenda, perhaps some other widgets that will make the site more interactive.

Labels: Blog, Cent, Chess, ChessCli, Coding, D3DSN, D3TL, Descent 3, IRC, IsItUp, Logs, ModPlug, Numbers, Outpost Music, Projects, roncli.com, Solar, The Nightstalker, Torrent Keeper, Word Field

Monday, February 28, 2005

It was a foregone conclusion...
Posted: 2:27:00 AM 0 comments

After two days of working on D3DSN, my curiosity got the better of me, and I actually sat down and opened up a can of Descent 3. 15 months of not playing's taken its toll on my game, needless to say I sucked it up for a while. I also spent a good amount of time fixing video problems throughout the game. There were some great dogfights, and the rush of excitement the game would have at times was exactly as I had remembered it.

Does that mean I'm going to play more? Probably not. We'll see. I still got stuff I want to do with D3DSN yet, and there'll be no doubt I'll be playing to see how well it works from the inside.

Labels: Coding, D3DSN, Descent 3, Gaming

Sunday, February 27, 2005

XML Web Services and SETI
Posted: 5:46:00 AM 0 comments

Now playing: RedHeat Sonic Soundscapes - Outer Circle (Vocal, Dance) (4:50)

Apparantly XML Web Services and SETI@Home don't play nicely together. Here I am thinking I have a big problem in my application, and when I turn off SETI, it's fine.

What's worse is that this is in D3DSN, an application I distribute. So if I'm having this problem, other people are going to have this problem.

Why can't Microsoft write something that plays nice with other things? Greedy corporate bastards.

Labels: Coding, D3DSN, Descent 3, Gaming, SETI@Home, XML Web Services

Saturday, February 26, 2005

More D3DSN Progress
Posted: 11:36:00 AM 0 comments

Well, it looks like my progress on D3DSN has continued. I am working towards an 0.5.0 BETA hopefully before the weekend is out that will fix the bugs and put all the annoyances to rest. My goal is to add all of the functionality directly related to the game servers into the application for this release, and then code the web stuff after it is released, giving the application some time to settle in.

I also went through the D3DSN Website and changed the way I draw all of the tables to match OSM's method. Not fun, but at the same time it will cut down on coding tables in the future. Useful when I add forums, web control for ops, etc.

It always has been an exciting project when I've gotten around to work on it, as the level of automation this will provide the D3 community is still to this day unprecedented. While I have not played the game in quite some time, it still is something I like to support, especially if there isn't going to be another game in the Descent series in the future.

Labels: Coding, D3DSN, Descent 3, Gaming

Friday, February 25, 2005

D3DSN Resurrection?
Posted: 10:26:00 AM 0 comments

Amazingly, I actually got around to doing some work on the D3DSN project. Which is odd because I haven't played Descent in about 15 months now, but something in me wanted to go back and take another look at it. Not only did I fix the annoying bug where you get 100% CPU utilization when running 2 servers, I actually started adding features!

There's a lot I wanted to do with this next version, though, and motiviation isn't all that high to get anything done to be completely honest. I guess it's just a curiosity I have to poke at every once in a while.

Labels: Coding, D3DSN, Descent 3, Gaming