Performancing Metrics

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Our First Serious Attempt At Animation





     Although simple and childish, this animation was more a lesson in patiences and resolve.  I'm continuing the piece, and will post the updated versions up until the final version, which I'm hoping will be about 720 frames, or 30 seconds.  Yep, thats right, when this is done, I will have drawn 720 individual images for this little show, and I hope you'll enjoy watching it as much as I'm enjoying making it.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Some More Help

     So, lately people have been showing a lot of interest in working on the video game we are creating, working title: Epic.  We have two artists working on sound and visual, another just for sound mixing, and another enthusiast that may get on board for programming.  In all, that moves our little group up to six participants, and we're looking for more.  Anyone interested contact Digital Fruit at (360) 593-6082.  Leave a message or send a text that you are interested in working on Epic, our RPG title.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

iPod Update problems in Windows

     So, you have an iPod, and you use Windows.  You are part of a very large community dabbling in crossing different OS's.  And now you've hit a snag.  You're trying to update your Apple technology with a Windows copy of iTunes, and you get a little error box that pops up and tells you there was a problem installing and your network has timed out.  You try the disgustingly large download again, and the same result.  What's wrong?  Don't worry, you're not the only one with this issue.
     This problem stems from Apple stalwartly believing that no one needs an anti-virus.  So, the quickest fix, at least if you are using Kaspersky, is to simply turn off your antivirus.  Then you run the update again and all should be well.  Hope things turn out alright.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Ack! Internet Blackout!

     So, its great to be back.  For the last forty-eight hours Digital Fruit has been on an internet blackout because of some billing discrepancies with Qwest communications.  Though not completely settled, we have been able to restore service.  So, I'm back, and I'll post again soon.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

First Facebook Faux Pas

     Have you ever done something you knew was bad, just to see what the outcome would be?  I seem to be one of those plagued with this ailment.  But, as it seems, only when it comes to computers.
     I received a post on my wall the day before last that seemed ridiculously fishy.  Curious about that, I went to the wall of the friend that had left me the post, and decided that this post was generated by a Facebook virus.  Feeling curios, I booted up a virtual machine of Windows XP and went to the page of the place that post lead me too.  I followed the social engineering instructions on this new Facebook wall, knowing quite well this was a set up.  (This particular one was about getting to track people "creeping" you Facebook page.)  After following the pages instructions so I could "find out who was viewing my facebook page", I was re-directed to a page that was talking about taking surveys to win a free iPad 2.  Having sated my curiosity and feeling bored with this game now, I exited out of Windows XP.
     I then noticed that my account had sent every one of my friends the exact same message my friend's account had sent me.  Not really caring much about my Facebook account, I shrugged, deleted the post from the most immediate friends on my list, and went to bed.
     The next morning, my e-mail was flooded with comment notifications about postings from friends.  All of these posts were from people concerned my Facebook was infected and warning me to get it fixed.  I then realized I had committed my first Facebook faux pas, I had clicked on something that lead to a potential security hole for my whole group of friends.
     I was mildly surprised at the reaction of my small community of friends.  Their response was quick and decisive, full of advice on how to fix my dilemma, and parental style warnings not to click on things I don't know where they'll lead.  The chance that I might have caused a security leak was a serious ordeal.
     Needless to say I'll be more careful next time, and set up an account specifically for virus hunting.  This experience opened my eyes as to how seriously people take their Facebook, and how easy it is to for the average person to get sucked into these kind of plots, I mean, everything on the virus' Facebook page looked legitimate.
     Well, here's to hoping for a safer internet, and I'll catch you on the flipside.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Appologies, But Not Our Fault

     Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days, but as I'm sure at least a few of you heard that the Blogger system was down for the last couple of days after a failed maintenance update.  So, I'm going to use this catastrophe to highlight one of the huge failings of the computing cloud system, and why personally owned software is still a very important part of personal and business computing.
    What happens when the company you use for cloud services fails?  I'm not implying that Google is going to suddenly cease to exist, but they definitely fail sometimes.  And when you have a lot of your personal work and entertainment invested in the services these big companies provide, you take a monumental risk.  Say you have a business report that is absolutely necessary for a meeting the next day.  You log into Google docs and try to print it off, only to find that the document in question can't be accessed because of a system failure you can't have fixed by your local tech support guy.  What will you do now?
    Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of anywhere access is great.  Bought into it in the days of e-mail with services like Hotmail and Gmail.  But I also believe in being smart about things.  The best solution?  In my opinion, the best solution to problems like this one is synchronization.  The data being saved on your personal system, and on your cloud drive, simultaneously, and the applications, (at least to read the files), as well.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Big, Bad Meanie

     So, Microsoft is buying Skype.  This seems to have a lot of people up in arms about how Microsoft will kill yet another great part of the computing experience.  But honestly, does anyone really believe that Microsoft is still the big, bad meanie they once were.  What with lost market share in the mobile phone industry, the internet browser department, search engine, and in personal computer sales(thanks to Apple), I personally believe that Microsoft is having to put on a much nicer public face.  Times are changing.
     How I see the Skype purchase going is like this: Microsoft will leave it alone.  Right now Microsoft is looking for something that will bring in steady revenue.  Relying sole on the sale of software that moves in five-to-ten year cycles won't work in the future.  People have come to adopt new technology much quicker as prices have fallen and the market has saturated with competing products at lower prices.  This is where Microsoft has been hurting.
     To top that off, they have taken some major hits in what products they produce.  In the last year they have had to trim their company by quite a bit.  A lot of good talent was lost, and that makes Microsoft eager to regain some of their status in the computing world.
     So, I would have to say that I think the purchase of Skype will be in the best interests of Microsoft if they just leave it as it is.  Skype already has a huge customer base, and that means that they already have the ability to generate revenue.
     The only casualty I can see coming from this is the loss of support for the Linux variant of Skype.  It a long shot though, so I'm not really worried.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Premise for an MMORPG

     So, what's a good premise for an MMORPG?

Monday, May 2, 2011

C++ IDEs for Linux

     So, today's post is covers something that shouldn't be so lacking in Linux, a good C++ IDE.  I have no idea why there aren't hundreds of decent-to-good IDEs for Linux, but in my search to learn Ubuntu, I've had troubles finding IDEs that are even usable.  So, to help other budding C++ Programmers, I've decided to list and review the best options I've found thus far.
     As odd as it may seem, there are only two environments that make the cut in this review, and one that I think has promise if it gets a little more TLC.  And the two that top this short list aren't even C++ development environments, they are Java environments that have C++ extensions.  The first, and my personal pick for number one, is NetBeans 6.9.  This one is ironic, because for many years I have been a detractor of NetBeans as an IDE, because it had a terrible interface, and left you in the dark as to the process you were going through.
     But this latest version is astounding simple.  In Ubuntu 10.10, all I had to do was was look through the repositories, and click install.  After that, it was a simple matter of going to the NetBeans site,

Sunday, May 1, 2011

New Month, New Posts

     So, I know that the month of April was a slow month for the blog, and, sadly, a slow month for Digital Fruit.  But it was still time well spent.  The time in study and R&D was well applied, and some new projects and products are stemming from that time.  So sorry I didn't type much here, but let me just say, there was typing.
     So, I thought I would just step in and say my peace for today, and let everyone know we aren't dead.  We're not even resting.  Soon, we'll have things ready for you to view and play with.