Weekly Update: Monday, January 5, 2009

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

I figured i'd break out of the norm and FINALLY do another weekly update...even though it's been like 2 months.

There are a few things I want to touch on, the most important of which is that inactivity seems to be creeping it's way back in here. I don't know what will prompt me to close down the site again, but I really don't want it to come to that again. I know school started again today for most of you, so I don't want you to feel like you HAVE to come here, but I know that it's not that hard to visit at least everyday, and I just can't figure out if that's asking too much. This is all I'm gonna say on this.

Next, a few of you might have noticed the new Tutorial I posted about making the New Years fireworks that I had up on the frontpage. It's a Photosop tutorial, but even though I made it with CS3, CS2 users should be able to follow it without problem. It's a pretty neat little effect.

I was also going through the site the other day and visiting some of the pages that I haven't been to in a while, namely the Music and Movies page, and this one. For the Music and Movies page, I have an idea as to something I could make to secure it and be able to bring it back online, but it wouldn't be the same interface as before. This way people will still be able to get their music and movies that they want to download from the site without me having to provide a direct link. As for the second page, the one I call "Embleminator", I have an idea for that, too. What it does is when you put in your gamertag or any gamertag that's played Halo 3, it will retrieve your rank image, a spartan or officer pin, and your campaign completion pin. I would like to integrate those with the Roster. To further that, I'd like to make the roster a little more automatic.

I have a few ideas how we could take "clan" to the Xbox 360. Since the release of the 360, we've been hanging together without any glue. Clans were removed from Xbox support, meaning we had nothing but our own...well, nothing really, to hold us together. I read somwhere that in place of true Clan support, a group could use the Friends of Friends feature to keep a group together. Basically all it would require is that I make a Xbox Live silver account, which you can then all send a friend request to. When anyone wants to join, they can use the friends of friends feature to view the silver account I made, which will hold all of the clan's members. This way we're held together by something. Of course, this might not be the best choice because so many people have told me that clan sites are not the way to go, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to be a clan site, we'll just be part of a clan.

Another idea would to be to just keep it on the site. Xbox 360 doesn't have Clan support and probably for a reason (though I don't know what it could be), so I could just create a form that will let you submit an application for membership to the clan. This way it WILL be automatic, and at any time a user could quit or leave the clan all by himself. As for keeping the emblems updated, I showed you guys the Bungie Webcam Archiver that I made that gets a picture from the Bungie webcam every 10 minutes and saves it to the server. This uses a server feature called Cron, which is basically a scheduled task. I can tell the server to run a certain page every 10 minutes and it'll do it. I'm thinking (and I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier) that I can tell my server to run the Emblem update page every day, once a day. Now I won't have to forget about it.

And finally, most of you have to have seen the HD Recording Service thread I posted in Chat. This is a service wherein I will record people's Halo 3 Films or Film Clips, for the fee of $1 a minute. The clip will be uploaded to the server and the user will provide a 6 character randomly generated key to access the download. The key will be sent to the person in an email. I think this will really be cool because it will give me something to do, and it will almost force people to the site. People are more likely to stay on a site if it offers a service that they use regularly. It'll also help pay for the hosting for a while.

Ok, now that is all. I wish I had a funny random picture to show you...but I don't, so I'll just put a picture of me trying to solve a puzzle map, it ended up kinda cool looking, but I was very frustrated.


Click for full size

Have a good 2 months before I post another one of these!
_________________


~HaLo2FrEeEk

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

I figured i'd break out of the norm and FINALLY do another weekly update...even though it's been like 2 months.

There are a few things I want to touch on, the most important of which is that inactivity seems to be creeping it's way back in here. I don't know what will prompt me to close down the site again, but I really don't want it to come to that again. I know school started again today for most of you, so I don't want you to feel like you HAVE to come here, but I know that it's not that hard to visit at least everyday, and I just can't figure out if that's asking too much. This is all I'm gonna say on this.

Next, a few of you might have noticed the new Tutorial I posted about making the New Years fireworks that I had up on the frontpage. It's a Photosop tutorial, but even though I made it with CS3, CS2 users should be able to follow it without problem. It's a pretty neat little effect.

I was also going through the site the other day and visiting some of the pages that I haven't been to in a while, namely the Music and Movies page, and this one. For the Music and Movies page, I have an idea as to something I could make to secure it and be able to bring it back online, but it wouldn't be the same interface as before. This way people will still be able to get their music and movies that they want to download from the site without me having to provide a direct link. As for the second page, the one I call "Embleminator", I have an idea for that, too. What it does is when you put in your gamertag or any gamertag that's played Halo 3, it will retrieve your rank image, a spartan or officer pin, and your campaign completion pin. I would like to integrate those with the Roster. To further that, I'd like to make the roster a little more automatic.

I have a few ideas how we could take "clan" to the Xbox 360. Since the release of the 360, we've been hanging together without any glue. Clans were removed from Xbox support, meaning we had nothing but our own...well, nothing really, to hold us together. I read somwhere that in place of true Clan support, a group could use the Friends of Friends feature to keep a group together. Basically all it would require is that I make a Xbox Live silver account, which you can then all send a friend request to. When anyone wants to join, they can use the friends of friends feature to view the silver account I made, which will hold all of the clan's members. This way we're held together by something. Of course, this might not be the best choice because so many people have told me that clan sites are not the way to go, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to be a clan site, we'll just be part of a clan.

Another idea would to be to just keep it on the site. Xbox 360 doesn't have Clan support and probably for a reason (though I don't know what it could be), so I could just create a form that will let you submit an application for membership to the clan. This way it WILL be automatic, and at any time a user could quit or leave the clan all by himself. As for keeping the emblems updated, I showed you guys the Bungie Webcam Archiver that I made that gets a picture from the Bungie webcam every 10 minutes and saves it to the server. This uses a server feature called Cron, which is basically a scheduled task. I can tell the server to run a certain page every 10 minutes and it'll do it. I'm thinking (and I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier) that I can tell my server to run the Emblem update page every day, once a day. Now I won't have to forget about it.

And finally, most of you have to have seen the HD Recording Service thread I posted in Chat. This is a service wherein I will record people's Halo 3 Films or Film Clips, for the fee of $1 a minute. The clip will be uploaded to the server and the user will provide a 6 character randomly generated key to access the download. The key will be sent to the person in an email. I think this will really be cool because it will give me something to do, and it will almost force people to the site. People are more likely to stay on a site if it offers a service that they use regularly. It'll also help pay for the hosting for a while.

Ok, now that is all. I wish I had a funny random picture to show you...but I don't, so I'll just put a picture of me trying to solve a puzzle map, it ended up kinda cool looking, but I was very frustrated.


Click for full size

Have a good 2 months before I post another one of these!
_________________


~HaLo2FrEeEk

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

Oh comeon guys, I wrote a weekly update!
_________________


~HaLo2FrEeEk

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

Oh comeon guys, I wrote a weekly update!
_________________


~HaLo2FrEeEk

[Poisonblood]

Picture is cool, the silver account is cool, everyone could be-friend that account and un-friend everyone on that accoutns F/L to make room and you can look on Silver Account for clan, and the friends you deleted. (Lilke I delete you H2F and sicne you are on the Clan Account I can look there to invite you or send messages and keep other non-clan friends on my F/L) And I like Roster thing with the gamerpix is cool.
_________________

[Poisonblood]

Picture is cool, the silver account is cool, everyone could be-friend that account and un-friend everyone on that accoutns F/L to make room and you can look on Silver Account for clan, and the friends you deleted. (Lilke I delete you H2F and sicne you are on the Clan Account I can look there to invite you or send messages and keep other non-clan friends on my F/L) And I like Roster thing with the gamerpix is cool.
_________________

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

Yeah. The only problem is that I was looking for something I could easily keep updated. The problem with friend's lists is that you can only access them if you're logged into a .Net account, and despite my efforts, I can't get a script that will log my server into a .Net account so I it can retrieve the lists. It's lame. Oh well, it's better than what we have now and I'm sure I can figure something out.
_________________


~HaLo2FrEeEk

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

Yeah. The only problem is that I was looking for something I could easily keep updated. The problem with friend's lists is that you can only access them if you're logged into a .Net account, and despite my efforts, I can't get a script that will log my server into a .Net account so I it can retrieve the lists. It's lame. Oh well, it's better than what we have now and I'm sure I can figure something out.
_________________


~HaLo2FrEeEk

[KJdog23]

Picture is nice, like the shockwave going on.

As for the FL, should work, but most the time you already have the people on you FL if you want to play with them so you never really use it. Oh, and make the name of it start with an A or something so its at the top of the list.
_________________

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

I'll see what I can do. I think starting it with a space will work, I've never tried it though.
_________________


~HaLo2FrEeEk

[HaLo2FrEeEk]

I'll see what I can do. I think starting it with a space will work, I've never tried it though.
_________________


~HaLo2FrEeEk