The overhaul of the site is continuing nicely. Though still quite a bit off from completion, it’s made significant strides in the past week. There’s a screenshot I took of the work-in-progress below, or you can also take a look at the site itself (be aware, though, that it’s still very much in development, so there’s broken images and links all over the place in areas that I’m still working on): http://test.jeffreysworld.net
I’m starting up on a bit of a redesign on the site. To kick it off, I created a new logo image, which is already live. The background was taken by Hubble, but the planets and moon were created by me. I created the image in GIMP, and owe a huge thank-you to http://mygimptutorial.com/the-ultimate-gimp-planet-tutorial for showing me more than a few tricks on how to make realistic planets with relative ease. Having the Tron: Legacy soundtrack playing in the background while I worked was just inspirational icing on the cake (which, yes, I know, is still a lie).
I couldn’t sleep tonight, so I decided to take on a mission in Star Trek Online… seems I bit off more than I could chew on that one.
Oh, it started off just fine. In fact, I had no problems at all until the end of the mission, when one of the Klingons turned out to be an Undine shapeshifter and it sent me up against an Undine dreadnought and four frigates. Alone. In a light cruiser. Oh, yeah, that ended well… after getting my @$$ thoroughly kicked about a dozen times, I finally dropped the mission; I’ll have to try it again once I’ve got a (much) bigger ship.
But, alas, I couldn’t end the night like that. Despite the fact that it was by this point nearly 2 am, I still couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to end the game on a sour note. So I took on a simple patrol mission. Patrolled four systems. Simple stuff. Ended up getting promoted from Lieutenant 4 to Lieutenant 5. Unfortunately, now it’s 3am, I still can’t sleep, and my alarm’s going off in 3 hours so I can be awake by 8, out the door by 8:30, and in class by 9…
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Open Beta is over, and now Star Trek Online is in “Head Start” for all of us who pre-ordered the game, giving us the opportunity to get a head start before the game officially launches on Tuesday.
In the Open Beta, I planted my tongue firmly in cheek and named my character Captain Dunsel, a tip of the hat to the classic Star Trek episode “The Ultimate Computer.” This time, however, I was somewhat more serious. As in the Open Beta, I named my ship the U.S.S. John Rodgers, after my ancestor and the U.S. Navy vessels likewise named in his honor, but my character was decidedly different. Now that the game is launching, several new options are available, and more will be available on Tuesday; I used the option to make my character a liberated Borg drone named Thirteen of Forty-Seven. Okay, so there’s still a bit of in-joke in the name, but it’s not as readily apparent. At least I didn’t name him Forty-Two of Forty-Seven; that would’ve just been excessive.
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Today, I installed and began playing Star Trek Online, which is in Open Beta until the end of the month. I’m very impressed; Cryptic has done an outstanding job translating the world of Star Trek into game form. After only a few hours playing the game, I’m already willing to shell out the cash for a Lifetime Subscription when it goes live in a couple weeks. It’s really that good.
Because it’s Open Beta, our settings won’t be retained when it switches over, leaving us to be somewhat whimsical with our name choices if we desire. One of my friends, Winston, decided to use the opportunity to name his ship the USS Lollypop (It’s a good ship, he insists). I decided to give a nod to the Original Series by naming my character Captain Dunsel. TOS fans will get the joke immediately. I was somewhat more serious with my ship name, the USS John Rodgers; there have been two US Navy ships with that name, in honor of one of my ancestors. I may reuse it when STO goes live; I haven’t decided yet.
Anyone who’s also playing in the Open Beta, I invite you to send me a friend request. My username is @jharlan1977.
Qa’pla!
I’ve downloaded the WordPress for BlackBerry app, so updating my blog will now be nearly as easy as tweeting. Hopefully, this means I’ll update the blog a little more often in the future. Time will tell, I guess.
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The wireless modem died on my laptop the other day. As a result, the only working connection on the thing is the ethernet jack. Unfortunately, the only way to get online with the network at home is wireless. I’m able to bring my laptop to work and plug in there, so I can at least check my email, but they restrict the access pretty heavily, so I can’t do a lot of things that I would normally do online.
I wrote to HP about the problem, but their response was fairly typical. They first told me to try reinstalling the drivers (even though I told them I’d already tried that, but the computer isn’t recognizing even the presence of the hardware in either Vista or Linux, indicating that the modem simply burned out), and then said to mail it to them for servicing. My main problem with that is the fact that my laptop has been my primary computer for nearly a year now, and it will likely take nearly two weeks for the turnaround on repairs. My desktop has been sitting in the garage unused, so I may end up sending the laptop in and using that at least temporarily.
This is, to say the least, more than just inconvenient. I’m halfway tempted to just buy a replacement modem and do the repair myself, even if the computer is still under warranty. They’re sending a postage-paid box for the laptop, however; I’ll probably send it in after I get my desktop set up and running again.
Found a site that lets you create a “South Park”-ized character…
http://www.sp-studio.de/
