A Different World~

Last night I slept quite well, thankfully. I woke up feeling nothing more than quite sore still from the night before. I slumbered until 10.45 AM, only to discover then that last night summer time ended and the clocks had to be turned back by one hour :P

Pieter left for his parents for a birthday party not long after I got up so I had the house to myself. So what did I decide to do? Geeking out, of course! :D For the ReactOS project I had to arrange some more things for the new installer sub-project (ROSE) I'm managing. I didn't get to write much more of the specification today, however. I should get it over with soon so that I can get the people I recruited for this sub-project something to do other than setting up a development and/or testing environment.

I also planned to do some Japanese to English translation work today on some Japanese manga (comic), but didn't get to it either. I promised I'd get the first chapter of it done by today, so I feel kind of guilty again.

So what did I do today? Organizing the ROSE project, setting up the Nyanko Intranet servers, planning a new project I've been toying with for a while already called Koneko, and organizing some other projects as well as planning next week work-wise.

The new Nyanko Intranet is really shaping up nicely now. I've been using the hardware which was lying around already to create two servers, one a Sempr0n... er, sorry Sempron :P 2800+ with 1 GB RAM, a small OS HDD and a 160 GB RAID 1 array. The other system is an Athlon X2 4450E with 4 GB RAM and a 120 GB RAID 1 array which'll be the primary server, running the SSH forwarding service (unless a security audit proves that a separate physical system is better), HTTP, FTP, SVN, MySQL and so on. The other server is used to provide mirroring of critical data on the primary server. Off-line backups will be made on HDDs in a rotating fashion (not re-using the same backup media twice in a row). Off-site backups are being planned.

I'm still looking for a new 3D modelling guy; the first one I contacted hasn't replied yet so far. Trevor is pretty much done with the game editor he has been working on for the past weeks. This editor integrates with the game engine to allow us to quickly produce our games. I'm still working on the scripts for some of those first games we'll release, something I had hoped to have finished sooner as well. Anyway, if we can just find a 3D modelling guy (or girl :P ) and an audio person, then we're all set for alpha/beta testing before the end of next month. I can't wait.

Another big thing to work at is the content management system for the new Nyanko site. I hope to have this done in 1-2 weeks time, after which the new Nyanko site can be launched. Starting tomorrow I'll also be hunting for new paid projects, web development or otherwise, to pay for my bills. Anyone knows some work for me, or of a place where I can find such work? Please leave me a hint :) My contact details are on my main site. Thanks in advance :)

I guess I didn't tell about Koneko yet... in essence it's the first prototype of a rapid prototyping machine, a 3D printer if you wish. The goals for this prototype at this moment are a maximum sample size of 30x30x30 cm and a resolution of 0.5-1 mm. I'm considering making it a semi-open project, to attract the attention of people who might want to add to it. I'm not the type who advocates open source or similar in most situations, and I won't do so here either. My goal is not to share my products with everybody, 99% of whom would just get it because it's free, but to give the final product away or sell it to those, and only sharing what's inside with those who truly care. That, I think is the greatest failing of the Open Source movement, to not really draw out the talent in people, but rather to lazily languish and let the mixture sit on the stove for months or years and hope something happens.

But that's part of another rant. It's time for me to sleep now. My body tells me it's 1.14 AM instead of 12.14 AM and I think I should listen to it :)


Maya