Draginol

Control4 home automation in Gadgets & Electronics JoeUser Forums

So we’re in the process of setting things up so that a series of computers runs the lights, audio, televisions, heat, etc. We’re using Control4 and so far, I’m mixed on whether I like it or not. It has both an iPhone and iPad app which is a major plus. But its user interface (in those apps) is terrible and ugly (ugly to the point of being distracting). Given the popularity of Control4, I wonder if I’m missing something given how awful and primitive it seems to be s

Why business owners get rich (or very poor) in Business JoeUser Forums

So as some of you know, I recently built a big house. And by big I mean ridiculously, offensively big. Naturally, the class warfare people have come out of the woodwork in certain circles to complain. Do I need such a large house? Nope. Then why? Because I wanted it. It was one of the personal objectives I had set out for back when I started my business. But doesn’t such an extravagant display of wealth merely demonstrate how unfair our system is? Sur

Consequences for political beliefs in Politics JoeUser Forums

Someone asked me recently if there were any activities that I had had to put aside that I really missed. The answer was easy: blogging about social issues. People now take politics very seriously and some people, mostly liberals to be honest, take politics extremely personally. Conservatives and liberals can be very passionate in their beliefs but in my experience, liberals are a lot more likely to hate someone for having a different ideology than themselves. One o

Brainstorming skinning for 2011 in OS Customization JoeUser Forums

I’m slowly putting together the 2011 business plan for Stardock. Where to budget what. It’s a difficult challenge this year because the Windows market isn’t just fragmented but the tech market is fragmented (iOS has become a serious venue for development). Our business model for skinning has slowly broken down over the years. Years ago, we would come up with app ideas and then look out on the net to find someone who has made something similar and work with them on a royalty basi

I got Apple TV in Personal Computing JoeUser Forums

First impressions: Very positive. Anyone else here have one?

The next phase in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

Elemental: War of Magic v1.09 was released last week. It’s been a challenging month or so since the release of the game. At this stage, the technical issues that affected the game at release have been largely resolved. Now we move towards the next phase which is where we begin to address the game play based on feedback and our own experience. Now as some people have probably noticed, most games released today are sequels to existing games. It’s difficult these days

Reviewers vs. Users in PC Gaming JoeUser Forums

Historically speaking, have you ever noticed that on some games, the reviewer consensus is much higher than the player consensus? And other times, the reviewer consensus is much lower than the player consensus. What do you think causes this?

The Tabloidization of the technology media in Personal Computing JoeUser Forums

Since the beginning of my career, I’ve been a creature of the net. That is, my “real life” exists on the Internet. It may be a generational thing or a just a niche geek thing. Probably the latter. :) Many years ago, I created the blog, Joeuser.com explicitly so that I and anyone else could freely post our thoughts. It didn’t matter what my day job was because, there was a clear separation in people’s minds between a person

Getting back into skinning in OS Customization JoeUser Forums

This Fall I’m starting to get back into skinning. For the past 8 months or so, I’ve been the interim Project Manager on Elemental: War of Magic to get that game ready for release – which I failed spectacularly at. Sometimes, the answer is not to “work harder”. But I digress. The problem I’m seeing with skinning is business vs. passion. That is, Windows XP users still represent a near majority of the people using our skinning programs. The problem is, Windows XP is dead as

Next Laptop in Personal Computing JoeUser Forums

My beloved Thinkpad T400 is starting to get a bit long in the teeth. It’s 3 years old now, the longest I’ve ever kept a laptop as my primary non-programming machine. I’m thinking that I want to wait until USB 3 is in these laptops but I’m not sure how long that’ll be.

It’s a CEO! Burn ‘im! in Business JoeUser Forums

http://gawker.com/5641211/steve-jobs-in-email-pissing-match-with-college-journalism-student?skyline=true&s=i A woman buys an apple from a local farmer. The woman now has an apple and the farmer has money. Both parties have made, what they believe, is an even trade. Yet, time and time again we see people who feel entitled to something beyond the ori

Elemental: We’re so excited! in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

August 24th…HURRY UP! First off, we’re so ready to not be dealing with the beta content. If I have to dea

Regular lighting vs. advanced lighting in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

<img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.draginol.com/images/Regularlightingvs.advancedlighting_E8BA/image_3.png" width="335" h

Farewell Goodie Huts in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

As we move towards release many of the assets in the beta make their exit. We shall miss them (well, maybe not). The finished quests start to get put into place, the finalized notable locations begin to be inserted and the unreleased spell books and special abilities start to get implemented. The beta program has largely been about testing out systems and mechanics. Some mechanics, like the per city level building limiter, didn’t survive. Others, like influence based resource

The Modding Guide in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

Starting with beta 4 of Elemental, the modding tools for the game have begun to be made available. This article will serve as a very very basic primer on how modding works in Elemental. During the beta process, the team will try as much as it can to help users learn what can and can’t be done with the existing modding tools. Those who need a lot of hand holding should probably wait until after release since the team will have very limited time available to document

Shhh. Sleeping. in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

We got our beta 4 milestone done a bit early so the team got Tuesday off to recuperate. So tomorrow, with any luck, we should have beta 4 released. After that, the beta is closed to new users and we move towards release next month. We’ve really had a blast working on Elemental. I was talking to some friends today on how Elemental is different (in terms of development) from other games and the big difference is, on a sequel or when using an established engine, if something isn

Brad’s Beta 3-B Walkthru Part 2 in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

Part 2 of my critique and walkthru Tactical Battles These need more polish (for instance, the movement tiles are far too opaque), the sound is highly iffy, and the overal

Tuesday night thoughts in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

At heart, I’m a modder. So part of me really hates shipping games. I prefer them to stay in beta. Forever. But eventually, products have to be shipped and judged based on their state when they’re shipped. As a modder, the ship date is irrelevant. As a capitalist, I need the game to be good enough to get sufficiently positive buzz to generate the sales to continue my modding. Ostensibly, my main coding job on Elemental is supposed to just be AI. But that’s because all our previ

Why the iPad makes my future laptop purchases uncertain in Personal Computing JoeUser Forums

I left my iPad up at the cottage and I’m bummed.

Please don’t get mad when beta 2 comes out in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

There is quite a bit of concern (mostly from marketing) that people will be angry when beta 2 comes out because of how much we crippled the b

An engineer dealing with the business world in Business JoeUser Forums

I’m an engineer. I went to college for it. Got a degree in it. Dilbert cartoons apply to people like me. One of the things that’s been really challenging since having my own company is just how idiotic the business world is. You read about it. You hear about it. But seeing the idiocy first hand is just incredibly frustrating. Why did such and such deal get made? Because someone had a better technology? No. Because someone made a better business case? No. Instead, all too often

Rethinking factions… in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

We have been pleasantly surprised at how this has worked out because it gives us the opportunity to look at seeing if we have time to do something we have

Elemental – Beta 1Z4 is coming in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

While the vast majority of users who actually have Beta 1Z voted for moving forward (the publicly displayed poll isn’t designed to filter based on downloads but rather whether they have an Impulse account) we believe another Beta 1 is still in order. There are some Windows XP issues we want to nail down in particular with regards to stability and memory and there were a bunch of fixes that got finished that didn’t get checked in in time for beta 1Z3. We are probably going to d

Forum feature I recommend using in Elemental Dev Journals JoeUser Forums

"Flattened forums" option now available. The flattened forums option is simply another way of viewing the forums. The layout and design won't change, but what posts you see will. What it does is "flatten" all of the posts in a specific forum so that it includes the posts in all of its sub-forums. For example, you can go to the Elemental forum and it will automatically show you the newest posts from any of its sub-forums. It makes