Friday, February 22, 2008

Another Final Finale

Turns out I was wrong yesterday when I said that was most likely the last major Version Vbrant information to be announced. This is by far the biggest announcement relating to Version Vibrant in my opinion, and if I understand correctly, the last piece of the puzzle us regular Joes and Janes are going to get regarding it. Unofficially it's Feature Announcment #17, but it's titled "Final Details/Launch Date" in reality. To make this easy, here's a quick run-down of what the announcement covers: The Bad: Cosplay will not be relaunched with Version Vibrant. Avatars will have to be re-uploaded and MUST BE 100x100px. 24 hour submission cap per site, looks like it's limited to three submissions total. This is to monitor content more closely. Find bugs in the system easier. Give artists more exposure per work. Encourage submissions of multiple types. The Good: New design/Integrated backroom. Over 50+ features and improvements. New Site: Fan Words. Fan Fiction (Personal Note: I like this addition) Features Essays Guides Ability to submit works to "Meta" Categories: Anime/Manga Video Games TV Movies Books/Comics Personal A New Beginning (additional features expected in the months following launch). The launch is set for the Weekend of March 1-2, so down time is to be expected on those days while things are moved to new servers and stuff is put into place to make it work. That's one week from Saturday. Mark it on your calendars, expect to have problems getting on site those days, and expect wonderful new things when Monday comes around. Anyway, the breakdowns On and Off site are updated to cover the new information. Long overdue and many times promised, here's what I've got so far in terms of pyrography. This is the list of articles I'll be offering to burn on, I might add stuff to it as I see cool pieces in the art supply store, I might drop less popular pieces as well. Pencil box 11.5"x8.5" (outside dimensions) box 11"x14" oval 12"16" rectangle 8" circle I don't have pricing info yet because I still haven't solved the payment method probl, but those are the pieces I'll be offering to start off with. Any suggestions on other pieces would be welcome. I can't promise I can offer them cause I'm limited to what my art supply house has available. Hopefully, I'll be able to work out the money thing soon so I can get this thing under way ASAP. Comments Karumi: It's good to know that we're finally going to see the next phase of theotaku.com. After all the attention it's been getting, hopefully the wait is worth it. InuYashaFan4-ever: It'll be nice to have that kind of thing around, I think I'll probably take advantage of it myself, to help keep me on track and working on my art. Right now, my dA scraps are just pictures of tunnels that I can't figure out where to rightly put. They need a category specifically for tunnels over there. Yeah, it's kind of like Christmas in February, we've waited so long already not knowing when it was coming, now we have an idea and we'll be anticipating all the more. I really want to see it myself. AngelBest Dream: Within 10 days is very vague, but now we have something more concrete in terms of launch dates. Unfortunately, it's not that easy for me. If the government wanted to do something about all the health problems in this country, they'd make healthy choices easier to obtain (in terms of cost and availalbility) than all that chemical crap people injest these days. Since I'm unemployed, I have to rely on the things others bring into the house, and they just don't care about themselves enough to make healthy choices. There is a scenic railroad in the state here somewhere. I may one day take a ride on it since we don't have passenger train service out here anymore. Any time a site goes through a major overhaul, there's going to be some bugs in the system for a while. That's why I'll wait a week before trying to do anything on Version Vibrant. That'll give the bugs a chance to settle and make things easier to evaluate properly. I'll do my best to remain unbiased and honest about my evaluation. I'm not liking some of the stuff I'm hearing about it already, but I'll weigh those along with everything else, and try not to let myself be swayed ahead of time. Adam: Thank you, I'm doing my best with what information I get. Aside from keeping my promise to keep the readers of my blog informed, I hope that I've empowered other members here to be informed about what's going on, and given them the confidence to discuss Version Vibrant with their other friends who may not be informed about it yet. Won't be able to do this kind of thing with images and text? That will certainly make things challenging off the bat. Especially considering smaller images like thumbnails are usually what I post when I post images at all. Looks like I will be faced with some creative challenges to make things work. I'm very particular about how my posts look, I hate to see gaps of empty space around pictures in my posts, I like my posts to have a professional presentation to them. Generally, anything up to half the pixel width of the posting area will need a word wrap due to it's size alone. In most cases for me, I tend to post stuff around 100-200px in width. Basically thumbnail sized pictures for reference, and sometimes even linked to a full size picture (when I post wallpaper sized pictures of my hikes on the Rail Trail for example) when it's appropriate. I dislike side-scrolling post areas that have oversized images in them almost as much as I don't like empty space around images. Doesn't quite have the same visual impact when it's sitting in a gap of empty space does it? Hopefully after I work with the new system I'll be able to work up a temporary solution for that. I'll have to make a note of it in my new posting template, which I'll put together when I can. Anyway, I do appreciate you letting me know in advance that I'll be dealing with text wrapping issues with images in posts. Since I'm expecting it now, it won't be as frustrating to me when it happens. I'll still be annoyed, but not as much as I'd have been if I went in blind and found out on my own. Yensid: I kept putting that stuff off for too long. Still don't have the financials taken care of yet (that's why pricing is absent from the info), but at least I finally got the specific pieces I'll be doing posted. Yes, I saw that. It's a good thing though, the staff needs to get members' perspectives once in a while. I know it's getting to be old hat, but I promised to deliver as much information about Version Vibrant as I can. I'll keep on reporting on it till the launch itself, and after the launch I'll have my evaluation of it and that'll probably be it. Oh no, after Version Vibrant launches, I won't have a long-term project to report on regularly. Hm, I'll have to think of something to cover after Version Vibrant is out. My username came about in 2003 when I was doing variations on my Tech TV username which was cosmictraveller. Unfortunately, I get called "she" a lot here, which must mean my username leans toward being feminine, though I don't really understand why, it's kind of neutral from my perspective (that and use masculine avatars). All the same though, I've had it for four years now, I'm not giving it up for anything. It doesn't make sense to go through the trouble of setting up a whole new account when I've got a perfectly fine one as it is. if I did go out of my way to get a new one, it would probably be under my Tech TV username, or one of my other non-cosmic usernames that I've adopted recently. I'll certainly try, though I don't know how to get rid of this cough, it does seem to be going away little by little. Animé Dreams!

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Thursday, February 21, 2008

Home Stretch and Almost There

I know I said I'd have some pyrography info for you all today, but I made an executive decision to hold that off again to cover what could be the last major information come out about Version Vibrant. I'll have the pyrography stuff available next time I post. First, we have a draft category coming. See Feature announcement #16 for all the details, but basically, you'll have a place to put rough sketches and unfinished works in progress, kind of like the Scraps section on DeviantArt if any of you out there are on dA. Next comes the most major announcement that all of us members have been waiting for since late last year. We now have an announced launch window. Version Vibrant should be online within the next ten days. Adam posted the announcement this morning, so that gives it till March 2, 2008 to be running. Now the real waiting begins. Here is my updated breakdown on site. Sorry, I didn't flag the new material this time, had some other coding issues that got in the way of my taking the time to do that. My Off-site breakdown is also still available as well, and will continue to be till after the launch. Comments Yensid: That's a given already. Read through my breakdown you'll see where there's going to be image hosting for posting images in blogs, as well as some kind of customization (one of the announcements dealt with uploading a BG image for the blogs). How much and what we can do is still a mystery beyond those very limited pieces of information. We'll certainly know soon what we can and can't do there. In my case, I'll be powerfully annoyed if I can't wrap my text around embedded images. In this case, something broke in the process of prepping the site for Version Vibrant I'll bet. At any rate, Adam's fixed it. But you know, I'll continue to update both the post here in blog, and the back-up one off site. I'll do that so that should the site go down, you guys can still get an idea what's going on. I'm not going to jump right on Version Vibrant either, I'm going to let everything settle with it, then I'll be able to fairly evaluate it's capabilities and features, and you can bet I'll do an evaluation (complete with screen captures). Glad to hear you'll hang on here. I couldn't bring myself to leave here, it's my first online community, and the one I've been to the longest. I'm getting there. Not exactly there yet, but I'm getting there. This cough is stubborn. What gets to me is that I'm the one who gets all the crap unloaded on, when I've told them before I'm not capable of dealing with that. It shouldn't take me cursing like a sailor at my brother to make that point clear, simply asking him should be enough, but he's to self-absorbed to even care how the rest of his family feels. He won't even do anything to help me out when I ask him for it anymore, so there's sauce for the goose factor at play as well. AngelBest Dream: Actually, it was 4oz every hour on the hour half Gatorade, half 7up. Didn't taste too bad, but it was hardly filling to have to do that for a whole day before moving up to chicken soup which I always substitute instant ramen for. Food source is fine, I just happened to catch a bug that's been going around lately. My mom, my sister, my friend who plays in the band, they all have or had it. And you know, we all have this stubborn cough that won't go away for anything. It's nuts. Well, we just might see Version Vibrant here before March. If you caught the announcement up there and on my breakdowns, you'll see it's projected to come really soon. Things will probably be turbulent for a while, but after that storm, we'll see something new. I suppose so. The rails have always had an allure to me. Maybe it's in my blood, maybe it's something else. I'll have to see where those tracks take me this year. Once Version Vibrant goes up, and I make my last entry in the breakdown for it, that's when I'll take a week off, won't do anything here on MyO, or over on TheO where Version Vibrant will be, and I'll just rest and wait, then I'll jump onto the evaluation process, hopefully after all the major bugs are taken care of, and go from there. See, I'm not going to let myself get caught up in the first day rush, that would just be stupid. I guess that's true. Still the light of others is a welcome asset to any respectable dragon though. Animé Dreams!

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Monday, February 18, 2008

Road to Recovery

Due to a technical issue with MyOtaku here, and to continue to provide you all with the level of information you've come to expect from me here, I had to move my Version Vibrant Update off site. It'll have to remain off site till the newly created bug with post modifying is fixed. You can now find my Version Vibrant information here for now. Please note, it's not linked on my web site anywhere, so you won't be able to find it again if you go wandering off looking at the other stuff. Anyway, speaking of Version Vibrant, got a little bit more info for you all. Version Vibrant may be here very soon according to the second paragraph of Adam's post from the other day. He also covers an avatar thing in that post as well, which I already took care of in my Version Vibrant update. Feature Announcement #15 is also out, it takes care of the "Fan Character" submissions and sorting that's kind of a best of both worlds thing. It lets people sort them out of viewing, or lets people see them, but they will be submitted to the anime they're inspired from. As you all know, I've been ill this past week. I'm mostly over that. Turns out that where no medicine would work simply sweating out the illness did. I was on clear liquids when my stomach got upset, but I'm on solids again, so I'm all right there. Been thinking about the payment methods thing with my pyrography project again. I'm at a loss. I want to make the whole process easy for people all the way through, but I don't really know how to do that. At any rate, I'll have to set up some kind of system so that I can get started and move toward doing mail-order. Nest post, I'll have breakdown of the offerings I'll be starting with for you. Can't promise I'll have a payment system worked out, but at least you'll have an idea what I'll be burning. I was also thinking about some things the other day, and well, I've mapped out my initial Version Vibrant configuration, should that multiple blogs things work the way I'm anticipating it to work. I won't go into details on that just yet, cause what I want to do might ruffle some feathers and I don't want to do that prematurely. Having that plan in place will help me get through the process of putting it all together when Version Vibrant comes out. I also have planned for my first main posting on Version Vibrant already, it'll be an amusing article that's right up my alley. Hopefully I can find some decent images to go along with it, and hopefully you'll all enjoy it too. Oh, I haven't forgotten about the pyrography stuff I'm still behind on, I'm working on those still. Just need to be inspired to get the right pictures down for them. Comments Responses to Feb 9, 2008 Post All Commenters Thank you for your concerns and understanding. That was something I had to get out in the open because keeping it to myself was getting to be very hard on me physically. All I can say about the situations is that my brother knows what he needs to do, and he knows ways he can help himself, but he's demonstrating his acclimation to the area by being to ignorant, lazy and cheap to do those things. I've washed my hands of the matter one before but he's kept dragging me into it over the years, hopefully getting cursed at like a sailor will effectively tell him that I'm not able to handle sitting back and having that load of garbage dumped on me. He was warned the first time he went out with her she'd be trouble, he'll have to learn the hard way that my gut instincts aren't wrong about people. I don't know why I'm good that way, but give me five minutes with a person I cant tell you if they're good or not. I do hope that my brother sees the real message hidden under all the profanity, and that is that I'll continue to be worried about him, but I just can't afford the physical and emotional toll of being the free psychologist for all his problems. I've tried to help him in the past, but he won't take my advice. He already knows that when someone asks for my advice, then ignores it, or won't even consider it till they hear the same thing from someone else, I stop giving them help that way. Anyway, thank you all for letting me put that out there for you. It's not something that needs a lot of discussion, because talk won't change the situation any. Now at least, there's more than five people who know what's going on. the real yojimbo: Those are some helpful tips that I'd actively pursue if I had the materials around the house. It does kind of remind me of a SoBe drink I like to have once in a while with Vitamin C, zinc and Echinachea in it. That combo is usually very good with illnesses as well. I might just have some grapefruit juice, but I don't think I have a vitamin C supplement or even a multi-vitamin supplement around. whtdragon: My dad used to have random issues where his picture would go weird (like flashing horizontal lines, ghosting images and a high pitched buzzy type noise), he tried a couple things before he found out it was actually the monitor itself which couldn't handle the output from the computer, so he replaced the monitor and went from there. My bet is, the monitor you're using barely made the specs to handle that resolution, that's why if gives you those fits once in a while, that that's why changing the resolution makes it go away. You might consider starting a small fund to work on getting something a little more robust. You never know when it'll go beyond that noise to affecting the picture, and believe me, it's hard to fix a display issue when you can't see what you're looking at clearly. AngelBest Dream: I try to be creative, even when titling my posts. The doctor I saw told me that it's something that's been going around. Lucky for me it's going away right now. I hope to be completely well in a couple days if not sooner. Sweating it out was just about the only think that made an impact on the illness. It's not so much research about the family as it is understanding the history of a place I love to be. I'm personally connected to the rail history through my late grandfather's job too, which makes that history all the more alluring to me. There aren't a lot of people who can walk up to stuff like this, this, or how about trekking through one of these? The Rail Trail brings out a lot of my good traits, that's one of few places I'm most comfortable. There's a lot of natural beauty out there, and a lot of history out there too. Be careful, you don't want to take my words as full and complete truth when it comes to business stuff. Something I learned and experienced first-hand myself a few years ago is that when a storm of any kind is coming in off the ocean, the waters get really calm at first, then they rise as fast as you can snap your fingers, and then they get turbulent, turn a sickly shade of brown or green, then all [Censored] breaks loose. This whole Version Vibrant thing, is probably going to be like that. We're in the choppy brown water phase right now, we've past the point of calm here, the big one will hit when VV finally goes online and people have problems. I'd recommend everyone make a note of Adam's e-mail address, just in case things happen that make it impossible to contact him here. I need some personal calm yes, Too bad I've been sick this week, I could have taken the time to just relax. I may do that once VV goes up and I don't have to report on it anymore. Just take a week or so to find my center again and get back in the game. That had to be one dense dragon. Geez the flame is pressurized and fueled partly by our breath, that's how we get big flames like that. All he had to do was close his mouth. I think I'm having some compatibility issues between my fire and ice energies. C.S. Lewis wrote a "power line" in one of his Chronicles of Narnia series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The line is simply "Courage dear heart." Whenever I'm in a really slump emotionally, that line comes to mind. It reminds me to keep my spirits and strength up. Shonigoneyes93: Well, I can think of a few choice words to fill in there, but this is a family show so I won't say any of them (that's my horrible Mike Rowe impersonation if you can't tell). Well, I respect the BBC cause they tell it like it is, especially about US policy. They don't have to worry about retaliation so they can be more honest about those things. I don't get a BBC news channel on my cable set-up right now, but I do stumble upon their shortwave radio channels one is a while. Fox News was garbage from day 1 in my opinion, I've never liked them. When the Fox News channel first came to cable, they're big deal was "unbiased reporting" All they have on their network are biased, opinion based, news commentary shows, the very opposite of what they were claiming to be. Well, I'm mostly better now, still got a little way to go, but I'm back to being able to do normal things, well, most normal things anyway. Thanks for the description of the page, that helps me a lot. I'm not sure if I can configure the code to make it center in all resolutions (I have no way to test multiple resolutions myself), but I'll do some digging and see what I can come up with for that. Yensid: I'm at the "nagging cough" stage myself right now, hopefully I won't get the rest again, I don't want to be on clear liquids for a whole day again. Geez, it was three days before I could eat solid foods. Like I mentioned earlier, I sweated it mostly out of me, the cough just won't go away yet. Get yourself a tin of "Fisherman's Friend" cough drops and hopefully they'll last you a week. They're potent, they taste horrid, but do they ever work. Wow, that's a large screen resolution. I don't think I could handle one that big. Yeah, I've run into print issues with pictures, but I've got garbage for a printer anyway, so most of the problem is actually with that. W3Schools is one of the first sources I stumbled on when looking up CSS, and because it does let you test some of the stuff out (they like to hide their testing pages there), I hung onto it. I'll have to look at the other one though, I've not heard of it. but if it's a good resource, I'll be glad to add it to my collection. I like to get feedback on my works, that's how I know what to try differently when I do other ones. That's how I grow and shape myself as an artist. Thing is, I don't get a lot of feedback on dA for my photos, that's why I haven't uploaded anything else there. I've thought about uploading artwork, I've thought about uploading a story or two, but it all seems like a waste if no one's going to give me usable information about the pieces. I have to hang onto dA cause I have friends there who aren't here for one reason or another, and I don't want to lose touch with them. I stopped believing in that phrase last year, with the Anime FF reports. Hopefully, the lack of information output is just a sign that Adam's working on the finishing touches and we'll see the release soon. Shireishou: Actually, you didn't miss much this time around. It was sprang on everyone unannounced. I still like like being an "oldie" though. If you happened to miss it it, when Adam first started separating The and My O, he had a phrase with that term in it up in the backroom's ad space (It was something like "Sh, only oldies allowed back here"). I'm a MyOtaku Oldie and proud of it. I'm dense. I never even gave honey a thought. Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try. That's an odd size. I know the BG was knocked out for a while during the separation, but it should be back up now. I need to add stuff to it cause it's mostly plain at the moment, the surfing lizard should be in the upper right corner of the gray field. I'll probably make the BG blue or something, the gray I'm using is such that the MyO logo vanishes into it. That wasn't intentional. Oh, and don't forget, I still need to know what to do with the pyrography piece as well. kitbug69: There's still no word on a launch window yet. Near as I can tell though, the earliest we might see it would be later this month. If what's happening is a strong indicator as much as Adam saying he's close to being finished, then I think we're going to see Version Vibrant by the end of the month. I'm still doing my best to get the info out to you all, sorry I have to take you off-site to do that now, but I can't fix the problem to keep the updates here anymore, so I'll do what needs to be done. Responses February 14, 2008 Post All Commenters Thanks for the well wishes, it's been a tough week for me physically. I'm still ill, but it's mostly a cough right now, the rest has gone away. I'll be back to my routine soon, but for now I'm going to continue to take it easy. Now, you'll probably notice that I didn't separate out everyone's comments individually and respond to each in turn. It's easier for me to take care of the well wishes all at once, and I pulled out specific comments that made statements which warranted a response beyond thanks for the well wishes. Yensid: Yeah, I saw your post the other day about that, I'll have to read it again now that my mental faculties aren't clouded so much. I may just have to get onto MySpace (as much as I really don't like that idea), just to keep up with people. Anime has been a passion of mine since 2000. When I was in a very bad place mentally, it found me and pulled my toward who I am today, it helped me find structure when I needed it. I kind of learned early on through anime that life is what me make of it, and I've continued to draw on anime to help me make like a little more fun and lot less scientific. Science is cool, but there's nothing wrong with a healthy dream now and again. AngelBest Dream: I'm getting that impression too. Later this month might just happen. Don't know for sure, but it might happen. Animé Dreams!

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

Still A Very Sick Dragon

Sorry, can't handle answering comments today, I'll take care of them when I'm feeling better. Long story short, I caught a bug that's going around and sitting at the computer for too long is exhausting. That also means I won't be able to get around to sites for a bit either. By now you've probably noticed that MyO has changed dramatically in the last week, lots of stuff vanished, as well as some other things came up. Well, that's Version Vibrant related, hopefully it meas we'll see it soon. I'll get the latest info onto the breakdown when I have the energy to do so, but here's what's come down the pike: Separating Conjoined Otaku Sites, A brief Q&A on the changes, and a more In-Depth Q&A on the changes as well. Many apologies if I missed information, it's hard to think with stopped up sinuses.

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Saturday, February 9, 2008

Beware the Ill Dragon's Cough

Another meager update to the Version Vibrant Information post. Just putting the item I had here last time in there, not much else happing on the Version Vibrant front in terms of new information coming out to the public, so there isn't a whole lot for me to do with that right now. I mentioned family stuff last time, I couldn't post it then cause I had to let myself calm down enough to present it properly. Basically, I had to tell off my brother in an e-mail after an incident with his wife (she abuses him like you wouldn't believe - I don't want to hear that sexist crap that men can't be abused by women, I've got the photos to prove otherwise) which I've told him time and time again I can't do anything to help him about and all telling me does is stress me out. I rarely every curse at my family, but I had to this time, just to make my point clear to him. He knows what he needs to do to help himself out of that situation, but he's too stupid to do it. Anyway, that was the issue bothering me last time, I want it out there in the public that my brother's wife abuses him, just in case the worst does happen to him (she has threatened him many times). The past two weeks have really been something for me. I've been sick with I don't know what, I've been exhausted from being sick, and I've had weather playing with me every chance it's gotten. As far as the sickness goes, I've got congestion in the chest, a random cough, my head's a bit stopped up, and I've had fluid in my right ear making it hard for me to hear very well. not fun to say the least. That said, I might not get around to the sites for a while since I may take some time offline to let this thing run it's course. Since I run a 1024x768 res monitor here, that's what set my site up to work with. Here's a quick question for you all though, anyone running different resolution monitors? Comments On Version Vibrant Update: SomeGuy At least someone "in the know" appreciates what I'm doing for those of us who aren't. Someone has to keep all this stuff straight, might as well be me. On Dragonish Update: scorchbird12: Yeah, it's hard to make things work 100% for everyone. If you ask me the W3C should step in and tell browser builders like Microsoft, Mozilla, and whoever else is out there what essentials they should render the same way. It shouldn't be a fight to code up one page to look the exact same in IE, FireFox, and other browsers. I don't know much about flash myself, that's a whole other set of headaches. I'm more on-board for Version Vibrant now than I was say a month ago, but that's because I'm liking some of the things about it that I've seen posted here. I couldn't remember the Abe Lincoln quote about that, but it applies wholly. I think any language's word for fire would have a cool sound to it, but fire itself has to be carefully tamed before it's a fascinating subject. Pyrography is neat in that taken literally, it means "fire writing". It sure does. Not when it first opens up, that is if I understand the privacy options as they were explained in the Feature Announcement postings. After thing get a little more advanced, then ranting there will be semi-safe, but I still recommend going off TheO to rant about TheO topics, just to prevent any unnecessary friction on the site itself. I miss a couple holidays too, and sometimes Google does multiple images for the holiday too, which is fun as well. I'd like to see TheO do things like that. Heck they've got the images right here on site, lots of people draw holiday artwork. Alphonse122: I know the feeling there. Thankfully that's eight years behind me now. Take your time, come by when you can. Thanks. It's still kind of "in progress" so I may end up tweaking it again at some point soon, but I don't really know right now. That happens to all of us sometimes, it happens to me a lot actually. timechaser: You know, if you play your cards right with that Watercooler thing, that could become a flagship example of some of the blogging features on Version Vibrant. I like the idea, and I think it'll work wonderfully for the purpose. I'd like to see it as more than a collection of ideas myself. Yensid: Impossible. There's no way under the sun to effectively navigate the internet on FireFox alone. The browser is good, but it's still got a lot of compatibility issues with the internet in general that they need to fix to be 100%. IE is probably seen as the most active, only because 90% of people with computers are on windows based machines so they'll naturally use what they've got. I try not to design for any browser at all, I use as many of the codes that aren't proprietary as I can, but even so, I have to make certain accommodations to get things to work in both major browsers. Web design is one of the toughest graphic arts there is. With all the different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, there's no way to make something that'll view perfectly all the time. It's easy to build something for your own screen and hope it works for others as well. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. It is easier to work on paper, that's not something that will change. The pixel thing gets a little more complicated, what with the whole PPI and all. I think it's safe for me to call this one a "work in progress" cause even I'm not liking the field of gray right now. I don't like anything on my page to not be readable, and with the old image, the text in the left-hand menu as well as in the introduction (things outside the blog post) were vanishing into the BG image more than I liked. The surfing lizard should be up in the right-hand corner for now, that's where he'll be till I get something with more visual interest up. I might do something similar to my mothman BG to make everything readable and have some page interest. I have enough lizards to do that. I think my coding is split 50/50 with the Post Styles and in the post itself, but the more complex stuff is in the Post Styles, mostly cause it makes writing up the posts neater for me, and I'm too lazy to copy and paste that extra stuff every time I post. My biggest source for info is actually the W3Schools website, but having a printed reference that you don't have to keep switching windows to refer to, will be a bigger help in that department. I guess I'm attached to TheO/MyO for it being one of my first online community experiences. I hate to see it struggle, and I love to see it succeed. It really bothers me to see people at odds with each other over little things here, it doesn't make any sense for people to do that. I think I started really seeing TheO/MyO in a mature perspective actually back in 2004. My "honeymoon" with the site was over long ago. Even so, I still consider it ne of the best online communities, especially relating to anime which is a passion of mine. Every community has rough patches, and I expect to see a lot of those as Version Vibrant comes out. I know how you feel, I've seen lots of good people affected, and that's changed my look on things here. That reminds me, I've got to take care of that e-mail anyway. Actually, I haven't had the time or energy to sit down to that material yet. Between my being too sick to concentrate, and the weather not wanting me to be on the computer lately, I haven't been able to give that a go yet. If I'm not sleeping off the antihistamine later today, I'll get started on that so I can learn a thing or two, and test out some tutorials I've been wanting to try for a while now. I think the best way to learn something is to just play with it on your own, that's how I got so good in Pixia, though the newest build don't like to work in Windows XP sadly. I'm stuck using an older version of it. Have fun with your program. Animé Dreams!

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Sunday, February 3, 2008

Dragonish Update

The other day I noticed a discrepancy between IE and FireFox in the way my page was being rendered, so I set out to correct that, and in the process decided to tweak the BG some as well since it was too hard to find a text color that was readable over it, when that was done, I had to tweak the default text color, and the link colors as well to make it all fit, so I've been busy the past few days, as you can see. I do like what I've made the site into now, and I think I'll stick with this for a while. Also of note, there's a feedback request on avatars for Version Vibrant, which is part of why I changed mine to fit the other mods to my theme as well. I'll add that to MY semi-official Version Vibrant information later, but there it is for you all. Also, not sure what to make of this piece of information, could it mean Version Vibrant is closer to launch than we think? Only time will tell. Got some family stuff I need to talk about, but that'll wait till next week. Comments Yensid: If you use the "Post Styles" in your backroom, that's where you want to put the code I gave you so it works across all the pages in the archive. I forgot to mention that before. The "Post Styles" feature here is one that I've found saves the most time and works the best in terms of that sort of thing. If you do run into any problems with that code, let me know and I'll see what I can do to figure them out for you. One thing FireFox really lacks is a good set of image tools, like the floating toolbar in IE that'll lets you resize an image on the fly, would really be helpful, cause there are times I've wanted to be able to do that to images on pages in Firefox but couldn't. That's usually how I combat those images that go off to the sides like that, but I'm using FF more these days which has it's own set of issues to deal with. I'm on XP with IE 6 and FireFox 2.0 myself, and that set-up works just fine for me. I won't go near IE 7 at all if I can help it, I just don't have the time or energy to deal with that kind of aggravation. I hear many horror stories about IE 7 and the Vista OS all together that make me uninterested in using either of them. The trouble with those scripts that disable the context menu, is that they're more harmful than good. I go to pages across the net with those all the time and I end up leaving quickly without doing what I was going to the page to do, very annoyed. When linked pictures don't show up and I can't do a right click to force load the picture, that's frustrating. I'll point out to anyone reading this, there's always a way to "steal" stuff online, there's absolutely no way to make posted content 100% theft-proof. The only way to do that is to not post it at all. Driving isn't so much an issue for me since there isn't anyplace locally I can exhibit my works in a commercial setting anyway (I don't do shopping malls period). My market's going to be the internet and mail I think, with maybe an anime convention appearance or two if I can manage it. I've been wanting to try airbrush, but, I don't have the money to get into that, I think one day I'll try it, but not soon. That's the best way to go, ask someone who should know, or at least where to point you in the right direction. I'm not sure what the regulations are, but that's kind of the point of the mandate here, only thing is here, they worded it so poorly that's it's too broad and all encompassing. Any business from home that has no inventory (ie large trucks blocking the street to unload crates of stuff) or customers going in and out of the residence shouldn't be a problem, even in a "historic district" and that's the very argument I'll use when I get started in my business if it comes down to it. The only way to get answers specific to your area is to ask the right questions. Yeah, I suppose that could become an issue, only time will tell, and hopefully, I won't be doing too many similar images like that though. I think that's generally the idea with Version Vibrant, though Adam hasn't really been that specific on it yet, he was talking that way way back in 2003/2004, so I don't think that's changed any just because he hasn't come out and said that's what he's doing. We'll know when we see the release, and how it's handled over time. I did get the LJ reference when I reread that post I brought up (It's one of the links I posted here last time as well), but I still can't really comment on the LJ angle since I'm not on there. A lot of people tell me that Version Vibrant (at least the blogging portion) sounds a lot like MySpace as well which is also something I can't comment on, not being a member there either. Where I lose understanding of the whole thing is, web browsers by nature render HTML coding, you don't have to do anything fancy to make it work, but you have to do a number of things to make "proprietary" code (like BB code) work, including filtering out undesirable HTML elements, so you end up doing more work to get the same result on the "proprietary" code as you would just putting out HTML. Outside sourcing an image is the same way, it uses less local bandwidth, why charge people to put pictures in that way over uploading them to the local server and posting them from there? There's a lot of backwards logic in the way web sites run, that's for sure. As for premium versions of TheOtaku. No one, not even Adam has said anything about that yet, no one's even asked about it, so we don't really know if one is coming or not, and if it is, what features we know about will be for it and not free, or if they're all free user features. I wouldn't pay to blog, even if that gave me more options to do the things I want to do with it. I have too many free ones now, including a couple I never use, they come with user accounts on sites, so I've got no shortage of places to air my thoughts. I didn't see January happening, heck I'll be nice and theorize late February at the earliest, but that's me. As for my principles, what better way to teach a lesson in integrity than to demonstrate my own capacity for it? I'm not sure if I'll post the info I've got when it'll be moot to keep it a secret or not, I haven't decided that part yet. My Mom, sister, and I all thought of that. It is a "Local interest" book, and we do have a really good used/antique book store (it's in an old Carnegie Library building) that may have it cheaper. I don't think I'll see it cheap at Borders, they never put the "Local Interest" books on clearance, not even when it was Waldenbooks in the mall did they do that. I would like to speak with the author/photographer of that book for a couple reasons. I am very much eager to learn about the CSX spur which is now the hiking trail, but also out of a bit of respect. My grandfather was a railroad engineer, so I'd like to connect with that whole world a little more personally, and I feel that through the hiking trail, I've started to do that. There's nothing wrong with communicating thoroughly. It's easier sometimes for me to answer longer comments than shorter ones. AngelBest Dream: The nature of the information cannot be divulged. Well, it's not just about the photos, it's about connecting to a piece of history that's kind of lost to most of the natives here. Seeing what once was along the train route, comparing that to what's there now, is a way for me to feel at one with such a profound piece of history in an area which really doesn't cherish it's history as it should. I have tried looking for photos before, but couldn't find them, I may give it another try though. I do clear-coat all my works, but I never did think of doing a glass layer. Combining glass with wood, etching and burning, I think I could make a nice piece or two. I'll have to look at some options to include some glass etched panes as covers for some of my pieces. Though other pieces won't be able to be covered by nature. I'll explain that more another time. I think I should warn you to always get a second opinion when it comes to business or financial stuff.. Especially with an unreliable source such as myself. I can make basic suggestions, but because my own past experience with running my own business is grossly limited, I think you really should take anything you get from me with a grain of salt. My "technique" would probably make veterans of the art cringe, but it works for me. I don't have a good camera to work with right now, I'd show you sooner if I did. Don't get me wrong, while I know my writing isn't the best on site here, I am aware that I have a very strong, proficient style. The breakdown wasn't overly difficult to put together so much as it was time consuming to collect all the URLs to link the information. If even one person finds it useful to solving the questions they have about Version Vibrant, then I've done what I set out to do. It's not an issue of trust. I can guarantee you the unofficial piece of information I have is 100% authentic and accurate, there's no denying that. Not putting "unofficial" information up here though does two things. First, It prevents any speculation fueled rumors. Second, it shows the staff that I can hold my tongue when there is a need for it. It was rumors and speculation that really created much of the chaos and questions that prompted me to post my breakdown, as well as prompting Adam to post the feature announcements on TheO. I have no interest in contributing to that kind of tense atmosphere, especially not as we draw nearer to the launch window. I just put all the info together, a lot of the credit should go to Adam for posting all that material so I could link to it and keep it in perspective. If he does acknowledge my effort and my persistence, well, that's news to me. You know, that happens anywhere, I saw it back in High School, I saw it on various message boards over the years, I see it here. It's a social creature's nature to want to be social, and to also want to be exclusive in some ways, to be among a closed group that has some kind of mystery over all the other creatures who are part of this "community". Anything is really possible on that front, since I don't know what time and experience holds for me, I can't comment on that. I think if he, or any of the staff got out here to WV and saw Tsubasacon (and maybe bumped into the resident dragon otaku ^_^), that would be easier, but not saying that's the only way it could happen. For some people, it's harder to associate with text on a screen by itself, they need to know the face behind the username. It was the first thing that came to mind on reading the description, explosive isn't exactly right, cause I've seen explosions that don't burn a thing (dry ice and water in a soda bottle for example), but incendiary covers that classic film fireball that usually engulfs things. So very true, it's not something to be played with haphazardly. We won't really know until we see it what Version Vibrant is, if we'll like it, if it will be productive for us. All we can do is wait till it comes. I think I've been around more often (though still not getting to the sites as much as I've wanted to), to really cover all the bases after that outburst a couple posts back. I think I've effectively done that, but I do like getting on here often, even though I don't have much to really talk about. So very true, Dragons and trouble seem to go together like grape jelly and scrambled eggs. At least when we cause trouble, we stick around to take care of it and clean up the messes we make. Oh, and lest I forget, DO NOT ATTEMPT that dry ice stunt, ANYONE. It's just stupid, loud (as in unprotected ears will be permanently damaged loud), dangerous, and obnoxious. kitbug69: If it works out for you both, then I'll have to do my best to make them worth reading. Hm, time to dig into my story archives and see if I have anything that's appropriate to pop into my posts for you two now and then. I can't help laughing at that statement, but I'm more familiar with the brass monkey version of the saying which applies equally well to certain personality types (and believe me, I know the personality type). In looking at my recent situation though, it's not so much the people involved as it is in how they handled themselves, though there are other things that can't be ranted about here without certain unsavory repercussions. I'm easily annoyed by mixed messages I get on things, and I think that's what this is about, difficulty reconciling some mixed messages I've gotten about several things regarding my Version Vibrant information. I'll cover Version Vibrant updates and information here on Myotaku even after the launch date. I know it'll be moot to post stuff on that here when it's up and running, but I have my reasons. Someone has to keep track of all the information and try to present it in a coherent manner for members. As it is now, I think I'm the only one doing that. Animé Dreams!

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Tests, Trains, and Trails

I already get to try out my new Version Vibrant Update system's capacity to function the way I intend it to for the duration of our wait for the relaunch. I've marked the new stuff with a "New" designation in bold so you know what's been added since last time. I've also noted the edit date at the top for everyone's convenience as I intend to do every time. An anonymous tipster send me an interesting piece of the Version Vibrant puzzle the other day, so I was faced with a difficult moral dilemma. I had to ask myself, should I post said information? Should I keep it to myself? Should I let the anger from the other day allow me to seek some kind of personal vengeance for the social snub? Or, should I stick to my morals and refrain from releasing the "unofficial" information? It was not an easy choice to for me to make, but it's one I'm happy I did finally make. There's a saying "revenge is a sucker's game" and with that in mind, this is what I chose: I decided simply to keep that piece of information to myself. If nothing else, I'd like to use this opportunity to demonstrate the level of integrity I know I can bring to any project. I think I will let this be the best test of my mettle, and it wasn't even planned. In my local Borders yesterday, I saw a book on railways covering much of West Virginia in the late 1960's running up the Ohio River from Huntington, and across the state's other rails as well. There were several photos which caught my eye along the CSX spur which is now a State Park, and the 70+ mile hiking trail I've posted photos on before (the North Bend Rail Trail). Tunnel #9 outside of Ellenboro (the tunnel is no longer there - either the railroad cleared it out to make room for larger trains, or the state took it out as a safety hazard when they took the Right of Way back after CSX abandoned the spur), and the Depot in Pennsboro which still stands and looks almost exactly like it did in the 1960's. My Mom and I were interested in that book, but at $60.00, we didn't feel it was worth the money to get a couple photos of the track in the town we now live as well as along the trail we've hiked parts of. I can't even recall the name of the book, but I'll bet almost anything the photographer (who was working on for the railroad at the time) has photos of the other defunct tunnels, and maybe even the spur that ran through what's now North Bend State Park. If I get up to Borders again, I'll make a point of collecting some information to try to find that photographer/author, just to see if can get some information on that rail spur, and maybe some of the railroad era artifacts that still populate it even today. Comments scorchbird12: On Version Vibrant Updates: I think that's natural, there's no way Adam can appease everyone on site here, so there will be stuff to like and not like about the whole thing. I've already said one of my favorite bits about Version Vibrant is the multiple blogs under one account, that's going to be cool for lots of reasons, and I already have ideas about how to use that feature alone. I don't like the mandate of BB style input coding (or not being able to outside source images for a while), those will prove to be headaches, especially if the BB code won't let me do simple things like float my images the way I want (I hate blank space around images). On Thoughts: I haven't exactly been Mr. Friendly-dragon of late myself. It's quite all right, you come around when you feel up to it. I know there are days I get on here, see a field of blue in the backroom and just go "Ugh, I'm not doing this today." It's not that I don't want too, there are times I don't have the energy to get around to everyone, so I don't. I was hung on the word too when I first saw it. I'm happy to know there's actually a word for what my art is. That means I can market it much better. It's an unfortunate truth in the world, money makes it go round. I'll take all the luck I can get, thanks. For most things one can rant here easily, there are a few things that have to be taken to the "Underground", but a good rant here every now and then is worth it. Hopefully it'll get better for rants and other things with Version Vibrant, but we'll just have to wait and see. Funny thing about this whole situation is that it's remarkably similar to the one in 2004 when what we have now came to be. Just reading through Adam's archives will show that. Adam's admitted the current spread (back when it was orange and gray) was rather bland, so hopefully the new look will have more pop to it. I think everyone gets tired of the same thing after a while, and the change will be neat and new for us. I'd like to see TheO become more dynamic, you know, changing it's look more often, with holiday themes, and stuff like that too, those kinds of things would keep the interest up. I check out Google every holiday I know of just to see if they have a special logo for the day. Tenshihoshino: That's quite all right, I don't get around to sites like yours as often as I should. I hope the distractions aren't difficult ones for you, those can be tough to get out of again. I'd like to think I'm good enough to make a little bit of an income off my art too. Hm, I need to dive into some reading material on that subject again. I think, especially in the anime/manga circles, pyrography isn't widely seen, that gives it a certain charm to it which a lot of people seem to find appealing. I hope that's a strong selling point. I think we're more likely to see it come in February (if it don't get pushed down again) than in January when it was originally projected. It'll be here sooner than not though, I hope. kitbug69: Hm, I didn't realize my writing style would hold a younger audience, especially in the mood I've been in lately. Hope my sour mood doesn't rub off. I started out doing it for myself really, then, when it became apparent that there were a lot of people still in the dark about the whole Version Vibrant release, I made a promise to everyone here that I would keep anyone and everyone who reads my blog informed as best I can about what's coming. Now, I'm not posting speculations or rumored information, I cut the "pending confirmation" pieces from my breakdown to try to keep the rumor mill quiet, and I'm not posting information that's not been made "public" yet either. I'd like to think I'm honoring that promise as best I can, but I know that I've fallen a little short of that with the podcast situation. I suppose I could if I bent over backwards to respect the terms of their creative commons license report that information, but I'm not willing to do that. I'm going to keep to my promise as best I can, I'm going to keep adding publicly available material to the breakdown, and I'll link to that in my posts whenever it gets an update. Thanks for the luck I could use it. For the family helping out, it's not a matter of "if they will", but more of "if they can". My Mom's not working anymore, my Dad has little left over from his paychecks after taking care of bills and such, and my sister's got obligations of her own to take care of, so I have to be considerate of those things when asking. I know they'd all pitch in if they could. Well, being a dragon of wisdom and clarity, I tend to be apprehensive of presenting a foul mood to others. I know I can be viciously mean and completely insensitive when I'm clouded by anger. I know venting frustrations is part of the (very biased sounding name here) "human" condition. I still don't have to like what I become when I am venting. Yensid: That's a possibility, I'm not on LiveJournal, so I'm unfamiliar with their layout/functionality. I'm not entirely sure if the premium accounts came up in relation to Version Vibrant specifically or not, but I do know Adam was mulling the idea of a premium offering back in '05. I know that somewhere he did clearly state that there would be a free version, and the premium would be like an upgraded version with some extra stuff not available to the free users. Maybe here (comments), or here (this is specific Version Vibrant premium info) is where that was mentioned. I'm too tired and lazy to read through all that to find the specific reference point. Consumers like choices, so having a choice of HTML or the other coding should be considered for future development at least. I know his argument that enabling HTML would allow users to "hack" their sites is moot. Look at DeviantArt. Granted you have to be a paying user for it there, but if you are, you can apply CSS to your blog, and does it "hack" the whole page? Does it take over and render the dA format unrecognizable? No, it's only applied to the blog portion of the page, and nothing else. If they can do it, Adam can certainly figure out a way to do it on Version Vibrant as well. If I can still do stuff like that to the left there, I'll be okay with the new system. I'm very particular about how an image appears, even when I link to my own artwork, I throw out much of the formatting portion of the code that's in the "share box" and do up everything on my own for that. I like to have text around my images, like a normal document, I don't like big gaps of empty space, I like to have my text "padded" a little off the sides of the images so that everything looks coherent. Images that are too big for the page should be sized down while preserving the aspect ratio so that they don't distort, and small images should be left alone. Yeah, text links to image galleries are not always attractive or convenient. That's why I use thumbnails for that kind of thing unless I want the image to be a surprise, though I don't have that hyperlink border showing for images, which means you look at a linked thumbnail and see it like a regular embedded image on the page here. The code I use is actually simple, once I learned how to do it I was surprised that it took me so long to learn it. It doesn't work as well on larger images, anything over half the pixel width of the post area (my posting area is 490px wide) will be difficult with this code. Smaller images like my "moods" (the images in this and last paragraph), and the standard roughly 160px thumbnails tend to work out all right. I use a CSS class to float my images, which makes it easy, cause I can apply that class to images, or even "invisible" tables to have something line up on the left or right margin and still have the text wrap around it like professional print publications. If you want to try to experiment with the code I've gotten to work, here you go: .rightfloat{ float: right; margin-top: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px; } and .leftfloat{ float: left; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px; } Those are the MyO formats of the code, you don't want any line breaks in it to use it here, cause those foul it up (that auto line-break thing formats the intro affects the post styles as well). The class names can be changed as well as the margins to put more or less space between the edge of the image and the text. 5px is my preference, but that's just me. Of course, add those to your stylesheet otherwise they won't work. When you go to post an image after the img part of the code, before the src, you type class="rightfloat" (or whatever you change the name to) to float an image on the right (Dragon image above) or class="leftfloat" (or whatever you change the name to) to float an image on the left (Silly image above). The fact that other sites can do both HTML and BB style code tells me he could do it here if he were so inclined set it up that way. I know I'd appreciate it as would many others here. One thing that's not been made clear, and I know Adam posted it somewhere that the premium would be above and beyond a free offering. Right now, I wouldn't be able to pay for a premium offering here, I'd have to hang out on the free version cause my finances aren't digital, I have no way to pay for it, and given Adam's lack of enthusiasm for offline payment methods (See that "Limited Edition" T-Shirt project), I wouldn't be able to put the money down for it even if I had it on hand. You'll have to check your state and local governments on that one. I can tell you how WV was structured in 2001 when my first business attempt failed horribly, and that was that a business license was a must (in WV it's basically a thing to confirm you're collecting sales tax, and sending it to the state every quarter) First time registrants get it for nothing, but after that, there's a fee to register a business (so this time around, I'll have to pay to register my business when I get to that step). Other details were there has to be a physical business location (ie. street address, no PO or PMB addresses) within the state, though business operations could be regularly conducted through a PO box. I also have a "sticky wicket" so to speak, in that the pretentious, snooty, snobs of the farce that is the historic district I live in have a "mandate" that no one can run a business from a home in the district at all. They stick their nose where it don't belong more than they do any good to preserve any history around here, which generates it's own set of problems. I don't need anything near that much to start up myself, I could make $200.00 or even $300.00 work, but if I could get that kind of capital, I'd be well off to a reasonable start. I would, if I could get that kind of money to start with, put some into securing a commercial property where I could work and keep inventory away from home (keep the nosy busybodies out of my hair), as well as get the supplies I need to do a decent looking promotional brochure or catalog. Loans are out of the question, there's just too many obstacles in getting one that's small enough to get me started but big enough to provide the financial momentum I need right now. Can't say that I ever noticed any special privileges with having a business license, mine failed without ever making a cent, so I never got that far. Ebay owns, or is owned by, PayPal, just for the record there. Tread lightly with them is all I'm saying. Thanks to our overly paranoid President and post 9/11 rules, I have to go through a Broadway number to even get a bank account (tell me, is this the face of a terrorist? On second thought, don't answer that), cashing a check without being an account holder at a bank here is next to impossible. Having someone else cash checks for me all the time would be a problem in terms of business reputation as well after a while, so it's not something I'd want to make a habit of doing. I think Postal money orders will have to be the preferred transaction choice till I can set-up something better, and establish an account at a bank to work from. I'll see what kind of material I can dig up on doing this right the second time around, hopefully enough to get me started at least. Hope the Expo went well for you. I've never been to a Home and Garden thing like that before, I know I'd enjoy something like that, I love working with plants, and outside, especially in the summer. I can't do it the way I want to though cause I burn like flash paper, hot, bright, and fast. the real yojimbo: I can always ply my skill in cooking (if anyone would hire around here), so that almost negates the starving aspect, almost. AngelBest Dream: In my experience, it's always good to start at the beginning and work your way to the end. Makes things much easier that way. Skill and Strength aren't a problem for me, putting together the scratch to make it happen, that's something else. You know, that's not a bad idea actually, combining my wood art with some glass etching (something else I want to try my hand at) might just make a really good looking piece. When I get more involved, I'll have to give that kind of thing a test run to be sure it can go. For now though, I'll stick to wood and see what happens. Best of luck to you, I hope you have it better than I do in that regard. Seven years running trying to get a job and nothing to show for it isn't exactly a confidence builder. In all honesty, I probably won't have too many customers from here on MyO, I understand the dynamic around here, and there's not a whole lot of people looking to buy art on site, or they're not able to buy art for any number of reasons. That said, I'd be grateful to anyone who bought my art, but I wouldn't want anyone to feel obligated to buy it just cause you know me. I suppose that is an irony of some kind, I never really thought about that. I think I will do a pyrography tutorial of sorts when I get into the swing of things, just to give everyone a look at how the art is done, or at least how I do it. I think it's one of those things you have to see to really put together how it works. Thank you, I know my readers all appreciate the work that went into getting that information up here. The primary reason I put that together (well aside from doing it for myself) was so that as many people as possible would be on the same plane of understanding about what's going on. Many people had questions about Version Vibrant, so I've attempted to direct people toward the most relevant information to answer those questions. I leave the choice of linking to the content up to my readers (and the passers-by who happen to see it as well), I don't want to come off as shamelessly plugging my work, but I will offer this, if you have readers who are having some trouble grasping the scope of Version Vibrant, maybe linking them to my breakdown in a casual context would be appropriate. I'm all too familiar with the "behind closed doors" attitude when it comes to people around me. I don't know if it's intentional on their part, or accidental, but I feel (perhaps erroneously so) I deserve at least some form of acknowledgment or consideration given the completely voluntary nature of my going out of my way to collect and disseminate Version Vibrant information to a wider audience. The things that the podcasters were allowed to discuss only added marginal new details to already widely available key points of which I have posted in my breakdown. The other things they were shown are things I can't even speculate on as I have no information to go on at all, and without even the most vague of clues, I don't want to contribute to any unsubstantiated rumors. If any rumors start to fly, I'm not going to knowingly take part in them. I suppose it is easier to close off outside, "unpredictable" elements like me, it ensures a presentation skewed in the direction those doing the shutting out prefer, or at least it ensures a controlled presentation. Just for the sake of argument, I did a Google "site search" (which searched only myotaku.com) here, I ran the keywords "Version Vibrant" and the abbreviation "VV" through the engine, and in both cases, my site came out on top of Adam's in link order. In the case of the "Version Vibrant" keywords, I was the number one listing (top spot, first page) in the "site search". I was in the number 2 spot in the "VV" search (Adam isn't even on the first page). With data like that, it shows who really needs to be keeping whom in the dark. I don't think I need to point out that such "strategic" moves as closing off actively engaging members can actually do more to hurt rather than help a tense situation. I'd gladly work alongside the staff to do a written presentation of Version Vibrant, had I seen it. Thing of the matter is, with many people posting sweet nothings about how great hearing about Version Vibrant is easier to understand that reading about it to the podcaster's weak effort, people like me will draw the short straw every time, even though we can communicate worlds better if given the chance. Trust is difficult to develop from a one-way acquaintenceship. It's hard to know whether you can trust a person if you don't test them. I know Adam has met some of the members here in person, I know he's met some of the other staff members in person, and I suppose having that sense of reality to the usernames may make certain users appear more trustworthy than others (just because they have a "real" face"). I'm not going to say that's the case here, I'm just thinking out loud. You may have a bit of a point there about that, Adam does seem to shy away from written content of certain structure, maybe that's part of the situation, again, it's not something I can comfortably state without adding that it's merely speculation on my part. I believe the military term for my temper would be "incendiary", when it goes off, it it goes everywhere, and it commands respect and attention. When it's at that point, there is no controlling it, the best thing for others to do is take a step back and watch till it calms enough to not get burned in the process of helping me through it. I'm always at the ready to fly, never know when I need to make a quick get-away. All us little peon members can do is watch, wait, and wonder. Those creatures out there with psychic, or third eyes are encouraged to keep them trained on Version Vibrant as well their physical ones. Can't be too careful now, can we? The woods stayed silent, the mountains trembled, and the oceans calmed their tempest. Tact doesn't change, it's always going to be the same, though there are times I use it less than others. Like I went over already, I could have posted that piece of intel that was passed along to me, but I chose to take the high road and neither reveal the source nor "publish" the unofficial information. That is diplomacy at it's finest, and that's the message I'm going to continue to convey throughout this Version Vibrant event. I think more than any type of aggression, doing what I am will speak louder the message I want to say. Animé Dreams!

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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Deeper Thoughts

I'm still thinking about and going over my options on payment for commissions in the pyrography department. I realize I threw that term out there loosely last time without really explaining that's the name of my artform, of burning wood. The feedback I've gotten on the few pieces I've done so far here has been good so I'd like to take that a step further and see if I could make any money on that kind of art. It's not easy to find secure methods of financial transaction, well for me not having a bank account or the ability to get one is the biggest hinderance. I'm thinking about doing a printable pamphlet/brochure and order form for mail-in orders, but I'd have to come up with the money to get enough materials for samples to photograph and put in such marketing materials. I'll have to have a discussion with the family on some of these things, since it may come down to borrowing money from them to get set up. Been doing a lot of thinking about last post. I know that was uncharacteristic of me in many ways, and I hope I've done enough to allay any concerns that my rant induced. Can't say that was one of my better moments, but we all have them as living being, human and dragon alike. I would like to think that the material I've put here, regarding the relauch of theotaku.com is of value to more than just those of you members who read my blog. I would like to think that putting together material in such a way that grabs the attention of the site founder is worth something concrete, not only to him, but to a wider audience than the small close circle that is my clan. I guess what we think, and what really is are two totally different things though. That's a lesson I'm learning myself, it's hard one, with a bitter, metallic taste to it. From here on out, I'll be very guarded with my assumptions. I know what my worth is to my clan, and I'll use that as my foundation. You'll notice I posted the latest Version Vibrant update by itself. That's so you can link to it, and I can update it, and not have to worry about changing the link every time new information comes out. I posted that first so that comment answers and such could be dealt with on their own and not get lost in the Version Vibrant update. All you have to do to link it is to save the permalink to the post and post that. I hope that's convenient for everyone and I hope it works out in the long run. Comments Yensid: The podcast format hasn't changed since Ep 1 way back when it first started in 2006 I believe it was. They always start with anime or Japanese music, then go into their banter. I did post the warning "if you want to stomach it" for good reason. Hope you got my message, I covered everything I can't really say here for you. Yeah, I really liked the piece too, and not cause I've got a cameo in it either. Congratulations, you're the first person I've ever come across since I started getting online in 2003 who hasn't had "the PayPal Experience". There are just too many risks to me to even think about using a wannabe non-bank that falls outside Federal banking regulation (they can take your money and run, legally), it's not a "company" I could ever be comfortable using until they beef up their consumer protections and overhaul their whole fraud process. They affect more legitimate accounts with inflated and/or completely false fraud claims than they effectively shut down real criminal activity. The term is the official name for my art form of burning. I didn't know it had one till I did the research on it. Pyrography applies to burning wood or leather, and I still need to get some things sorted out with that. Hopefully next post I'll have something for you to go on. Mamma Vash: I know the people who read and frequent my blog here whenever they can do appreciate the effort I put out. I wish I could give you the best coverage I can, but given the limitation I'm now faced with, I can't do that. There's a really neat feature coming as part of VV that will make it easy to share pictures the way you do. If you didn't catch it in the breakdown, you'll be able to upload them on site and post them in your blog, and they'll also automatically be resized so that they fit on the page. I thought the sketch was funny too, Whtdragon did a great job on it. I like rain, but high water scares me (I cant' swim), so take care of yourself out there. Hopefully it'll stay moist out there and you won't have fire issues later on in the summer. Yeah, if you can get to a safer place to wait out the storm, do so. Alphonse122: That's quite all right. I haven't been around to your site lately myself. I already have PayPal solved, I'm not using it, period. I don't respect their "business" model and their less than kosher business practices so they are out of the question as a payment method for me. When I can get a bank account, I know where I can set up a legit merchant account to do the online sales thing, and in all honesty, I think having a PO box at some point for mail-in orders will be necessary as well, but for now, I need to think smaller. My foul mood has subsided, time calms the temptest of my mind. I just hope it was worth it to them to snub the untapped asset of my impressions as they did. Should make for some potent lessons on down the line, that's for sure. AngelBest Dream: I don't know what the deal is, but it's an insult to say the least. Considering that I put hours into collecting all of the information I did and posted it here without going on spamming binges in comments and guestbooks to tell others to "come see my fancy breakdown of Version Vibrant information", I think that should have said something. I'm more so insulted because I know Adam saw my efforts himself, he commented right here only a few posts ago. I would think that would have sparked something in his mind to tell him "maybe this guy getting a look with the other few will be a good thing". I guess he didn't realize that 95% of my readers, nor myself regularly, even listen to the podcast. It sets a blatant standard of privilege to exclude the people who don't listen to the podcast for one reason or another from getting valuable and helpful information regarding the site upgrade. I go out of my way to make sure administration on sites like this are at least aware of me, cause I'm annoying, rude and pushy that way. When something isn't right, when there is an injustice is done to the little guys, I speak up loud and clear and you can bet I'm none to polite about it either. This isn't an issue of theft, nothing was taken from me, but I was slapped in the face so to speak. My work to get the word about Version Vibrant out in a comprehensive manner was basically tossed aside like garbage. I don't have to worry about biting the hand that offers me scraps of next to nothing, it don't get close enough for me to reach it. All I get are the same marginally edible bits tossed at me (and most everyone else) from afar while the good stuff is set in front of select others on fancy plates. As I think about it, there's potentially an underlying issue of a lack in trust that may be a contributing factor to the way this situation played out. The "privileged" people who got that inside look were shown some things that are still "classified" so to speak, things they can't talk about from what I understand. I'm beginning to wonder if somewhere along the way, someone questioned my ability to present useable information while keeping certain details undisclosed. No one ever knows that trait of mine till they test it. The only other logical reasoning I have is that maybe there was fear I wouldn't play along with certain others in the discussion. I may have a hot temper when it goes off, but I do know the meaning of tact unlike those certain others, and I know when to control myself. Version Vibrant will make or break the the site, I kind of agree there. I can't say anything more until I see Version Vibrant in action myself. I'd gladly take to the skies for anyone here, and I'd carry anyone I consider a friend (part of my clan if you will) to the ends of the earth and beyond if there was something they needed there. Yeah, I kind of thought that myself, and even if he does poke around to see the last post, he might be sufficiently scared enough not to say aything more, and that'll be fine by me I like having that effect on people. Animé Dreams!

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Version Vibrant Information

Version Vibrant Updates: LAST UPDATE: February 22, 2008 Version Vibrant's Final Details and Launch Date The Bad: Cosplay will not be relaunched with Version Vibrant. Avatars will have to be re-uploaded and MUST BE 100x100px. 24 hour submission cap per site, looks like it's limited to three submissions total. This is to monitor content more closely. Find bugs in the system easier. Give artists more exposure per work. Encourage submissions of multiple types. The Good: New design/Integrated backroom. Over 50+ features and improvements. New Site: Fan Words. Fan Fiction (Personal Note: I like this addition) Features Essays Guides Ability to submit works to "Meta" Categories: Anime/Manga Video Games TV Movies Books/Comics Personal A New Beginning (additional features expected in the months following launch). Original 10 day launch window announcement. The Version Vibrant Trailer video. Site Look: Design change. [Trailer] "Spikey" returns with new appearance. [Trailer] Logo change. [Trailer] Site Features: Advanced sort and filter settings. [Trailer] New/custom emoticons. (Feature Announcment #6). PNG format support for Avatars (Link). 100x100px size mandate for avatars (Link). Block user feature. [Trailer] Comment reply feature (Feature Announcement #2). Thumbnails (fan art, wallpapers etc) will be larger and/or higher resolution. (Feature Announcment #12) PM Notifier on all pages. (Feature Announcment #8) E-card filtering enhancements (Feature Announcment #13) E-card URLs for IM or PM sending. (Feature Announcement #14) Thumbnails in Portfolio (Feature Announcment #11) Special Dedication feature (Feature Announcment #7) Instant Vote/Favorite/Subscribing. (Feature Announcement #1) Submissions: Submission Cap (Link) Fan Character submission/filtering changes (Link). Multiple Wallpaper Resolution Submissions. (Feature Announcement #3) Draft category for unfinished/Works-in-progress (Feature Announcement #16) Cosplay hub: Will not carry over with launch of Version Vibrant. (Link) Will return in the future. (Link) Blogging System: MyOtaku customizations not supported or carried over. (Link #1 [See comments]; Link #2) HTML disabled. (Link) JavaScript disabled. Link BB code based input system. (Link) Youtube video embedding will be possible. (Link [See Comments]) Multiple "Worlds" per user supported. (Feature Announcement #4) Multiple User posting tyo blog supported. (Feature Announcement #4) Privacy option(s) include being viewable only to members. (Feature Announcement #5) BG Upload. (Feature Announcment #10) Local Image hosting [outside sourcing disabled] (Feature Announcement #9 Link #2) Restriction on URL of Worlds' sites (Link) MyOtaku sites: Sites will remain accessible. (Link) Updates to post will continue to function. (Link) MyOtaku layout will Not be changing. (Link) Will be linked to Version Vibrant for update notification. (Link) New Version Vibrant Members will not be able to obtain MyOtaku sites. (Link) More Information: Questions and Answers: Q&A 1 Q&A 2 Feedback Requests: E-mail Notifier System Mystery Site: Mystery Site Teaser Mystery Site mention. Socialization: Specialized Member Groups Town Hall Meeting Idea Due to Copyright/Licensing restrictions on their content, other available information must be obtained from the podcast Episode directly. Set your media player software to show elapsed time and cue it to 7:18 to skip over the non-relevant portions of the podcast. This material is posted for entertainment purposes only, it is subject to change without notice. Any errors or omissions need to be brought to my attention as soon as they are noticed and they will be corrected as soon as possible. Please let me know if there are any bugs in the links, thank you.

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Friday, January 25, 2008

All Worn Out From Walkin' . . .

At this point, I don't know whether to be insulted or angry. I apologize, but I'm too upset right now to post the Version Vibrant updates I have continued to collect. Right now, I can't even say if I'll continue posting Version Vibrant updates here, I just don't know. I don't think it's right that I should penalize my regular readers for someone else being less than considerate about the time and energy it took to make and maintain that breakdown in the previous posts. But at the same time, I can't be open and honest with "all" the details if I'm not given the courtesy of being included in getting "all" the details to be able to communicate them to you. If you want to stomach it, the pretentious podacters seem to be more valuable to getting the Version Vibbrant word out there than the person who's spent hours if not days collecting links and information to post in a coherent fashion before it was considered "cool". I had planned on having some information about pyrography commissions posted this time around, but I'm still ironing out some kinks in the financial department. I have zero respect for PayPal so I will absolutely not use them as a payment method (and no serious business does anymore either). That puts me in a situation that I need to figure out before I can really get into the other details. I hope to have something figured out by next post, but no promises. A little piece I had to share with everyone. I may be in a bad mood at the moment, but still there are things that amuse me none-the-less. Comments timechaser: Yeah, and the ones that were funniest to me were the not-so-obvious ones. I thought the same thing. I hate being without power. Well, yes and no. I found information that indicated "young adult" books run an average of 40,000-60,000 words. How accurate that is, I don't know, but it's a benchmark I can go on at any rate. If I had other stories I hadn't posted online to go with it, I'd easily consider doing a collection, but I think that would make it even harder to sell cause I don't think collected shorts work very well as a first publication, but I'll keep that in mind as well. It's not easy and I'm still a long way from reaching my goal, I may miss my End of January deadline to have it done. whtdragon: I've never heard of those, but the description almost sounds like a plum tree of some kind. Don't quote me on that, I'm a horrible botanist. Yeah, mine are probably aggravated by the bed I have, and I know when I'm annoyed or tense, the shoulder gets worse too. I have to stick tosome home remedies for the time being, but hopefully that will be remedied soon. Up till now I've done, at least I think, a [Censored] fine job of getting the information out there. When Adam's bits and pieces about it were generating more questions than answers, I started putting things together for people here. Of course we all have to wait to see what it will really be like. A bit latefor yoru birthday, but how about a shameless plug as a belated birthday gift? Getting the novel up to par won't be too hard, I've got some plans in place that I'm writing out to accomplish that. Hopefully I can make it with those. GIDRA: Nice to see you back. There's already a sore spot on the main page, they didn't have a single "news" post this week at all. There's been site updates, and Otaku Attractions and podcasts and Otaku Opinion Polls, but no serious anime/manga news. That's how good Gia was, she contributed a lot to the news here. These were dark mulberries, a purple color. The berries were a problem so were the birds that ate them. Two lovely kinds of mess that aren't pleasant to clean up. Sounds like grafting or something of that nature, would be neat to see. I hear that. Thanks. Well, I know I'm a bit stubborn that way so I'll stick with it and see it through. I will self-publish if it comes down to it, though I don't want to have to do that. Magnus Lensherr: I don't mind doctors so much, I just can't afford them so I'm between a rock and a hard place. Still haven't been able to go, and probably won't be able to for a while. In all honesty, I didn't know I could write 30,000 words (which was about what my manuscript had before), so if I can do that, I can add 10,000 to it easily. It's a matter of looking at my style and adding little details and scenes to the story to fill out some holes. I'f I'm lucky, I'll overshoot my mark for word count and that will be good for me. I know I'll try out the Spaces thing, aside from that, I won't know how I'll handle it till I'm using it. Yensid: I'll have to do that, but I don't think I have a school locally with that kind of class. I will seriously look into it though, it would be worth it. It's not only crazy, it's insane. I wish I had some info for you on the interface, but I don't think I'm in the right social circles to get that kind of information so all I can do is wait with you on that one. Nice to hear that we're not the only ones who used MyO as a springboard to launch our efforts to learn something useful technologically. There's stuff on myspace that I'd probably consider joining up there for, but I'm still not on there yet. Still clinging to my "no myspace" mentality. Voice recognition is tough, I just have the built-in MS SAPI, so it's really bad when I go to use it, even after al lthe training I've done. Having to hop on the Spaces bandwagon to get all of the features kind of sucks to me too, but it's the way it is. Adam's seeing nothing good in MyO anymore which is a shame because there's so much potential here. AngelBest Dream: I wasn't aware that I had such a potent roar. I hope this one I let out today sends the right message. Right now I'm assigning that visit a "fluke" rating since it was a one time "seemingly" random event. I'm still too far out of radar range to be seen as something with potential I guess. I'll just have to wait and see how I handle VV as well. It would be nice to have more advanced search features though. No, they won't, even if they wanted to try an HTML MyO site, they won't be able to do it. New accounts that are set up on VV will not have a MyO account, and MyO will stop accepting new accounts when VV is implemented. That's the way I understand it anyway. Those of us who are here will remain here (and have our VV account as well), but we won't get any new members on MyO. It's not as easy as it sounds to be up here. Your warning came a little late for me, I got knocked hard tonight, but it's something I'll keep in mind as I continue to do my scouting on this VV thing. Mamma Vash: Naturally, I'll be announcing it's publication here first anyway so I'll keep you all up to date on the process every step of the way. Yeah, I've got mixed feelings about VV too, but we won't know anything for sure about it till we actually see it in action. kitbug69: Use your judgement on how to handle that whole thing, and you're very welcome for anythijng I've offered that helped. I have been trying my hardest to be as helpful as I can with what I know about it, and let me tell you all I know is what any regular member could find out. There are others in a select "core" who know more, but I'm not among them. Again my apologies for cutting off the VV updates this time around, there's a lot of stuff going through my mind right now and I"m feeling, well to borrow the line of one of my few favorite English language songs "like and old pair of shoes" relating to this whole VV thing. If I feel better nex week, I'll have a nice update posted if Version Vibrant isn't out already. twilight samurai: It has been a while, but then again we get busy and distracted so that's all right. Come around when you can, that's all I expect of anyone. We celebrated the other day, it's hard to really do stuff on a certain day when you're the only one in the house who doesn't work. Celebrations are pushed down around here all the time and that's okay. It does sound tough, but I added close to 1,000 in just edits alone, the other 1,000 I added is split between two short scene additions I put in to make the story flow a little better anyway. I've got two major scenes left to add as well as a recompiling of the ending to make it fit the new material so I think getting 8,000 more words won't be too hard. I'll certainly keep that in mind, though I think the market for my novel will kind of help without needing to go that route. Actually Adam missed his unannounced launch date of Jan 22, he said so in a recent blog post. He's still shooting for late Jan or early Feb from what I can recall. Other than that, I don't know. I'm not sure if I'll like it or not either, but I will give it a try none-the-less. Thanks, and count on it, I don't feel that old ever. Shonigoneyes93: Welcome back, long time no see. I think the new "Spaces" thing is suppose to draw more attnetion to the blogging in Version Vibrant. I can't say for sure till I see the layout and structure of the system. Sap, bird bombs, and berries all plague my family, at leas we have two less things to worry about on that front. 40,000 words isn't too shabby, that's what I'm shooting for with this one. It's apparently an average length for certain story markets and mine happens to be in thqat market. i don't think I could write an 80,000-100,000 word novel though, that would be tough. As near as I can tell, MyOtaku is getting nothing at all from the upgrades, save maybe permanent "ads free" status, and the day MyO goes offline is the day I leave whatever's left of the site permanently. I joined here for the MyOtaku community, not some little knock-offdA/MySpace/Livejournal wannabe site. If I want those, I'll join up there (I'll point out I'm already on dA for my nature photos). Not sure what you mean by groups, but I think that was covered by the "many to many" blogging info about being able to allow others "posting privilges" in one of your spaces. that would effectively allow groups to post to one space probably more efficiently than the current structure is here. If there's more specific support you had in mind, I'm not sure I can answer that, I can only go by what's public to all members here in terms of information. I have few doubts about it once I get it up to par. I hope it own't take me long to get it into print, cause I do own TheO a couple autographed copies for contest prizes, I promised that much, and I intend to deliver on it. I'll take all the luck I can get, so thank you. Shireishou: It's great to see you back here,. Don't worry yourself over not updating often, you do it when you can. Version Vibrant will surely be a big change from what I'm used to on TheO, I've seen it change once before (I came in toward the end of the "Version Next" era shown in the trailer). It's always rough going into unknown territory, but I think we'll be all right. My O will still be around, but it won't get the attention that it gets now. Animé Dreams!

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