Andrew Natoli

I’ve just released the latest build of Z-Updater, the first released update to the code in 786 days. This build starts off small by completely replacing the interface with a much cleaner and simplistic design. The original design was very bulky, so now its gone! Also, the updater is now designed to be much less obtrusive when launching an application. If no update is available, you no longer will have to hit “Okay, cool, just start my program.” The only time you and your users will realizing you’re running an updater is when you actually release an update.

The updater still downloads updates in small increments, (Patch 1, Patch 2, Patch 3) but as long as people stay up-to-date with the latest patches here and there, it’ll save them time in the long run and you bandwidth. Compared to my other, “GML Patch” you won’t have to re-release a gigantic patch file just to change the readme.

Lastly, this build fixes the issue with not having an “Updates” folder. One of my mistakes with the last version was not including a note saying “You MUST have an updates folder.” The program now makes the folder itself if you don’t have it. Clever.

Well, if you’re interested, stroll on over to SourceForge and give it a download! Enjoy.

Nardy News is back again with Mr. Daily and Mr. Andrews, bringing you all of the latest news regarding the exciting new paint dry theory and what’s new in the media. Take a watch for your daily (actually, its been two months since the last) dose of News Anchorage at its finest.

Enjoy.

It’s time to dust off that old “Spherack Reloaded” icon on your desktops, because its back (again!) I had to update a few addresses the game and server used and pushed out an update which is now available, so everyone should be able to play again now. Don’t hesitate or anything… really guys. Donations are always appreciated to keep things going.

payments@imapcsite.com

Just recently like a lot of people, I have learned of the new and upcoming Google Wave. For those of you unfamiliar and don’t have time to watch a one hour and twenty minute video, Google Wave appears to be the next big thing for collaboration and communication online. By now I’m sure a large number of us know the practical uses for a Wiki. From creating a public database to simply organizing data and projects, Wiki’s have become one of the bigger methods of online collaboration, seeing as users can write and edit data with their peers.

One of Google Wave’s primary features includes something very much like e-mail, but a step further. Rather than continually “forwarding” messages between a group of people, Wave lets you add and remove people from the conversation whenever and they won’t miss anything. Wave also offers a new chat system where users can actually see what the other is typing, live, rather than “Buddy is typing…” Perhaps the most impressive feature Wave offers however is its Collaboration feature. Imagine working on a Wiki with others but only one person is allowed to edit the page at a time. Here’s where things have changed; apparently anyone who’s part of a project can edit a page live with everyone else. This meaning, you see every letter they add and word they change, as they’re doing it, and you see what you’re doing to. Very impressive.

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Well, I haven’t posted a progress update in a while being my old desktop died and I haven’t gotten a chance to get much done on this new one yet so here’s a quick update. School’s back and running again so I’ve got a bit less time to work on my projects, but I’m thinking my next move will be to get into XNA and everything. I want to try and break away from using Game Maker, especially if I might be looking into going towards game development / other kinds of programming in the future.

As for videos, Alex and I will probably be trying to film a new episode of Nardy Network News sometime late this week if we get a chance, so be on the lookout for that!

By now I’m sure we’ve all heard about ZNet-III’s passing, but before we completely move on from it lets take a look back on everything the system accomplished!

ZNet-III sported an AMD Athlon64 x2 processor at 2.1Ghz, 2GB of DDR2 RAM at 667Mhz and a 250GB Hard Drive. All of which was pushed the the limits of their potential just about each day. Built July 31st, 2007 and retired August 18th, 2009, ZNet-III racked up approximately 16,800 hours of service time.

That service time surely had a significant impact and pretty much is the story behind anything you see on my websites today. (Which were also built using it) Hit the “Read More” link for a quick summary of significant achievements by ZNet-III.

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Wow so it’s been quite a bit since I’ve posted on here. I really meant to post something when my netbook died two days after ZNet-III but I never got around to that. Anyway, nothing exciting has happened in the past few weeks, oh wait my netbook died. Two days following ZNet-III my little Acer Aspire One’s solid-state drive gave out. It was a sad moment indeed for quite a while… that is until my mom no longer needed her 3G-equipped HP-Mini. I must say, Netbooks aren’t too bad as long as you have a HDD… not an SSD. The Aspire One was painfully slow. So much potential lied within it, yet none was seen because of its drive that felt slower than a Class 6 MicroSD card.

Anyway, as I said in the last post, I was due to be getting a new HP desktop. Yeah that didn’t quite work out at first, which is why it took me so long to be back on a desktop. You see, I ordered an HP Pavillion Slimline at first, not realizing it was a slimline. It got it and the case was half the width of an average video card. Disappointed I was, because that meant running on horrible integrated graphics. So I sent it back and spent an extra $80 bucks to move onto a “normal” sized Pavillion. Just got it yesterday and I’m presently loving it.

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So Monday morning I woke up and something seemed very strange. It wasn’t the new bedsheets I had gotten, nor was the heat on in the middle of Summer. The strange sense was that there was no noise coming from my computer. Infact, it wasn’t even on.

Somewhere that night between 3am and 8am something went crazy-go-nuts and the motherboard fried itself. Not exactly sure what happened, but something did.

Anyway, I’ve ordered a new computer from HP… usually I’d build my own of course but I found this deal to be a real steal:

Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.3Ghz
4GB DDR2 RAM
640GB HDD
Windows Vista Home Premium with a free upgrade to Windows 7

Plus the usual stuff HP throws in like the case, power supply, keyboard, etc. All for just  $525, I found that for quite a steal and ordered it. Of course, it won’t be here probably until next Friday or something so for now I’ve double-monitored my netbook. It’s good fun. 1024×600 on a 19 inch monitor; an 80-year-old’s dream.

Anyway, what this means for you guys right now is Spherack is completely down. You won’t be able to host or join servers because my computer is what they all use to route themselves together. I apologize; I didn’t expect this to happen until December yet it did anyway.

SOOOOO yeah. I’ll be on a netbook with two monitors for the next week or so. Leave comments here or something.

Alex, Mike and I were busy again yesterday filming a new video that will be released either late tonight or sometime tomorrow. As you can see from this image here, it’s bound to be awesome. “What about that other project?” you may ask. Well, we were in-fact working on that yesterday as well and this will also be used for material in that video so pretend it’s a sort of teaser within a video. Anyway, stay tuned for its posting!