Low and behold, posts will slow down for the next few days.
I will be leaving town either Friday night or Saturday morning to attend a few summer carshows. For those of you that know me, I grew up in the industry and it has always been a huge part of my summer. I will be at the following:
I will return Monday, June 4th. Expect a lot of photos from the shows!
It’s now easier to access anything Bobby Hash related. Go to www.bobbyhash.com to reach this blog and the link to the HM Designs Web Site.
Incase a few of you are wondering why hmediapro.com, the portfolio / web development site I run is down, don’t worry!
I am currently trying to transfer the domain to a different hosting company. It should be back up in the next few days.
I might be on an edge by even giving this attention, my input, or other media coverage. I do feel though this is an important subject and I would like for those of you to read through this blog before making any judgements at all.
I was scoping Newgrounds.com today and I ran across a game that really caught my attention. Unfortunately, the game itself isn’t one I’d recommend to others. It seems as though someone has tried to exploit the events of April 16th at Virginia Tech (just a mere 12 minutes from my home in Radford) through a video game entitled simply “VT Rampage”.
At first my thoughts were simple - How could anyone be this tasteless?
So then I played the game. The creator literally programmed a flash game to “relive” the events. You are Cho, the relentless psychopath that looks to send a message to the world. Your first mission through the 1st stage is to shoot Emily Hilscher - the first victim in the actual events. Events then move on as you return to the dorm to film the manifesto tape. From there Cho must “stealthily” make it past a ward of police to drop the package off to the Post Office. From there is where “the fun begins”, as the creator puts it in Cho’s words.
Norris Hall is nothing more than a glorified bloodfest. You have a time limit to slaughter as many students as possible, even with a theme song playing in the background encouraging “Go Cho Go!”
At the end of the time limit, with 32 dead and various injured, Cho is left with only one choice - to take this life. The game ends there, with credits rolling in shortly afterwards.
Personally I am all for freedom of speech. What I am not for however is the right for people to be so distasteful. It is an outrage that this online game portrays the events, let alone NAMES one of the victims in the game and allows you to murder her. This is truly a lack of respect towards the victim!
With further research I see that the media has really picked this up and has even conducted an interview with the game’s creator - Ryan Lambourn. Turns out he’s a 21-year-old living in Australia, but grew up in the United States (credit - MSNBC). With that being said, Ryan should be able to connect since most of those killed were students HIS age. So why would someone still do such a thing?
It has also been stated that he will remove the game if the government pays him a price. Should the government fold and pay the “ransom”? How does this play into freedom of speech and freedom of the Internet?
Frankly, if the government pays to have the game removed, it will create a few scenarios in my opinion.
Either way, Ryan is getting exactly what he wants. He’s getting cheap press and has become highlight of chat through various media, including this blog. What he has done on the bright side has screwed any chance he had at becoming a respected professional in his field of work, let alone a respected human being.
Incase you’re interested, this video game can be found at www.newgrounds.com
I gotta say, the ability to understand programming pays off. After getting fed up with the time I was wasting logging into Ta-Da List I decided to write my own listing program.
I like to look at it as a list management system.
I really didn’t need to be super organized, such as organizing by day, week, etc. I created the list just how I would create my own sticky notes - random, jot some info down with a title and post it. The program works just the same - I have an idea, I click my bookmark, the web application comes up and I’m ready to go. Add a title, a little descriptive information and wah-la! It’s posted. I can even edit the list if I screw something up and I can delete it once the task/list/whatever is completed.
I’m still thinking about releasing it once I complete the interface to meet my tastes. Will it be open source? Most likely!
PHP and MySQL are a great marriage. What are some of the applications some of you guys are building to meet your needs?
I created a small portfolio for potential employers to look at. Nothing too fancy - just showcases what I’ve done and a little about who I am.
www.suddenlysilence.com/bobbyhash
Originally posted Thursday, November 16th, 2006
Updates applied May 20th, 2007 -
Friends always harass me about who my web development and design instructors are. I give them the names of instructors I have taken. Unfortunately what they don’t realize is the concepts that have made me successful were learned outside the classroom.
I must attribute what I have learned to the fact that I started out designing web sites at an early age and was producing for client at the same speed. I was a daily user before I could grasp how web sites worked inside and out. I read various tutorials online. I learned a lot from the days Angelfire.com was a huge free server and WebMonkey was its tutorial counterpart. Years later I own my server and create ways to produce my web sites.
Learning is something you never finish in this industry. To this day I still learn something from every project that I take in. The amount that I know about this industry is far greater than it was when I graduated high school. Heck, what I’ve learned in the past year (thanks to Chris Pund’s talk about Web 2.0 way back in the day) has really amazed me. I also run into various situations where I learn just how little I know about this industry. This is critical as it really showcases where one needs to improve.
LAMP. Web 2.0. AJAX. The User Experience. Hello Divs. Bye Bye Tables. The world in front of us developers is changing ever so rapidly. How does one keep up with the break-neck pace of it all? Online forums, social bookmarking, and web sites geared toward the profession are a tremendous start in terms of help. It also doesn’t hurt to have a Barnes & Noble near by either. Just think - go there, grab a cup of coffee, hit up the technology section and read some of the latest books out. It’s a cheap and effective way to see what authors are writing about. Think those two previous steps aren’t enough? Develop for clients, but do your research on products similar to what you are developing. Take note of the trends.
As of right now, you may wonder what are the emerging technlogies and trends. From my user experience and work as a developer, here is my input on WHAT you should know if you want to be effective in this field of work:
Bare Essentials:
Web-Development:
Web-Design
I know personally I have left out a lot. Just from that list though, it is obvious this field of work spans a wide variety of technologies to meet a specific, common purpose. This field of work isn’t going to level off anytime soon. With technology trends and mobility increasing in demand with each day, the thirst to meet those needs will become even more evident.
Thank the Lord for my freelancing abilities - without them I could not up to date, ahead, or let alone in the game itself.
Original Post - Friday, October 20th, 2006 - As unprofessional as this may be, I just thought I needed to post this pie chart I found while scrolling through Flickr today.
Web designers may now rejoice as finally someone has finally put our feelings into a piechart!
The morning started at 7:30 with a breakfast and interactive question and answer session. Dr. Kadaba highlighted on a few subjects that I felt were very interesting.
After the breakfast I was able to attend his presentation - “Yahoo! - Leading the New Media Revolution”. The presentation focused primarily on Yahoo!’s approach toward social mediums. A few points that I found interesting were:
At the end of the presentation, Dr. Kadaba presented myself, Chris Pund, and Michael Patton with Certificates of Appreciation from the Governor of Virginia - Tim Kaine. The certificates were to show appreciation for our efforts at the 2006 PBL National Leadership Conference.
All in all this morning has been vividly informative and has added details to my open-stary eyed approach to Web 2.0, the user experience, and where exactly I can fit in with the best of the best on the Internet. Could I see myself working for Yahoo! one day? Honestly, I do. There are some really snazzy approaches Yahoo! is taking and I personally feel that I could bring the user experience to the next level.
I’ll have pics up from this event soon!
As a college student in a web design/development major, I run across many students that honestly feel that since they are great designers, that they will have NO problem what so ever in the industry.
Little do they know clients aren’t designers but they feel they are. It is great to let a client have their input. Obviously they are the one’s with the reason to build a web site or have something designed. They have the business plan, know what they are trying to accomplish and how they are going to market themselves to meet that goal line.
What they don’t know is that the web is different medium is isn’t a traditional way of marketing. Just for that reason, you must be firm with your input and direction.
I recently saw an article at MB Web Design, a web design firm located in Whales, that really hit home on this issue. I recommend all web designers or anyone looking to become a freelancer to check it out. You may see it at http://www.mbwebdesign.co.uk/blog/
nightmare-web-design-clients/#comment-101.
