Thanks to your incredible generosity, we have some additional funds that we can use to add some new features to BZP. We started off by closing a couple Tracker tickets. The first one is Add Default Font Feature. If you head over to your profile settings you can define how all your posts and other content look by default. No more playing with the RTE or adding BBCode tags every time you post! This is never something I've really been interested in, so I'll let you all tell me how it works out.
Check out this Tracker ticket. I know a lot of people have asked for this feature over the years. We've found an addon to do it, but it's not free. We've set up a donation goal to gain the funds necessary to buy the addon. If you are interested in making this happen, please consider donating. Every dollar counts! If fifteen people donate one dollar, we'll have enough. That's not much, so please help out! UPDATE: Thanks to some generous donations, we've already exceeded our goal. Our paym
So I suppose I'm a bit behind in updating this, but I thought I'd give you all a summary of the first part of my recent vacation - BrickFair Alabama! Things got off to a poor start when I forgot to set my alarm for my 6:45 AM flight. I'm a light sleeper though, and went to bed early, so I woke up with enough time to take a shower, eat something, finish packing, and hop in my car so I could park at a friend's place and catch a ride to the airport. I feel the need to add that at 5AM it was alr
BrickFair Alabama is eight days away! So much stuff to worry about! To help me not forget anything, I'm going to make a list here. Let me know what's missing. Clothes Toiletries Wallet Passort/drivers license Boarding passes Snacks MOCs Brick badges Prototypes and other pieces to give out BZPower Guestbook BZPower business cards Camera Laptop Phone Other phone iPod Packing tape Umbrella Tablet (maybe) I'm sure I'm overlooking something...
SEND STUFF! Please? We need all the help we can get to make these events fantastic. We appreciate all your support and look forward to getting bunches and bunches of MOCs to display. If anything is unclear, please ask and we will do our best to clarify. Less than a month to go!
This entry contains spoilers! I discuss both The Hobbit (the book) as well as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (the movie), and even go into The Lord of the Rings (the books and movies). If you don't want any of those spoiled, stop reading now. We good? Great! I loved the framed narrative. I was expecting it since we knew Ian Holm and Elijah Wood were in the cast, but they did it so magnificently. I love how it ties into The Lord of the Rings movies and the beginning of those where Ian Ho
I really wasn't satisfied with my recent set review pictures, they were way too dark despite me having tons of lights on and using my flash (indirectly). So I did some research and pulled out my camera's manual and learned how to adjust the shutter speed. A bit of experimentation later, and brighter pictures appeared. The only problem is that now I have to make sure to be very still so that I don't shake the camera when I hit the shutter button. I'm doing a 0.5 second exposure so that can have
So what conventions is everyone going to next year? My current plans include BrickFair Alabama, BrickFair New England, and BrickFair Virginia. I think there's a pattern there... I'm actually going to be the Bionicle Coordinator at New England, so expect me to bug you guys about sending in MOCs. Anyway, I'm considering seeing if I can squeeze in a fourth event, because I'm crazy and stupid like that. Bricks Cascade is unfortunately out, because they moved it to right around the time that PAX
The presidential election is right around... oh right, missed that. No, the reason I'm posting here today is to get the word out about this poll. We want your feedback to know how best we can improve BZP. So please go let us know what you think. Thanks!
Recently with the new Tracker, I made some blog entries about some of the tickets that were resolved, to help get the word out. Now I know not everyone reads my blog and it seems clear that not everyone has quite gotten the hang of the Tracker or is aware of it yet, so I'm trying to figure out the best way to make people aware of tickets that have been closed. I don't want to keep posting blog entries, because I feel like I have better things to post here, plus not everyone reads it. (But they
Another one bites the dust. You should now be able to be logged into the archives and the main forums at the same time. Alright, I think that's enough BZP work for today.
Apparently people like to indent the first line of paragraphs. I was totally unaware of this, and had gotten out of that habit in middle school sometime, and just included an extra break between paragraphs, or in Word used the 'space after' setting, or whatever it is. But once I was made aware of the issue, it was a pretty easy fix. I just added a new BBCode to 'tab'. It just adds five spaces wherever you put the tag. You can put it in the middle of a sentence if you want. [tab]Put your
We're currently entering the final phases of prepping a new feature for BZPower. It's something I've had in mind for a while and finally found a tool we could use to accomplish it. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys think and hope it will help in determining how we can continue to improve BZPower. I need you guys to help me out though. The feature will only help if you actually use it and use it as intended, so you all have to promise not to be silly. Think you can do that? Didn't
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey comes out in theaters next month, based on one of my favorite books of all time. I am super pumped. So of course I want to reread the book before the movie to have it fresh in my mind. The question is - which version should I read? I have a copy of the mass market paperback (not that exact version) that I got in sixth grade. I've read it countless times and it's definitely seen better days, but it certainly has some sentimental value. I've also got a nice
So the military base I work at is closing tomorrow because of the hurricane. If it's that bad, then at the very least I'm expecting to lose power at some point over the next few days. So my presence here may be a little scarce. As it is, here's my plan: Go to bed tonight. Wake up tomorrow, work from home for as long as I have power. Edit the Powercast while I have time. In the event of a power failure, break out the dead tree books for some reading. Hope I don't lose power for too long.
I'm a bit behind on making this entry, I suppose. I finished The Thursday War last Friday night/early Saturday morning, completing my mission to reread all of the Halo novels before Halo 4. Woohoo! It was good, but not as good as Glasslands. It did have some nice twists and revelations, and a lot of stuff that seems like it will tie in to Halo 4. I'd definitely recommend it. Now I feel like I have nothing to do though, after having spent all this time reading. To start though, I'm going to go
As mentioned last week, I had fallen a little behind on my reading goals, but I managed to finish Halo: Glasslands Friday night (early Saturday morning, technically). It was pretty enjoyable, and a good continuation of the Ghosts of Onyx. There were three main storylines: one following the Spartans, Dr. Halsey, and Chief Mendez as they try to learn more about the Dyson sphere they're trapped in, another following some Elites planning on overthrowing the Arbiter, and the last focusing on Kilo-5,
A little late on my update this week, thanks to yesterday's federal holiday. I finished Cryptum last Thursday, which was great I thought. A lot of interesting insight into the Forerunners. It was really a piece of hard science fiction that just happened to be set in the Halo universe. There were some connections to the games and other lore for people who really dig into things (like the Librarian, the Didact, and Mendicant Bias). The story itself really kept me turning pages, and when it ended I
I've been toying with the idea of buying a tablet. Almost definitely Android. I'd like a 9"-10" one, but those seem like they're still a bit too expensive for my tastes. In the 7" space the Nexus 7 seems like the clear winner. I'll probably wait until the holiday shopping season to see if I can grab any good deals. Does anyone out there have a tablet and want to offer suggestions or advice? Thank you kindly!
As anticipated, Halo Evolutions took me the majority of last week to get through. That's okay though, it's a great collection. I love the twist at the end of Palace Hotel - it may be my favorite just for that. Human Weakness and The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole are also good reads. But so are the other stories, so give the whole thing a try. I started Cryptum last night, which is very different so far. I only got through a chapter, so I'll reserve my judgment for n
BrickFair VA 2012 was the tenth LEGO fan event I've attended. As a result, I'm accumulated a lot of engraved bricks, most of which have my name, Black Six, and the places I've lived. I need to start mixing things up, and I need your help. Suggest some fun nicknames, phrases, and other things I could put on a badge. Bricks I already have include: Black Six Sixboss Mandrew DON'T PANIC Let's see what you can come up with! Edit: Alright, nice! Here's the current frontrunners: KEEP IT
Against all odds, and at the expense of some sleep last week, I finished both Contact Harvest and The Cole Protocol. Six books in three weeks! Halo Evolutions is up now though, and it's almost as long as both of those books combined, so I'm expecting it to take up this entire week. Contact Harvest is interesting among the Halo books as it's the first where there are no Spartans involved. They don't even get mentioned at all. It makes sense, since the book takes place before they received their
So I finished Ghosts of Onyx last night and First Strike a couple days before that. It makes me sad that Eric Nylund hasn't written any more full-length novels since then, I really loved his take on the Halo universe. He's great at creating characters you actually care about and seems to have a good grasp of military lingo and tactics (not that I know from experience, but what he says seems plausible and doesn't completely conflict with the many former and active servicemen I've interacted with)
It's been a week since I kicked off Operation: Reading Rainbow. So far I've finished The Fall of Reach and the Flood and started on First Strike. Some thoughts: -Man Fall of Reach is so good. It covers so much ground and does it so well. -Why did Bungie try to shoehorn in all those retcons in Halo: Reach? It's like Star Wars - it wasn't broke, so why fix it? -The Flood is definitely underrated. There are some slower parts, sure, but it really adds a lot more depth and backstory to Halo: CE.
