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Swert

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Blog Entries posted by Swert

  1. Swert
    So yeah, I've been busy. ... Very busy ._.
     
    On the plus side, I've had a lot of stuff happen. I kicked Sprint to the curb and signed with AT&T. In hindsight, I needed much more money than I had at the time to do this, but I'm confident it won't break me. Because of this, I ended up having to purchase a new phone. It was high time to replace it anyway. I decided to get a Nokia Lumia 1020, a wonderful choice I don't think I'll regret until probably halfway through the contract when the 1030 launches or whenever. The only drawback is this particular phone had a mechanical issue with the camera, so I already called away for a replacement (it'll be here tomorrow).
     
    The next major thing is I made some sporadic Lego purchases in the last two months, including the Eiffel Tower set (the new one, not the original; I'm not made of money XD), Wyldstyle's motorcycle, Martian Manhunter, a Green Lantern and White Lantern figure (sadly not the original GL NYCC figure, again NOT made of money), a custom Gambit designed by Brickstorms (they were a vendor in our shop during BrickCon Spring Exhibition), Nick Fury and Aquaman (I have a full set of Avengers and Justice League now, strictly because of those purchases), and Lego The Hobbit (which got me both Good Morning Bilbo Baggins -and- Western Emmet, the guy at GameStop recognized me as "that Lego guy" and had some Emmets left over from The Lego Movie VG. I did not complain once).
     
    I need to make room for both the new Minecraft The End set and Benny's Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP set, but those are minor. I think I know where they'll end up, then I'll photograph the new bookshelf once I do.
     
    Finally, I made two new poster purchases over the weekend, including the Hunters of Achievements poster and Achievement City. I'll need two new frames, and I'm thinking I'll take down my Pink Floyd tapestry for room. The tapestry served my wall well, but blank canvas is needed, especially for Achievement Hunter.
     
    Otherwise, that's the collection thus far. I still need to make a mask out of the Lhikan's Hau from the playset, I just realized. Any suggestions there would be welcome, I think I know how it should be done but I'm still mulling ideas.
  2. Swert

    Updated Status Of Bs01

    By Swert,

    For once, I bring -good- news on this 26th day of December. Nothing really special happens today for me, sorry.
     
    But in regards to BS01, and believe me there's good news to it, we're finally settling in on the server quite nicely, and HS01 is up and running quite well. BS01, however, is being a naughty boy and we haven't even started the road to Christmas 2012 yet. No matter, we're speeding up the process internally, and images are (SLOWLY) being reintroduced.
     
    I honestly do wish to apologize to all members of BZPower, viewers and editors of BS01, and people who don't read my blog but saw the word "Bs01" in the blog title and clicked on it. I was not immediately aware of how long this process would take me, but I'll share with you a few details to explain why I chose what I did and why then.
     
    In October of 2011, I took over paying for BS01's server by returning to my job at City Blocks in Tacoma, WA. I spent two months paying for the site at the beginning of the month, a whopping $151.97. Now, I'm not ashamed to mention this price any longer, since I don't pay it any more. Keeping in mind I did this out of my own pocket with no ads, I looked down the line at my financial status and so forth, discussed it with staff, advisors, family, my boss and finally myself and decided moving to a cheaper, SMALLER solution would be best.
     
    I had initially planned to purchase this server in mid-November. I would install MediaWiki on it, get the other MediaWiki on there, slowly upload BS01 and HS01 over, test its progress, then switch over same-day when I cancelled my old server. Well as we all know, that didn't quite work out that way.
     
    So here comes early December. BS01 and HS01's old server was now acting up through some weird event, and I decided to just let it die and go get a new one, which was already planned. I cancelled my server that day, having taken the day off Dec. 6th, and initiated the purchase of my new server shortly thereafter. I now own two Virtual Private Servers, one optimized for the DB, and both run in sync with each other.
     
    In regards to content, we did back up every inch of BS01 and HS01 of the IMPORTANT documents. We tried to save all user pages, but we did miss out on BS01's subpages (or some anyway) and talk pages were deemed unimportant (we are sorry, keep in mind I lost some logs, too.) Once HS01 was backed up, and BS01 99% backed up, I saved the images (every single image was saved), the users' DB (nobody lost, I swear!) and a few extensions (not many, but some).
     
    Now for some issues on why images are taking forever: Turns out you don't just get to upload images into a folder on the site and expect it all to work. Turns out I forgot to save the images database table, so we gotta reupload each one, one by one. Or well, 10 at a time once I installed the Multiple Images upload extension (might keep it, might not, who knows.) I'm handing off images to volunteers over here to upload slowly over time.
     
    So there you have it, BS01's status explained from the guy who did it. Now, one more final crucial reason why it's taken me a whole month despite having it all up and running within days, I do apologize. Let's just say work was rough all month, but the final result is well worth it. (I might upload the images of the products we did in the shop in another blog entry, just for fun.)
     
    I hope my explaination wasn't -too- long and let's hope we get it all done before too much longer.
     
     

    -


  3. Swert
    So, I noticed a topic earlier asking about the online animations from Bionicle past.
     
    So I figured someone was bound to post a link to BS01's page, right? I mean, we do have the animations on there.
     
    Nope. Not even mentioned.
     
    So I decided it's time to update the Media navigation on the front page. Now it has links to anything I could think people would want to research.
     
    And maybe tomorrow when I'm not working? I'll even finish the other undone pages.
     
    So unless my staff wants to do it for me (HINT. HINT.) I'm gonna be busy tomorrow.
     
    Yippie. *throws confetti*
  4. Swert
    So, this is mostly a post about apologies, especially given I'd rather have had it done weeks, even months ago. But, this is what held me back.
     
    I can only explain via visual aid, so here they are.
     
     



     
    On picture one, you can clearly see 16 folders. These are labeled 0-9, and a-f. Now, these are the base folders BS01 images were under. It is all sorted in this format. Were all the files in these 16 folders, I woulda been finished a long time ago. Sadly, this is not the case.
     

     
    This is Folder 0, which has folders 00-09, and 0a-0f. So that's 16 folders extra. Whoops. No biggie, right?
     

     
    This is folder 00. I even unblurred the folder name so you could see that. So now in lies the problem. I have to enter all 16 folders, in order, and upload them to BS01 directly. Then I can use a script on the site that imports them all to BS01's database. Simple, yes?
     

     
    This is the folder I'm currently on. images/b/b0/. So, by the math, I have already gone through 176 folders just to get to THIS ONE. This is not counting the original 16 folders, by the way. That would make the count 187 (11 folders to get to B ). I have 256 folders in total to upload.
     
    So, with that knowledge and those visual aids, plus my hectic work schedule, can I honestly and realistically be blamed for this upload taking so long? Probably, but at least now you all know why it takes so long.
  5. Swert
    5: Five total commissions.
     
    11: Eleven days of in-shop work.
     
    57 1/2: Hours put in for these five projects alone since the last paycheck.
     
    560.63: What I earned.
     
    Infinity: Knowing full well I put a Monolith in one of the projects, and then turned around and knocked out a 2 week Mosaic in 2 -days-. Oh, and we glued it down too.
     
    Infinity+1: My head's altitude after 8 days of nonstop gluing with some fumes. @_@
     
    And finally:
     
    1: How I feel after overexceeding my boss' expectations that we could knock out five projects between 6 employees that's worth well over $40,000.
     
    Oh, and 1: Days off I'll have until I work again. And even then I'm still working off-the-clock <<;;
     
    But I have the weekend off ^_____^
  6. Swert

    Vectorin' Stuff

    By Swert,

    If you guys want advice on it, only one I can give:
     
    Don't start out on ponies. Too complex a shape.
     
    How did I start?
     
    I traced around this with a simple box in Photoshop to begin with:
     

     
    After tinkering around a bit, I managed to graduate up a level to design more complex shapes... and logos by extension.
     

     
    Oh, and want an example of one you see every day now?
     

     
    So yeah, before you work on ponies, work on simple stuff. You'd be amazed at how much easier it'd be in the long run.
     
    Edit: How I roll in PS CS3:
     



  7. Swert

    Wasting Light

    By Swert,

    Good album so far, sounds like it'll be an aquired taste going in to it. Couple of songs stand out as favorites already, like Rope and I Should Have Known.
  8. Swert

    Watch Out Minnesota

    By Swert,

    Cause there's a Swert coming your way soon!
     
    (May 10th to the 13th, not set in stone yet, but it's planned.)
     
    Probably avoiding anything major, but you never know.
  10. Swert

    What have I done?

    By Swert,

    No seriously, what have I done? Well, I saw a photo of Turakii on Facebook earlier, and someone said it looked like she belonged on a movie poster.
     
    So I put her on one. Along with Toa Lhikan Hordika. And myself as Loki.
     
    Note, I didn't want it to be a perfect photoshop job. I just wanted it done for humor purposes. And yes, the tie is REQUIRED.
  11. Swert

    What's Krakalin, BZP?

    By Swert,

    No seriously, I honestly have no idea where BMan got the name. So what is it?
     
    Anyway, some things to note, since I feel it's noteworthy:
    BS01's prank was written last-minute on March 31st by a team consisting of Zo'Tomana, Cholie and myself. Kayru and BMan offered input later.
    The prank concept was about a week old. It was literally started up in a conversation between like 5 staff members. We waited until the last minute to post it.
    I actually did my part this time around (though it seems unnecessarily) to lead a misdirection on everyone. If you recall, I had two blog entries related to a 'GL01' concept, between a logo and a suggestion for one. That was the misdirection. It failed, but nobody saw our prank coming anyway. So it succeeded.
    This was the fourth worst thing I could have done. Let that one sink in for a second.
    Alternatively, I could have done the following:
    Faked evidence that Bionicle was returning (I'm seriously glad I didn't do that one, in hindsight.)
    Faked evidence that a new buildables line was coming (I was leaning towards fake Doctor Who, but that required work)
    Posted that I was acquiring BZPower (ALSO glad I didn't do that, in hindsight.)
    So to answer a question I see being asked a lot, none of the answers on the topic were legit. Basically, I sat here in a Skype call and gave 90% of the answers. Input was put in to flesh them out, so at the end I'd say about 30-40% of what you saw was from me.
     
    Oh, and there was also a deleted answer from that list. A question was asked about Jaller transporting back up to the Red Star and returning by Takutanuva. I had a wonderful answer for that I now quote:
     
    "The rest of the story takes place in Jallers head as he dies."
     
    I think this one was a tossup to keep or remove. Obviously the entire list screamed prank, but leaving this one in would have seal it away. BMan decided to remove it. I think it's best we did, but I still feel good to share it.
     
    Now think about that one for a second: 2004-2010, all in Jaller's head as he slips into a coma. I think it'd make for a doozy of a theory, don't you agree?
     
    (I could write a whole blog entry on that one alone, too. I just might.)
     
    Anyway, prank over. Glad you guys enjoyed it. Please forward all pitchfork and torch assaults to my new home, Dorek's house. Kthx.
  12. Swert
    So I have to work very quickly tomorrow. Starting first thing in the morning, I need to do 3 Paradisa based LEGO sets for a birthday party tomorrow (LEGO Friends is the main theme, we're padding it up with stuff).
     
    Oh, and I just know I have only one hour to do it in.
     
    Keeping in mind it took me about 2 hours to work on one model already in something my boss said would take him "30 minutes."
     
    Well that's fine, I'll have instructions and I can be flexible on the actual design, but for the most part it'll be pretty crazy whatever we do. And boy will it be tough, given my 1 hour restriction.
     
    In other news I also built a brown building yesterday. It's nice. Might post photos later.
  13. Swert
    So, this is more or less an open letter to my friends and people who I talk to all the time: I like Microsoft products.
     
    Don't leave the blog just yet. I'll explain myself.
     
    While growing up, I had many devices in my life. The company did not matter, because they had their plus and minuses across the board. I had VCRs I can't remember the company name of, I have had a few DVD players of similar status, TVs of non-namebrand companies, computers of only the Swert brand (I helped build the family computers, it's only until recent that I didn't; more on that in a moment) and plenty of media players ranging from MP3, CD and even cassette tape (I'm old school 8D).
     
    These days? You have a brand name product. You -have- to. I have chosen the one I prefer to buy from, as you may have done as well. It doesn't bother me you may have bought an Apple device (or been given one as a gift), do you know what really bothers me about them?
     
    You're bragging about it.
     
    Yes, I get my Zune HD doesn't have Angry Birds. This is because all the apps on the Zune are free. FREE. Yours cost $0.99, true, but I can get a similar game for free if someone develops one. And considering the device supports XNA, it's possible for someone to develop one. You don't need to rub it into my face I can't play this game, it doesn't bother me.
     
    And don't think you Google fans can escape this rant blog entry. I use Gmail, I also used to use Google itself. I chose to use Bing instead. I also don't buy into the whole Chromebook theory of cloud computing; I like local storage over cloud storage, especially given how often cloud has gone down for various companies, Microsoft included.
     
    And yes, I will also accept MS "fanboys" need to chill out as well. I'm not talking people worse than me, I will include myself in this. I have a passion for the company, because I felt it very easy to develop for the platforms they put out. On top of that, I love all of my devices from them so far: Xbox 360, Windows 7, Zune HD, Zune Pass, Hotmail, Windows Live, the list can go on. I do, however, accept that I need to be more subtle about my love for the products I buy and use. However, I feel I should mention this to people who know me:
     
    I don't use only Microsoft.
     
    I have a phone, it's from Samsung. Not even WP7. I have a laptop, made by HP. My desktop? Dell. I happily use all of these and many more without problems.
     
    So now I ask this: Why such hatred towards one specific company? I include myself in this rhetorical question. I admit it, I dislike Apple; I don't like their business practices, I think their products are overpriced, and I wouldn't be caught dead playing my music on iTunes, or browsing with Safari on my PCs. I have absolutely no problems with you guys using them, though.
     
    As for Google? Anti-trust lawsuit, anyone?
     
    So, in other words, I dislike the company itself. I never dislike the product they make. I'll admit it, the iPhone is a lovely piece of technology. The screen is sharp, it does its job, it won't lag up when it's in vanilla mode, and so forth. On the other spectrum, Android is a fine OS, so long as you don't modify it from here to the moon and back fifty million times, which incidentially is what the OEMs do. Where do the flaws lie in these two technologies? For one, the hardware on the iPhone is updated once a year, and you're "expected" to keep up or you're a nobody. The Android OS keeps fragmenting itself further with newer and newer user interface changes and updates, plus the hardware is not the same across the board, so stuff tends to break. By the time Android 5.0 comes out, I predict the only ones that will update with it are from this year alone. I'm predicting the 2009-2010 series of phones won't even be able to upgrade, if they can't already to 4.0. At least Apple solved that by keeping the hardware limited, but it's still a lot of hardware.
     
    Yes, I know nobody will even be down here to read this line, so I'll just wrap up with a tl;dr section:
     
    tl;dr: Let's all stop being biased towards one end of the spectrum, and accept each other for them, not their tech. I have a Zune, I want a WP7, friends have iTouches and iPhones, I want a W8 Tablet, they want iPads and maybe Android tablets, let's all just get along anyway.
     
    ... Though as soon as W8 comes out, HS01 Metro app. You know it's gonna happen 8D
  14. Swert

    WMKK

    By Swert,

    Twelve years after the legendary hunt for the Sterling Silver and White Metal Krana-Kal, I finally got my hands on at least one of the 5,000 WMKK. On top of that? I also got the card -and- the bag.
     

     
    I am very pleased with this addition to my collection. It is probably the only "rare" collectible I plan to go after in my lifetime, as it was the most likely to obtain.)
     
    Special thanks to Toa Lhikan Hordika for giving me the opportunity to use currency in a way to exchange goods to the benefit of both parties.
  15. Swert

    Work Next Week

    By Swert,

    So for 5 days in a row, I get to wake up at 6:30 AM, catch a 7:30 AM bus, then catch a bus headed towards work and arrive at like 8:30 AM or 9 AM.
     
    So in other words, it's just like when I started working there, only now I'm expected to do stuff when I walk in. Swell.
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