Here are my thoughts, rants, and so on. Its really not that relevant to anything, but every now and then I like to speak my piece.

• 24Sep 09

  Forum search update

  We released an update to the GameSpot forum search today. The changes were made to provide more reliable search results and make the forums perform a bit better.

  The searches are now running on the Sphinx search server. Sphinx is designed for full-text searches and is a perfect match for the forums. Because the searches are running on the Sphinx server they no longer cause general forum slowdowns when a large # of searches are done at once.

  If you are interested, there are a few tips & tricks you can now do to get more specific search results.

  The "|" character allows you to do an OR search. e.g., search for: mario | zelda

  The "+" character allows you to require a word to be part of the search. e.g., search for: (mario | zelda) +time

  If you surround your search term in quotes (") then it will search for that exact combined term. See the difference between: of legend and "of legend" You'll notice that The Legend of Zelda is not included in the second search.

  Good luck & good searching!

  • Posted Sep 24, 2009 11:26 am PT
  • Category: Technology
  • 12 Comments

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• 24Feb 09

  Game Collections Maintenance

  The game collections will be down for maintenance on Wednesday February 25th from 6am to 7am PT. You can still view your collections but you will not be able to add, track or make any changes during this time.

  • Posted Feb 24, 2009 5:46 pm PT
  • Category: News
  • 2 Comments

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• 26Aug 08

  mini-feed now updating more frequently

  mini-feed now updating more frequently (eom)

  • Posted Aug 26, 2008 2:28 pm PT
  • Category: N/A
  • 10 Comments

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• 25Aug 08

  Commodore 64 LAN Party

  Wow, a video game related entry. I'm surprised by myself.

  Check out this article on engadget about a Commodore 64 LAN party. Pretty cool stuff.

  • Posted Aug 25, 2008 1:54 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 5 Comments

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• 22May 08

  goodness i'm busy

  wow, it's been a while since I posted here. been super busy... Mario Kart, GTA IV, baby in the over... one of these days I'll write a real blog post again. Until then hope you're having fun.

  • Posted May 22, 2008 2:29 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 7 Comments

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• 13Mar 08

  GameSpot on the Wii

  Wow, I just realized it has been a really long time since I last blogged here. We (GS programmers) have been busy these last few months. The first of many new and exciting things coming out of recent R&D launched yesterday. GameSpot now has a Wii customized site. It isn't a full version of the site on the Wii (that would be lame anyway) but it gets you the information you want where you want it. If you're like me, you hate looking through the virtual games on the Wii then having to go somewhere else to find out if they're any good. Nintendo just displays those little graphics, bad ones at that, and no real data about the games. Now we are giving you that info via the Opera web browser that you can use on the Wii.

  Some of the current features:

  - Console game ratings

  - Latest Wii news

  - Interactions via the Wiimote (the controller) such as twisting to rate a game or shaking to change things

  - People who don't have a GameSpot account can still rate games!

  - If you do have a GameSpot account and are logged in, your ratings will show up on both sites.

  Things coming either soon or in the relatively near future:

  - Video. The Wii only supports flash 7 so we need to make a few updates to our player to be flash 7.

  - PMs. I believe donkeljohn said he wants this there.

  What else do you want there? Sound off and let us know. Send us your suggestions in the Site Enhancements & Feedback forum.

  • Posted Mar 13, 2008 10:56 am PT
  • Category: Technology
  • 9 Comments

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• 10Dec 07

  Finally bought an Xbox 360

  Well, technically I didn't buy it, my wife did. She decided to give me my x-mas present early this year. I don't game that often so could never really justify buying one myself. Especially since I think fair is fair and she would get something $$ too if I did. Well, she got her GPS for x-mas and I got my Xbox.

  The only games I have right now are the two that came in the bundle - Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. I did go out and buy Oblivion but the disk is busted and I can't actually play it. ;( That actually has me kind of mad, but at least they said (over the phone) that they'll swap it out for me.

  I also added my Gamertag to my profile. Yippee, a whole 80 points.

  • Posted Dec 10, 2007 4:55 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 11 Comments

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• 2Oct 07

  SF PHP meetup group moving to CNET

  After many months of the San Francisco meetup group being cancelled, I've hijacked it and moved it to CNET.

  I haven't gotten the official group switched to us yet but that'll come soon enough. Someday the coordinator will need to talk to one of us in the group. If not, I'll figure out a way to get them kicked.

  So if you're in the SF area and are a PHP developer, signup for the group and join us the 1st Thursday of the month meetup to talk all things PHP. I'm not sure if it'll be at 6pm or 7pm yet, but we'll work that out over the next few weeks.

  • Posted Oct 2, 2007 4:20 pm PT
  • Category: Computers
  • 0 Comments

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• 27Sep 07

  Under The Hood: A look at GameSpot.com and TV.com

  Next week on Tuesday Oct 2nd at 6pm, the CNET Entertainment team is giving a presentation for developers at our SF office. This is an opportunity for interested developers to learn more about our sites and about our open positions on the engineering team.

  Here's the blurb from the HR team about this presentation. If you're interested in working for us as a developer, I highly recommend you attend.

  ---

  Ever wonder how one team is able to support 49 million unique visitors and over 1 billion page views each month?
  Want to hear how to build a PHP/MySQL framework to share code between multiple sites?
  
  Please join us for a panel discussion with the top technical talent of GameSpot.com, TV.com, MP3.com and FilmSpot.com. You will hear details on the infrastructure and code behind these websites. Topics covered will include:
  
  * The hardware to support 49 million unique visitors and over 1 billion page views each month
  * How to build a PHP/MySQL framework to share code between multiple sites
  * Using templating to separate PHP and HTML, and also to reuse common site elements
  * Lessons and tips learned from developing in this high demand environment
  
  The event will take place Tuesday, October 2, 2007 at CNET Networks, 235 2nd Street, San Francisco.
  
  Doors will open at 6:00 p.m. and the panel discussion will start promptly at 6:30 p.m. Mexican grub and cupcakes will be served.
  
  Please register below and hope to see you there!
  http://www.talentecology.com/cnet/events/cne.asp

  ---

  Yes, I know we're a PHP shop and that link is to an asp page. All I can say is that I'm glad I'm a developer and not in HR.

  For a complete list of all jobs available here at CNET, please go to our Jobs site: http://www.cnetnetworks.com/careers/

  • Posted Sep 27, 2007 1:24 pm PT
  • Category: Computers
  • 10 Comments

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• 7Sep 07

  Lead Engineer - GameSpot

  I've been trying to figure out for the last couple of weeks how to write this blog post. Its one that's difficult for me in many ways. So I'm just going to come right out and say it.

  I'm the new lead engineer for GamesSpot.com.

  There I said it. I always feel weird talking about my qualifications or about promotions I may or may not have gotten. Mostly because I don't want to come across as bragging about it.

  But you know what? This is a promotion that I'm damn proud of. I've been with CNET for a little over 2 years now and I'm still very excited about where the company is going and where its taking its properties like GameSpot.

  For those of you who don't know me, I started about 2 years ago as software engineer assigned to the "community team." This meant that back with the 10/03/05 rewrite I help convert all the flexi_forums code into what it is today. sbritton deserves the vast 99% of the credit for this btw, he taught me more about high capacity/high availability websites than anyone else. About 18 months ago I was put in charge of the community team as sbritton transitioned into a flash dev (his passion). Over the last 6 months I've been taking on more of the dba/sys ops/site architect responsibilities from JSD for the Entertainment division of CNET. And now, with all of that behind me, I'm now leading a kick ass team of developers for the "Games" team.

  Why is it called "Games" rather than GameSpot? Well that's a good question. We have several other gaming related sites under the Games umbrella, including GameFaqs, GameRankings, and the most recent of which is SportsGamer.com.

  With that in mind, I'd like to briefly introduce you to the dedicated engineers on the Games team. There are other people who have helped get us to this point, and many other who are helping us to the future, but these are the die-hard cast of characters who work on GameSpot.com and its affiliated sites day in and day out.

  q_oats: q_oats had been with the community team since January of 2006 and is now part of the Games team. He's been known for many of the moderation enhancements over the last year. Also in his repertoire of accomplishments is the lead on the community features for FilmSpot.com.

  bigethan: bigethan has been on GameSpot for quite some time now. He's the one that brought about the reminder system we have for live events. He also put together the "uberpop" which is the combination video player/chat window/Q&A.

  lamborgandhi: lamborgandhi is the one who brought you the Scavenator contest. Most recently he was the lead on rewriting our search engine. He changed it from the old, run-down mule that it was into the thoroughbred it is today.

  phil315: phil315 started with us earlier this year and have come out of the gate fixing things like the top 10 lists for our international sites, helping write Facebook apps for FilmSpot and rewriting the user review system.

  hanzgroove: hanzgroove joins us with our recent acquisition of SportsGamer.com. He's been working with them for about two years. Right now he has his nose to the grindstone bringing SportsGamer into the CNET fold and making sure it works on its new hardware.
  

  • Posted Sep 7, 2007 10:33 am PT
  • Category: Business
  • 29 Comments

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• 10Aug 07

  Going Camping

  I'm headed out of town tonight to go camping. My family and I are headed up to the Standish-Hickey campground (Google Maps) up on the Eel River in northern California.
  
  It should be a fun trip. My family has made this trip ever year for about 15 years now. I'm excited since it will be the first year my wife will be going. The weather is supposed to be in the 80s so it'll be hot, but still comfortable.
  
  Hope you all are having a nice weekend and summer too. See ya when I get back on Monday.

  • Posted Aug 10, 2007 10:36 am PT
  • Category: Nature
  • 6 Comments

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• 23Jul 07

  Harry Potter (no spoilers)

  I've always been a Harry Potter fan. Every since the 2nd (maybe 3rd) book, I've read it from start to finish non-stop. Yes, I even called into work since once because I was up to 4am reading.
  
  I pre-ordered my copy from Amazon.com a few weeks ago, but I'm lame and don't like to pay for shipping so I did the 5 to 10 day free shipping option. On Friday I was freaking out and wondering what the heck I was thinking. But the gods were with me (or maybe I accidentally sold my soul) and it arrived Saturday afternoon about 3pm.
  
  I didn't start reading until a little after 4pm, so when I finally put it down at 11pm my eyes were a bit sore. I've just got to say that I LOVED that book. I think its the best one written and had the most in-depth & engaging story. The ending was perfect and I even, unlike a few others I've talked to, liked the epilogue. I remember at one point even saying "Holy @#$%! I can't believe it!"
  
  I was very worried for the last couple of weeks that the story would be left open or end poorly. Because I don't want to give away any secrets, I'll just say it ended perfectly in my opinion. One of the best 'end of series' endings I've ever read.
  
  Oh and just because I have to do it:
  

  ***SPOILER***

  haha, nothing here

  • Posted Jul 23, 2007 2:53 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
  • 8 Comments

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• 16Jul 07

  E3... we survived another year

  So E3 has finally finished and things have somewhat returned to normal. It was a heck of a week, but a whole lot better than last year. Last year (my first E3) I was constantly freaking out about the servers going down. This year at least I had backup plans and a priority order for taking features offline to handle the load. That's why things like the forums, blogs, and news comments kept going online and offline. The best news this year though is that those features were not contributing to the overall load/slowness on the site! Last year, they were killing us. Of course, as you noticed, something was slowing us down. At least we figured it out and was able to eventually fix it.

  As for my thoughts on E3 itself this year, I must say I was disappointed. I know I missed the last day & a half (hurt my back working too much) so I may have missed something, but still... The press conferences lack innovation and exciting news. Yes, some of the trailers were awesome, but you could get that type of thing anytime.

  The Microsoft format of running it through the xbox 360 was just lame and left a bad impression in my mind. Yes, its cool technology, but you can kill the next best thing by over-using it.

  Nintendo talked too much about numbers. I understand that they are kicking ass. The Wii is awesome and the DS has been insanely populer. But really, who cares? When are you going to release GOOD interactive games? Seriously, for a system that is all about motion controllers, where's at least the basic Guitar Hero, DDR, duck hunt? The new pad is cool, but is it going to stand up to 200+ pound people jumping up and down on it? I doubt it.

  And finally, Sony. Good god, their graphics are amazing. But you know what? Its still way too friggin much money! And why don't they write off the PSP? If they had done what they're doing now with it 2 years ago, it'd have a chance against the DS. But now they're playing catch up.

  I hope next year they switch back to the old E3 format. It was out of control, but at least it was entertaining and surprising.

  • Posted Jul 16, 2007 10:44 am PT
  • Category: Games
  • 8 Comments

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• 13Jun 07

  Book recommendation: The Shadow of the Wind

  I had a new book recommended to me a week or two ago called The Shadow of the Wind. Simply said, I loved this book!

  While its classified as fiction, it has a heavy mystery element to it. The challenges and mysteries that occur while young Daniel grows to manhood are engaging. Perhaps it is because I'm an avid book reader and so is Daniel that I was able to become so engrossed in this novel. What ever it was, I read it as often as I could.

  I read about 2 & 1/2 books a week as I have an hour to use twice a day on my commute to work. I usually read older sci-fi/fantasy books as I can get a box full of them for about $20 at my local used bookstore. But I also tend to buy newer mystery or military thrillers too.

  Some of my favorite authors include: L.E. Modesitt Jr., David Eddings, JR Tolkien, Robert Asprin, James Patterson, Orson Scott Card, Raymond Feist, Brian Haig, William Gibson, Douglas Adam, Isaac Asimov, and Piers Anthony.

  BTW, an interesting site I came across the other day related to books: http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/

  • Posted Jun 13, 2007 11:14 am PT
  • Category: Writing
  • 4 Comments

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• 2Jun 07

  Lost my good taste

  Man, I am so disappointed and happy at the same time. Why do the fun multiplayer 'party' games for the Wii get such low scores? Yeah, I know compared to some xbox 360 games the graphics suck and the gameplay isn't huge. BUT THE GAMES ARE FUN! Now I'm not normally one to complain about emblems, I do work for GameSpot and all, but I lost my good taste emblem due to my Wii collection. What a bummer. I'm not a hard core gamer by any means and that good taste emblem was pretty much all I had that gave me some sort of feeling of acceptance. Hmm, maybe I can use this as an excuse to have to buy more games.

  • Posted Jun 2, 2007 3:42 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 13 Comments

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• 29May 07

  Bought a Wii

  So I finally broke down and bought a Wii this weekend. It's a blast! It comes with Wii Sports and I bought a bundle so I also got Zelda Twilight Princess and an extra controller.
  
  So far my favorite Wii Sports game is Bowling. My wife loves that one too. Anyways, back to work.
  
  Edit: Since everyone is asking, the trick I found to getting a Wii is to call Target, Costco, or Fry's (or wherever) on Saturday mid-day. In the SF Bay Area, those stores all receive their Wii shipments Saturday night. Target & Fry's don't put them on the shelves until Sunday AM, but Costco (they got the Zelda bundles) puts them out late Saturday night. So far, for the last 3 months, they've each received monthly shipments (I know because my wife has been trying to talk me into getting a Wii for that long). So if you call every 3 weeks or so (which my wife was doing), you should find out when the next shipment is in. You shouldn't have to get there early, just when the store opens, and you should be able to get one. Good Luck!

  • Posted May 29, 2007 4:35 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 15 Comments

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• 20May 07

  omg...omg...OMG!

  http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/starcraft2/news.html?sid=6171179&mode=previews

  'nuff said...

  • Posted May 20, 2007 6:04 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 3 Comments

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• 17May 07

  GameSpot tagging weirdness

  If you come across any tagging weirdness tonight, don't worry about it, it'll be fixed during the nightly updates. Turns out I foobar'd the GameSpot tags before I left for vacation. Nothing like making all the tags go to the development database rather than the live one. So the outage you all just experienced on GameSpot was the fix to bring all that data back into the proper live database. What a pita... embarrasing too. I haven't screwed up something this bad in... well, sooner than I'd like to admit. Of course, that's why I have the forum signature that I do.

  

  • Posted May 17, 2007 4:40 pm PT
  • Category: Business
  • 3 Comments

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• 17May 07

  Cover your mouth...

  Okay, I've spent the last 3 days sick.  Coughing, sneezing, and feeling like crud.  All because my brother-in-law was never taught to cover his mouth when he coughs.  He had this cold first and no matter how many times I asked him, nay, demanded from him, to cover his mouth, he never did.

  Come on people!  Its not that hard!  If you're sick, cover your mouth.  Don't spread your germs to the rest of us. 

  /sigh.  That's my rant for the day.

  BTW, my vacation was a lot of fun except for that.  I luckily got to see Catalina Island the day before it was engulfed in flames.  Kind of crazy... 

  • Posted May 17, 2007 9:53 am PT
  • Category: Rant
  • 6 Comments

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• 4May 07

  Cruising down the coast of Cali

  Woohoo!  Vacation!  Yippee!

  I'm off after today for a 10 day vacation.  Its a long trip so I'll probably be more stressed out and tired after the trip than I am now, but it'll be worth it. 

  I'm leaving early Saturday morning and heading south (I live in the SF Bay area) to the Paso Robles area for lunch and wine tasting.  I got the okay from my wife to buy a case or two of wine from Eberle.  The last shipment include a kick ass Zinfadel and their ever popular Barbera.  Kick ass!   Then that night we're going to some play that my Father in-law got tickets for.  I don't remember the name, but I know he was excited about going to it.  Should be fun.

  Sunday is my wife's birthday so we're going to Disney Land for the day.  We haven't been there since the first summer we met 3 years ago.  And then we only went to California Adventure (lame).  This should be a lot more fun.

  Monday we're headed to Long Beach to catch a 4 night California/Baja coast cruise aboard the Monarch of the Sea.  We're travelling with my dad, step-mom, her family, my brother and his fiance. The cruise is going to take us to take us to San Diego, Catalina Islands, and Ensenada Mexico.  I think we're going to go to the San Diego Zoo, the naval shipyards in San Diego, kayaking around Catalina, and an ATV tour of Mexican wine country.  Of course, I don't know how well wine tasting and ATVs are going to mix.  I hope my life insurance is paid up.    We get back Friday and are staying with the in-laws again.

  Saturday is a wedding for one of our friends.  It just happened to be good luck that we were already in town.  I can only deal with so much driving to So Cal.

  And of course we need to stay there for mother's day on Sunday.  Yes, mother's day is Sunday May 13th in the US.  Don't forget to get your mom something nice.    To score bonus points, get you friend's mom something too.  If its a friend of the opposite sex, it might just get you that date you've been wanting.  hehe. 

  As you can see, one heck of a busy week.  I'll be back in the office bright and early Monday May 14th.  Err... maybe not bright and early, but not exactly late either.   Have a nice week while I'm gone.

  • Posted May 4, 2007 9:58 am PT
  • Category: Travel
  • 10 Comments

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