Antony's Web 2.0

New Site

2011-09-21T20:31:03Z

This is just a quick post about the new site in case it's missed on the front page.

PSI VERSE

or type it in as psiverse.com

The Reboot Phenom

2011-08-08T14:55:08Z

Yes it's happening here too.

Since 2003, Spoomph Version 2 has been proud to present you with a source of new metahuman fiction! But now after almost 8 years, it has become time for a major reboot. With such a major reboot happening, even the URL is changing.

So why the reboot? It's simple. One was technical due to needing to change in software as the old one was left behind in the technology world. The day came when going to the support site for the software had up a notice it will be down for months. Time to move on. That's the short answer.

The longer detailed answer is there is much the old series had that after years of doing it (almost 8 years), there were stories that should have been done differently. Many of the same characters will remain. Some will only be in name only while others will be exactly the same. Take for instance the members of the StormStrike support staff will be pretty much the same more or less. The main characters are all being redone.

Even the premise on their abilities will be slightly different. That will not be given away right now.

With the new software move, you will now have greater access to back issues. So you will be able to follow a storyline from the beginning.

DD-WRT, Windows 2003, and Heroes... Oh My!

2008-11-04T13:38:59Z

A couple of things here.

First I am blogging this because I had the hardest time finding this anywhere on the web. Those who have routers flashed with DD-WRT firmware, you probably like it. I do for the most part. But for the longest time, I couldn't get the DNS automatically put in to client machines. And all the DD-WRT things suggested DNSMasq and all the options to set in there. NOT one worked. Then thought of another angle as to why no DNS being inserted in a Windows 2003 AD. So looked at it as if it was an issue that DD-WRT had no input at all about.

AND BLAM! There was the answer. It had to do with the dhcp scope for DNS not being set on the domain controller for Windows 2003 Server. Once I set the scope, the DNS issue was solved and client machines got the DNS of whatever I put in the scope.

Now I finally watched that last episode of Heroes. Not a bad episode but DAMN when Sylar TK'ed Peter out the window but also used his powers to cushion the fall so Peter could survive was brilliant. Too bad I didn't think of that. Oh wait! I did. Like in year 2 of StormStrike when Talia did the same thing to Nathan in Valhalla. Get some new material, guys. I'm really feeling they might be hitting my old stuff with all the things I've seen.

Heroes Last Night

2008-09-24T00:15:53Z

First let me start off by saying -- it's official that I now hate the Surresh character on that show. I want his character to die the most horrible death of anyone in the history of the show Heroes. Maybe there is a "JUST DIE, SURRESH" movement out there somewhere I can join. Injecting himself with that so he could get powers was so wrong on so many different ways.

And speaking of taking something to give himself powers and possible mass production of said item, doesn't that sound a little familiar around here? Maybe those who read StormStrike #32: Speed Limits that was released back in September 2006 knows exactly what I'm talking about. To jog the memory, it was the first meeting between Steven and the Hawk combo. Same instance that Ariel decided not to get into the Hawk issue with Jai. 2 years ago this month.

Deraxium is what it's called and in issue 32, it was believed to be something new. However, it's been around but without a name as Taro revealed to Jai her father was one who came in contact with it many years ago before Jai was born. It has a nasty side effect though since it was originally made to make meta-inactives into actives but a person who wasn't even a meta-inactive would die from prolonged use.

Now I have to say I loved how the scene with Hiro meeting the speedster went with her frozen and Hiro walked up beside her to see her eyes move first. Which means he can't really freeze time as we thought but probably slow to almost stoppage.

The whole time travel thing could be a weapon of mass destruction on the story telling though because so much they establish can be forgotten.

It seems season 3 is starting out overall better than season 2. With the one exception that I will now say until it happens... SURRESH MUST DIE! I hate that character now as he has zero morals and a selfish bastard!

Slow Startup Sims 2

2008-07-29T12:23:57Z

A new person that I've communicated with named Willow got to talking about the Sims 2. She plays the game a lot, I didn't. I even uninstalled it. She said she has every expansion that came out for it.

Anyhow I reinstalled it because I thought of trying it again after talking to her. And it took forever -- like over 5 minutes -- to load. I searched the web and there were suggestions but nothing worked. I even asked Willow what could it be. I mean the game was made in 2004. A machine of the specs of NRA64 didn't even exist in 2004. So all the things that said "add more ram" and "get a better processor" didn't work for me and I knew it wouldn't. Defrag your drive was another. Okay but didn't work. Now here's the kicker one, "Put your page file on another drive". That was WTF? Let's see, you should change that just to play the Sims while every other program before and since doesn't matter? Right.

Then instead of putting the CD in DVD/CDRW, I put the CD in the DVD burner. It started up almost immediately. So it appears the CD drive was the culprit and trying to run the game would cause issues to make it revert to PIO mode. I got a virtual cd drive program that is a thirty day trial and used it to test again, almost immediately the Sims 2 booted in.

So choice is buy the software, buy another DVD/CDRW drive, or cause wear and tear on the DVD burner just to play the game. Since the software costs 30 dollars, I may just go option 2.

Funny thing is I couldn't find anything that said "It could be your CD drive" on the net when searching for why this was happening. This is why I feel I had to post about it here.

StormStrike's New Numbering System

2008-07-26T12:30:13Z

After the next issue of StormStrike, there will be a new numbering system. Storm started in late 2003 and with the hiatuses, it doesn't reflect the history any longer. Therefore, it will now have "seasons". The numbers will continue but as "episodes". Since the Summer months are always the hardest with outside demands and family stuff and other things, most Summers will be left as cliffhangers for the following Fall.

To give an idea, Season 5 ends with the upcoming Episode #50. And Season 6 will start almost immediately then next Summer will be a hiatus before Season 7.

More to come later. Subscribers to Foreshadows will get more exclusive information later.

phpBB3 IP Issue

2008-06-28T22:23:21Z

There is an IP view issue with phpBB version 3. And phpBB people don't care when it was brought up to them. Basically, the IP addresses of users can be viewed by more than people may know.

For those that don't know, phpBB3 is the current version of phpBB forum software that is widely used around the internet.

There is a line in the file viewonline.php in the forum root directory that broadcasts users IP's. But removing this line, the IP's will not be viewable in the Whois Online area of phpBB3 if you have admins who have very limit admin duty on your forum. I think phpBB people should make the IP's appear there as a selectable choice but they don't care about it. This is the facts. So to help make your users get that added security, delete the line in the file. And remember this will each upgrade because it will never be fixed by phpBB apparently.

The line is:

'USER_IP'         => ($auth->acl_get('a_')) ? (($mode
== 'lookup' && $session_id == $row['session_id']) ?
gethostbyaddr($row['session_ip']) : $row['session_ip']) : '',

The Return of Storm

2008-02-27T03:17:46Z

I know. I know. It's been months since any new issue was done. It returns soon. I promise. Odd thing about #48 was I was about 75% done when things got so hectic for me.

I help out on a sports site for the group Sports Fans X now. I've also got a friend a blog and thinking of doing something else.

I upgraded the software for the main part of the site and the old template got squashed. So the area has a new look to it.

I'll be sending out a thing through Foreshadows in probably the next few days to give an idea on more with what has been happening.

Issues

2007-12-14T13:54:58Z

I have had a few things hit the past 60 days that require my attention. Some good and some bad. But I am alive and well contrary to what anyone may say.

The good

I have had fun in Guild Wars. My quest to get one of every class to level cap is almost complete. In order of getting there: a paragon, an assassin, a necromancer, a ranger, a dervish, a ritualist, and now a mesmer which some say is the hardest class in the game to play. All that remains are a warrior, an elementalist, and a monk. Some of my character names are named after my storyline characters so if anyone saw one run by, that means that I just passed you by. Secret: If you see someone run by early with the name (whatever class) Kennedy, that's me too. When I test builds, I name the characters first name whatever class and last name Kennedy. But I always delete the Kennedys.

I made a blog for a new friend who had a blogged nuked on a public site. She took the L.A. theme in the new software upgrade and so I took Vegas. She had to agree not to use whatever theme I used and I let her pick first.

I will not go into the bad here but only that I know I fell behind the publishing schedule and will catch up.

Update the Games

2007-10-20T18:51:30Z

This is part of something I posted this elsewhere but only certain eyes can see it:

__________________

"I haven't played WoW or CoX much of late. Neither has really kept my interest. I think CoX is becoming a little too bloated trying to be like all the other multi-player games out there. Instead of fighting crime, you now spend a ton of time with inventions and auctions and all the rest of the crap. The game was supposed to be the comic book world come to a game. Yet, I really must have missed the issue where Superman was standing in an auction house yelling, "Batman is sure selling his utility belt a bit high now! WTF? I was going to buy that! I so wanted a batarang!" The devs are wanting to be too much like other games without giving villains an epic archtype still.

And WoW has a lot of grind time which gets a little old real fast but I can see where after a while of taking time away, the urge will bring me back. Happened before already."

_________________

As of right now, I'll probably let all the games accounts expire that I have to pay for. If I don't play them, may as well not pay for them, right?

QNA

2007-10-11T21:07:26Z

Originally, I was going to title this Q & A but just had to be different.

E-mailer Rob (among others but he was the first to ask so he gets the cred :) ) asked about the statement I made in the last entry about Storm would be in season 5 while the current one is only #46. For those who weren't here from the start of Spoomph V2, StormStrike #1 appeared in 2003. It took a couple of months off at the end of 2004 to synch up with the calendar year and restarted in January 2005. So as far as calendar years 2003 would be season 1, 2004 season 2 and so on to now 2007 being season 5.

E-mailer Jaime (like that name and might see it appear sooner or later concerning a vote on a power that was here a while back hint, hint) asked since I posted about games I play, can I share some of the names I have in the games. Well, lately I have been playing mostly Guild Wars. I don't think I will do Tabula Rasa and they may have had another server wipe since I played last so wouldn't help there. But my call sign was on the last time Marsden but since I don't play it anymore, it may or may not exist. CoX I have many and I haven't played that game really in months so may do no good looking there. WoW is kind of secret because I don't want a certain set to know and so I will not say openly because I told them back then that now was not the time to worry about me in there. But if they find themselves getting a few pot-shots from the other side of the fence, well... (innocent grin or is that sinister grin) Now, GW... my main is a paragon Heavnsent Hellbound but mostly played an assassin that I never expected to keep and a necromancer that I didn't know I'd keep either. Those three are all level cap, have all three campaigns opened up, and into Eye of the North. My assassin just completed the Nightfall campaign yesterday so may play to get some of those new heroes some levels. Abaddon is sort of wimpy with the right team.

E-mailer Alex asked where can he get back issues of StormStrike to see what he missed. Well, I have always thought about making back issues available but never had the proper avenue that I could get behind 100%. With the ability to make PDF files with no problems with a click, I first thought of doing that and making it available for download but then bandwidth would get in the way. If I go that route, I'd want to put something else in each one. Sort of an extended edition but then it would take time away from what is current. However, the chronology that used to appear was pretty much outlined events that led up to StormStrike #1 as it was an expanded version of the preview issue called Spoomph Universe: Zero. Oh, the chronology isn't gone, it's just part of the new wiki. I will try to put past events more into the chronology portion that may hit the back issues. Also StormStrike #25 (for those who came and saw that one) was pretty much brought up to date with that one. It was the funeral issue and the funeral pretty much focused on Jai remembering things as the service was happening to sort of help late comers at that time. Maybe I will do a similar remember issue again one day. Not planned yet but who knows.

Well, I have to run but maybe I'll answer more questions next time. Oh, to answer e-mailer Brenda, no I will not allow comments on the blog anymore. I had to deal with spammers so you have to continue e-mailing comments and questions. ;)

Heroes Season 2

2007-09-25T19:21:22Z

Well, NBC Heroes had season 2 premiere last night. Well, if I counted each calendar year as a "season" for Storm, I'd be on season 5 now. ;)

I noticed a few MIA's like Nikki and Micah. I thought more about Micah though because when seeing Nathan in his state of mind, first thought was didn't Micah make it so Nathan won the election? I did miss a couple of scenes I admit because of channel surfing during commercials and won't get the episode with TiVo until the repeat later this week. But if this wasn't explained as to how he wasn't an elected official still, I hope the writers don't leave that plot point wide open.

Another MIA but shown on the "coming this season" preview is Sylar. I hope they don't make Sylar a "good guy" though. I know it can be hard to fight the urge to by the writers but I hope they don't. The character has never really shown the ability to become a hero. And when/if they make him a hero, they will probably make him weak or wimpy because his character as is would not make for an interesting hero.

Wireless? I am still trying to figure whatever happened to her from last season. I have the DVD set although only watched the first disk so far so haven't even gotten to where she comes in yet.

DL? I am guessing he's actually dead? Of course, how the show ended, Nathan, Peter, and Matt could have been dead by the start of season two. Maybe when they show Nikki/Jessica/whoever and Micah, they will answer whatever became of DL.

My issue with season one was they finally all got together in the final episode then it was like, "let's go get into this fight over here." Half of them didn't even see the majority of the other players before that point so the final while action happened, it was sort of a WTF. I mean if I see two people or groups fighting, I won't just help this guy/group over here against the other guy/group without knowing what the hell was happening. It just seemed too rushed to get it done with X number of episodes. Hopefully, since they realize it's a hit, this season won't be forced as much.

The eclipse thing again and Hiro saying, "Not again" was so appropriate. I thought that too. But I think it was different than how Hiro meant it. I thought "not again" because it was made a big deal in the original season opener and after that it really had nothing to do with the plot at all. So taking time to have one is now reduced to only being there to satisfy why they have the logo the way it is and nothing more. And I don't want to hear, "that's what made their powers come out" crap! If that were so, then that episode that was four months earlier where Nathan's wife was put in the wheelchair from the accident, showed Nathan flying... Claire discovering her powers only to have Haitian Guy wipe her mind of it... Peter's seeing things through other people (Nathan's accident)... Matt having his telepathy and encountering Eden who used her suggestive power on Matt telling him to go get a donut... etc. Again, not another worthless eclipse that only helps with the logo.

How about the twins? I don't remember them saying the brother and sister trying to get to America were twins on the show but read that they are supposed to be twins. How they played the fact they couldn't be apart or bad things happen, I would guess the sister has some dreadful killing power that kills anyone close to her and the brother has a power that keeps her power under control. Not hard to see really how it was played at this point. Actually, this is why I am talking about it here instead of somewhere else because when I did that before saying what I saw coming and it came to pass, it started a firestorm because another thing was taken wrong and people are quick to try to shoot others down.

No Wonderdrugs Zone

2007-09-17T12:47:52Z

I had to kill the ability to trackbacks. I really don't want to even let those spiders any kind of reason to come here. One of those drugs is supposed to help your sex life (the Smilin' Bob one) but they fail to mention how loss of hair can be a side effect. Another drug is to help regrow your hair but they fail to mention a possible side effect is -- well, you'd need to get the one from Smilin' Bob to fix that. It's a vicious circle and none of those drugs are even necessary.

So like how the spammers killed comments here, they have now killed trackbacks.

If the drugs are so great, then let a doctor prescribe it to you. If you have to tell the doctor what drug you need, then why do you even need a doctor? These drug companies are more dangerous than those drug dealers on the streets. And these drug companies have more people hooked on their crack.

So NO... I don't want your drugs!
So NO... I don't need your drugs!
So NO... I don't want to hear about your drugs!
So NO... I don't welcome you here so get the Hell out!

Clear!

2007-09-13T22:16:00Z

I was asked by someone have I spoken with the old "partners" at all. Simple answer is no. But it's more than just that simple. I need to put a disclaimer on it.

I haven't but learned to never say never so will not say I would never speak with them again. Who knows what the future holds? The channel community that sparked it off died years ago. It was fun while it lasted before the things that went wrong with TechTV (first time in years I didn't call it the Titanic). The things that included the dark side of some on-air peeps showed themselves among others. Of course the brightest spot in that arena has her own show on CNN Headline and everyone should know who that is so she can still be seen on the television. Those who hit the dark side... well, pretty much hard to find nowadays. And time has moved on.

I was asked if I'd ever go back to the 1.0 stuff. Nah, I don't think so. It was stressful at times. Why would I go back to that when I would be subject to "I don't like what you did with my character so can you remove?" then when the character was not seen in the next installment get from the same person "why was my character gone?" That was the beginning of the end of 1.0. Would I say blame Laura Burstein completely? No, because Louie Laporte was even a bigger PITA which is sort of hard to believe. But I will never call him by his real first name anymore because he does not deserve that kind of respect.

As for the "community", I have no ill and will leave it there.

G4 isn't quite the same but then again it is. It's not what TechTV was when it was really good in the heyday. G4 is closer to what the shell of it became near the days of TechTV's end. Fluff with a little bit of tech thrown in. And on a system with over 100 channels of fluff to choose from, it doesn't stand out enough to make me more interested in it than say Oxygen (another channel that gets no TiVo love).

Speaking of channels getting some TiVo time, SciFi gets more time even when BSG is on hiatus. Although, I'm waiting more for this coming season than any before and it's not only because that crazy gal with the sense of humor Keegan Connor-Tracy will be seen. (KCT, update the site... one time! heh. Seriously, needs to mention to catch you on BSG there.) SciFi gets time because I did put Who Wants to be a Super-hero? (apparently, the recent winner is a City of Heroes/City of Villains player), Jake 2.0 reruns, Andromeda reruns, as well as BSG. The reruns because I didn't have a TiVo when they were originally on. ;)

You know, I wonder something. Marvel sued Cryptic because of CoX, remember? Well, I wonder if the winner used a toon he made in CoX to be on Who Wants to be a Super-hero? I thought any character created in said game became the property of said game. So if Stan Lee makes the comic that the winner gets, I wonder if Cryptic can sue him if the toon was used in CoX first. Hmmm...

Funny Line in Post

2007-08-28T21:24:38Z

I was doing some searches on Google for Lich Lord. Then added King to the search because of the next WoW expansion. And ran across the following. Last line in this post made me LOL for real.

Lich King vs Witch King