Crash of another Hash

SHA-1 has been reported to be broken.

What is SHA-1?

Simply put SHA-1 is an encryption system used to create online security transfer certificates.

Major banks, money vendors, online storefronts will all be using SHA-1 security certificates over SSL (https) to ensure that the right person is connecting to the right company to make transactions.

So now that it has been proven to be broken it means that now cryptography experts can  prove that fake SHA-1 certs could in fact be produced, and hence added to phishing sites, thus stealing customers money by fraud.

Very serious indeed. 

But fear not......The problem will be resolved soon as all of the big companies will be upgrading to SHA-2. And SHA-2  has already been around awhile and is still secure.

It was stories like these that pushed my team; the NiHao team, forward in our endeavour to replace the www world with a 3d world - NiHao World.

One simple fact is that it is a serious load harder to be a hacker when you are inside a 3d environment.

Lets look at some real world examples:

I am at a real world ATM machine, the guy behind me could easily be recording all that I am doing with the camera in his mobile phone.

Unsafe? Yeap just a little.

I want to send money from one account to another via my online banking system. A hacker down the street has tapped my IP and is copying all the data I am sending while it is in transit.

Scary? Yeap just a bit.

The NiHao solution: 

1/ The first example repeated; Another avatar is standing right next to me as I pop up the "Enter Pin" console at the NiHao 3d virtual world ATM while I  am taking money out for shopping in the 3d shops. The other avatar sees nothing as the console appears on my screen only. For all he knows I am chatting to a friend.

2/ Second example repeated; Mr hacker down the street sees me in NiHao 3d world and knows I am going to spend allot of money today on a car as he has been following me in the 3d environment. Mr hacker even heard me say to the salesperson that I wanted the car to be delivered to my home. What can Mr Hacker copy other than my fashion taste, and walk style?

So security is a big problem with today's internet, shops feel unsafe trading online but must, average Joe has anxiety attacks about entering his credit card details online but must, Aunt Mary loves to read email from her family but fears the sight of spam porn innuendoes that arrive daily to her mailbox, and young daughter Sue isn't even allowed to go online because her parents think the internet is far too nasty for young girls.

Should it be this way?

Well we at NiHao think not.

The idea of NiHao 3d world is not just one of enjoyment, gaming, and entertainment, it is also pschologically friendly, more natural, and somewhat more serene then the present day www world.

The 3d environment as opposed to the www web environment,  can also be a safe haven for big business transactions.

Why do I say this?

Lets look at some known facts.....

Hackers can and indeed do hack games and create cheat mods. This is true, but what can a mod really do?

Well a mod simply performs automated game transactions in games that run scripts based on events occurring, and a mod runs parallel scripts to allow the player get from Level A to Level Z in a game without human intervention. This is game cheating.

Yet in NiHao World this could not happen because;1/ Events are not server scripted. All that one sees happeningh is actually happening therefore cannot be scripted against as tomorrow it will all be very different.

2/ When the avatar must perform a human to human transaction such as when my avatar is communicating with the banker avatar; a mod could not achieve that automation either because the transaction is based upon real time communication not script triggers.

Example of script triggers. 
A script will call to ask did this happen: Y/N. If yes then did this happen: Y/N. And so on. In a real time environemnt the triggers are replaced with real staff controlling the company's avatars and hence able to ask abstract questions that can determine the validity of the customer.

eg. Bank Teller: "Sir could you please answer this question; What colour is missing from this sequence...Red, Yellow.....?"

Customer: "...ummm....(stoopid customer)....ummm....green?"

Bank Teller: "No Sir. Sorry, the answer is not green. Please try again."

Customer: "ummm....(really stoopid customer)...ummm....blue?"

Bank Teller: "Yes sir. Thankyou! And how much will you be withdrawing today?"

While hacking a hacker in a 3d world could hack some environment variables and could hack other avatars, but to what gain?Change the trees from green to blue? Or as Mr Stoopid Customer change the colour blue to green?

Again; in realtime 3d transactions a hacker cannot hack 3d space efficiently enough to steal your data, as 3d space is ever evolving, ever updating, and ever changing.

The difference I am vaguely showing here is that in the www world a hacker can see the code of the page on which you are performing your transaction, see the IP's of all invovled in the transaction, and interupt the transaction without even being noticed.

In a 3d world environment a hacker can visually see the environment that performs the transactions but cannot change it because the NiHao World 3d environment is being updated with new variables every milisecond and in real time.

Example: If I were to say hello to my banker, in a moment another avatar could be walking past me, a cat may jump from the rooftop above, or a car may be speeding down the street nearby.

These other user's events are constantly changing the environment's scripting.

A 3d environment is an ever changing environment that really would be super hard to hack into other than for making some superficial avatar bonuses and image changes. But that is not so of our today www world that is becoming more and more transparent in the eyes of our unfriendly hackers.

So I hope as you are reading this you will have come to understand that;

A/ The www world is boring and needs a 3d facelift anyhow that is why we built NiHao World :) B/ NiHao 3d world is not just a 3d world for fun, but is also a solution for the unstable marketplace that today still sits in www land.

So what is NiHao World?

NiHao World is a world of true freedom.

Now I can run and jump, as opposed to click the Forward and Back buttons.
Now I chat without annoying advertisements.
Now I can visit my friends and see them smile.
And now I can do business safely.

To sum it all up.....NiHao World is SECURITY +1.

Talks Break Down

Well I must say before starting on this post that I am rather disappointed with my business dealings with the Net Dragon company. That is to say I no longer consider doing business with them.

So what happened?

Well......absolutley nothing. 

Net Dragon's officials went to Shanghai to give our business plan pitch (well at least thats what they said they were doing, but who actually knows) and since the event...3 weeks ago today...no word from them.

I have written them twice since the event, and am not getting replies any more.

hmmmm......

This is a little remeniscent of the silent treatment my girlfriend gives me when she's having an unhappy moment, but I would hardly call a multi million dollar deal the right circumstances for "silent treatment."

So on my last mail to Net Dragon I asked them politely to please give me word about the pitch as I really need to make a direction plan for my company.

And this is true....Officially my company is one year old now and me and my team are considering the what next's, new directions, problem solving and remedying old issues, and so on.

Then what happened?

Well still no reply. So last week, Friday; I wrote to two other companies proposing the same deal to them that I had initially proposed to Net Dragon.

Today one of those two wrote me back and I am presently in communications with thier CEO and Managing Director.

So today I put a quiet ending on the Net Dragon saga and am opening a new book for the future of NiHao.

One good thing has come from all of this though....

The dealings I have had with Net Dragon have sharpened my CEO skills somewhat and I am sure will make future corporate meetings just that little bit easier.

Yet in saying this I still feel somewhat heartbroken by it all. Its one thing to give the soul of your work to the table for all to peer within and determine whether it is worth the money you are asking, but it is another thing to be left on an indefinite hold waiting for a perhaps never coming reply. 

Today I feel like a young heartbroken girl, but tomorrow I hope to be a woman of class strutting my stuff in laced pantyhose, and high heals :)

What lessons can be learned from this?

Whether it be your girlfriend, buddies, colleagues, or prospective business companions; if there is a question, then there should always be an answer.

Never let things sit too long, they'll only mould and decay and then your chance will have gone. 

The road to fame

Today I sit anxiously as the bosses of Net Dragon of whom I met 3 weeks ago prepare to go to Shanghai to make the big NiHao World business proposal to their Vice President.

This is the make or break meeting of which their VP will either say "Ok", or "No", and for us at NiHao World that reply will either be our new beginning, or our return to the grinding stone.

Its been a tough road taking this Indie company from an idea to where it is today. One only needs to do a web search for NiHao3d to see how many battles we have already encountered.

Blog battles, spam attacks, criticisms, and more have been added to our entourage of web listings.

My mother always said "...if you're going to make it big at anything, then it wont come without a battle." Remembering her words allows me to stay focused when I could be freaking out at the bad publicity gained.

So I look at these listings and think...ahhh, its ok, I'll leave them there as they are. As later they will show just how torturous and spiteful the path to the top actually was. 

All too common is the belief that the world is a rosy place and that the companies at the top never had troubles during their ascent. The big companies quietly whisk away bad publicity, cover over arguments rendered, and pretend a happy face to the world; its all good for business they say. 

Having gotten this far I now know that most of my common misbeliefs were false, so I figure I'll leave those little black marks there in the search engines so the next me that comes along can see exactly what's in store for him as he climbs the world's corporate internet ladder.

The road to fame was never easy.

One battle's to get there, or one battle's upon arriving.

Last night I was image searching and stumbled across a web image directory.

Clicked upon a couple of links and found a multitude of images of our favourite female stars revealing pussy while trying to get out of their cars.

Hahaha - "The latest trend in professional photography: catch a star's vagina as she's climbing out of her car!"

Isn't that just a little stoopid?

And to those photographers - Wow; your parents must be proud of you and the money they spent on your college education.

And I thought panty sniffing was a criminal act. Go figure?

I think there's a point when mankind needs to sit back and look at the world that they have built.

But for those who are on the great endeavour to make it to the top as I am, I wish you luck and I hope when you succeed you will help me in cleaning up this mess that we call today's civilized society.

Many hands make light work, and many panties are just a pile of laundry.

Net Dragon Meeting

Back from Fuzhou City and feeling rather content about things.

2 of us from NiHao took the journey to Fuzhou late Wednesday night. Plan was to stay in a hotel, then breakfast the next morning, and be picked up by the Net Dragon people at 10am Thursday.

All went well and smoothly as planned....

Arrived at the hotel; simply named "Enjoy Hotel" which was located on a main shopping arterial in Fuzhou.

Room was nice. Had a frosted glass wall between the main room and bathroom area. Not revealing in any way but was an interesting and very nice design element.

Happy for the free internet in the hotel, meant I wasn't completely removed from the real world. So got some work done that night and slept in a very luxurious king size bed with the AC on warm :)

Next morn down to the hotel's dining area and had a lovely buffet breakfast. Sadly no coffee to speak of but China is still not big on coffee yet so am used to that now. 

Then waited for the Net Dragon people to pick us up.  And they did.

The Net Dragon compound was impressive to say the least. Many 3 floored buildings arranged in a High School complex manner, all decked out with very large computer areas.

And computers? Well there were many :)

The best part of the building tour that opened my eyes in amazement was seeing...ok there's the gym, there's the inside heated swimming pool, but then.....there's the outside swimming pool thats the size of a small lake!

Ok I know where I am going for my next BBQ :)

The meeting.....

The Net Dragon people run us through their run-of-the-mill standard company profile powerpoint introducing this and that and talking about their company culture.

We asked questions regarding the this's and that's but our minds were on the main point....lets talk turkey. Finally we got our chance and talk we did.

Rather than saying NiHao is this, and NiHao is that, I decided to make the approach somewhat more like...."Well this is what we are going to do, and we are inviting you to be a part of our system of things."

This approach was very risky....to say the least as they are easily a thousand times bigger than us, what do they care. But it occurred to me while they were talking that they have had this talk before and were not unaccostomed to the probable requests that we could make, "so lets change our approach" was the impromptu decision made when we started talking.

So we talked about the future of it all, and the future of NiHao, and how if the two companies worked together the success could be great for both.

And it worked.

So the meeting ended with them giving us a walkthrough regarding the next steps to take then we shook hands and departed.

Something I had learned from this meeting.....

You have made your proposal, thats ok. They have read the thing...good. Then they ask to meet...great!

Dont be nervous and become the beggar to the master, and dont feel that you need to tell them everything in one sitting. You have been invited to talks because they're interested and because they are interested they will guide you through it all according to their company's "way of doing things." That is their company agenda. Trying to do it any other way would be a certain failure.

Let them talk and learn from their approach, after all they are the pro's and it was you that asked for their help. If you are to be part of their agenda, they'll walk you in as is happening with me and NiHao now.

Ok so what next?

Well I sent off the presentation and humbly asked them to give me advice regarding it; e.g. could more be added, have I said too much?

Then if all is good and according to their agenda, step by step the two companies will become one.

Now I patiently wait for their replies and take each step as prompted carefully and casually and quietly hope that we make it all the way through that big ole door.

There are BBQ's on the other side! BBQ's! Many, many, many, fantastic poolside BBQ's! And my mouth is watering hahaha :) 

Page Building never ends.

Back again and more NiHao news to share.

This week looks to be a possible happy week for the NiHao team. Last week I wrote to a MMORPG game company suggesting that we could join in a subsidary partnership.

The game company reffered to is called Net Dragon and is based in the neighbouring city of Fuzhou.

They replied to me happily indicating that they were busy for that week and would set up a meeting for the following week. Of course I was ecstatic about the news and have been on cloud 9 since then.

So this week...fingers crossed :)

So in the mean time I have continued on tidying up loose ends at the webfront and have added a few more dot coms to the mess I call the NiHao Matrix.

The first of these was the TEACHmats site. I built TEACHmats a long time back but never got to launching it. Reason being that when the NiHao Project had begun I thought I would add TEACHmats to NiHao when NiHao reaches its final stages of development.

So TEACHmats is alive again, but far from completed.

I bought the dot com TEACHmats.com and then proceeded on to copying the text files from the olde TEACHmats to this the new model.

For now the site is still lacking in actual resources for which it boasts to have. But...that will come.

Then onto my next merry adventure; the newly founded NiHao Entomology Department.

Entomology is the study of bugs. Playing a small joke in the NiHao Forums I thought it would be cute to rename the bug report section to the NiHao Entomology Department. After having a bit of fun creating this forum section I ran with the idea and developed a website around it. 

See the original forum entry: NiHao Entomology Department. Scroll down the new page to the section titled Basement.

See the Entomology Website: NiHao Museum Entomology Department.

So a bit of fun was had here :)

Moving on to an important inclusion to the NiHao group of sites was the addition of the Developer's website.

As with every developer company NiHao World has reached a stand still point from where new dev's need to be called upon. What better than to set up a site especially with this goal in mind. The Dev-Guild website is not pretty by any means but it is light, fast, and functional. Its purpose is to introduce the NiHao projects to potential new NiHao Developers and to provide a Join NiHao area.

Visit the Dev-Guild website.

Finally but super most important of the sites I have put up of late is the Superstorms website.

Superstorms is an organization that I created some years back and it has been growing steadilly ever since. Superstorms is a volunteer organization that specializes in typhoon rescues and support.

If you don't know what a typhoon is then think about it as a very huge cyclone storm.

At the end of last typhoon season I took the Superstorms site down with a plan to have near completed the NiHao project before the next typhoon season and hence give the site an overhaul.

Well it didn't quite get an overhaul, as the old site was more than 1000 pages big. Instead I have trimmed it down to a few pages acting as an information booklet regarding Superstorms and will have links going out to the more bulkier data pages.

Superstorms has always been my pet project and almost all I do is done around the Superstorms project. NiHao for example was concieved with the idea that someday it would offer financial support to Superstorms hence making my burden a little lighter.

So there I am in all nudity....I am not a gamer, nor am I a CEO of a gaming Empire, in all honesty I am the head of a non-profit org that is designed to help others in times of disasters :)

Visit the new but not yet completed Superstorms site. 

So the empire grows with more www pages cluttering the internet universe and I hope these pages prove useful to some and many. 

Thats me for today....hoping for a word of magic from Net Dragon and awaiting to write that word here next week :)

Spring Holiday's End

Christmas, then New year, then in China - Spring Holiday.

A string of holidays one after another and I am feeling quite refreshed :)

Been busy of late working on a newly developed strategy...well at least new to me.

Its called "monetizing your website"
That is to set up your website to earn income from advertising revenue.
Not a stoopid idea me thinks.

So I attacked and slaughtered the NiHao 3d website this past week in an attempt to place advertisements upon it in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

And its n0t as easy as it sounds.

Anyways the new look comes across quite well, got some nice, tasteful advertisement banners and buttons around the place and I think its not bad.

The test of it all is to determine if it will actually make money or not.

I don't profess to be a marketing genius although I do know a thing or two, so this is quite new for me, and....I must admit, it was fun too :)

The idea of earning something for doing what you love....oh its a great thing.

So I will count out the weeks, and count out the clicks, and see just how well I do at this "monetizing" venture.

Time will tell :)

Boring Holidays

Boring Spring Holiday comes around again in China. No work of course...well for most but me, I am forever at the grindstone :)

Because of the extra time that these holidays have created NiHao World has moved forward in leaps and bounds.

First of these to mention is the newly added NiHao Web hosting system web.nihao3donline.com
This tidy little system allows me to give my business customers a free enterprise website package upon joining. A nice little treat me thinks.

Then while at web work I finally got around to building the corporate image website for the company www.nihao3donline.com
This website talks about all the biz stuff that is normally behind the scenes to the whole venture.

Then onto my own dedicated download's server downloads.nihao3donline.com yippee!
I got tired of trying to find non-arduous download systems. Most were either too complicated in setting up, covered the pages in bulk advertisements, or both.

So although I am bored SH*TL*SS getting allot of work done is always satisfying.

*=IE for those not in the know

Leaps and Bounds

Merry Christmas to all.

These past two weeks have been filled with events both in my personal life and business life.

In the business world NiHao World has made some quite noteworthy leaps and bounds that are worth mentioning here.

The first of these was our foreign investment category listing.
A week before Christmas and I received an email from ChinaFIG indicating that our application to be listed in their potential foreign investment companies list was approved.

This was great news for us as it now readies the company for Venture Capital (VC) investment and after the procuring of investment we can take the NiHao Company forward in its development.

The sceond great move forward was the approval from Intel to join in their partnership program. The Intel® Software Partner Program page.

We at NiHao World will be looking into the development of CPU Hyper-Threading technologies for our software. In simple terms hyper-threading is the communication avenues and processes between 1 CPU and another.

E.g. An Intel Dual Core computer running the NiHao World software with the software designed to utilize just one of those CPU's so the 2nd CPU is free to handle other tasks.

Designing our software for CPU utilization means that we can produce a better software for our users.

For our users they benefit from knowing our software is compatible with the systems that they are using and that our software has been designed for those systems.

This means less drag on computers, better overall performance, and best yet....a longer life expectancy for user's computers.

On a personal side this month has been hectic.
Buying gifts, visiting loved ones, organizing timetables, and giving the NiHao Studios team a Christmas holiday even when we are too busy for the luxury lol.

Last week I sent a memo to the team telling them all to take leave....
"Go; have fun, enjoy the holidays"

Actually it wasn't a scheduled holiday nor a planned one but sometimes when the mood is right I don't mind letting the team enjoy the moment too.

And hell....its Christmas and we have all worked exceptionally hard this year...
We all deserve a break :)

So Merry Christmas one and all and lets look forward to a prosperous 2009.

Moving House Blues

This weekend I am moving house....

oooh joy.

Moving because the present house contract expires next week and wanted to find something in a little better locale.

Present house is 2 floors 4 bedrooms with all the facilities.
New house is 1 floor 3 bedrooms with more facilities.

The new house is 500 per month less than the present house and is beautifully equipped.
One draw back of this new house is that its on the 7th floor with no elevator :(
Hence being as cheap as it is.
But in saying that it is quite luxurious with a huge balcony that overlooks the hotels street :)

So packing everything up for the big move and one realizes just how much junk has been collected over the previous year.

Packing up the kitchen, bedrooms, and computers is not such a heavy task when compared to the buying of a multitude of bags for all the little accumulated things.

Sadly I will be without the internet for around 2 days during the transition but I should be busy enough to not notice that too much.

Ok that's all from me, I'll write again when I have gotten settled.

NiHao Studios Growth

This week has been interesting to say the least.

As well as having been a very busy week, this previous week has also been a fruitful week with 3 new additions to the NiHao Studios team.

Chris (Grimthorn), Caroline, and Jane have joined the NiHao Studios team to fill their specialist field positions.

This makes life a little easier for me from the head person's point of view, yet it also adds to it new challenges, more responsibilities, and a little more to be concerned with on a daily basis.

Its a funny thing...
One brings in more people to make one's life a little easier, then in doing so; one's life becomes more complicated.

Chris fills the position of 3d weapon's modeler.
Caroline takes the lead in project management.
And Jane takes over from Irene in translation.

One would think that with such an array of professionals around me I should be able to relax and take a long needed break.

Unfortunately not so.

Seems now I have even more to do, pre-thinking what the pro's have to be thinking about.

Its a bad habit that I have but it proves to be useful in times when something goes wrong.
For when something does go wrong, and something always does, I have already prepared a number of probable solutions for the event.

Sometimes I think team management has nothing to do with people management at all, but has more to do with problem solving.

Most people when told to perform a task will do so, whether it be done well or not.

But its when everything falls apart that the manager shows his / her true strengths.
And thats what the manager / head is for...To get the machine working again when it has grinded to a halt.

However, that means with every new person joining the team there's new probable wrongs that need solutions....Oooooh my poor head.

I am now thinknig its time to bring in a middle management team.
A sort of buffer between me and the Pro's that make up NiHao Studios.

I dont actually want to, but for my own sake I think I have to.
I think if I problem solve much more than I am doing now, I would be getting close to achieving god mind power lol.

So an interesting and busy week.
Fruitful yet not without its own drawbacks.
Yet growth must of course be a good thing.

One hopes.

Proactive server admin

Something I have learned over these previous few months while moving all of my applications and servers from my local servers to hosted servers is something called proactive server admin'ing.

Having hosted and managed my own servers for many years now I have gotten used to the way I like to do things, what i like running and not running, and controlling whats going in and out.

When I started this move to pay for hosting trend I found some of the hosting companies requirements bothersome, or demanding, or too strict.

Yet in dealing with these new hosts I have realised that their restrictions are in place so as to guarentee a good service all of the time.

Their requirements are set to allow what is being hosted is being hosted well and at good speeds.
They are strict because all too many hosting companies have blocked IP addresses in some countries; especially true of Asia and the Middle East.

Demanding because unless its a hardware fault then probably its something that you have done wrong which is not really their problem.

At first all of these quirks annoyed me. Hell I have been managing my servers damned well, and I am by no means a novice.

But over these months my heart has settled some to realise that they are in fact like this to help me as opposed to hinder me.

Sure I am the one paying the money, I want the best.
But when we are talking about internet technologies I also want the most reliable and efficient in my systems.

So one has to sit back and consider.....

Do I want it all on a platter then find a week later I am only serving to half of the world because the guy next to me wanted his porn sites all on a platter too?

Or should I be happy with the rugged, raw servers with no frills that are going to be seen globally?

So the choice was easy; I want global.

Not that I disagree with porn, but my porn site neighbour is not paying my bills. I am.
And if i am going to reach my target audience then why should I compensate my service for the porn guy?

So this is a lesson in hosting server admin; be proactive, work those few hours longer on the no frills servers, for when the work is done, its done.

Go for gold and be a champion for 5 minutes. Then the next runner will park himself next to you and tear it all down.

".....and down will come baby cradle and all"

So what is a proactive admin?

Well I think from my experience its an admin that finds the right solutions and compromises all for a good IP and an uptime guarentee.

For if one wants to consider themselves to be a server admin then obviously most server chores should be understood by that person.

And if you screw it up....dont scream at the company...its not their fault, they are but service providers.

Like a telephone company; they provide you with a way of communication, they do not however guarentee every phone call is going to be a happy one.

Server admin is just like that....
"Here is your server, your bandwidth, and your internet speed, have fun."
If your operating system spits at you like an angry girlfriend, then its probably your fault.

Finally, have patience with the support workers.
I used to contact them at some ungodly hours not thinking twice that it was an ungodly hour. In my thoughts "I am awake, you should be too!"

Then I forgot that I was also in another time zone...."oh what? Its like 5am there and you're changing shifts now? oh right ok. ummm....I'll write you again tomorrow." Many such conversations did I have lol.

To sum it up I think a proactive admin knows what he / she wants, the rest....well they take care of of that themselves.
A proactive admin pays for what they want.
And then is humble when the need arises to contact the support workers.

For we are all just people anyhows.

Game Server Solution finds its way home

I've been in communication with the group at http://www.x3mservers.net/ and been very happy with the result of our talks.

I was working with GoGrid as mentioned in previous posts.
I cant achieve the results I need to launch NiHao World effectively on their systems unfortunately.

GoGrid specializes in Web TCP package handling. For game serving TCP is redundant as most online games will use UDP for speed.

Ping tests with GoGrid's best systems in place showed that the average pings from the game client to the server were 230ms.

Anyone thats played an online multiplayer game before will know that anything over and above a 90ms ping is far too high and creates in-game lag.

So hunting for another solution I went, until I found X3M Game Hosting.

Different than other game hosting companies I talked to, X3M were happy to offer me their slot system in which I pay per X number of users in the system, eg. 32 users could cost around 20 Euro's a month.

Other game hosting companies that I had checked in on had denied me this service insisting that I go for their dedicated plans starting at an average price of 140 US$ per month.

20 Euro or 140 US$.....hmmm.....
If I only have 30 users for the first three months which would be the best plan?
I wonder with great effort.

You see launching a game comes with it many draw-backs.
The greatest of these is the initial financial outlay.

Launching a new game, a first game carries with it many tasks that need to be performed such as, hosting the game, a successful web face to it all, a customer / user support system in place, a marketing plan and strategy, and an advertising campaign to get the thing started.

All of these cost the small game companies dearly. Some small game companies give up the thing and sell out to bigger companies. Others are simply looked over because their marketing and advertising campaigns were not strong enough.

So where does all the money go upon launching a new / first game?
That is the big question that a game company crew such as mine have to ask.
More money on good hosting means less on advertising.
More on advertising runs the risk of inadequate hosting, and a game that users will join and forget in 10 minutes.

Its an ongoing consideration for small game companies to get the rewards they deserve for the work that they have done, and developing an expenditure system that meets all of their game's needs without breaking the bank is the greatest cosideration of all.

Why is it so much trouble to get something that has been worked upon for such a long time started?
Simply because at the time of launch....
The last beautifying features have been added, and some of these features have to be bought. eg: flash movies for advertising, extra in-game adornments that were needed and added quickly to meet the deadline, sound files of good gaming quality, and many such small items.
Most of the time more money goes into the game's trimmings than the game production.

So there it is....the ready to launch game, so whats wrong now?
Now....the game is ready, but it is still to earn its keep.

Most small game companies that give up the thing do so at this point.
Its there....but the money is gone, and the game is still to produce an income.
Yet....more money needs to be spent.

So therein lies the problems of game developing and why its hard to be the smaller team wandering around in a world that is dominated by the game making giants.

So me and my team decided on X3M, and X3M it is.
In the next coming week/s we'll be sending NiHao World up to X3M's servers and give it a trial month or two.

Until then.....

Keep you posted.

Web Eyes

Working with the HostDepartment servers is not such a harrowing experience.

Not only am I acheiving alot in a short time, but am also learning alot while I am at it.

In this past week I have near completed a successful website build, added to that a new forum, a picture gallery, an online shop, and an email server. Of which all are working fine.

Then I added a blog server to it all, which is not working fine but that is my fault I think.

And the NiHao3d website looks quite polished as a finished entity.

One complaint about HostDepartment that I do have is that they do not reply to user's tickets in a timely manner.

I sent them a ticket like a week ago and am still waiting for a reply.
This is a nuisance I have to admit. As I am getting as much as I can done in a relatively small time frame.

Problem solving should be a quick, lets get our hands dirty, I'm finished affair.

Desperately longing to get this web stuff out of the way.
Sure its fun to see your work looking good and available for all to see, but my main point in it all is the 3d game, of which no work has been done during this time.

Regardless of my ticket's complaint with HostDepartment I still give them the thumbs up.

It took me a little while to get used to their system as its stictly a linux system, and my web server is a windows image built upon that. But the running gear of the Admin is purely linux and is just a little different than windows.

Yet it runs well. And because its linux I have no fears regarding security.

So a big thumbs up for HostingDepartment for a cost effective, clean system.

Just hope they answer my tickets soon :)

Web Eyes...
Tired, sore and living in a world of fuzzy white screens.

Want to get back to game developing soon and return to the world of 3d and full colour :)

Dumped GoDaddy

I had to change from GoDaddy as a webhost to HostDepartment because the GoDaddy server IP's were blocked from within China, which is no good to me.

I am not angry at all about this but I kind of expected a "pay for host" to have such issues resolved.

I can understand a free server being blocked, but a payed server?

Host Department gets by this blocking problem by having very strict TOS; Terms of Services and for that I am actually happy.

I would rather that then be sharing hosting with "god knows what" as a neighbouring IP site.

eg: The molesting of and fornicating with Whales Forums :)

So time was wasted, around a week in fact, but I have found my "satisfactory solution" and work goes on.

Today I have just finished setting up the email server at Host Department.
Then onto the user's Blog servers.

Oh.....busy, busy, busy, but nearly all done.

When I have got all of this webstuff out of the way it will be back to game developing....

My favourite part in it all :)

Game and Web Private Hosting

I mentioned in September that I was trying out the GoGrid servers for a potential game server.

Well all seems ok with GoGrid.
Admittedly they are still in Beta and a couple of bugs appeared in the administering of the servers but overall its a sweet system.

One down side for me that is; I thought this hosting remedy would be the "be all, and end all" solution, however as it turns out it wasn't.

With the design of the internet as it is today and still not perfect by any means, porting a client from Asia to the servers in the States was not such a clever idea.

Sure for users on the American continent its a great solution, but elsewhere in the world its slow at its best.

So back to the original plan of multiple hosts worldwide.

"dum de dum. Hey guys....meeting again."

This week I have been tidying up a new account at GoDaddy webhosting.

From tomorrow and onwards I will be moving all of the NiHao3d websites up to GoDaddy and then activate the user's blogs, emails, and what-have-you's.

GoDaddy's web services are fantastic I must say.
The only one bug-bear that I have with them is that they do not have a 24 / 7 website support chat system.

When I was dealing with GoGrid this proved rather useful as being in China meant I was always counting Z's while they were in office hours and vice versa.

But GoDaddy on the other hand works via telephone and support tickets.
Sure I could phone them in the midnight hours, but I dont really have the courage to barrage their offices with more bells ringing at ungodly hours.

So Support tickets it was, and although slow in the send / reply they always provided excellent results.

So webhosting; check,
gamehosting; check,
what next.....

Well after everything has been set up properly and considered running smoothly, then its back to the dev machines and working on the game again.

"Oh no the grindstone again"
Actually I love the dev part of it all most.
Just wish I had more time for it.

Then set up game servers for Asia....again.

and so on, and so on, and so on.

Someone once said, and its been repeated a billion times;
"Its all in a day's work" ???

I am certain that the first person to say this and all of those thereafter that repeated the words knew little about corporate life.
Nor should they.

"An afternoon is an average man's week"

Now thats how I live my life....
And I still have time for a coffee break :)

A world full of non events and then...

Recently a friend passed my over this link...

http://www.wikigogy.org/

So I checked it out.
Wikigogy was looking for a new administrator, hell I'm free, I'll do it.

So I made my very long proposal to be followed by arduous in depth questions, then when I thought I had completed a task well done the present admin says "no...you are not what we are looking for. "

Oh great, another long wasted time.

Yet on the upside.....

Last night I signed up for GoGrid http://www.gogrid.com/
so I can send my game server up to the fastest server system in the present day world.
All went through ok....

and am just waiting on a confirmation from GoGrid now to get it all started.

Sending the NiHao3d game up to GoGrid is a giant leap forward for our company.
Not only can we rest our server issues in their hands, but it means we can focus more of our attentions to the game development phase.

So onward and upward thanks to GoGrid :)

What didn't happen with Multiverse

Prior to the up and coming game convention 2008 in Singapore the NiHao Studios team went back to the table to talk again with the Multiverse team about probable partnership agreements.

And as always Multiverse were all ears; send us your presentation, show us your plan, describe in detail your proposals, and we did.

One cant complain about that, as it is the typical request made prior to a big meeting of this nature.

Then as seems typical of Multiverse, all of our ideas were received then the communication stopped.

We are getting used to this sort of treatment actually.

Yesterday one of my team at NiHao Studios sent me a link pointing to a latest news article published in an online magazine sepeaking of Multiverse and its future plans.

http://www.massively.com/2008/09/03/virtual-worlds-conference-talk-to-unveil-buffy-the-vampire-slaye/

So I go and have a read of it.

Yeap....everything I sent them has now become their idea.

All my "you should do this, and I think this should be changed to...." now has become "Multiverse announces changes to this..... and are going to do that..."

blah, blah, blah....

At first I smiled a wry smile of contempt as I read the article.
Then I felt nauseous with the feeling of being used.

At the least they could have said thank you for the ideas.

Raped?
Yeah pretty much....

....but these ideas are not copyrighted, they're not new ideas, and I could never say I created these ideas from scratch; they were simply ideas pointing to mistakes that my team had found while dealing with the Multiverse software. And some simple amendments that would have improved their systems.

But such is the nature of business, and even more so when it is over the Internet medium.

Over a time of communicating with people over the Internet with a goal of future business plans, I have found that it is all too easy to be scammed, all too easy to have your ideas taken off you, and all too easy to lose what was initially yours.

I remember what they said about Internet communicating years ago; "its fun, you can be whoever you want to be and feel free in that experience. No one can see you at your computer, your just a name and a number, so enjoy that freedom."

Then the sharks of business entered the Internet realm, and the same rules applied to them, except because of the Internet now they can hurt more, steal more, and gain more, for who's going to stop them?

So yet another mindless encounter with the children at Multiverse passes and we bid them farewell. We will not indulge in communications with them again as it is fruitless to think it worth the effort.

But we will see them at the game convention and certainly give them a handshake.
For as one underdog to another, only one can win, and usually the winner is the one with the most credibility.

Thankyou Multiverse for the added bonus of credibility.

It will prove to be useful in future meetings I am sure :)

Work-itis

Tuesday and tomorrow I join the working class in their battle for normality.

Whats worse is that I am starting my first day at work at 8:30am.

Man....Does anyone have the ability to process a thought at that time of the day?

I will need to wake up at 5am just to get enough caffeine within just to consider the idea that I am going to work at that time.

hahahaha.....maybe I have had it too good for too long.
Or maybe i know something that the working class haven't after decades of slavery yet worked out for themselves.
Whatever the answer is; I must still attend this tortuous event called work and paste on a smiling face so the other slaves feel that I fit in to this self mutilating mentality.

Oh dear....work.
What on earth has the world come to?
A world of peasant slaves offering pleasantries to the elite that determine with money that this is the way the world is meant to be.

I scream out to anyone who has had a single clue towards realising that they are slaves to a giant machine that takes them in early adulthood and grinds them down to minced matter just to spit them out to feed the next group coming in.

Are there any other people out there that still possess the ability to think?

Arrrgggghhhhh!

Save me from this mechanised monster called life, and save me from myself....
Must I really conform to this arbitrary punishment because I determine myself suitable for existence?

oooohhhhh.....life, work, money, then the epitome of our slavery....
The television.
That machine that renders us stoopid, convincing us that this is the way life is meant to be.

Well I am going to work....whether I like it or not.
But I ain't giving up my dreams, nor my goals.
And when that door of opportunity knocks again...
I will not answer it....I'll blow the bloody door off its hinges trying to escape this reality that you all conform to.

The Sweet Scent of Food

Friday night again.

A little hard to enjoy the once festive eve when one's poor and struggling.

Some good news snapped a little life into my now weak body...

I got a call from an agency of sorts looking for a teacher.
Oddly some time back and long since forgotten, an advertisement went up on the "Wonderful Worldly Window" indicating that I had taught IELTS previously.

IELTS is an English Language Testing System.

So this agent calls me wildly out of the blue and asked me if I were busy now and would I be interested in a job.

Well of course I am FUDGING interested.

Off the beaten track....
Some months back I had a very well paying manager's job managing teachers at an exclusive private language institution.
The local government came in to bust the place indicating that it wasn't properly licensed.
I of course knew that the licensing was in the final stages and wasn't overly concerned about it.
However at the moment that the coppers had arrived the boss did a runner and had left me high and dry with these coppers to deal with.

So what was I to do?
With a big inhale and a twenty minute screaming exhale I cut loose on these guys for annoying me, disrupting the school, and all sorts of other lovelies that I could conjure up.

Much to my misfortune though the coppers after quieting me down told me that the school had reneged on getting its license and has been considered to be blatantly breaking the law.

"Oh shit....."

The coppers let me leave the building red faced as I was, and they told me not to work for this company again.

I was heavily relieved as I could have been deported.

That runaway boss knowing that I had a very good story to share with the somewhat small foreign community of this town, went about blacklisting me with damn near every school within a hundred miles of the place.

Another unfortunate event that was as I was near the end of my contract when it all happened and my NiHao Studios company was near ready to launch.

Ok so no job, and no resources either.

4 months later...
Starved, unwell, desperate, and alone in a foreign land, and that wildly odd phone call arrives.

Now we are back on track again....

I had taught IELTS for many years in another town and managed an IELTS Center so of course I had breezed through the job interview and had determined my own pay.
After which the girl boss said...."Do you need extra money for food?"
She had meant a monthly living allowance.
Inside myself I screamed; "Don't say that sinful word in front of me...I am starving!"
But I replied..."No I shouldn't need extra money for food thank you."

September 5th (7 days later) I start work.

Wow...I may just live through this; another episode of my life.

Recently I had been having bad dreams about being sent home in a box.
What's worse is that I started to believe that it may just happen.
Well maybe not now, but if my mother saw me in this situation she would freak.

hahaha ooops sorry mum. I forgot to look after myself.

Oh well another poor Friday passes.
That sweet scent of food draws nearer and I can almost imagine eating something substantial again.
Poor? Yes, but not for much longer :)

Quietness Settles

Today 24th August 2008.

Quietness today around about.

The recent typhoon called Nuri blew its way down south to Guangdong Province and fizzled at landfall to a tropical storm.

Still have heard nothing from the Multiverse crowd. This I wonder about some as its approaching time for the next GDC. Game Developer's Convention.

This year; September, the GDC will be held in Singapore and with perhaps a little good fortune we may be sending one of our guys Jon over there.

NiHao3d the game could certainly do well with a GDC introduction and launch.

Finger's crossed.

No other events have occurred to speak of and the title of this entry "Quietness Settles" has a two edged meaning.

Quietness in the sense of little happening and no new news to offer a promising light.
Quietness in that there is little I myself can do to make a difference to it all.

I feel resolutely confined to a solitude of inability.
Searching for an answer wearies the mind, while the body yearns for energies to be spent.

Quietness settles on another day...
Hoping for a better day.