I'm currently upgrading WordPress(++) and fixing all the little nits that inevitably come up. Right now I'm struggling with some odd devformatter and geshi issues.

It turns out the problem I've been experiencing was a bad plugin "Developer Formatter".  It wasn't playing well with 2.8+ which may be my fault, but for now I'm happy to just turn it off. Of course, now I have to go fix any posts that used it, grumble...grumble...

For those who have had the misfortune to have been coming to my site and following my progress over the last few days, I must apologize.  It has been and continues to be a mess.  You might say I'm still stuck in my ways.  I remain committed to changing to a blog-based approach, but must admit to being stuck in the 'static-pages' mentality.

The good news is:

• Although I'm no expert yet, I do understand the fundamentals and more of WordPress.
• I am just beginning to grasp the value of 'Categories' and 'Tags'. 
• I am over the "try a new theme" urge and ready to buckle down and start doing the hard work of making a theme of my own, well mostly (see Artisteer below).
• I've settled on a set of plugins that I like and find useful.
• I have content to release, I just need to figure out the best way to release it so it doesn't jump all over the place.  Some of the upcoming content includes:
  • Torque Script Tool Kit - A collection of utility scripts I've written and improved over the years.  I know you'll find this useful if you use any of the Torque engines.
  • A Boatload of Resources for TGB - I've got a ton of resources for TGB, include some add-on tools (for the level editor), behaviors, and content packs.
  • Old notes from GDC 2009.  Believe it or not, I still have a bunch of unreleased notes from this year's GDC.
  • First installment in the "Roaming Gamer: Make a Game" Series - OK, this isn't entirely done, but its very close and I'm really excited about it.

As I mentioned above, I'm getting ready to buckle down and make a theme of my own.  As part of this process I'll be using the template design tool Artisteer.  This is a handy visual tool that allows you to generate and then tweak a large number of settings and options.  Once you (or I in this case) finish with the tweaking, its time to start hacking the CSS and PHP to get those last few changes/enhancement in and then viola, custom theme complete!  Certainly, the tool doesn't do every possible one might want, but I'm very impressed with what it does provide.  I'm sure the investment will be well worth the time it saves me.
Well, that's all for now!

Cheers,

edo

For anyone visiting over the next few days, I must apologize for the constant theme changes that are occurring.

I'm playing around with the themes feature of WordPress and looking for the best theme for my needs.

Note: I've noticed a bit of slowness sometimes while opening pages.  If you notice slowness, feel free to post a response to this post.

Thanks Everyone,

edo

Roaming Gamer is going through a slight transition.  Since changing machines and operating systems, I've been having myriad troubles with my site maintenance tools.  So, I've decided to simplify my life and go to a blog based site.  

I have decided to go with WordPress. "Why a Blog based site," you may ask?

Well, I've been maintaining a site for quite some time (Hall Of Worlds for 11 years and then Roaming Gamer for the last 1.5 years), but I've never had much to show for it.  That is, my sites have gone through ups-and-downs.  They've had content and had content removed.  Typically, everytime I changed my site theme or toolset, I had to throw out content.  Throwing things away has been a complete waste of effort and time.  

Then, in the past few years, I started to read blogs like Tales of the Rampant Coyote, Twenty Sided, Lost Garden, ...  After some time, I thought to my self, "Hey, why don't I start blogging?  That sounds like a good idea!"  No, not a very sophisticated thought, but it was a start. 

So, I did start blogging.  I set up a blogger account, I created a static-content site (image at right), I intertwined the blog and site (using a cross-linked top menu), I added content, I bloged at GG, I ... I got stuck again.  

I just couldn't seem to find the right balance.  I liked to write, and I wanted to create a site/blog that was worth visiting, hosted useful content, and served my customers/visitors.  

So, I took a deep breath, cleared my mind and started to re-evaluate not only my current efforts, but my goals.  I asked myself questions like:

• "Why am I doing this?" 
  • Why am I maintaing a site?  Why am I involved with the Indie Scene?  What do I hope to achieve?
• "What am I doing?"  
  • What projects am I working on, what irons do I have in the fire.
• "Am I correctly focused?"
  •  Are the efforts and projects I am working on for money or love?
• "What are the other guys doing right?" 
  •  What keeps me going back to the above mentioned sites?

The answers I eventually got (after some sleepless nights and a bit of soul searching) were not good.  It turns out, I have been focusing more and more on:

• Making money, 
• figuring out how to leave the day job, and 
• on long, complex, drawn-out projects (most of which I terminate at about 90% complete).  

In short it seems I forgot what I started doing this for. 

So, I've decided to do the following:

• Comine all of my site work into a blog-based site.  This will allow me to do what I like most, which is to write short pieces and to share what I'm working on with others, while providing a way to keep the content in an easy to locate format.
• Abandon all long projects and get back to short (1-4 day) projects.  I'll be posting these projects as I work on them, so my visitors can benefit today instead of in some theoretical future.
• De-prioritize money making plans.  This doesn't mean I'm not interested in doing projects for $, but rather that I'll stay focused on small projects and do money projects when they make sense.  I'll let my readers lead me to the important projects.

Yes, but what about the GPGT disk for TGEA 1.8.1!?  Yes, I'm giving this one last try (tonight actually), but if I can't get it working by Friday, I'm going to pull the plug on it.  

For now, please bear with me a bit longer.  I'm  honestly trying to get things rolling again.

Cheers,

edo