Month: September 2008

SweetCron – Standalone Lifestream Aggregator

I’ve been using a WordPress plugin to aggregate my comments, Facebook updates, etc. The other day, though, I read about the standalone open source SweetCron software that does the same thing only with a few extras.

Just like ComplexLife, after installing SweetCron you start giving it feeds of sites you post/contribute/update to, and then it regularly goes out and pulls down the feeds and aggregates them in a central area. Unlike ComplexLife, however, SweetCron writes each item to a database where you can edit and tag it. It also displays the entire text of the item and any graphics, whereas ComplexLife just provides the subject line and then a link to the item in question.

Overall, I was very impressed with SweetCron — check out my SweetCron lifestream if you’re curious what it looks like. Still in beta, but very stable and capable.

Epic Fail – Blizzard to Reset Honor Points for Wrath of the Lich King

Just when Warhammer Online is providing some serious competition to World of Warcraft, Blizzard decides to go ahead and piss off anyone who has spent significant time grinding the four (count ’em FOUR) PVP Battlegrounds,

As many of you know we will be featuring a new Battleground, a dedicated world PvP zone and all new PvP items in Wrath of the Lich King. In order to make the transition from The Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King flow as smoothly as possible, all accrued honor points will be reset at the launch of the expansion. We do this to ensure select players do not have an unfair advantage at level 80 from stockpiling honor to instantly purchase the newest Wrath of the Lich King PvP rewards. For those with unspent honor points prior to the release of the expansion, we will be offering a few upgrades and special rewards in next content patch solely for purchase via the honor system.

As many commenters have posted on the forums, that is simply bullshit. I’m one of those people who, according to Blizzard, would be disadvantage since I don’t have a huge stockpile of honor points sitting waiting until I reach level 80. But since earning honor points is nothing but a boring grind anyway, I’m not sure what difference it makes if you wasted 50 hours the past month or due it in December. To say it puts the average player at a significant disadvantage is absurd.

What it sounds like is yet another stupid time sink put in the game to keep players busy. Hmmm..you just spent weeks grinding 50,000 honor points? Okay, we’ll reset those to zero so you can experience the joy of weeks of grinding all over again!

If that wasn’t bad enough, they’re also resetting Marks of Honor which are badges you get for completing a battleground. Most of the gear you can buy with Honor Points requires a certain number of Marks of Honor. It is much harder to obtain Marks than honor points especially in the defective-by-design Capture the Flag BG Warson Gulch.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Mythic has planted a mole inside Blizzard.

Scott eVest Fleece 5.0

As people who know me realize, I am a complete gadget freak. As such, I’ve been lusting after Scott eVest jackets for a couple years now, but never quite pulled the trigger. When I saw an announcement of the new Fleece 5.0 jacket, I couldn’t help myself and pre-ordered one which finally arrived this week.

And it’s even more awesome than I thought it would be. With 24 pockets, its got more than enough room for me to carry around my digital camera, voice recorder, both of my iPods, my GPS datalogger, several encrypted flash drives, headphones, cell phone, Nintendo DS, spare batteries and cables for all of the above, and occasionally my flash-based HD camcorder (which is compact enough to carry but a little on the heavy side).

Everything a growing boy needs.