A Father's Day Message

I just wanted to say Happy Father's Day to my father and to all of the people who have been that kind of a role model throughout my life.

I don't think that I can go a single day where I find a situation that I don't use something that you taught me, a mannerism that I find in my self. It's the little things that affect you and the things that you remember and find yourself doing long after you've been together.

Many of the good things there are about my being come from you and well, the quirks I have to take credit for myself.

Happy Father's Day from your son.

With you were here, or I was there.

Brian

Online Games: A Quick Roundup

Necessity...

Necessity is the Mother of all invention,
and the Father of all procrastination...

I must find out if there's any truth to this and I'll look into it. 

Next week.

Habitat For Adventure: Habitat For Humanity

Last week, I gathered my pack and gear and ventured forth across the great divide of the web; in search of something, but not really knowing what. I traveled far and with every keystroke became less confident that I'd find it: then there it was...

Habitat For Humanity, in all of the glory that a good friend of mine once spake, rolled out in subtle hypertext before me. Needing to rest my weary fingers, I ventured in. Most impressively, I was welcomed invitingly into its' cool and healing environment, and shielded from the harsh wordscape of the web while I collected my bearings.

I sat a moment and douced my face in a basin of water, left on the page before me, and when my eyes were clear of salt and my face had dripped dry, I examined my surroundings.

A folder was neatly placed a good distance from the basin, so as to protect its' contents from the wash or water, and clearly written in plain text, though more like stencil than symbol was the word MISSION.

I grabbed the folder, taking purchase of a string which sealed it. I slowly opened the folder and ran through it's contents, reading its' pages and examining its' photos. It seemed simple enough. I had braved the restless web, and countless memes and prose (and the occasional "popup" too) and lived to share the tale. So why not this?

I ventured into the briefing page to procure a schedule, thinking that I best be sure that my treads did find the same footfall as those before me.

When I received confirmation, I only had one thing left to do but wait and when that was done, I started my adventure...

I arrived through the front gate and was escorted to the equipment room.

There, I was handed the gear I'd need to accomplish the mission. It consisted of a pair of boots, a tool belt and a helmet, with the addition of some tools I'd brought along for the job.

There were others too, and before long, they were teaching me the ropes.

Working together, we wrestled this wall to the ground as it struggled with a force I'd not seen in years. Before long it took its place alongside the others.

Some of the walls need a little coaxin' to stay in place, so we used braces to keep them put.

 

Through the window frame and doorway it's easy to see that teamwork was a must.

  

After the first couple of hours, I'd clearly run out of steam but after a quick lunch and a break, I managed to last for the rest of the day.

In the end, the mission continues as does Habitat For Humanity. Build your home, by building it for others and sharing a little hope.

Developer's Blog

Developer Page

This is just a spot that I'm going to be posting some of the applications that I've worked on over the years from my portfolio or from past projects.

Simplified Font Browser

This is a font browser that lets you see the character set for each font on your system. It is useful for graphic artists, designers and Copy Editors alike, or anyone who works with text and wants a way to checkout their system's fonts in order to make a selection. It sits in the tray area after its installed and will run with Windows every time thereafter until you uninstall it. There is no spyware or any other malicious software attached to it although by looking at the tray icon you might think otherwise (it's animated).

A future version will include text search of fonts by name, and possibly filtering by font family. It is still a work in progress and may change frequently dependent upon the interest in it. It is specifically written as a sort of simple portfolio piece.

Like LW Image Fix and many others I have in progress, It was written in Borland Delphi a few years ago, and recently updated and cleaned up for release with Embarcadero Delphi XE4, a great progression of the Delphi IDE into the world of modern automated development and build process.

Download Simplified Font Browser Win32 Installer here.

If you have any feature requests please post them in the comments section below and if they are feasible, I'll include them along with a little scrolly note on the about page with handle and the feature added.

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LW Image Fix

This is an application that was designed to deal with the watermarked images output by the demo version of Lightwave 9 a few years ago just to clean them up enough for you to use in a portfolio or for a demo in order to get a gig. The output is not production quality and you should definitely consider buying the full product as it is an incredible rendering software. You can find it at an authorized Newtek dealer both here and here.

It was written in Borland Delphi a few years ago, and recently updated and cleaned up for release with Embarcadero Delphi XE4, a great progression of the Delphi IDE into the world of modern automated development and build process.

Download LW Image Fix Win32 Installer here.