Design Changes

I had already in my mind that my current sidebar was way too big, a widget for pages, one for recent posts. I however never spent any time on it. Until I thought I need a new header.

So I started designing the new header with the idea of getting a new modern looking title, and implementing a recent posts list into it and my “Useful EVE Links” page. So I spent a while designing it and after a while I was satisfied with the result and started implementing it. And well you can see the result, the only things I didn’t manage to implement are a scrolling recent posts listing and also making that same listing have a fade-in and fade-out effect on the top and bottom of it.

Well I did manage to implement a scrolling recent posts listing but it used a lot of CPU power to move everything around (On my CPU it hit 50%) and that’s just not what I want (and probably als something you, my readers don’t want.). I’ll try to create it using flash in the future, but for now this is sufficient.

I’ve also added a new background containing what I think is a ship, and I’ve added the Minmatar logo and some starry background to the bottom of posts (The starry background is faded out a lot so it might be a little hard to see), I’ve also added a sort of logo to all blockquotes which you can see on for example my 13th Blog Banter post (the grey boxes).

With the Recent Posts and EVE Links pages implemented into the header I could remove the recent posts and pages widget from the sidebar, making it less tall and making room for future additions. One of these additions will be an about page because that’s one of the things most bloggers have but what my blog is lacking.

I hope some of you can take the time to comment on these new changes and tell me what you think about them, your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Twitter Lists

Recently (29 October 2009) Twitter implemented a new feature called “Twitter Lists”, this feature allows to create lists containing people that for example play the same game. Once created one could click on such a list and see the tweets of only the people in that group, so it’s ideal if you want to track groups of people separately.

After this change I already saw a few EVE Online lists pop-up, but these lists only had the people the creators had in their following list. So I decided I’d also create one of these groups and add every EVE Twitter user I could find (Well maybe not every but a  lot of  ‘em).

At the moment the list contains 146 people and I will add any EVE related folks I can find to it. if you want to be added just post a comment on this post or contact me on twitter. And ofcourse the last thing in this post, the list: @Xeross/eveonline

Welcome to the thirteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of this 2nd year of EVE Blog Banters comes to us from Zargyl from A Sebiestor Scholar, who asked the following: On the EVE Fanfest 2009 page are pictures of prizes for the Silent Auction that was held during the event. One of these photos was entitled “Design your own EVE mission”. My question now would be what kind of mission would you write if you got that prize? What would the mission be about? Would it be one using the new system of epic mission arks? What would be the story told by it? Feel free to expand upon his questions and put together your very own mission!

Time to write my second Blog Banter post, let’s see design my own mission, I’ll try to go all out on this one and not restrict myself to the current game mechanics.

Mission name: Guristas Invasion (Part 1 of 3)

Mission level: V

Description

We suspect the Guristas are up to something, we need someone to infiltrate one of their bases to get information on what they’re planning to do.

Objectives

• Gain entrance to their base but make sure you aren’t detected.
• Steal their plans.
• Get out, still unseen.

Mission name: Guristas Invasion (Part 2 of 3)

Mission level: V

Description

Thanks to your previous mission we’ve discovered that the Guristas are planning on launching a full fledged attack on X, Go over there and contact Y for further instructions.

Objectives

• Go to X and report to Y (Talk to him and hit the “Complete Mission” button)

Mission name: Guristas Invasion (Part 3 of 3)

Mission level: V

Description

According to the intel you gathered the Guristas could be here any minute now, join our fleet and fend of the incoming attack.

Objectives

• Join the navy fleet at the specified location.
• Fight with them to fight off the Guristas fleet.
• Report back to Y.

Notes

This mission will make the player automatically join a fleet with other players and NPCs, and because I like them battles big let’s keep it at 200 people/NPCs in that fleet (If there ain’t 200 people those spots will be NPCs)

Well that’s it, I’ve left X (System that’s going to be attacked) and Y (Person to report to) empty because I don’t have enough knowledge about EvE to fill em in. to me it sounds pretty awesome, leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Regards, Xeross

Participants

• CrazyKinux’s Musing – Your Mission, should you decide to accept it…
• Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance – First Blood
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility – …It’s another episode of Design Star: EVE Style…
• Level Cap -Epic Battles
• Roc’s Ramblings – The Cave of Time
• Aether – Teach a man to fish…
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah – Mission: Tangled Webs
• Adventures in Mission Running – I can haz spaceship?
• Nuke Thoughts – EVE Blog Banter 13
• Diary of a Pod Pilot – Distressing The Damse
• Guns Ablaze – Dynamic Missions
• Achernar – Confidential Report

A while ago the training for Minmatar Battlecruisers finished, after that it took a while to actually buy one from an alliance member, but now I’m the proud owner of a brand new Hurricane (even though it’s already rusted).

Now after grinding some standing for a few days I could finally do lv3 missions, but I somehow just survived long enough to warp out (without even killing 1 enemy). So I talked with a few friends and corp mates and we came up with the following fit, I’m happy with it and it tanks like a charm.

High Slots
5x 720mm ‘Scout’ Artillery I (Rat Specific Ammo)
2x ‘Malkuth’ Heavy Missile Launcher I (Rat Specific Ammo)
Auto Targeting System I (This was fitted because there wasn’t enough PG and CPU left for additional weapons)

Medium Slots
3x Cap Recharger II
Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners

Low Slots
4x Rat Specific Hardener I
Power Diagnostics System II
Medium Armor Repairer I

Rigs
2x Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Well leave a comment and tell me what you think about it.

Regards, Xeross

So recently I dived a little deeper into GIT, the best version control system in my opinion. however after making a few commits to a repository I created (For some modification to a program’s source code) I noticed it didn’t have my name on it as the author, and after 1 failed attempt of setting the name/email the their values of commits after that were even worse.

So I needed a way to change the author’s name and email on the commits, after searching a little using google I encountered this page on GitHub, however I’ve decided to write a tutorial on it anyways, we’ll use the code from GitHub though.

Ok to do this we are going to use a bash script (which is basically a  list of commands to execute) they’re work on linux and also on windows if you have msysgit. here’s the code.

git filter-branch --env-filter '

an="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
am="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
cn="$GIT_COMMITTER_NAME"
cm="$GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL"

if [ "$GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL" = "EMAIL_OF_COMMITER_HERE" ]
then
    cn="NEW_NAME_COMMITER"
    cm="NEW_EMAIL_COMMITER"
fi
if [ "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL" = "EMAIL_OF_AUTHOR_HERE" ]
then
    an="NEW_NAME_AUTHOR"
    am="NEW_EMAIL_AUTHOR"
fi

export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="$an"
export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="$am"
export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$cn"
export GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$cm"
'

As you can see this code uses the git filter-branch command, and everything on line 2-22 is basically the filter code. Now to replace a certain commiter or author just replace EMAIL_OF_AUTHOR/COMMITER_HERE with the email of that committer/author, and replace NEW_NAME_COMMITER/AUTHOR and NEW_EMAIL_COMMITER/AUTHOR with the new email and name you want him/her to have. You can replace multiple commiters/authors by copy-pasting the if blocks (See below for that part)

if [ "$GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL" = "EMAIL_OF_COMMITER_HERE" ]
then
    cn="NEW_NAME_COMMITER"
    cm="NEW_EMAIL_COMMITER"
fi
if [ "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL" = "EMAIL_OF_AUTHOR_HERE" ]
then
    an="NEW_NAME_AUTHOR"
    am="NEW_EMAIL_AUTHOR"
fi

You can duplicate these for as many authors/commiters you want to replace. now after you finished this document save it somewhere you can access it easily (From the command line/console), and after that go inside your git repository’s folder (Ofcourse also on the command line aka console), when in there type the following.

sh /path/to/previous/saved/script.ext

When you’ve done that a progress counter will start to run, this is the git filter-branch scanning through all your commits. After this process finishes your repo will be updated with the new name/email (use “git log” to check), now to push it to a remote repository push like normal but instead of “git push” use “git push -f”, after this is done your remote repo is also updated.

Well that’s it, hope it was useful and if you have any questions or remarks don’t hesitate to post a comment

Regards, Xeross

Hey Folks,

I just fninished watching one of the EVE Fanfest videos on youtube and at the end they had this awesome rap song they made. well I decided to put the videoclip and the mp3 file up for download.

Download

• The MP3 File
• The Video Clip

Lyrics

Intro
First off – let me make a short introduction
I’m the space 5.0, keeping EVE from destruction
Guard is the name, Lead master of the game
Top dog in the gamemaster hall of fame

Im chillin at my desk with two girls and one pimp cup
Sippin champagne, reading mails checkin what’s up
Isk spamming scum bags disturbing the peace?
WOOP WOOP its the sound of space police!

Every day is a fight, there’s no room for bloopers
Bugs coming at us like in Starship troopers
We help when we can, every child, every man
Treat the boogie man to a permanent ban!

Chrous x2

We’re CCP! We march on fearlessly!
Excellent is what we strive to be!

If you’re going to follow us to the top

HARDEN THE FUCK UP!

You best watch out bitch if you’re an exploiting scammer
Guard will gank you in the face with his big ban hammer
Remove all your Isk , throw your ass in the slammer
Make you share a cell with a manic ISK spammer

Like a never ending spam thread on racist biking
This song has something for everyone’s liking
Holy shit I see local spiking

…ladies and gents, its techno Viking!

Chorus x2

Ever flowing – never standing still
We roll with the punches, move in for the kill
The competition ends up six feet in the ground
With fists full of awesome we go round after round

United we stand never ever growing weary
We cannot fall cause gravity is just a theory
We reach higher than the giants in operations
Patience soon well be crip walking in stations

We’re more agile than a president dodging a shoe
We need three continents for our massive crew
From Atlanta to Shanghai to the Icelandic nation
Throw your hands up for World Domination!

Chorus

I was browsing through one of the forums I’m active on and found this thread and decided to run through it and see if anything applies to me, here we go.

You have used words like “lol”, “leet” and “omg” in daily speech.
Yes

You scream “Just ducken google it!” when somebody asks a simple question in the class.
Yes

You feel like it is a disaster when your ISP goes down.
Yes, it goes down every 3 days so ducking annoying

The internet is vital to your existance.
Yes

I dunno if it means anything, but if I follow the topic title, I guess it does.

Regards, Xeross

Hey Folks,

The last few days I’ve been busy rebuilding our current theme. In Internet Explorer it had some font size issues which caused the navigation to look weird and some other little bugs. so I decided to recode the entire theme myself to get rid of these errors. Font size issues are completely fixed, there are still some bugs in the theme here and there but I’m working on ironing those out at the moment.

And as you can also see we’ve changed the logo, I’ve created this new logo a few weeks ago but decided that I would release it together with the theme rebuild.

Tell me what you think about the changes and the new logo.

Regards, Xeross

Changes after this post:

• Removed all unused files from the theme directory.
• Made the theme and all my posts follow XHTML 1.0 Strict so I can proudly say my blog is now valid XHTML

Welcome to the twelfth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s banter comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: First there was the MMO on the PC, and now with the recent announcement of DUST 514, EVE will soon be moving onto consoles. But what about mobile? Allow your imagination to run wild for a second and describe how you would see EVE being ported to mobile devices, whether the iPhone/iPod touch, Blackberrys or Android-based devices. Dream the impossible for us!

FIrst of all, as you can see I decided to join the EVE blog banter. Second of all I’m working on reacreating my blog’s theme because it has some display issues in Internet Explorer. And third, well let’s get started on the actual topic now shall we.

I’ve been playing EVE for some time now, and I have found that the lack of portability is a little annoying. I’d like to see some kind of implementation on handheld game systems like the Nintendo DS and PSP, even if it’s just a training queue manager or something it would be better then nothing.

well on to the weird and crazy imagination stuff. EVE Online in it’s full glory on NDS/PSP and possibly also on all other major consoles and handhelds, it would probably not look as good and be a little more pixely but being able to play EVE till deep in the night in my bed (Have a mom that wants me to stop at 9PM) would be a welcome addition. It might not be ideal for missioning but as you don’t really need any visuals for missioning only your target list, vital status and overview it would be possible to do missions on it. and the thing I need most (Skill queueing while not on my PC) would not require that much resources anyways.

Well I hope I did okay for my first blog banter, and I’m sure my writing will improve as time passes by and I blog more. I’d say leave your comments on how I did and start a discussion about this subject if you want.

Regards, Xeross

Participants

• CrazyKinux’s Musing – Tying the dots and locking me in!
• A Merry Life and a Short One – I Don’t Own a Working Phone
• Yarrbear Tales – EVE on Mobile Devices? Eh.
• Hands Off, My Loots! – EVE Mobile…Possibility?
• Achernar – Trapped on Planet Horror
• Rettic’s Log – The Cronofile – Blog Banter: EVE Mobile
• A Mule in EVE – EVE Mobility
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah – EVE Mobile
• My Life in EVE – 12th Blog Banter
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility – WOW, look at that ‘micro-Dust’
• Adventures in Mission Running – 12th EVE Blog Banter
• Ecliptic Rift – EVE Everywhere
• Roc’s Ramblings – EVE Mobile
• EVE Monkey – EVE on a Mobile Device?
• Nashh Kadavr’s EVE Blog – I-pod Capsuleer
• Escoce – EVE Trade – Dynamic System Security
• Break Vol – EVE Blog Banter 12
• Mikeazariah – EVE Mobility
• Pods and Pills – The 12th EVE Blog Banter: EVE on the MOVE!
• Lords of Space – EVE on my Iphone?
• Cle Demaari – Is that EVE in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
• Life in Low Sec – Wormholes On the Go
• Into the unknown with gun and camera – Blog Banter 12: Glue
• Zero Kelvin – A year of banting!
• Corrupted Datacore – Blog Banter #12: MyEVE