About 2 years ago, after my state was hit by several hurricanes, I envisioned a BYOND game where you're in a shelter and the winds from the hurricane are so strong that flying debris destroys the building. The point of the game was to build defenses and survive; whether you group together and try to survive or hogged all your defenses for yourself, you decided. The game, no doubt, became a success.

However, I shortly thereafter left BYOND for a year. I then returned last year and decided that Hurricane needed a remaking. It was outdated and, due to no updates, lost supporters. So I began reprogramming the entire game to be more slim on the code as well as do more. The result introduced modes like Hell FIre and the like, as well as less buggy gameplay. This, too, was a success. But since I left BYOND yet again and the membership URL changed (I host my files under BYOND membership) no one was able to play the game. You are returned a 404 page.

Well, today, I wanted to see if the Mac OS X client for BYOND improved since I now primarily use a Mac. And it didn't. It still is crap. So I logged onto my account and found that there are about 21 days left on my BYOND membership (slightly less). So, since I probably won't be on BYOND anymore (may change, dunno) I decided to open source my Hurricane game (the original version and my reprogramming of it last year.

Here are the links:

http://members.byond.com/FinalFantasyFreak/files/ Hurricane_src.zip

http://members.byond.com/FinalFantasyFreak/files/ Hurricane%202.0_src2.zip

Feel free to do with them what you like, all I ask is credit for the original code. Download them soon. Remember, this member blog and hosting will end in 21 days. And as such, if you would like to offer up hosting for the game files on my BYOND hub page, please email me at dmxell@gmail.com and I'll update the information to link to your site. This game is fun even for me the programmer (often times programmers don't exactly find their own work as fun as others do) so I want people to continue playing it.

I have also downloaded all my files hosted on this blog so if I do return to BYOND I'll probably buy my membership again.

Enjoy the fact that this is open source! If you work on the game and want me to link to your revision of the game on my hub channel, again, email me at dmxell@gmail.com. I love revisions of open source products.

Also, note that if I ever return to this game and begin developing again, everything I do will remain open source.

-FFF

Well, before I begin, I managed to pay for my membership. So. . . YAY! Another year!

Okay, now that that's off my chest. It's time to prepare for the invasion. I had a brief grace period where the formidable Macintosh OS X left my computer, but now it is back, and twice as powerful.

Here is a picture taken by one of our informants: http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/PojoZell/Desk1.png

As you can see it has gained the ability to switch my menu buttons from the right to the left side of the bar of windows as well as add the option to make my windows just the top bar. In addition it upgraded the Finderbar at the top of my desktop making it a near identical to that of the Mac. OS X. And we cannot forget that it got rid of my Control Panel and gave me Tiger System Preferences. . .

Damn you Macintosh! Burn in hell!

Hm... I haven't really had time to come here in recent months. I can't find the time to devote myself to anything really. But then I just got this notion to come on and see if this account had expired as I am going to try and renew it (may not be able to) and found out that I have only nine days left lol. Perfect time if I want to try and renew it.

This may or may not be my last post depending on if I can some how manage to renew it. On a side note, has anyone tried out the new trading card game The Spoils? I'm about to start playing it since it doesn't take a ton of devotion lol.

Making your PC run effectively is the never ending battle that most users of an PC face. More so for the Windows XP, however. After a few hours of use you'll practically be forced to reboot as your computer is running so incredibly slow that it is impossible to get virtually anything done.

Recently I decided to hook up my computer with a new Macintosh design. In doing so I basically tripled the amount of programs that my computer opens on the startup (Custom loading screen, custom welcome screen, shadows, Mac Bar, ObjectDock, Program Loader, Spotlight, and a few others). And as a result my computer, with only 512 RAM, was quickly dwindling down to 10% or less RAM (roughly 5 MB of RAM per percent) and my system was slowing down. I searched thoroughly for ways to fix this and came upon the usual: Defrag a lot, disk clean-up weekly, buy new RAM, etc. I did all of those, short of buying RAM as I am cheap like that. And I'll admit, they helped. But I was still on average around 15% of my total RAM remaining.

I then thought of something, "what if there's a program out there to control my RAM usage?" That'd be the perfect program! Though it did sound like a long stretch. And that's when I came across my new best friend: Free RAM XP Pro. This program is a life saver!

The program actually doesn't give you free RAM. Instead it locates every file running and makes them use as little RAM as possible, or as far as your configurations will allow. Free RAM XP Pro allows you to either set a limit of RAM to free up, in which case the program will attempt to free up, though at times won't be able to, or you can use the Optimal Setting, which, unlike the first setting, won't make your free RAM become zero and lock up your PC for 30 seconds. In fact it barely takes up any RAM, which is probably why it's labeled "Optimal."

And the great thing about the program is that it can run itself! You can set it to instantly free up RAM after every certain amount of time, when your RAM drops to a certain level, or both! Now that's versatility. Another nice feature is that you can have the program boot up with your computer, so as to save you the hassle of opening it every time your boot up. With that the program also will try and then free up RAM from the beginning, so you are always running smoothly.

And did I forget to mention that this program is completely FREE? That's right it is free. I am cheap, so if it wasn't free I wouldn't have even downloaded the trial. And trust me when I say this, this program will save you a load of time! When you have Yahoo Widget loading, along with a ton of other programs, retaining that extra 30% RAM you would have lost is extremely nice. Or for any Windows XP you're probably going to be at around 50% and this program can then easily bump you up in to the 30% being use or less, which effectively would make your PC run like it is on steroids.

Now imagine what this could do on a computer with only 256 MB RAM? Or better yet on a computer with 1 GB of RAM? The thing is, no matter how much RAM you have, this program can help you get the best out of your RAM so that your computer is always running as smoothly as possible.

If you would like to download this program, here is the link:

http://www.download.com/FreeRAM-XP-Pro/ 3000-2086-10070530.html?part=dl-FreeRAMXP&subj=dl&tag=button

Just look at what it did to my Windows XP (which looks surprisingly a lot like a Macintosh)! http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/PojoZell/ ScreenshotFreeRAMXPPro.jpg

Yes, that's right, my computer (Windows XP) now looks to be mainly an Apple Computer (given the minor file variations for names and the like). Here is a link to how my desktop looks (go ahead, compare it to any Apple Computer desktop, they're very similar):

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/PojoZell/ ScreenShot2.jpg