BoxOfSpoons

New eSports Blog and Gaming Show

2009-10-05T21:39:00.002-05:00

I realized earlier today, when I was supposed to paying attention in class, that I should take my love for eSports further. Right now I mainly just play the games I'm interested in, watch demos and stay on top all the hot news, but what about actually contributing to the community?

Enter the eSports blog: http://bosesports.blogspot.com/. This new blog is going to be my haven for publishing and discussing eSport news and demos. Actually just demos right now, but I'll probably post random gaming tidbits here and there.

Anyways, I'm not sure where I plan on taking this blog or why I'm even doing it, but one things for sure...it's going to be totally off the hook. :) So be sure to check it out and get interested in your eSports community. You'd be surprised but just about any remotely popular game has a PUG/Scrim community and at least one occasional tourney.

Finally, on another tangent, me and my roommates have actually picked up the camera and filmed a little bit of what we hope will be a totally baller gaming show. It's pretty much in the open right now as to what the fuck we're even doing, but I have some solid ideas and around 10 pages of notes accompanying them, so it's bound to turn into something awesome. So keep an eye out for that as well.

More to come.

Time Has Passed

2009-09-30T19:01:00.002-05:00

It has been a long while since the last post on the BoS blog but we're still here. We haven't done a whole lot with the site in the past few months due mostly to the work load school provides (and the long, fun summer). But with a new [school] year comes new work and I plan to eventually apply some of it towards BoS and various other projects.

I'm not sure what the other guys' thoughts are on BoS or other collaborative projects but I'm sure they'll be busy doing things here and there.

One notable mention is that hellfire plans on reimplementing the forums to something completely different. I can't remember what he mentioned...might have been SMF. Either way, we may eventually get that going if the Drupal core is ever updated.

Outside of that, I'll occasionally stop by and post some news about the BoS crew, site, clan, etc etc.

Small Updates

2009-02-24T22:28:00.003-06:00

I added a few more avatars, walls, and game sprays to the website. I've also created a twitter account for boxofspoons here. Also I'm planning on doing a mass upload to the BoS YouTube channel one of these days.
That's about it for now. I've been busy as usual, so not a ton of time to work on stuff. There was also a scout update for TF2 tonight, so that might keep me busy for awhile. :)

Couple Site Updates

2009-02-13T16:19:00.002-06:00

Over the past few days I've been working on some small photoshop additions to the site along with updating the gaming downloads page. I've added some avatars, game sprays and wallpapers, on top of a new site logo and favicon. I'll probably dick around a few more hours with graphics, but I want to move onto some other projects. First I would like to create an upload section for authenticated users to add files to the gaming page. This will make it much easier for myself and others when adding TF2 demos. Then I'd like to begin work on developing some sub-pages for our gaming and entertainment section of the site. URLs like gaming.boxofspoons.net and music.boxofspoons.net would contain the current music and gaming pages on fully functional websites.

There is also another project for "invite-only" BoS members that I want to begin putting together. More on that later.

I would also like to mention the work of another team member on the site. Hellfire, in all his administrative glory, launched a Steam User block that fetches the online status of the clan and friends. Definitely a handy little widget.

CEVO Season and Other Such News

2009-01-29T21:42:00.002-06:00

My schedule has been pretty jammed pack, jumping from one thing to another, but it seems I can find a little time here and there to do a little work on the site or server. Most of my free time however has been focused on CEVO and managing the clan. The worst part? Scheduling can be a bitch. But life flows on as it has and I'll have to manage with what I have.
On another note, I've just begun working on a new project that I want to eventually take over my career path. It's a website that handles dedicated servers, leagues, scrims and the communities that power them. I have yet to decide on a definitive name but the first wireframe is done. When I get home from work (shh, I'm probably not supposed to be writing this here, lol) I'll try to remember to post the image. I also have a wireframe from a special "BoS Gaming" page I want to make...I need to focus some time on project management, lol. Some times there's just toom much to focus on.
Well, that's the news for now. Hopefully this weekend after some fierce scrims and much needed studying, I'll get an oppurtunity to do a little work on the site.

College

2009-01-20T14:38:00.002-06:00

School has again started and my classes seem just as enthralling as last semester (no joke ;) ). With that I will most likely be getting back into a rotation of projects varying from photoshop work, video and audio productions, web development for BoS and other sites, and leading my clan. It's going to be another busy semester but I'm loving the stress and feeling of accomplishment. So I should be here and there over the next few weeks trying to handle everything, keeping updates here as usual.

TF2 Server!

2009-01-15T21:56:00.002-06:00

Quick Update: BoS has launched a public 32-man TF2 server at 72.37.226.68:27015. I will hopefully be back working on things soon...

Schools Done!

2008-12-18T12:20:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I finished my last final for the semester and am free to do whatever I want for the next month. w00t!

Today I created the links page for BoS gaming and touched up on the others a little. I think the gaming page is just about finished. I want to go through it and finalize the content and layout, but I think it's all golden for now.

The music page could probably do with a little work, but for now I'm going to just leave it. I want to do a little graphic design and try to get some production work done. Actually...I may work on the productions page since it's kind of craptacular.

I'll post further updates when I get around to actually working on them. (Been playing quite a bit of CS:Source lately)

Quick Update

2008-12-11T12:24:00.002-06:00

Got some more of the gaming page completed and did a quick merge of the music page. Both are coming together pretty decently, but I really need to learn how to create templates and quick uploads of information rather than creating everything by scratch. Hopefully we cover that stuff next semester in my web class.

I probably will take a quick break from BoS work and focus my attention on my flash project today. It's due next week Tuesday and I still have a decent amount of work in front of me.

Some Gaming Work

2008-12-10T21:55:00.002-06:00

With finals, projects, the girlfriend, new snow, and a roudy room mate (sigh...), I've been a little too busy to do much BoS work...until tonight! I just started work on the downloads page and so far it's going decently well. The main page is about done and I am going to start the first set of sub-pages and then hopefully create the actual "download" page. Like I said before it's going to follow something similar to gotfrag's demo pages and will contain various helpful information pertaining to the download.

I'm also really interested in finding a way to use or convert DVD files to workable premiere files. Apparently Premiere doesn't handle the VOB extension (WHAT!?!), so I can't easily edit and release a series of speeches I gave in my college speech class. I was most interested in the last one about Internet Slang in which I used, quote, "WTF Noob, Hax!" "leet pwnage," and "Boom headshot! Go QQ about that be-otch." Oh, and almost forgot the section on teabagging. It truly was an epic speech. :)

Well, that's the news for now, I'll post an update later this week.

Delays

2008-12-07T16:28:00.003-06:00

Last couple days have been fairly busy with studying, random projects and the girlfriend so I haven't been nearly as productive as I wanted. After today however I should definitely be getting back on track...at least that's what I'm hoping. The school load is definitely the highest on my priorities but I should be able to squeeze some time in for BoS and the private server.

Update on the private server: The version I'm trying to launch is Lich King 3.0.1 BETA which is causing my problems right now because I can't find the files necessary for the database. The lowest version I can downgrade to is 3.0.1 the official release which contains a few minor changes the server is incompatible with. I'm trying to find a patch of some sort but we may end up having to launch a BC server only. :(

More news to come.

Various Projects

2008-12-05T15:30:00.002-06:00

Today I gave a speech about Internet Slang and I'm currently in the process of extracting it off a DVD, editing it in Adobe Premiere and plan on releasing it online. Normally I probably wouldn't do this but the speech is quite memorable considering its unorthodox content. This is holding my focus right now but I want to eventually get around to working either on the private server or the gaming page on BoS. I'll post more later today if plans change.

Private Server

2008-12-04T15:02:00.002-06:00

Today I've decided to deviate from the web development and work on something I've been pushing off for awhile: the Lich King Private Server. I've set them up before. In fact I've launched a Burning Crusade (patch 2.3.3) twice now and it was...mildly successful. The second time around was definitely better than the first, but we still experienced some problems. Although I think that's to be expected considering I'm launching an entire MMO on a dedicated computer in my small apartment. :)

I found a decent guide that will bring the server to patch 3.0.1 BETA and I'm praying that the process goes smoothly. Last time the config files were screwy and it took a good week of messing around before I asked kova to find the problem. Thank God for fellow computer geeks. So anyways, I've got most of the downloads and now it's just a matter of a quick file transfer and some online directions. Hopefully we'll be up and running within the next few days.

Oh, almost forgot to mention, once the server is up and running, be sure to hit the forums for more information and a request for an account. Also, if it's easy I want to edit some of the maps and create some "malls" and what not to give our private server a fresh feeling.

Gaming Update

2008-12-03T13:08:00.003-06:00

Well I probably should have been studying for a CSS exam I have in...50 minutes, but I couldn't help but work some more on the gaming page. I finished the "up-coming games" page and touched up the clan information as well. I need to get working on the downloads, media and links page but I have quite a bit of shit going on the next few days. If I get around to it I'll probably start on the downloads page first since that's the one I'm most excited about.

I am also putting some thought into other additions the site might need. Definitely some graphical enhancements and some merging of content. I also want to do some more with the wiki either formalizing the content or making actual web pages for them. We'll see what I get around to.

Well that's the update for today.

[BoS] Gaming

2008-12-02T21:17:00.002-06:00

Well the week has started and it's time to get crackin'. I began working on a new gaming page for BoS that will include a redesigned layout with multiple sub-pages. The front page layout looks much more cleaned up than previous pages and will hopefully be more user-friendly. The sub-pages will be as follows:

Downloads - Various pages worth of demos, maps, mods, videos and anything else we can think of. I'm shooting for a look similar to that of GotFrag's demo pages. I like how it's fairly straight-forward with the information on the left and an image on the right.

Media - This page will probably be somewhat barren for awhile, but I plan on eventually filling it with avatars, wallpapers, and sprays for games. I have yet to decide on the look, but perhaps something as simple as the current BoS image gallery will do.

Clan - The clan page will hold all the pertinent clan information with the appropriate links. I also want to implement some type of scheduling calendar that we can use to plan matches and playtime.

Up-Coming Games - The up-coming games page is relatively simple and basically requires me to copy and paste the up-coming games thread over. This page will be dedicated to keeping a permanent home for the list of games rather than intermittent updates that get buried in a week.

Those are the ideas I have for now. I'm hoping to get a decent portion of this done tonight and will continue work as the week progresses. I am also making plans for merging the BoS Radio and music page together. Seems pointless to have them separated.

Other than that, more and more work to get done. I'll update this blog in a couple days.

BoS Blog

2008-11-30T16:35:00.001-06:00

Welcome to the new Box Of Spoons development blog. Administrators from the site will be using this blog to document progress on boxofspoons.net, No Spoon productions, and various other BoS-related projoects.

Currently the team is working on independent projects with various touch-ups and maintenance to the site. Hellfire has been keeping up on Drupal updates and monitoring the backend system, while perlox and kova have been simply monitoring and adding various content. We plan on rearranging the clan and production page to make it more user-friendly.

We would also like to say "Happy Belated Thanksgiving!"