tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25832879493390090992011-04-21T18:52:33.072-05:00Thoughts and opinions on podcasts, video games, programming, technology and anything else that interests me. And don't forget some news too.mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-45804051438382861112009-03-30T19:43:00.001-05:002009-03-30T19:44:58.637-05:00

I'm moving my blog to tumblr.com as they have a very handy iPhone app that lets me manage my blog WAY better than I can do here.  See you at http://mcdermr.tumblr.com

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-18202760929462909942009-01-21T16:16:00.002-06:002009-01-21T16:34:50.505-06:00

The project that I've been working on at work has been getting more and more busy for me. So much so, that I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed with how much I had to keep remembering what needs to be done when. I said to myself "I wish I could find a way to organize stuff that works for me" and I then remembered that I used to use a program called ThinkingRock a couple of years ago to

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-1405512629187979712009-01-15T12:11:00.002-06:002009-01-15T12:18:45.650-06:00

Well, I've finally done it. I've started working on a plugin for Netbeans after not being able to find an existing one that did what I want. The project I'm working on at work is quite involved and requires me to go through all kinds of configuration files. There are several sections of the XML documents that would be easier to read if the block of lines were organized alphabetically. I

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-35211215484043197042008-11-16T00:08:00.002-06:002008-11-16T09:55:55.535-06:00

One day, I thought I'd try to make a dirt bike. Once I did (it was a lot of fun to make a motorcycle from nothing), and I think it turned out pretty cool, I then had to come up with a level to go along with it. The level kind of reminds me of the old Nintendo game Excitebike. Enjoy!

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-7333950677272571932008-11-16T00:07:00.004-06:002008-11-16T10:02:30.430-06:00

This is, so far, the most detailed level I've made. This level took pretty much all day. The process of building this level was a ton of fun and I thought it was rather interesting. The cabinets were built in pieces that I kept adding to. First was the baseboard, then the cabinet, then the counter, the "wall" or backsplash, then the upper cabinet. I then copied that whole thing, reversed

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-63349310709892665602008-11-15T23:45:00.005-06:002008-11-16T10:03:04.834-06:00

This is my first "story" level:"Aliens have crash landed and need your help, but something goes terribly wrong! Can you help the aliens get home?"

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-34311662890865162222008-11-15T23:43:00.003-06:002008-11-17T16:26:09.396-06:00

Here's a video of my first published level in LittleBIGPlanet: The Crazy Pink Rocket Car.UPDATE: This video has been featured on ThreeSpeech. Thank you ThreeSpeech, I'm glad you like it!

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-43440045884189135842008-10-13T09:11:00.005-05:002008-10-13T09:26:59.336-05:00

Well, as a few of my friends are getting PlayStation 3's, I thought that this would be a good time to create a little introduction guide that I hope other people will also find useful.There is the PlayStation Network Store under the Network tab, I believe, and this is where you can download wallpapers, themes, videos, games, and demos. There are a TON of demos out there for a bunch of games.

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-31264736631013033282008-10-07T09:43:00.005-05:002008-10-07T10:02:11.551-05:00

So, there's this game called Little Big Planet that I've been quite excited about since I first saw a video of it. The game is made up of three parts: Play, Create, and Share. The Play part is like a side scrolling adventure type game, the Create part is where you can make your own levels using the items that you find in Play mode, and then you can Share your creative level with the world and

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-45339027129366183452008-09-27T20:02:00.000-05:002008-09-27T19:59:51.430-05:00

My sister is blue!

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-44674993659636971552008-09-22T09:24:00.010-05:002008-09-22T14:05:38.397-05:00

What a weekend we had!  So full of excitement, disappoint and *fun* things (yes... I'm being sarcastic).  Let's see, where to start...Saturday night, I was playing some Burnout Paradise (ironically) when I heard a car across the parking lot start up.  Things didn't get odd until I heard the car's engine rev really high and that's when I looked out the window.  When I did, I heard the vehicle's

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-4003150856656503762008-09-16T12:39:00.001-05:002008-09-16T13:20:33.664-05:00

Sign on fridge at work.

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-53621744063728937842008-09-06T12:05:00.000-05:002008-09-06T12:03:09.799-05:00

Ian and I at Zach's soccer game.

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-39721068387610040542008-08-28T16:55:00.000-05:002008-08-28T16:55:54.543-05:00

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-3853312953061651302008-06-21T20:44:00.006-05:002008-06-25T15:18:09.238-05:00

A while back on Playstation.blog, they had a contest to win a couple of shirts with the PixelJunk Monsters logo on it. Well, I entered as soon as I heard about it and I happened to win. The shirts arrived this past week. The contest was for a short story about how PixelJunk Monsters brings people together. Here is my winning entry:Ever since the first trailer and screenshots of PixelJunk

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-59352804823193798342008-06-18T10:55:00.002-05:002008-06-18T11:07:51.520-05:00

This week, apparently, is "Game System Update Week." The Wii, PS3 and PSP all got system updates this week. None of the updates are super exciting, but any improvements and fixes are always welcome.WiiThe Wii Menu gets updated to 3.3. Looks like the new feature is the ability to move your Miis from the Mii plaza to the Mii parade. Yay!PS3The PS3 gets updated to 2.36. Basically just a fix "to

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-50568659565244025852008-06-18T10:38:00.001-05:002008-06-18T10:40:03.243-05:00

Whoa! There's been a huge lack of inactivity on my blog.... my bad. I've been busy with a bunch of things and am working towards making time and effort to post regularly. Look forward to more posts soon.

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-72078056267042604642008-02-11T11:49:00.001-06:002008-02-11T13:06:51.992-06:00

Welcome to Paradise! In December 2007, EA released a demo of a game called Burnout Paradise. I've not been "in to" racing/driving games before, but as I've learned from previously released demos, I should try it out and see if I like it. You never know when you'll be surprised. Needless to say. After about 10 minutes of getting the hang of the controls and the roads, I was hooked. After

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-46293778258344272022008-01-16T17:10:00.001-06:002008-01-16T17:38:52.148-06:00

For quite some time now, I've been listening to the Netbeans Podcast, by Roumen Strobl and Gregg Sporar at Sun Microsystems. They cover the lastest news and happenings in the Netbeans world, and describe extremely useful tips and tricks for using Netbeans, an IDE for Java. A few weeks back, I correctly answered one of the "Netbeans Puzzlers", a tricky question about a feature in Netbeans 6.0,

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-44648888152788185752008-01-07T16:43:00.000-06:002008-01-07T16:50:52.292-06:00

Friday, January 4th, 2008, Warner Brothers has decided to help put an end to the nasty High-Definition Movie format war that has been going on. By announcing that they are going exclusively release their movies in Blu-Ray. The article goes on to explain that new releases will be released on BD (Blu-Ray Disc) day-to-date with DVD from now on. Warner Bros. will continue to support the rival

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-70395223794010041352008-01-04T15:17:00.000-06:002008-01-04T15:27:07.457-06:00

Wow, I've not posted here in a long time. Too long if you ask me.Well, I received Ratchet and Clank: Future Tools of Destruction for Christmas from my kids. Wow. I played the demo and was thoroughly impressed and the full game has further impressed me. I'm relatively new to the R&C series as this is my second R&C game and I'm totally loving the series. All the different weapons are so much fun

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-11210290321079262762007-11-13T12:11:00.001-06:002007-11-13T12:21:00.779-06:00

Today, a co-worker of mine sent me a link to a blog post. It made me appreciate missing the '70s. The comments that go along with the pictures I found to be freakin' hilarious and most certainly quite true."Also, judging by the sheer amount of matching his/hers outfits, in 1977 it was apparently considered pretty stylish for couples to dress alike. These couples look happy, don't they?"This

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-55472658245558417742007-11-02T11:45:00.001-05:002007-11-02T12:11:23.124-05:00

Oops! It started too soon! I've started, inadvertently I might add, to convert my coworkers from Eclipse to Netbeans. They are two very different cases, but I really wanted to wait until Netbeans 6.0 was officially released (right now it is at version Beta2) before I went more public with my usage of Netbeans at work. Oh well, things happen and don't always go as planned.Case 1. A coworker

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-40750668092919937122007-11-01T17:12:00.001-05:002007-11-01T17:16:04.190-05:00

Well, its here. I'm a proud, new owner of a copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I've rented it before and found it absolutely incredible. About two weeks ago I heard about a sale at Amazon for this game. $20 instead of $30. I figured $20 for a really good Playstation 3 game is a really, really, good price and my excellent wife bought it for me! Go wifey, you rock!

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-66897052091208927122007-09-25T13:29:00.000-05:002007-09-25T13:36:00.279-05:00

It all starts with my 6yr old son. He's recently gotten into Pokemon cards. Wow, those are a lot of fun to play with him. It made me remember back when I was in high school. I used to play two different CCGs with different groups of friends, and had a blast doing so. Last night, I decided to try and sell off my old CCG cards on ebay since they are no longer published and I don't have any friends

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-29668083907460861492007-09-18T10:25:00.000-05:002007-09-18T10:55:34.844-05:00

Netbeans 6.0 Beta 1 is now available! The next version of Netbeans is shaping up to be quite nice. There are lots of improvements and features since the last milestone release (M10) and for those still using 5.5 or aren't aware, Netbeans is undergoing a massive change in all aspects. The most visible of them are the UI improvements. For me, the new look and feel, along with the new features

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-48226387432841745682007-09-13T14:21:00.000-05:002007-09-13T14:31:21.991-05:00

Over the course of the last year or so, I've been subscribing to various feeds vor various news sites, podcasts, and blogs. I have been keeping track of them using Google's Personalized Home Page and I had setup tabs based on categories for the feeds to keep them organized. After adding a few more this week, I've decided to look at using Google Reader again.WOW have they updated it. As noted

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-32674655226594996632007-09-12T09:48:00.001-05:002007-09-12T10:01:38.629-05:00

Yesterday Sony updated the PSP to version 3.70. The biggest feature with this update is the ability to change the icon theme for the XMB. There were a handful of themes released with the update and can be found at the UK's PSP site, though I'm sure they will be available on the US one soon.Another useful feature that was added was the ability to search through videos to a specific point or in

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-9271494119036125922007-09-10T10:13:00.000-05:002007-09-10T10:22:22.330-05:00

I've been a member of the "Gamer Advisory Panel" for a few years now. They periodically have various contests and such. One recent one is a wallpaper design contest for the Playstation 3. I've created a wallpaper and I decided to actually give this contest a go. This is my first foray into the world of digital photo editing (aka "Photoshopping").My wife took the base image from a trip to the

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-18789288571384725122007-09-07T13:40:00.000-05:002007-09-10T10:11:39.598-05:00

"Hello. My name is Russ and I have a problem."J.C., where are you?!? I'm starting to suffer from 7th Son withdrawls. Its been a week already! I know it will be worth the wait; it always is.There are other things I'm hooked on (no not foniks, I are teh good speler!). Lost, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and a myriad of video games.I'm also known to be addicted to music, though not like most

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-77894717414158994342007-08-28T11:44:00.000-05:002007-08-28T11:51:00.305-05:00

Its been quite a while since I have felt good about programming. The last few jobs I've had did some "damage" to me and started to make me rethink programming, from both a career and a hobby. Thankfully, I've now got a job that I like and the coding is good. I've not had this much fun programming in a really long time, and I'm back to being happy with my choice of profession.I've wanted to be

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-55323527391197265732007-08-23T23:50:00.000-05:002007-08-24T11:35:23.117-05:00

I've felt for a long time that the planet has these "cycles" it goes through and that we are and have been in a "warming up" cycle for a while and that pollution is doing very little, if anything, to cause global warming. My reasoning for this logic is that global warming has been something that is really only noticeable within the past decade or so.During the last 30 some years, pollution

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-77172398026569717822007-08-23T11:08:00.000-05:002007-08-23T12:25:33.198-05:00

I've been listening to an audio book that is released as a podcast (called a "podiobook") call 7th Son. There are three books in the series and the current episodes are on book three 7th Son: Destruction. This series is of the technothriller genre and is wonderfully written and well paced.Anyway, I listened to Episode 7 yesterday. It was far and away the best episode so far in the series.

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2583287949339009099.post-42721017088427455002007-08-23T10:55:00.000-05:002007-08-23T10:57:12.657-05:00

Well, I decided to setup a blog other than my family one so I can blabber on about video games, java programming and whatever else comes to my mind. So with that said, let the blogging begin!

mcdermrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00878549996820676939noreply@blogger.com0