Archive for June, 2007

It was announced on Monday that EA will reorganize into four labels: EA Games, EA Sports, EA Casual Games, and The Sims. This is an interesting move on their part, intended to “streamline the company” (don’t all companies seem to do this on a daily basis?). It should be interesting to see if this makes any real difference, though I doubt it does. I’ve heard that working for EA is like working in a sweat shop; it’s amazing that any products are released at all, if that’s the case.

What intrigues me most is the fact that “The Sims” will be broken off into its own label. Who knew that a single video game would spawn such an empire? I won’t deny that I was a Sims junkie at one point. I own all of the Sims 1 expansion packs, and I even developed several tools for that very game. The game was highly revolutionary at the time, and remains one of the best examples of an object-oriented programming model (Sidebar: Each individual game object contains the necessary sounds and animations used when a Sim interacts with that object. This programming paradigm is incredibly beneficial, since new objects can be added at a later time without a need to update the game’s core files.).

As one might expect, when the sequel (The Sims 2) was released, I eagerly picked it up. Surprisingly, I was disappointed with the game. Like many Maxis games, performance was sub par, even on my fairly beefy home computer (Sim City 3000, a game dating back to 1999, still stutters on my current machine). In addition, the game play mechanics had changed drastically: Sims had a finite life span, a number of goals needed to be reached through the Sim’s lifetime, and relationships were even harder to maintain. I lost interest fairly quickly, and haven’t played either title in several years.

So, to make a long story short, I’m a little amazed that the product line has continued to do so well. The Sims 2 has a total of 5 expansion packs (with at least 1 more on the way), 3 of which are essentially the same expansions as are available in The Sims 1. I get a “been there, done that” kind of feeling in that regard, but apparently lots of people don’t feel that way. Otherwise, EA wouldn’t have spun the franchise into its own label.

I’ve been meaning to discuss The Totally Rad Show for some time now, and I’m just now getting around to it. For those unfamiliar with the show, TRS describes itself as the “summer blockbuster of geek news shows.” Alex Albrecht (from DiggNation), Jeff Cannata, and Dan Trachtenberg all host the show, and they talk about movies, video games, television, comics, and more. One of the great stylistic elements of the show is that it is shot entirely in front of a green screen. Throughout the show, as the guys bring up various topics, related images appear behind them. The effect is subtle, but it really adds to the overall presentation.

TRS is currently on its 12th episode as of this writing, and I have followed it since episode 1. The content of the show is entertaining, and I’ve been introduced to several really great things based on their discussions. If you’re a geek, or you like video games, movies, and more, be sure to check it out. If nothing else, it’s a great thing to listen to at work.

I have updated the WordPress install that powers this website to version 2.2. A number of theme-related API calls were deprecated in 2.1, so I had to make some changes to my custom theme. If you spot any broken links or weird SQL errors, please let me know about it so I can correct the issue.

Nearly a week ago, a malicious person or group of persons hacked into DreamHost, the company I use to host both Born Geek and this site. The passwords for over 3,500 FTP accounts were compromised, and some customers found unauthorized changes to files or directories. My account was among those that got hacked, and the experience has made me a better computer user.

Having a password stolen is frightening enough, but my situation was nearly a worst case scenario. When I originally set up my user account with DreamHost, I naturally provided the password to be used with that account. This user account granted me access to the DreamHost web panel, FTP uploads, and access to the web server’s shell (via either telnet or ssh). When I later set up an email account, I chose to use this same account out of sheer convenience. I made a likewise decision for access to my web server logs. So, in short, one username and password provided me access to five areas:

1. The DreamHost Web Panel
2. My web storage (via FTP)
3. My web server home directory (via telnet or ssh)
4. My primary email address
5. My server logs

Do you see the problem here?

As soon as I got the email that my FTP password had been compromised, I realized how slack I had been about security and panicked. Thankfully, none of my files or databases were corrupted (though I’m still taking a look through everything). I have since changed all of my passwords, and they now all differ from one another, something I should have done from day one.

I try to be as security conscious as possible, but I really dropped the ball in this area, mostly for convenience’s sake. This is the first time I have been ‘hacked’ like this, and I’m actually glad it happened. The experience has motivated me to be more secure in my password handling.

Lots of people are jumping ship as a result of this, but doing so seems premature to me. The folks at DreamHost are being open and honest about the problem, and I really appreciate that. Any company that steps up and says “we made a mistake and we’re trying to prevent it from happening again” is worth sticking with. At the very least, I’ve learned a much needed lesson.

Update: I forgot to mention that other web hosts were also hit by this attack (according to this post), so it wasn’t solely a DreamHost issue.

I failed to mention yesterday that a new build of Googlebar Lite is now available. This new release fixes two small bugs:

• Fixed a problem with highlighting on pages that contain frames.
• Fixed a strict JavaScript parsing error.

My family and I took a trip to the North Carolina Zoo earlier this week. As I normally do these days, I took my camera along and got lots of great photos. So many of my photographs turned out so well, that I think this may be my best photo album yet. A trusty monopod (which I got for Christmas last year) helped out tremendously in the darker exhibits.

Our trip this time primarily focused on the African exhibits (we spent the majority of our time on our previous trip in the American exhibits). The great thing about the NC Zoo is that there are so many things to see. In fact, it’s hard to see it all in one day!

I have fixed a bug in the navigation links in MonkeyAlbum here at the site. Some of the links used to navigate photo albums with multiple pages were pointing to the wrong location. If you happen to spot any other problems, please let me know.

A new photo album (possibly my best one yet) will be posted within the next day or two, so stay tuned.