tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:/feedJay Tee2018-04-04T21:03:10-07:00Jay Teehttps://jaytee.svbtle.comSvbtle.comtag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/wait-where-was-i-again2018-04-04T21:03:10-07:002018-04-04T21:03:10-07:00Wait, where was I again?<p>Recently, it dawned on me that it’s only been 3 months into 2018, where I started a shiny new career at a shiny new company; and in those 12 weeks, approximately half of that time has been spent:</p>
<ul>
<li>launching a brand new software platform where the original complement of developers have completely up and left, without any documentation being left behind</li>
<li>done deep code exploration and software archaeology trying to solve bugs and improve this platform which has been launched</li>
<li>design and reimplement new processes for the (brand new) software dev team</li>
<li>get situated with everything in the new company</li>
</ul>
<p>It’s been <strong>completely pedal-to-the-metal non-stop</strong> and I absolutely love it. However, in such a short time I certainly feel like I’ve been here for a year at least already coding away on everything.</p>
<p>All during this, I’ve endured some online drama with my favourite MMO, and the guild I started with a partner, who’s since gone separate ways - and I’ve been caught up trying to keep it rolling, while also keeping up with some of the latest games and what I’ve been doing in all my other personal projects.</p>
<p>It’s a super interesting challenge to realise that whilst I’ve started prioritising my career and work more so than my gaming adventures and attempts at starting a gaming business (I’ve wrapped up things with eLeague.gg and Multiplayer United is on the back-burner for now), things are <em>overwhelming</em> for anything outside of my day-to-day job.</p>
<p>It feels like a natural progression now that Project: Cloud Citizen is well underway (see my prior blog posts) that I should look into how I manage the rest of my digital adventures. Namely, what I do in Gaming.</p>
<p>To be honest, I have a tendency to lose my place of where I was up to in Games that I play - and I lose interest the more ‘lost’ I feel with games. Probably just old age catching up with me :P</p>
<p>Nevertheless, to solve that issue, I’ve created <strong><a href="https://trello.com/b/JMwWWKLn/gaming-adventures" rel="nofollow">The Gaming Adventures Trello Board</a></strong> a kind of to-do list of things to achieve in a variety of games.</p>
<p>The hope is that I get the most of out my gaming - and actually achieve something in the games. There’s zero pressure on any of the outcomes in that Trello board, it’s more a tool to help me remember whatever I was last doing in gaming.</p>
<p>We’ll see over the coming weeks whether or not keeping such a list helps as a valid timeline of what I’m doing in gaming or not.</p>
tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/the-language-of-love2018-04-03T16:29:20-07:002018-04-03T16:29:20-07:00The Language of LÖVE<p>So, I’ve started dabbling in games development with a few game ideas I’ve got bouncing around in my head. And whilst I wanted to make wonderful, amazing, visual feasts of games - I also wanted to start a bit slower and ease myself into what is essentially the most difficult discipline of software engineering around.</p>
<p>Cue, <a href="http://love2d.org/" rel="nofollow">LÖVE</a> - an engine dedicated to 2D games (there <em>are</em> 3D libraries available for it). It uses LUA, and pretty much encourages diving straight into the code and learning how to make a game, as opposed to learning the tools and figuring out how to use a suite of (albeit amazingly powerful) tools.</p>
<p>I worked on some basic tutorials last night, and I’m enjoying learning both LUA and the engine right away. It’s quite logical from what I can tell so far and I found a few tutorials <em>especially</em> helpful in understanding what’s going on:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<strong><a href="https://github.com/kikito/love-tile-tutorial/wiki" rel="nofollow">this tutorial about Tilemaps by Kikito</a></strong> helped me understand how to use spritesheets, and make use of them effectively</li>
<li>
<strong><a href="http://osmstudios.com/tutorials/your-first-love2d-game-in-200-lines-part-1-of-3" rel="nofollow">your first game in 200 lines by OSMStudios</a></strong> showed really, how quickly games could be thrown together (perhaps good for future GameJam participation?)</li>
<li>
<strong><a href="http://osmstudios.com/tutorials/love2d-platformer-tutorial-part-1-the-basics" rel="nofollow">basic platformer tutorial from OSMStudios</a></strong> also shows different kinds of movement and techniques</li>
</ul>
<p>I’ll probably start blogging a little bit about my upcoming game idea and my adventures in tinkering around with the LOVE 2D engine. So stay tuned!</p>
tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/citizen-cloud-2-week-progress-report2018-04-02T17:16:41-07:002018-04-02T17:16:41-07:00Citizen Cloud: 2 week progress report<p>Remote Desktop more than covers my use of productivity on JT-NXS, my laptop system that’s based at the office. So far, I’ve been fortunate in the last 10 days or so since moving towards ‘Cloud Citizen’ status, that I’ve been at my desktop, JT-DXS and not needed to use JT-NXS as much for productivity.</p>
<p>The experiment so far has been a <strong>wonderful success</strong>, <em>especially</em> when it comes to Media Consumption - it’s been awesome being able to access a personal collection of media that some close friends and family are also able to access.</p>
<p>Gaming has been great, for anything that’s not on a pressured level (ie. competitive play like Overwatch, or CS:GO - even then, they’re fine, but I just feel more comfortable not leaning on the internet connection so much to remain competitive with other human players). Co-op games are a revelation with it, Parsec.tv have really outdone themselves in their compression algorithms and gaming performance over the net.</p>
<p>I think, <del>if</del> <em>when</em> I pass probation at my workplace, I’ll commit to buying a mini-ITX system to accommodate a spare GTX 1070 graphics card I have, and allow for a bit more storage space too (dual 4TB drives + 3TB existing storage) </p>
<p>I’ve got plans at least, to rearrange my equipment at home; to minimise waste, and reduce the soaring temperatures in my bedroom, too. Even in <em>the dead of winter</em> it’s still a warm toasty room that can get quite uncomfortably stuffy as well.</p>
<p>Anyway, 10 days in and I’ve started rolling out some productivity tools onto JT-NXS in anticipation of using the system for more work-related and project-related situations.</p>
<p>I’ve got:</p>
<ul>
<li>Git, with Git Bash as my terminal</li>
<li>Adobe Creative Cloud</li>
<li>Visual Studio Code</li>
<li>Office365 </li>
</ul>
<p>For the most part, I actually already use Google Docs/Spreadsheets almost obsessively to manage my documentation, and I’ve got my own personal <a href="https://www.bookstackapp.com/" rel="nofollow">BookStack</a> that I use as a personal Wiki and Knowledge Repository.</p>
<p>All in all, I’m slowly training myself to wean off my attachment to my desktop, and to be able to start working from anywhere on a laptop (an old Microsoft Surface Pro 1 - although I plan to use JT-NXS in 3 months time) or tablet (iPad Pro).</p>
tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/being-a-part-of-the-cloud2018-03-20T07:36:48-07:002018-03-20T07:36:48-07:00Being a Part of the Cloud<p>So, primarily to get away from my desktop (see my previous post below) - the solution appears to be resorting to Cloud computing in some shape or form.</p>
<h3 id="gaming-entertainment_3">Gaming Entertainment <a class="head_anchor" href="#gaming-entertainment_3" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h3>
<p>The biggest issue currently, that will dissuade me the most from becoming a citizen of the cloud is that I won’t be able to play games with my low-spec terminal (in this case, in my room, it’ll be a 2012 Mac Mini).</p>
<p>Luckily for me; I actually stumbled across a wonderful solution! <strong><a href="https://parsec.tv" rel="nofollow">Parsec.tv</a></strong> - an amazing, free, 1080p 60fps cloud gaming application. Steam In-Home Streaming has never worked well for me, but this evening I gave it a go with a brand new release <strong>Sea of Thieves</strong>!</p>
<p>The experiment worked <em>spectacularly</em> - the quality of the game is more than adequate. My Laptop (off-site) reached on average about 40fps; and the input lag was more than acceptable for adventuring, fighting the undead and firing cannons to deal with opposing pirate crews.</p>
<p>The image quality was great - it was slightly higher than an average 60fps 1080p Twitch stream. Here’s a couple of example screenshots:</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/othivn6yx3hioq.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/othivn6yx3hioq_small.jpg" alt="seaofthieves01.jpg"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/kh0wkiprypfhsg.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/kh0wkiprypfhsg_small.jpg" alt="seaofthieves02.jpg"></a></p>
<p>The strange blue ‘honeycomb’ icon in the top-left, is Parsec’s hot-spot; you can click that to disconnect/connect with the <em>host</em> machine; or you can recalibrate your gamepad controller - which gets input into the host machine as an XBOX Controller.</p>
<p>There was only one real concern - my laptop reaching 95 degrees in CPU temperature (Speedfan told me it was 88 degrees, but NZXT Cam monitoring told me it was 95). It looks like I’ll need a laptop cooling pad :(</p>
<h3 id="movies-amp-media-entertainment_3">Movies & Media Entertainment <a class="head_anchor" href="#movies-amp-media-entertainment_3" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h3>
<p>The other thing I’d like to do, is somehow migrate my personal media collection, into the cloud. Something that’ll let me stream no matter where I am, should I be on holidays, or working. </p>
<p>Cue, <strong><a href="https://plex.tv" rel="nofollow">Plex Media Server</a></strong> - a system so consistently awesome in delivering movies and shows across both a network and the internet, with built in media conversion and on-the-fly media management, I can’t really see myself needing any other system to deliver access to my collection of media to friends and family.</p>
<p>Whilst the quality isn’t terribly awesome (it’s slightly worse than Netflix is), it delivers a more than watchable result provided the source files themselves are of a high quality.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of one of my favourites, Kingsman: The Secret Service:</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/ajfmqdvgfx5q.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/ajfmqdvgfx5q_small.jpg" alt="1080p-movie-plex.jpg"></a></p>
<p>As you can see, it’s a little murky, but still delivers on the visuals enough. The source file isn’t in a 1080p resolution, but it is still clear enough to watch!</p>
<hr>
<p>So, all in all - we got through all the fun stuff; being a netizen of the Cloud is a doable thing in Australia - provided you have a 1Gbit internet connection, I suppose.</p>
<p>I’m aware that I’m in an extremely fortunate position to be able to do this; and will continue my experiments and foray into being more integrated into <em>The Cloud™</em> in time for when the NBN reaches (if ever) my residence.</p>
<p>I’m going to be updating this blog again shortly with some thoughts about being both a “Cloudygamer” and a “Low Spec Gamer” to better handle and optimise my graphical usage; so please stay tuned!</p>
<h5 id="some-interesting-reading_5">Some Interesting Reading <a class="head_anchor" href="#some-interesting-reading_5" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h5>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://reddit.com/r/lowspecgamer" rel="nofollow">r/lowspecgamer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://reddit.com/r/cloudygamer" rel="nofollow">r/cloudygamer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.parsecgaming.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003937292" rel="nofollow">Enable Parsec.tv Hosting Laptops with Intel + NVIDIA Graphics</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.parsecgaming.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002624051-Error-Codes-22006-15000-and-14003-Unable-To-Initialize-Encoder-On-Your-Server-" rel="nofollow">Error 14003 when hosting from your Gaming Laptop</a></li>
</ul>
tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/project-cloud-citizen2018-03-18T17:53:09-07:002018-03-18T17:53:09-07:00Project: Cloud Citizen<p>Since the start of the year, I’ve been working towards making the technology and capabilities of the tech I use in my every day life, a whole lot more comfortable and <em>less cluttered</em>.</p>
<p>I’ve been looking into a minimalist lifestyle after realizing whilst trying to plan on moving out - that I have way too much crap in my life to accommodate such a move.</p>
<p>There’s a pretty simple rule/goal I keep in mind now with each of the gadgets, tech or ideas I have:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It should, as seamlessly as possible, integrate into my everyday life and tasks. I shouldn’t have to worry about <em>how</em> I’m doing something, or <em>if</em> I can do something.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And the best way I can think of that, is to no longer be tied to a desk in order to do all the programming, design, development, gaming and media consumption.</p>
<p>It would enable me to have a much more enriched quality of life, being able to go out, and adventure around, and when it all gets a bit much, I can just reach through the internet and hug the comfort of my favourite IDE, or enjoy something from my personal, (and carefully) curated media collection.</p>
<p>I’m going to need to join <em>The Cloud™</em>. I’ll be calling this experiment, “<strong>Project Cloud Citizen</strong>”!</p>
<p>Sounds alright - and I think, very doable if you were based in North America, Western Europe, Korea, Japan, Singapore or Scandinavia. Coincidentally, friends in all those regions are the ones who talked to me about this.</p>
<p>It’s a way more difficult thing to achieve in Australia, where traditionally, the concept of a decent upload speed for data sharing and enrichment, hasn’t existed until the arrival of Netflix, and even then, leaders of society in Australia still think it’s just next-gen TV.</p>
<h3 id="getting-away-from-the-office-desk-at-home_3">Getting away from the office desk at home <a class="head_anchor" href="#getting-away-from-the-office-desk-at-home_3" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h3>
<p>As it currently stands, I’m fortunate enough to work at an office that allows me to keep a laptop present in the office, that in theory, is connected at all times. </p>
<p>This laptop isn’t a snooze in terms of specs:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Gigabyte Aero 14</strong></li>
<li>Intel i7-7700HQ</li>
<li>NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060</li>
<li>Kingston 16GB (1 x 16GB)</li>
<li>Gigabyte P64v7 Motherboard</li>
<li>500GB SSD (TS512GMTS800)</li>
<li>Windows 10 Home</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="why-do-this_3">Why do this? <a class="head_anchor" href="#why-do-this_3" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h3><h4 id="reason-1_4">Reason #1 <a class="head_anchor" href="#reason-1_4" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h4>
<p>I want to be untethered from the restrictions of only being able to show friends & family games, or media that would be accessible within my home office.</p>
<p>I’d like to be able to develop code and access a remote system that is my own without having to carry around or go through an elaborate setup process.</p>
<p>Nowadays, more than ever, a combination of my iPad Pro and Samsung Note 8 cover all my usage that isn’t coding, or gaming. And even then, they begin to encroach on coding, and sometimes gaming!</p>
<h4 id="reason-2_4">Reason #2 <a class="head_anchor" href="#reason-2_4" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h4>
<p>Where I use my PC at home is an oven with my current PC setup; no joke, I run an incredibly complicated setup that I think is overkill for pretty much everybody except the most hardcore of PC gamers.</p>
<p>It’s messy, it’s finicky, it’s <strong>expensive as all heck</strong> and it provides the best damn gaming experience I’ve had the pleasure of using.</p>
<p>But in the sweltering Australian summer, it’s untenable with my neighbour’s air conditioning exhaust being about a metre away from my window, and the combined heat of my PC + 3 monitors, and consoles + TV, it becomes somewhat unhealthy, if not overly sweaty.</p>
<p><em>This is cheaper than buying air-conditioning myself</em></p>
<h4 id="reason-3_4">Reason #3 <a class="head_anchor" href="#reason-3_4" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h4>
<p>On a personal level, I feel like the majority of the time that I don’t want to go somewhere or spend time elsewhere outside of the haven I’ve built at home, is because I feel like I don’t have the access to my files and work to tinker with as I go along.</p>
<p>Coding and tinkering with various web projects has become an almost <em>safety blanket</em> to what I do.</p>
<h3 id="the-first-test_3">The first test <a class="head_anchor" href="#the-first-test_3" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h3>
<p>Over the course of a weekend, I went ahead and did some very rudimentary testing of some functions I’d be performing.</p>
<p>Of course; a speed test is in order:</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/iluafskvxldc7w.png" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/iluafskvxldc7w_small.png" alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-19 at 10.45.42 am.png"></a></p>
<p>I’m pretty content with the speeds! My main concern was the upload speed of my laptop; which as you can see, can more than handle the 1080p streaming I was intending to do with it.</p>
<p>I’m surprised the USB 3.0 to Ethernet dongle I was using didn’t crap out! (cheers to my mate: Matt for providing the adapter)</p>
<p>Note to self though, in the future I’ll need to take photos or screenshots of my screen streaming for image quality comparisons (I know streaming will always be worse in terms of visual acuity, but by <em>how much</em> is worth quantifying)</p>
<h4 id="gaming_4">Gaming <a class="head_anchor" href="#gaming_4" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h4>
<p>Over the weekend, I used a combination of TeamViewer, Hamachi and Steam In-Home Streaming to get a few games going. The image quality felt something akin to watching a twitch stream; there was occasional ribboning of colours in fast-moving games, but aside from that, it worked flawlessly. The almost low-spec restrictions of the laptop forced me to consider playing some of the more indie games in my backlog too. </p>
<p>Rocket League, Hammerwatch, Torchlight all got a go - and I have to say, the only times the frames or input stuttered were more the lack of power behind the laptop and its unoptimised configurations (they were all set to high settings etc.).</p>
<h4 id="media_4">Media <a class="head_anchor" href="#media_4" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h4>
<p>Plex had a couple of movies I played to both a friend and myself (Kingsman is a great movie!) simultaneously.</p>
<p>The quality was superb, and stress on the laptop was more than manageable! </p>
<h4 id="productivity_4">Productivity <a class="head_anchor" href="#productivity_4" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h4>
<p>Admittedly, I did this through TeamViewer, which is rubbish for such situations <em>anyway</em>. However, it was acceptable! There was some input lag, but that’s more TeamViewer’s crappiness as opposed to any other laptop issues. This I expect, should be resolved with proper Remote Desktop access (I’ll need to change to Windows 10 Pro).</p>
<hr>
<p>Overall, I think the first test was a success, and it’s time to start planning a serious configuration for this application!</p>
<p>I’ll try to keep it well documented :P</p>
tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/new-site-and-integration2018-03-11T15:12:43-07:002018-03-11T15:12:43-07:00jtiong.com site, and integration<p>Well, I’ve got my website slowly being redeveloped into something a little more presentable. I’ve integrated it (very loosely through RSS feed) with my actual blog on <a href="https://jaytee.svbtle.com" rel="nofollow">svbtle.com</a></p>
<p>It’s not as prolific a website as Medium.com or Wordpress, and in fact is little more than a blank page and some text input areas, but it serves its purpose as an ongoing always-on blogging service.</p>
<p>You’ll see me doing a lot more updates to this blog now that it’s running, and they’ll be slightly briefer posts, I suppose. For now, I think I’ve found a happy balance between creating my own CMS, and using my existing subscription to svbtle, where content and data are <a href="https://svbtle.com/promise" rel="nofollow">promised to be kept online</a></p>
tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/ergodox-ez-layout-v3-42018-02-03T23:22:20-08:002018-02-03T23:22:20-08:00My Keyboard Layout<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/oginpbslztbn9a.png" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/oginpbslztbn9a_small.png" alt="neat-ergodox-logo.png"></a></p>
<p><a href="http://configure.ergodox-ez.com/keyboard_layouts/qwwdeo/edit" rel="nofollow">See and Download my Current Layout Here</a></p>
<p>Back at the start of the year, I picked up an Ergodox EZ keyboard; in an effort to save my wrists from the terrors of RSI. The keyboard, is actually quite alien compared to most standard keyboards, with something of a split QWERTY layout, it still bugs a lot of people when they see the keyboard. </p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/uhjjlbkz5zwzjg.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/uhjjlbkz5zwzjg_small.jpg" alt="image.jpg"></a></p>
<p>Needless to say, it’s taken me quite some time, in fact, I <em>still am</em> adapting to using this keyboard. It doesn’t help even more that I’m using a regular shaped keyboard at work everyday, either.</p>
<p>I still make a lot of typo errors, and I’ll stumble every now and then based on games asking me to press certain non-alphanumeric keys (Ctrl, Shift, etc.) and I <strong>sorely miss</strong> the arrow keys being in that familiar up/down/left/right shape on a regular keyboard. Instead, it’s an almost Vi-esque left/right/up/down setup. Still, I’ve persisted, and my typing speed almost matches the original keyboard layout speeds I had.</p>
<p>Where I really started to fall in love with the ErgoDox EZ though, is the eventually gentle tweaking I’ve been doing over time to the default key layout that the keyboard shipped with. It’s really become <em>my own</em> keyboard, and it’s been a journey that I’ve found myself looking at other lovely keyboards and told myself “No, I’m going to tough it out with the ErgoDox, because it’s unique, it’s mine.”</p>
<p>Without further ado though, here’s the layout - it’s split over two layers, with a toggle button in the bottom right to switch between layers. I can add a couple more layers on top (0 - 3 layers), but I’m trying to keep it to a minimum.</p>
<p><strong>LAYER 0</strong> </p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/grflpqso8q95dw.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/grflpqso8q95dw_small.jpg" alt="layer01.JPG"></a></p>
<p><strong>LAYER 1</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/5ikrbrthphhhua.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/5ikrbrthphhhua_small.jpg" alt="layer02.JPG"></a></p>
<p>And as per the link at the top of this post, you can <a href="http://configure.ergodox-ez.com/keyboard_layouts/qwwdeo/edit" rel="nofollow">see and download my Layout Here</a>. It’s dubbed version 3.4 – if you search the layouts on the configuration site for “jaytwitch” it’ll interestingly bring up a few of my historical layouts too :)</p>
tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/2018-wow-it-s-been-a-while2018-02-03T23:21:00-08:002018-02-03T23:21:00-08:002018! Wow it's been a while...!<p>My last update was quite a while ago…! Coincidentally it’s also about a topic that I think I should write about again, just to see what’s changed since then!</p>
<p>In my time away, I’ve since started stabilising things regarding my personal career as a coder/developer/designer, and really, have started looking for a place online to write and journal my story. Enter this blog!</p>
<p>So, hopefully, you’ll see me updating this thing a bit more regularly, with a few more personal musings than before.</p>
tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/working-in-windows-again2016-09-01T17:47:41-07:002016-09-01T17:47:41-07:00Working in Windows again, with the power of the Atom!<p>So, as you read in my last post - I recently got a new Gigabyte Laptop to start using as my all-in-one gaming and development device. This has recently meant that I’ve returned to the Windows ecosystem after developing and coding in Unix/OS X for the last 2.5 years professionally.</p>
<p>It’s a helluva change…!</p>
<p>My previous working arrangement was:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://sublimetext.com" rel="nofollow">Sublime Text 3</a> as my primary text editor for coding</li>
<li>The built-in <em>Terminal</em> application to handle my SSH shenanigans</li>
<li>
<em><a href="https://filezilla-project.org/" rel="nofollow">Filezilla FTP</a></em> for any GUI based file transactions needed</li>
</ul>
<p>Admittedly, the above covered about 99% of everything I needed to do. Over the last few days or so, I made do with an almost similar compromise in Windows:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://sublimetext.com" rel="nofollow">Sublime Text 3</a> works just as well in Windows for coding and development!</li>
<li>
<em>Git Bash</em> – which comes with <a href="https://git-scm.com/downloads" rel="nofollow">Git for Windows</a> is pretty darn great too! It’s a very nice alternative to the Windows Command Prompt, and works much like a Linux terminal.</li>
<li>
<em><a href="https://winscp.net/eng/download.php" rel="nofollow">WinSCP</a></em> - solves my need for GUI file transactions; it’s less bloated than Filezilla FTP (in my opinion anyway)</li>
</ul>
<p>This essentially matched everything I needed to do; but I’ve now also made the jump to <strong><a href="http://atom.io" rel="nofollow">Atom</a></strong> - the free editor/pseudo-IDE from the Github team. When I first tried Atom it had a lot of small, tiny little issues that kept me from using it as my primary coding editor. They all appear to be fixed now; and it has the equivalent plugins that I use in Sublime. I suppose in theory, this list is a lot more for my own personal use, than for any sort of public disclosure:</p>
<p><strong>atom-beautify</strong> - lets me implement <a href="https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer" rel="nofollow">PHPCBF</a> (part of the PHP Code Sniffer package) to automatically ensure my coding is to PSR-2 standards; it’s not 100% perfect, but it saves a lot of time with what it <em>can</em> fix.</p>
<p><strong>atom-alignment</strong> - this is both for aesthetics and sanity. It basically lines up repetitive lines of code, such as array assignments, etc. So that it’s a lot more readable, and quicker to understand. For example:<br>
<a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/xqk4fprla1qtg.png" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/xqk4fprla1qtg_small.png" alt="alignedCodeComparison.png"></a></p>
<p><strong>emmet</strong> - I was always a bit hesitant to use Emmet when I first started out using Sublime Text; I figured, another bunch of shortcut keys to learn isn’t going to be as productive for me as just using raw power and speed to bash out whatever code was needed. Boy was I wrong. The shortcuts are really actually just <em>one</em> shortcut, and the syntax is logical and smooth. Definitely thrilled that this is available for both Atom and Sublime Text.</p>
<p><strong>git-control</strong> - Atom’s native git tweaks and this package are what tipped the balance and made me decide to switch from Sublime Text. Git-Control is still heavily in development, but it provides a basic UI for you to do some quick git operations. It’s not as rapid as opening up the command palette and punching in ‘commit’ or ‘push’, but it does let me easily select files to commit in specific pushes, etc. As eLeague.gg’s platform gets more and more complicated; I find myself grouping my commits a little more for better coherence when I’m reviewing code and what I need to do. This certainly beats doing everything via the Sublime command line.</p>
<p>It really needs to be noted though, that for git-control to use your existing SSH agent and SSH key settings; you’d best install the <strong><a href="https://github.com/Microsoft/Git-Credential-Manager-for-Windows" rel="nofollow">Microsoft Git Credential Manager for Windows</a></strong>. It’ll automagically work whenever you use git across anything, and it solved what could have been hours of tinkering for myself. I had discovered it early on while trying to tinker around and getting my environment working… huge sigh of relief!</p>
<h2 id="things-i39ve-installed-but-they39re-kinda-opt_2">Things I’ve installed but they’re kinda optional…? <a class="head_anchor" href="#things-i39ve-installed-but-they39re-kinda-opt_2" rel="nofollow">#</a>
</h2>
<p><strong>gitKraken</strong> - learning more about the <strong><a href="http://electron.atom.io/" rel="nofollow">Electron</a></strong> platform for building desktop Apps (it’s what’s behind the Atom Editor); I came across gitKraken. It’s a very attractive git GUI that does have its benefits (like managing merges, and conflict resolution) - but being the solo developer on the project so far, I haven’t had many issues with this, and it’s minimised even further now by my moving to a single computer for development… We’ll see how it goes?</p>
<p><strong>Composer</strong> - I normally use composer as an autoloading assistant in many projects of mine (in fact, every project I have right now!) - and I wasn’t so sure about installing it on Windows; thankfully recent updates by the Composer team have made that ridiculously easy. It automagically adds it to the environment path, and system variables; and it extremely simplified the <a href="https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer" rel="nofollow">PHPCBF</a> (PHP Code Sniffer package) installation for me.</p>
<p><strong>mRemote-NG</strong> - I can easily use Git Bash to SSH into servers, but that would involve managing multiple windows, and remembering all the credentials (whenever there’s no SSH key available). mRemote offers me a centralised area for doing all that, in tabbed windows. It hasn’t gotten that much mileage from me yet, as most of the time my development is all local now, and deployment is mostly automated. But, it’s still very handy to have!</p>
<p>That pretty much sums up everything…</p>
<p>There’s one more app I installed, but it’s more focused on my transition from deploying to a world-accessible development domain, to a local development environment.</p>
tag:jaytee.svbtle.com,2014:Post/tweaking-and-reiteration2016-09-01T04:30:56-07:002016-09-01T04:30:56-07:00Going Mobile...? Desktop?<p>So, it’s been quite a while! Today I’d like to make a fairly quick post about my most recent toy, and the impact it’s actually had (within 24 hours - that’s pretty impressive!) on the way I’m working and doing eLeague.gg stuff!</p>
<p>Behold, my newest gadget (<em>toy</em>) - the <strong>Gigabyte P57X-1070-603S</strong>:<br>
<a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/sddqk2hkjx5ivg.png" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/sddqk2hkjx5ivg_small.png" alt="20160804142608_big_1_1.png"></a></p>
<p>It’s a pretty big 17" Laptop, with the new GeForce 10 series graphics cards built into it (a Geforce GTX 1070 to be exact). It’s a device of many firsts for me:</p>
<ul>
<li>My first gaming dedicated laptop</li>
<li>My first $2500+ laptop</li>
<li>My first 17" laptop</li>
<li>My first attempt at rolling everything I do into a single machine, realistically</li>
</ul>
<p>It’s the fourth point that I’m going to be rambling on about today. Prior to owning this laptop, I was always a fan of the MacBook Air - using it in excess of 8 hours a day, I was essentially surgically grafted to it. It let me move around and still keep up coding.</p>
<p>The way I worked revolved around a core desktop setup (5 monitors, nice keyboard, etc) and I would float around coding on my laptop during the day. But unfortunately, I noticed something:</p>
<ol>
<li>I would splurge on my desktop, and it was great, but…</li>
<li>I spent more time on my laptop than at my desktop at home</li>
<li>I couldn’t do everything on my laptop (like photoshop, gaming, etc)</li>
<li>At eLeague.gg events I ended up bringing <strong>both</strong> desktop & laptop</li>
</ol>
<p>So I figured that I would really need something that could let me roll everything into one. How fortunate it was for me then, that NVIDIA rolled out its 10 series GPU into laptops that essentially, had all the clout of modest desktop gaming PCs with minimal compromise. Hence, I’m now a primary laptop user, back in the Windows ecosystem.</p>
<p>The benefits are pretty amazing so far, and I haven’t even had an opportunity to attend a LAN yet:</p>
<ul>
<li>My laptop replaces my current primary machine at work, and is far and away the most powerful machine in the office.</li>
<li>At eLeague.gg I can now focus on immediately using my laptop to begin management and deployment of the event’s technical features without having to wait for the team to roll out network and power functionality. More time for management, less time in labour means I can focus on refining the event for both our (growing number of!) attendees, and sponsorship commitments.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the spirit of brevity, I’ll go over how things are changing in our development and workflow, especially on a code level in another post, for now - this laptop appeared at a time of drastic change in how things work for us here at eLeague.gg</p>
<p><strong>ASUS</strong> have come out with a slightly cheaper, similarly spec’d laptop since I started writing this post, and I thoroughly recommend it for any potential gamers out there looking for a powerful machine to use at LAN parties and on-the-go gaming. It’s slightly smaller at 15.6" so it’s a bit more convenient than the massive 17" Gigabyte laptop I have.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/08/asuss-new-rog-strix-laptop-is-gaming-first-everything-else-second/" rel="nofollow">Check out this article written by Alex ‘Dippa’ Walker about the laptop!</a></p>