This is where I write

Category: Programming

10 things I hate about crunch-time in the games industry

(This post is for all the family and friends who were puzzled by my near-disappearance during August and September. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d be busy at work for a few weeks!).

For the majority of video game developers, end of project overtime (a.k.a crunch-time) is the near-inevitable tradeoff we accept for an interesting and generally fun job. And like the Curb Your Enthusiasm sketch about Hodgkin’s disease, there are both ’good’ and ‘bad’ varieties of crunch-time. 

Good crunch comes close to the end of the project. There are X number of bugs preventing you shipping and the end is in sight. Another form of good crunch would be working overtime to make that last-minute-yet-terrific tweak, or polishing up the latest E3/Press/Cover-Disc demo that will be seen by thousands.

Bad crunch is very different. 

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New version of Keyword Tags for WordPress

After feedback from a few people, and more time using Windows Live Writer with WordPress, I’ve uploaded a new version of the Keyword Tags for WordPress plugin that features several changes;

  • Static WordPress pages (e.g. ‘About’) can now be edited within Windows Live Writer and Ecto.
  • Added a fix that stops Windows Live Writer from truncating posts that use the <!–more–> tag
  • Added option that will always display drafts above normal posts when viewing a list of posts within Windows Live Writer/Ecto
  • Added an option that will set the date and time of a post to the current date/time when a post is published after previously being saved as a draft via XMLRPC. By default there’s a bug in WordPress where posts are given the date/time they were first saved as a draft if edited via a tool such as Windows Live Writer/Ecto.

Get it here; Feedback welcome!

Update 

I’ve just uploaded a new version (0.75) that has has an option to turn tags into a meta-keyword statement in the header of single posts or pages. I’d had this functionality in my custom theme for a while, but thought I’d make it a global option :)

Keyword Tags for WordPress, with Windows Live Writer/Ecto support

I’ve just posted my first WordPress plugin, Keyword Tags, which adds keyword/tagging capabilities to WordPress. While many such plugins already exist as far as I’m aware this is the first to support the MetaWeblog API – meaning blogging tools such as Windows Live Writer or Ecto can publish keywords with no need to manually edit tags. 

The plugin also offers the ability to automatically append keywords to posts for services such as Technorati or WordPress so there is no need to edit theme files. If custom behaviour is required the user may use the simple API to control the output and formatting of tags within their theme.

Read more and download it here: Keyword Tags for WordPress

Opera 9 and FeedDemon

On a daily basis Opera and FeedDemon are two of my most used applications, the others being Outlook, Visual Studio and ProDG. A while ago I came across an extension by Rijk van Geijtenbeek which adds an option to Opera’s context-menu allowing you to right-click on the URL of an RSS feed and subscribe in FeedDemon.

This works great, however Opera 9 added an incredibly useful content (read: advert) blocker to the default menus which is not available in Rijk’s pre-Opera 9 offering. To rectify this I’ve created a new version which takes the menus as-shipped in Opera 9 and adds “Send To FeedDemon” options.

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© 2012 This is where I write | Andrew Grant