As we have seen in previous articles, I’ve been looking at what we might call Personal Cloud Databases. There are many Cloud Data tools out there. I found a review article here, and then looked at these and other alternatives.

• ZOHO Creator – 3 apps free. $15/mo basic plan.
• Dabble DB – free public data. $24/mo for private data. Very cool concepts.
• Web Office – $53/mo includes data.
• Google Docs – Free. No database. Spreadsheet only.
• BaseCamp – No free option. Starts at $24/mo.
• Windows Azure – Clearly not personal. Impossible to tell what it would cost.

And there are more, mostly pitched at small businesses and enterprises, and expensive. At least very expensive compared with Blogging or Photo Galleries. So my question is: Why are database tools so expensive compared with Blogging and Photo tools, which are usually free or almost free? The reason I believe is Open Source.

I think there is a very interesting opportunity for a platform, like WordPress for personal data tables.

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As you may remember from a previous article, I have been using ZOHO creator to store MMO game data while I play the game to keep track of my characters and their loot. I was not happy with the ZOHO solution due to it’s high cost – $15/mo beyond 3 databases [applications]. While I have not yet exceeded that, I desire a solution that will live on my hosting service where I have unlimited storage/databases.

I have found a solution with DHX Quick Tables, and for now I’m using that as we will see. (more…)

I have started using Google calendar and now I want to analyze the events that I’m saving. Google provides a calendar, but no tools to analyze the events on a calendar. Also they only provide iCal format export of the calendar and no way to move the calendar to Google Docs.

An iCal importer for Open Office Calc would have the widest appeal and widest platform support.

I have written a simple importer for Open Office 3.1.1. I have not tested it on other versions of OO.

You can download it here: iCal_Import_04

After an Import

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The WP-Cumulus plug-in displays a tag / topic cloud using flash. Here we go:

Is that cool or what??

I didn’t have any tags assigned, but it’s willing to cloud my topics, er Categories. So no worries.

Enjoy,

Windy

So, when you install Karmic Koala [9.10], you still don’t get Windows File sharing [SAMBA], and setting it up is still a few undocumented and obscure steps. I covered this before for Gutsy, but things are a little different with Karmic, so I’ve redone the screen shots and directions.

If you could Google for “Ubuntu Samba Install” and get a page that told you what you wanted to know, then I wouldn’t do this post, but you don’t get a good page. This page is not that helpful. It looks it was written in the dark ages and it does not configure WINS so that you can PING the other systems on your network.

So here’s the real scoop, which is a modified version of this post I did for Gutsy.

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I just upgraded my Ubuntu Linux system to Karmic Koala [ 9.10 ] from Gutsy Gibbon [7.04]. As you can tell, it had been some time since I had upgrade. The good news is that the upgrades, through 8.04, 8.10, 8.04, to 9.10, went without a hitch, although they took over 3 hours.

And network file sharing, SAMBA or SMB, works without a hitch with no modifications to the built in configuration. Hurray!!!. You may remember a previous post about Ubuntu Not Playing Nice that showed the modifications that I had to do to BIND and to SMB configuration to get things to work. UPDATE: file sharing worked because I had fixed it in Gutsy. It still DOES NOT WORK OUT OF THE BOX with Karmic Koala.

See this post for how to start to make it work with Karmic [9.10].

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ZOHO provides Cloud Applications including a database builder called Creator. It looks very nice and allows you to build a simple database with very little work, and no extensive database expertise. I moved my 2Moons character database to ZOHO in only an hour or so. Looks great to me.
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James Cameron’s vision of Pandora caused me to think in new ways about what it is to have a sustainable culture. Clearly the Na’vi culture is completely sustainable, and in many ways very advanced. Here are some perspectives on the history of our planet and my take on some of the ideas in Avatar. (more…)

I encourage you to donate to Wikipedia on your next visit. Keep this information free and plentiful as a resource for the world. If you are like me, you use this site many times each day.

Thanks,

Darrell

Demon Spear

We are all level 72, or more for Christmas. Some of us are wearing our Christmas hats. At level 72 we all get to wear those new helms we killed the bosses in Castor and Norak to get and we all have new weapons.

We have included a gallery of our latest photos with this Christmas Card.

To work up from level 68 to level 72 has taken about a day and a half for each of us. We started doing the quests and hunting in Crespo and then at about level 70 we were able to move to Draco Desert and do the quests there. There are two types of quests, the normal quests and the Commission Quests. Commission quests are purchased at a special commission center. (more…)

Recently a TWIT podcast brought up some interesting points about privacy. But maybe it’ s not about Privacy. I’m not the first to say this. Maybe it was Leo in one of his podcasts. But I’m taking up the call.

TWIT 225 Schmidt Happens

Maybe it’s not privacy, but monetizing. It’s about “monetizing me”. Obviously Facebook, Twitter, google, netflix and the other sites are making money by selling our info. But they aren’t paying us for it. I might be disposed to make a lot more information available and public on those sites if I were being paid by Facebook and the others to do that. The more information that I share and make public the higher the rate / month that they send to my PayPal account.

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Christmas in Loa Castle

Hi, Demon Flayer here. I’m a younger brother of many of the folks you’ve seen before, and as such I’m often given the task of selling things that my other siblings find along the way. But that’s a small annoyance compared with the large advantage of getting the hand-me-down armor and weapons from my older brother Windy Flayer.

As you can see, 2Moons has been decorated for Christmas. The main towns of Loa and Braiken have trees and Santa. I’ve not checked yet but Parca Temple usually has a tree outside on the walkway too. Last year they left that tree up until July as I recall. But Heiharp is a cold and snowy place, so the tree seemed right at home in the cold weather.

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Sandy Dunewinds of Elona

Finally in 2012 an Open Source MMO appeared. As late as 2009 the entire field was littered with the corpses of failed and abandoned projects. With a few exceptions, like Panda3D , very few Open Source MMO platforms have made any lasting impression.

However, now the long wait is over. Dream World has appeared. Dream World combines the good ideas from a number of proprietary projects that have gone before, but has opened up the world to players and non-programmers. (more…)

Demon Spear

I am Demon Spear, an Aloken. I’m writing this to let you all know that my brothers and sisters and I have all reached level 68 here in the world of 2Moons. It has been a long road to get here, and we have far to go, but by helping each other with loot, and sometimes DIL, and by working with other folks here in parties, we have been able to progress to level 68 which gives us our new armor and a new weapon at level 66.

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Closeup of Sandy

Whew, we made it. It was quite a struggle to get to level 67 and my new armor. I’ve tried several places to work, but Castor Cave L2 has been the most productive. I worked some at Crespo but this often took too many pots. I quckly found that Draco Desert did not work well. While I can get a lot of Exp from the monsters there, one mistep and I’m dead and the pot cost is very high. I have had the best progress in Castor Cave working the sections with Algols.

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