My latest news, and the new site I just launched ...
by David Higgins · 06/19/2007 (8:51 pm) · 3 comments
This isn't really Game related, but I figured I'd post an update and let everyone know what I've been up to since I've been -very- quiet these past months. Those who know me on the forums probably haven't seen a post from me in weeks ... and, I'm hoping to be able to get back to that but life's eating away at my free time.
So, on to other news, I previously announced my employment with Axosoft in a blog a while back about a Marketing Contest they were running ... I was very pleased to see all the great submissions from the GG'ers (what, you think I didn't track your visits? HAH!). Some of them were extremely unique and seemed very well thought out, however, the company decided to go with the "Buggin Out" YouTube video posted by the "Nerd Core for Life" member "MC Router" ... sorry guys ... hey, you never know, they're might be another one coming at some point ... my boss seems to like doing interesting things like that ...
And on that note ... about my boss's interesting "things" ... I've recently been tasked with what was supposed to be a simple upgrade (feature release) for an existing site that the company had. Low and behold, the simple feature update turned into a completely new site ... who'd of thunk, eh?
Well, my boss and a co-worker created a site a few years back called TransferBigFiles. This site, like the name implies, allows you to send "big" files (1gb max) through the websites upload interface ... now, any one whose ever really tried to send large files (20mb and up) through an HTTP POST knows that it's flakey ... doesn't matter how reliable both ends of the connection are ... even over local LAN you can drop packets and the entire transfer goes to hell ... so ... my boss asked me to make a windows application that allows you to 'drag and drop' the files onto the website ... so I prototyped it ... and the prototype turned into something none of us set out to expect ...
And ... on THAT note ... hrm, we making tunes here or something? Ok ... enough with the 'notes' ...
So, this nifty little windows program wound up getting skinned, and converted into a 'Drag and Drop Photo Album Creation Tool' (we simply just called it "The DropZone"). So, after we spent a few days tweaking the TransferBigFiles.com download page and turning it into a Photo Album page ... we set out to launch a completely new site ... and ... so we did!
PhotoDrop.com was officially launched last Tuesday (or Wednesday) in Live Beta, and the "Photo DropZone" client was officially launched yesterday.
My boss blogged about it briefly, and in his blog (to my own surprise even!), he announced that the company is going to donate $0.05 (Five Cents!) for every Photo Album page created with the Windows Client. Now, there were some minute restrictions to it ... such as capping out at $1,000 a month ... but hey ... $1,000 a month ... DAMN! So yeah, I believe the charity is still undetermined, but the company is going to donate $0.05 to a local charity of up to $1,000 a month for an undetermined period of time ...
Now, thats some pretty cool news, eh?
Oh ... did I mention ... the site is COMPLETELY FREE ... yep ...
We've even got a nifty YouTube video (who doesn't have a YouTube video these days, geez!) that shows just how easy it is to use the site ... check it out here
And, for the blog screen ...
Yeah, how original of me ... paste a screenshot of the site, :)
For the lazy ... if you want to go directly to a sample album (pictures of a trip I took to Sedona, Arizona), you can go here
For those of you who read through this and went "What does this have to do with GarageGames, Torque, Games or Game Development" ... well ... all I can say is ... maybe you didn't read the entire post? (PhotoDrop is a great place to upload your game screenshots, fast and simple ...) and you can share the screenshot gallery link with anyone you want (ie; link to it in your next .plan, :P)
So, on to other news, I previously announced my employment with Axosoft in a blog a while back about a Marketing Contest they were running ... I was very pleased to see all the great submissions from the GG'ers (what, you think I didn't track your visits? HAH!). Some of them were extremely unique and seemed very well thought out, however, the company decided to go with the "Buggin Out" YouTube video posted by the "Nerd Core for Life" member "MC Router" ... sorry guys ... hey, you never know, they're might be another one coming at some point ... my boss seems to like doing interesting things like that ...
And on that note ... about my boss's interesting "things" ... I've recently been tasked with what was supposed to be a simple upgrade (feature release) for an existing site that the company had. Low and behold, the simple feature update turned into a completely new site ... who'd of thunk, eh?
Well, my boss and a co-worker created a site a few years back called TransferBigFiles. This site, like the name implies, allows you to send "big" files (1gb max) through the websites upload interface ... now, any one whose ever really tried to send large files (20mb and up) through an HTTP POST knows that it's flakey ... doesn't matter how reliable both ends of the connection are ... even over local LAN you can drop packets and the entire transfer goes to hell ... so ... my boss asked me to make a windows application that allows you to 'drag and drop' the files onto the website ... so I prototyped it ... and the prototype turned into something none of us set out to expect ...
And ... on THAT note ... hrm, we making tunes here or something? Ok ... enough with the 'notes' ...
So, this nifty little windows program wound up getting skinned, and converted into a 'Drag and Drop Photo Album Creation Tool' (we simply just called it "The DropZone"). So, after we spent a few days tweaking the TransferBigFiles.com download page and turning it into a Photo Album page ... we set out to launch a completely new site ... and ... so we did!
PhotoDrop.com was officially launched last Tuesday (or Wednesday) in Live Beta, and the "Photo DropZone" client was officially launched yesterday.
My boss blogged about it briefly, and in his blog (to my own surprise even!), he announced that the company is going to donate $0.05 (Five Cents!) for every Photo Album page created with the Windows Client. Now, there were some minute restrictions to it ... such as capping out at $1,000 a month ... but hey ... $1,000 a month ... DAMN! So yeah, I believe the charity is still undetermined, but the company is going to donate $0.05 to a local charity of up to $1,000 a month for an undetermined period of time ...
Now, thats some pretty cool news, eh?
Oh ... did I mention ... the site is COMPLETELY FREE ... yep ...
We've even got a nifty YouTube video (who doesn't have a YouTube video these days, geez!) that shows just how easy it is to use the site ... check it out here
And, for the blog screen ...
Yeah, how original of me ... paste a screenshot of the site, :)
For the lazy ... if you want to go directly to a sample album (pictures of a trip I took to Sedona, Arizona), you can go here
For those of you who read through this and went "What does this have to do with GarageGames, Torque, Games or Game Development" ... well ... all I can say is ... maybe you didn't read the entire post? (PhotoDrop is a great place to upload your game screenshots, fast and simple ...) and you can share the screenshot gallery link with anyone you want (ie; link to it in your next .plan, :P)
#2
06/20/2007 (8:38 am)
Very cool David... was wondering what you've been working on lately :)
#3
I have been communicating with James Rozee a bit this past week ... in regards to the Dungeon Builder code ... we're both a bit tied up, but we both also want to see the code through ...
06/20/2007 (9:11 am)
Matthew, yeah ... like I said above, I've been busy with 'life' ... this was a project I did during my 9 to 5 ... so progress wasn't an option ;)I have been communicating with James Rozee a bit this past week ... in regards to the Dungeon Builder code ... we're both a bit tied up, but we both also want to see the code through ...
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