Posts Tagged ‘mike stern’

Hi guys. Well busy weekend ahead and some cool news today. I’m releasing 6 (yes, 6) new products over the next few weeks. I’m not going to get into detail right now about what they are but here are their names so you can hazard to guess what they might do. They are: Simventory, Shotgun, Rug Weaver, Simbar, Jobby, and Cabins. Web pages will be added to the site with more descriptions and screenshots shortly. Now, with all these new tools we need testers! Yup. If you’re interested in getting your hands on a new tool and want to run it through it’s paces here’s what you do. First, write an email to Mike Stern with a brief description of why you want to test these tools, what kind of qualifications you think you have and a brief rundown of your system specs (hardware, operating system, memory, etc.) Mike will make the call on who’s in and who’s out and then we’ll send you a beta agreement that you’ll need to digitally sign and return. Once you’ve been approved, you’ll be given the keys to the candy shop where you can get the programs, access to the beta forums and an online bug tracking tool. Remember, do not send your application to me! It will just be ignored. Enjoy and looking forward to having you on the team!

Next up, Maxis released their Hot Date maker tool (or whatever it’s called) yesterday. You might want to head over to the TSR forums if you’re having problems with it. There seem to be a lot of reports about transexual Sims running rampant in your downtown core.

Also, I should have the regular forums here upgraded to the profession, non-popup from hell version this weekend. I hunkered down and paid the $30 fee to get rid of them. They didn’t bother me much while they were there, but after the full screen NetFlix ones kept screwing up my display enough was enough. I seem to be pumping a lot of money into apparently free services to keep this site going (Blogger Pro, BlogBack, EzBoard). Who says the internet is a free ride?

Okay, so this isn’t exactly Sim news (like I post Sim news anyways) but I thought it funny when I read it. Scientists over at Texas A&M; University cloned a cat last year and is reporting it’s healthy and all that jazz. What I found funny in the article was this statement:

Pet owners are already paying at least one firm to store cells from their pet cats, dogs and llamas, should cloning in these species become a reality, the Journal reported.

Like we need more cats in the world. Enough with the freakin’ cats, dogs, mice, cows, and goats. Will someone clone me a Rebecca Romijn? So Sim owners won’t have to worry too much if their pet llamas die. Just grab some cells and clone away. For those of you that are completely clueless and think I’m finally having that big nervous breakdown you’ve been waiting for, Maxis has always has some affliction for llamas, putting them in various Sim games and such. Okay, back to the funny farm for me. You can read the entire article on cloning Fido here.

Hey there. A couple of things to launch the weekend.

First, there’s been apparently gobs of reports that people can’t see the site. The site looks fine to me under IE 5 and 6 but I haven’t tried Netscape. The only way I can fix this is if someone tells me what browser they’re using and what the page looks like. Of course I have a conundrum. If you can’t see the site, how can you read this and tell me about it? Oh woe is me. Anyways, please stop emailing Heather at SimFreaks about this, she has more than enough to do already.

I’m just rallying the beta testers up this weekend with the next version of blueprint. We’re taking a slightly different approach this time ’round. Mike Stern has graciously volunteered to be the leader of the merry men (and women) so he’s co-ordinating the test team and has a plan worked out. No, you guys still haven’t recieved word on who was picked yet so that’ll be coming this weekend. Sorry for the unnerving delay.

Up next on the tool palette are the ObjectEditor (basically the same thing that’s in the current blueprint turned into a stand-alone application with a few enhancements), the BHAV Editor for editing object behavior trees, a string editor to handle all the various strings stuffed into those objects and finally the SpriteEditor, a stand-alone app that will let you import individual bitmaps for complete control over object replacement. Then of course there’s blueprint that ties all these things together, but that’s coming later. The CareerEditor is still in the works and is awaiting some changes to support Living Large, House Party and the soon-to-be-released-where-is-my-copy-Maxis? Hot Date. However, that’s on the back burner right now while I get the other tools out the door. I’m stuck in this human form with only two arms and limited brain capacity so bear with me as I get things completed. Thanks!