How not to write a blog

When I started this blog, I told myself that I'd be updating it every few days, or at least once a week. I said once a month at the absolute worst. Who would have thought it would be a whole year? Not posting any updates for a year is how not to write a blog.

I'm going to change the way I go about writing. I'll be focusing more on brief postings on a specific subject, such as a programming technique or bug that needed fixing. By writing shorter posts, it should be easier to write more often.

Even though I haven't been updating my blog, I have been working on this or that. A lot of my effort has been spent on IRC Tools, my framework for .NET that will make writing IRC bots and clients a breeze. That's the goal anyway, hah.

What have I been working on and what do I plan to work on?

IRC Tools is still making progress, as I mentioned above. It has been a great exercise in learning about threading, the IRC protocol (which is horrible, by the way), and best practices for API design. I'll be exploring .NET Framework 4.5 and updating the library to use the new asynchronous functionality. IRC bots and clients see great benefits from asynchronous capabilities.

calebdelnay.com currently runs Drupal 6, which if you follow the Drupal world is now superseded by Drupal 7. Soon I will be upgrading the site to Drupal 7 and will be rebuilding the theme. What I want to do this time around is incorporate more HTML 5 and CSS 3. Employing some responsive web design will improve mobile support.

Expedition Canvas has not had much focus. But, since I started the experiment, browsers have released faster and better versions. Mozilla introduced their request animation frame API which is great for canvas based games. I've also been doing a lot of research on general game design, such as game loops, entity systems, state management, and many other related topics. I may revisit Expedition Canvas at some point, rewriting it now that I'm more familiar with games programming.

I also have a very lengthy post written that covers the Windows 7 secure desktop (the lock screen and login screens) and discusses a technique for running programs so that they appear on those screens. I'll be finishing that post up by the end of the year.

Look for more posts soon!