Bad News Google - Google Reader Edition

Well, there is some news for Google recently. And for most of us, not good news.

Google Shutting Down Google Reader:
Google announced March 15th that they are shutting down Google reader. This means that you will have to download all the subscriptions that you had in Google reader by going to the Google Takeout and downloading all your data. Google says that the reasoning behind shutting down this feature is that the usage of this service has been declining, and that they want to dedicate the power of the service to other products they offer that are popular. (Most likely YouTube, Gmail, Gtalk, and the Google Play Store). With that said, their are many other RSS readers out there, and Google is giving you the 3 month grace period to find another. I personally like using RSS reader software. But that's beyond the point.
One common misconception of Google closing the Reader platform is that Feedburner is going too. This is NOT true... For now. Because of the Google Reader platform closing, this may mean bad news for Feedburner. This is not for sure, since no actual statistics about the service are released, but it is a very similar platform, and has to appeal like other Google Applications, since it looks nothing like Google, and its not as visually appealing as services like Gmail, Google Code, or this platform for example. (Blogger) Which leads me to believe that Google is not putting any staff on it, since the launch of Google Plus. Which took most of the staff away from good products like Feedburner for example, and put them on teams in Google Plus.

My opinion of the Shutdown of Google Reader is that Google is making a bad and good decision, I don't know the details on how much resources Google Reader takes up, but I know that Google has more than 1 million servers at their disposal, but me learning the other day that just the user accounts for YouTube take up around 12 TB of data. And that was back in 2011 without the space taken up by the videos alone. So obviously, server space might be needed by Google. But I personally love Google with more and more products. I have signed up for every product Google has created. I would rather have slow Google products, than few Google products. Google is just making their fans mad.

Minecraft Realms

A very important update we missed in the latest update: (Play on words if you wish)

Not a very big improvement to this update, but will be in the future! 

A big problem in today's Minecraft servers, besides the problems stated in my previous article that you can view here, is that a lot of the younger audience playing Minecraft have problems with facing some nasty things on public servers, like rude players, griefers, trolls, and other things that a younger Minecrafter should not face. So, when these kids got their own server, most of them had no idea how to use them, and had to get the parents to play admin for the server, and often annoyed the parents. So along awaiting the feature of Mojang Hosted servers. And they have considered it and are adding it in future updates! 

A lucky few got their own Minecraft Realm when they logged into their client, the day of the update, which could hold 4 players. And you might be thinking "Why would Mojang create a whole new name for Minecraft servers and call it Minecraft Realms?" Well, they did this because of the fact that this is not an ordinary Minecraft server, they cannot have plugins installed (Yet) and no IP addresses. In order to connect to a friends server, they give you a code (Not an IP Address) and this allows you to connect to the realms of your friend or you own realm. 

Mojang released this feature to help with monetizing the game further to make Mojang a bit more money essentially. This is also a long time request by many of the players, since the same reasons. Parents don't want to admin their kids Minecraft server when they are having problems. So they can pay a small amount of money to get their own worry free server from Mojang!

My Opinion:

I really think this idea is a giant cash cow, Mojang is really trying to suck a little bit more money from the Minecraft community. Although this is a great idea, I truly don't think Mojang is releasing this new feature for helping out the community and youth servers, they are only doing it because of the money that will come with it. If you look at the announcements by Carl Manneh, a lot of the description of the new feature was about how much the money would help Mojang out, and how it will make Mojang more money than the game itself made. So really, I think its a cash grab by Mojang, but overall great feature.

Minecraft Server Community Darkside / Mafia

Hey everyone, you may be confused by the title, but it will make sense in the end. 

Back in the good old days of Minecraft alpha when people would make servers for a few friends and build an amazing city. But now it's all about the economy, plugins, and voting.

Servers have gone from the amazing experience of meeting new people, mining together and sharing the masterpieces that we have created! Now it's showing off how much in game server money you have, and how big the house is that you could only build because you donated and were only able to use those blocks because of that.

This may scare you and make you realize the changes that are happening, but that is not the least of how shady this Minecraft server market has gone. As some of you may have noticed by many Minecraft servers, they all run on donations. Some servers are still on the honesty system, where they let you donate if you enjoyed the server. But the darker of the server make you donate for essential parts of the game, just so they can suck you dry on funds and keep the server owners loaded on money. 

Now to the scary part, as you may know, it has been turned into a Minecraft server Mafia out there... Server owners are paying people under the table to take down the competition with DDoS attacks. Server owners are teaming up so they can cut the costs, by sharing the VPS's they use (The dedicated servers they pay large amounts of money for) and website hosting. Making them more money to take down to competition, so we can only join their server in the end, making them more and more money. So server owners, are using us as currency.

In my own opinion (Author Jake McIlravey) as a server owner. A lot of the more famous servers are more popular because they ran on donations for the first stages, and a majority of them hire some people to work with the plugins and permissions and make bullet proof systems that make maintenance of the server and having staff on the server obsolete. Basically leaving them with a money funnel from the donation system collecting money, paying for the hosting, and pocketing the rest. A lot of the less popular servers (and as less popular I mean less players) they are really great! You get a wide vast of commands, blocks, and places to build, with no real push to donate to the server, because your having all the fun you can get! But the problem with this is, and I will get into details, Minecraft servers aren't very small applications to run, and can create some problems for hosting services. So hosting doesn't come at the smallest hosting price. Putting the pieces together here, you see how server admins running the less popular but really fun servers aren't making any money, since there is really no real push to donate; thus pointing to the hosting and/or website hosting bills piling up, and the server owner having the shut down the server.

I really think this Server Algorithm that has formed for the new Minecraft server community is really twisted. I really miss the old days of playing with a few friends and splitting the server costs. Tell me what you think in the comments if you want to. 

Good old Minecraft days. Disappearing slowly into time.

Bad News Google - Ad Blocker Edition

Well we are back with another Bad News Google article. According to some blog rumors, Google has started deleting ad blocking apps on the Google Play store. But, we usually don't post rumours, but in this case, we have seen Google Ad Blocking ads go down quite a lot lately. Although Google has not said anything regarding this issue, besides them admitting that they are doing it, it's quite obvious to most of us why they are doing it.
Here's why for the people that don't know:
Most of the advertisements that people are blocking with ad blockers these days are Google's advertisements, and at the end of the day, that's where most of Google's money comes from. To add on, Google probably doesn't mind that people use adblocking tools, but the fact that they are hosting it on their own store for devices that they invented/ contributed to. So in a sense, they are paying to lose money; they have to pay for the servers supplying the download for the app, and to store the data of that app in your Google Account, just so you can block their advertisements, thus losing them more money. If you still don't understand why Google would do something like this; picture this: let's say you own a small eatery on the side of the road, and you have a sign advertising where your place is, but people find it annoying, and build over top of it. As well as you paying for the materials that build over your sign. This will then make you lose customers (no advertising) and start to lose money. Which is why Google is pushing away advertisement blocking tools.

We hope that this post helps out with a few questions you have had.

Minecraft 1.5 Update

Hello everyone! It's that time. The latest and greatest in the gaming, and tech industry! Let's get into it!

Minecraft straight off the bat and nothing else!

1.5 Update hit today

YES! The picture says it all. Minecraft FINALLY updated to 1.5! An insane amount of bug fixes, light sensors, new quarts ore that only spawns in the nether, an a assortment of blocks that can be made of the new quartz ore, redstone block; which is the first movable block to put out a redstone current, new redstone comparator, which brings the redstone geniuses to they knees because of the new possibilities. A hopper which can catch and move blocks from pretty much anything that can store them, a new dropper block that is similar to dispensers, but instead of deploying the item, (Like shooting arrows, potions, and fireballs) they simply drop them on the ground for the user to take. Another feature of the update is the trapped chest, which we will talk about after this new feature list. Another very useful tool of the new update is the weighted pressure plate; these two new items will output a stronger and more powerful redstone output as more and more items are put onto the pressure plate! One pressure plate can hold a bunch more items than the other, outputting a smaller amount of redstone current. This update also includes new commands, including the /scoreboard and /effect which we will go into later.

TNT minecarts and activator rails have also been added! TNT minecarts will roll down your track and wont explode until you run them over a powered activator rail, the TNT will have it's regular tick delay after hitting the activator rail, then BOOM, the TNT blows up, great for tricking your friends! Also a quick note, the TNT Minecraft will not break the rails it came in on! Which is very handy when you want to keep your tracks! As well, you can now make trapped chests! They act as normal as a regular chest, but they output a redstone current out any side of it according to how many people are looking into the chest. If you don't know what we mean when we say, it reacts to how many people are looking into the chest, read into the details later in this article. And finally, you can now NAME your containers and pets; and by pets I mean animals and mobs! You can use any storage device in an anvil before you place it, which means when you place it and open it up, instead of seeing "Chest" or "Ender Chest" on the top of the screen you will see the custom text that you renamed it as! As for mobs, you can now name the spawn eggs before you actually place the mob, and it will give them a nameplate over their head, similar to how the multiplayer nameplate system works in multiplayer! You can now name your pets in game and actually remember them!

Well that's it for this update, if you would like to see all of these features and some of the major bug fixes, please see the video below, which explains everything... While singing. NOTE: While I was watching the video, I forgot the feature of having better death messages, go kill your friends in game and check them out! :)

The 1.5 Song!

Now into the details:

The redstone comparator adds a whole new spectrum of redstone signals to the game. Instead of the default on or off state, it now included signals 1-15. You can now use the comparator to do Math with command blocks, or even tell when someone is using a trapped chest! Too many things to see for this one. This will definitely make Sethbling happy!

Light Sensors don't have much explaining to them. They do exactly what you think they do. They sense light. With the new outputting of between 1-15 redstone currents, this light sensor will output a certain amount of current based on the time of day. 

Trapped Chest are the new chests in town for adventure maps. These chests will (when opened) output a redstone current based on how many players are accessing it. The more players in the chest = the more current put out. This new chest does in fact, have an obvious red ring around the hinge/ lock, so watch out for them. They are bound to be set up with some traps. 

/Scoreboard is an amazing new command added to the game! This will let you create certain variables for "objectives" in the game. You can set objectives of health, player kill count, mob and player kill count, and more! You can create an in-game GUI interface where you can see all the variables set above. Also, you can create teams, for say, a team death match adventure map. Teams offer coloured names, prefixes and suffixes, and many little perks like being able to see your invisible team mates! This only a tiny portion of what this command can really do. Check out this link for more scoreboard information and commands.

Our opinion of this update:

We really think that this update was a true redstone update, with that said, it is really more pointed to an adventure map update! Which we personally LOVE! Scoreboard can count player kills for pvp maps or  survival games, as well as the teams feature. And the new comparators and redstone blocks make for some very tricky puzzles in maps. So we are truly excited about this update!

The Mojam Results!

Hey everyone, I just thought I would share the results of the Mojam, Mojang results on how much they raised and what it was about. Since people were asking me on Twitter.

The Mojam was a group of indie game developers that got together and started making games in a timeframe! They made a few games in this awesome Mojam pack! The way it worked was that people would donate any amount of money they wanted that would go to local charities that would raise money for charities that helped people get games and toys for children! 

So heres what's up:

"Last week, Mojang worked alongside a number of indie developers for their annual Humble Bundle Mojam event, with the promise of shaving Markus "Notch" Persson's beard (The Maker of Minecraft) in the event they raised more than $500,000.  Well, they surpassed their goal, and Notch has shaved his beard!!!

My Opinion on Computer Programming Schools

Hey,

I really think that computer programming schools should include some papers that tell you what classes you have to take in order to actually get accepted. I have been looking for at least 2 weeks trying to find an awesome computer programming school to go to, but they all have no requirements listed. Am I not looking hard enough!?
Enough of that.

And when you actually get in, they shaft you and treat you like your stupid and don't know anything about code. I didn't come here for nothing. Teach me things I don't know and stop treating me like a 4 year old. I guess one of the big problems here is because of the bigger classes and not enough money for advanced computers, so they have to bunched students up.

So yeah. Sorry for the small post, but, I really needed to get that out but didn't want to work on the actual post. Plenty of posts to come.