Welcome to my blog! (Late)

Hi everyone! I know this really isn't an intro anymore, since I have posted a few times already. But I would like to formerly add a better introduction to my blog than in my first. My names Jake. Or Jacob, but I really don't care which you call me, ill listen to both, but I do prefer Jake. I am an avid programmer in several languages, and I have a thing for computers with more than one monitor. I also like Minecraft on PC and FPShooters on PS3. I also am interested in hosting, servers, networking, and network security. So expect posts in the field to have a heavy opinion from my side. Other posts will just be a recap if I don't know the topic very well, and I will try my hardest to recap with every detail that is needed, while not forgetting to include anything. It is really not the easiest to recap a story in a shorter post, but include all the details. But I do try my best to keep the posts as frequent as I can, as I am busy and this blog isn't what I focus on. I would love to have this blog as my only place that I can write, but it is simply not as popular as it can be to keep me occupied on this. This is not the only blog I maintain, I have other blogs I post to and they are quite popular, so I keep those updated. Once this blog bypasses those blogs, I will take those posts of the other blogs, and post them here, and keep this blog updated daily.

This blog is mainly focused on tech, but occasionally contains the latest world news and things like that. I try to keep a balance. I hope in the future to blog about basically anything to reach across to a huge range of readers, to keep everyone pleased.

The blog/ my blog started out as just a gaming blog, keeping updates on basically Call of Duty and Minecraft. Then I extended to technology, keeping updates on the latest technology and inventions. Then we started to connect between technology and gaming, bringing in new consoles and gaming accessories, and how to run some cool technology with new games. Then it expanded to more and more games on more and more consoles. Then we expanded to current events. The blog now covers quite a large range of topics and we are always looking for more. I have had many ideas for what I can publish here, but I don't have enough time for it all. Once I start getting into blogging more seriously, and I get into my journalism degree, and actually have the time for all this, I will start blogging more and more often, with bigger and better topics.

So again, and in conclusion, thanks for reading up on my blog, every single one of you make me smile each day when I come onto my blog with new topics and when I write other articles content and edit them. I hope you enjoy my content thus far and in the future! Thanks to all of you for making my blog what it is today!

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.