Super Mario Quest Blog

Super Mario Bros X: Super Mario Quest

This may be too late to announce this but I'll announce it anyway. As promised in a post on my blog, the blog site for an indie game I was developing will be announced here on Astral Meta's Blog. The blog was actually launched last month, which make me a month late on posting this announcement, but as the saying, it's better late than never. The blog address is http://supermarioquest.blogspot.com. It is on this blog where I would be announcing the updates for the SMBX game I am currently working on. The blog design may be simplistic and a lil buggy since it was made from an old xml framework that I made back when I was still a novice. The framework was actually from the Ursa Gamma blog site Nursing Gazette. I was on a rush when I recreated it for the Super Mario Bros X so I didn't really spent much time on it. In the future, however, I may create a better design base on this same skeleton. Anyway, as long as it serves its purpose in bringing updates for Super Mario Quest, it's good for now.

Absorbing Ursa Gamma Websites

Astral Meta Network's number of websites have increased to a total of five after absorbing Ursa Gamma Designs Solutions into the network. Ursa Gamma Designs Solutions was one of my old failed network, which was formerly aided by some colleagues. When we parted ways, the network due to lack of manpower and time, collapsed. Although the Ursa Gamma Designs group disbanded, its websites remain online, still functional under Google's Blogger host. So far, I have annexed one Ursa Gamma website into the network — Nursing Gazette, a Nursing blog. It is the predecessor of Nursing-Resource.com.

You can find Ursa Gamma Designs Solutions blog here.

AL2Meta Blog Redesigned

I redesigned the site AL2Meta, my personal blog site, to take on the form of a new Wordpress Template called Regini — a WP theme created by New WordPress Themes or NewWPThemes. The last template I use on my personal blog was Holistic Teahouse by Rebecca Rings. While Rebecca Rings' design was simply gorgeous, I took notice of some few flaws in the design that not only limited the functionality of my site, but had also gave me problems posting. The most prominent bug I saw perhaps was with the "break" and text alignment, in which several times, I had to force a break to move the text down so it would display correctly on the front end. Another one is that it does not support wordpress menus. Since my personal blog is going to be composed of so many different topics and projects, I feel the need of a menu. Not just a simple menu but a drop-down menu that can extend up to the next two submenus, a kind of menu not found on the holistic teahouse theme.

With the Regini theme, all my problems were solved, but I had to modify some of the default functionality to match my taste. I started with the header. The header, by default, looks big so I had to readjust it to turn it smaller. I did it by reducing the height of the container that contains the logo and the ad next to it. The next move was to remove the ads and replace it with my own. I also remove some of the widgets. And I, of course, added my own logo to replace the Regini logo.

The Regini theme is no doubt, one of the best themes I've seen, but unfortunately, there are some few undesired parts of the design also. This includes the black texts on the comment form and on the archives page. These black texts are hard to read because of the chocolate colored background, so I had to tweak the CSS (Cascading stylesheet) to have those black texts replaced with white. I also did some hacking on the archives php page to solve the problem.

The final steps involve the plugins, the SEO tools, and the site map. I also had to replace the NGG (NextGen Gallery), a photo gallery plugin, with FIAGallery. The reason is because NGG seems to be not SEO-friendly unlike FIAGallery.

Well, there's still too much to be done. While I had solved the template issues, there's still a lot to build up in terms of content, and that is an even more important issue to focus on.

Xion Redesigned

Xion is Astral Meta's tech blog that uses the Wordpress theme "Pixel" by famfamfam or by UK based web developer Mark James to be specific. While I acknowledge that the developer did an excellent job with his design, I find something lacking when you scroll the page down. The design is superb on the top but when it goes midway, most especially in a long post, there is a void that makes the white texts appear difficult to read. Now, I've noted that the Pixel theme uses a background graphic to act as a wall and serve as the design, but most of the containers are somewhat invisible. This background graphic reliance is the problem because without the background image, the Pixel theme would be nothing but a void with white texts.

The background image itself is light amounting only to a few KB (kilobytes) in size, which is good because this does not take longer to load, but the problem is that it could not cover the entire page. The solution I did was simply to enhance the background image so that when meet with a long post, the design could extend to fill the void midway. This unfortunately, resulted in a heavier background image that amounts to more than 100 KB. However, I thought that most internet speeds nowadays are fast enough to handle heavy pages and in contrast the strain with the loading time could be barely felt. So I sacrificed the loading speed for the quality. After all, a page that's hard to read would be the more reason for readers to go away. Until I have more time to modify the design, the current modification should serve for the time being.

You can read Astral Meta's tech blog here.

Added Contact Form

Astral Meta now has a contact form. It was added in order for third party developers to reach me. The contact form can be found on my personal blog at http://al2meta.astralmeta.com/contact/. I had also modified this site's template to include the link to the contact form. Feel free to contact me. I'll try to respond as quickly as I can but I cannot promise to respond all the time. There might also be some delay in response depending if I am busy or not.

Acquiring CO.NR subdomains

Astral Meta Network has partnered with FreeDomain.co.nr. The move's purpose is to shorten some long urls that my network has. For example, the site al2meta.astralmeta.com may be too long and too hard to remember but with the help of freedomain.co.nr, I manage to shorten it into al2meta.co.nr. The co.nr subdomain points to the original long subdomain name making it easier for visitors to access. With this, I had eliminated the problem with long urls. The partnership doesn't cost a penny, but I am required to put a small banner similar to the one on this page and a link back to our partner's website.

Freedomain.co.nr is a free subdomain provider that allows websites to make use of the co.nr subdomain name.

AL2Meta Blog Opened

After a few weeks of preparation, I finally opened my personal blog which I entitled AL2Meta Cafe. In this blog, I plan to write my web design projects, my thoughts, my hacks, my websites, my research, my photo snapshots, my achievements and everything else I can think or work about. Astral Meta Network updates will continue to be posted on this blog, but the personal stuff will go to my personal blog, including some of my literary pieces. And also, my contact information may also be posted on my personal blog as well.

Notes for Network Organization

The network is gradually growing in size, and I have to make a note to map everything and make sure all is in place.

Sites and links:

Nursing-Resource.com -> Astral Meta
Xion -> Astral Meta
AL2Meta -> Astral Meta

All sites have been set to connect to this blog.

Plans:

al2meta.blogspot.com -- redirect -> AL2Meta Blog
AL2Meta Blog -> Astral Meta

Task completed:

All site theme modifications have been completed.

Task to be completed:

1. Check Nursing-Resource.com for updates.
2. Check Xion for Updates
3. Installation on AL2Meta Blog of plugins and some modifications.

And as you guys can see on the plans, I would be opening my personal blog soon.

Xion Techno Blog in the works

I just wanted to note that today, I started working on the Xion Techno Blog. This is the blog where I would be blogging all of what I know about computers, the internet, and technology. It will become a part of the Astral Meta network.

The site runs on a free template. Sorry but I got no time to design a new template for it to use right now. After all, it is the content that matters the most and not the design. The site is expected to come out anytime within this month.

By the way, the name Xion came from the word Zion. This is the place on which the Jebusite fortress was conquered by David and was named the city of David. It designates the area of Jerusalem where the fortress stood, and later became a metonym for Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem and the world to come. In Kabbalah, it is the spiritual point from which reality emerges, located in the Holy of Holies of the First, Second, and Third Temple. I'm no Jew nor am I a religious person, but I find the name appealing. Xion is the technological version for Zion.

Google celebrates Mother's Day

Today, May 12, 2013, Google celebrates mother's day along with the rest of the world. With this, they incorporated a Google-made flash game into the main Google home page that allows users to give a surprise interactive message to their mothers. It would also allow users to print it or send it electronically. See the sample video below to see how it works...

 

Pretty neat Google!

Nursing-Resource.com Acquired

Today, Nursing-Resource.com, a Nursing Resource Site, has been acquired and integrated into the Astral Meta Network. This site has long been known for its free nursing news service, free nursing tests, its nursing jobs search engine, nursing-related encyclopedia and other nursing resources. It's one of the sites I created that survived the test of time and has been online for years already.

Unfortunately, some of its contents may have already been outdated but it still serves as a reliable free nursing news delivery system. It doesn't currently have a staff and it runs on bots (program instructions) that enable it to deliver news without the need of a staff. Hopefully, I could find the time to update it one of these days. The site has a strong Google PR3 rank and a fair web presence. I sure hope it stays that way...

AstralMeta.com Acquired

Today, I manage to acquire the domain name astralmeta.com for my network. This domain name will now be redirecting to this blog. Along this move, I would also be able to create subdomains, for instance, the xenogears site under the subdomain xenogears.astralmeta.com; it would now be redirecting to xenogearsps.blogspot.com where the xenogears fan site I created is hosted. Apparently, all the sites aligned with the Astral Meta network will be having an astralmeta subdomain. This should identify them as part of my network.

Another thing I mentioned earlier is that my old Phantom Maelstrom network would be absorbed by my new network. Along with it are the sites attached to it, namely, laughtrip.net, nursing-resource.com, starcraftx.phantommaelstrom.com (currently offline). The move will allow me to focus my time and resources on one network alone and thus give me more control. It will also allow me to organize the network more effectively.

March Updates

There isn't much update this March except for the Xenogears website wherein I had manage to complete a few character pages and upload some neat Xenogears videos on Youtube, which you can find here.

I am also planning to drop my old domain, Phantom Maelstrom, which served as my homepage and base of operations in the past. Laughtrip.net, one of my projects are also to be discontinued, but I plan to preserve and reabsorb Nursing-Resource.com into the network due to its steady flow of traffic.

A lot of changes are expected to happen as this network continues to grow. Stay posted for more updates!

Google goes Heliocentric

Today, 19th of February 2013, Google celebrates Nicolaus Copernicus' 540th Birthday. Of course, that, if he's still alive. But more importantly, we are remembering Copernicus' because of his heliocentric theory, which is one of the most important milestones of Science. Anyway, who the heck is Nicolaus Copernicus and what is the Heliocentric theory?

If you click the Google logo above, it will initiate a search query with the keyword "Nicolaus Copernicus", and according to Wikipedia, the first result page to come out, Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a comprehensive heliocentric model which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center of the universe. His epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), was published before his death in 1543 and was heavily criticized and refuted by certain people in the Catholic Church due to the fact that it contradicts certain biblical scriptures like that of Job 26:7 where it says "He (God) spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing" and the biblical event in the Battle of Gibeon in the Book of Joshua where in that story, Joshua prays to God, causing the sun and the moon to stand still. Both of which seem to indicate that it was the sun that revolves around the Earth.

The publication of Copernicus' epochal book is considered a major event in the history of science. It began the Copernican Revolution and contributed importantly to the rise of the ensuing Scientific Revolution.

Copernicus is one of the great polymaths of the Renaissance. He was a mathematician, astronomer, jurist with a doctorate in law, physician, quadrilingualpolyglot, classics scholar, translator, artist, Catholic priest, governor, diplomat and economist.

Xenogears Template Design

The Xenogears Alpha v.1.0 or the template use for a network site Xenogears is close to completion. However, the body decorations have already been completed. The concept takes the form of a fusion between Jewish mysticism and Science, that is since the game Xenogears itself involves hi-tech humanoid fighting machines called Gears mixed with Zohar mystical thought.

The design was built upon the skeleton of a free online template Inception, authored by EZ WPthemes. It was originally a Wordpress template converted to a blogger template.

I'm not sure when I could finish the entirety of the site, but given the fact that I have incoming training in a different field, this may take longer than expected. Anyway, slow and steady does it.

Upcoming Xenogears Website Project

One of my plans before was to create a Xenogears website, and I think it's about time to announce its supposed plan of designing and building. Currently, the site is on the works, having an adopted free theme with a few renovations. Not much can be said at the moment except for the fact that the logo and some parts of the design has been finished. Anyway, it's something to look forward to. I plan to add some pictures in the future, perhaps add a story, a walkthrough and some list of monsters, items, characters, etc. That remains to be seen, but this site is expected to contain much about the Xenogears game. I know its been late, with the Xenogears game going back to the Playstation console, and at our age, we're already in the age of the PS3. Oh well...

Google celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Day

Today Google America celebrates Martin Luther King's Day, a holiday in the US - which means no school, no work, and no open government office as far as the US is concerned. As we might notice, Google has changed their usual Google logo into a Google logo with Martin Luther King's face on it to commemorate the holiday. Clicking on it will initiate the Google Search with the keyword "Martin Luther King, Jr."

Anyway, who's Martin Luther King, Jr? Well, according to the top 1 page showing in the search engine result, Wikipedia, Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman activist and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience. This nonviolent civil disobedience uses passive resistance, and was employed as a means to battle racial discrimination towards black Americans. King's movement eventually won the hearts of most Americans and had made people realize the wrongness of discrimination towards other races. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism.

Astral Meta Birth

After months of conceptualizing, I have finally turned my ideas into reality. This may have been one of my many attempts to create a network of websites; with many of those plans ending in failure. I decided to give it one more and final try and see where this idea of mine leads. As of today, January 20, 2013, I began the dry run for my new Astral Meta network. Here, I am hoping to accomplish an objective I wasn't able to attain years ago. In this network, I plan to create many sites with varying content ranging from all the games that I had played, all the things that I know, and interests which might also be an interest to others.

2013 may be a good start, bringing renewed hope, who knows what the future brings?

AL2Meta