After reading an article about being able to run Multiplayer servers for Minecraft: Pocket Edition i decided it was finally time to give the game a real try! Me and Jamie gave the game a try and even made some videos for the Kerplunc Gaming YouTube channel! You can check them out below.

Overall i think they are pretty good ports so far, despite missing some key functions (What fun is it if i can’t blow up thousands of blocks of TNT and watch my phone lag!) and i really hope that they add full Multiplayer support to it (And of course, Tree Puncher will be offering it as soon as it’s available!)

Apple finally released iTunes 11 last week after teasing us with screenshots from it months ago. Overall it’s a pretty fantastic overhaul, although it feels like most of the overhaul is cosmetic and not a lot of work has been done under the hood.

The new album view (pictured above) is absolutely gorgeous, and the Album expansions look fantastic for some album artwork, such as Friend Fire’s Pala as shown above. It’s too bad i find album view useless in my daily iTunes usage.

It does have a few quirks, such as some UI elements that aren’t standard for OS X. The most obvious one is the “Mini Player” button in the top right next to the full screen expansion button. Another weird quirk is that by default the spacebar hits the Back button and you have to tab over to the Play/Pause button to get the Spacebar to pause your music.

Overall i’m very happy with the much needed updated, it’s brought a lot of life back to iTunes

I picked up an iPad Mini as soon as they were available with a few intents for my use of it, but one big one being reading comics. Historically i’ve largely been a pirate of digital media but as i’ve gotten older and am no longer a broke student i’ve been trying hard to purchase whenever possible. For comics i rapidly discovered that the biggest marketplace on iOS is Comixology

While i’m not a very big fan of their web design they have two important things – A great iPad app and a huge selection available. I started off with a great little series Scarlet, that i found out about thanks to Merlin Mann.

Great process, few clicks later and i had all 5 purchased for $10, and was reading them on my iPad. Then i went on to find something else to read and found Powers, which i’ve heard great things about and have been meaning to read for a while.

This is where we run in to some issues. Comixology usually charges $1.99 per issue of a comic, but with no discount when you are purchasing an entire run of a comic. It’s common practice in the comic industry to take a run of a comic and put it all together in a TPB, or Trade Paper Back, with a dramatically reduced price. The entire first volume of Powers on Comixology was going to cost me an incredible $73.63, for a comic that came out back in 2000. Meanwhile on Amazon, the entire first volume was going to cost just $17.55

I don’t know about you but i personally do not feel like paying almost FOUR TIMES the physical price for a digital version. Looks like i’m back to pirating digital copies for a while longer.

Gorgeous day in Nanaimo, especially for it being the end of January in Canada! Got to go golfing 2 days before my birthday, which i’ve never got to do before.

I’m rapidly approaching the end of my third year of living in the beautiful Nanaimo, BC Canada and i thought it was about time for me to write a little bit about it.
TL;DR: It’s fantastic

People

The people are as whole incredibly nice, friendly and helpful, especially compared to the two other major Canadian cities i’ve lived in (Toronto and Calgary).

Weather

The weather is absolutely fantastic. Yes it does rain a fair amount but i was out golfing yesterday on January 9th. Most places in Canada i would be trying to avoid going outside at all on January 9th.

Businesses

I’ve found a ton of small businesses here that i absolutely love and go to regularly. Places like Lucky’s Liquor store, Curious Comics, and Piper’s Meat. I’m hoping to do write ups about my favorite places around town in the near future.

Location

Only an hour and a half ferry to Vancouver (Or a 15 minute flight) and about an hour and a half to drive to Victoria. It’s nestled in a great spot that provides easy access to these larger cities when needed.

God damn i forgot how much i want to learn to fly

Well, another year is over, and this last one was definitely an interesting one.

It had it’s ups, as well as some major downs. Overall it would look like a gigantic roller coaster ride.

My entire viewpoint on my life and my future changed dramatically at least 3 times this past year, which is an incredibly weird thing to look back on.

On the business end of things our big launch was MinecraftGSP and a big change was us exiting the Shared hosting market. I think Kerplunc is much better for it.

Kerplunc now has more staff members! This is a big change for us and completely changing the way we operate (We are absolutely loving CampfireNow)

Here’s hoping for the best in 2011!