Life Update

So almost two months ago, I found a new job.

After I came back home from Seattle, my wife and I stayed at her dad's house - he helped us to get back home, provided a place to stay for us and our children, on the expectation that it would take me around 2 months (in the current economy) to find a job. I looked daily - I started out with a narrow focus, looking for software development jobs so that I could continue doing what I love to do. During this period I had two telephone interviews for Blackbaud, and one for BenefitFocus; both of which considered my lack of team development experience as a reason not to hire me. As the weeks ticked by, I broadened my scope - networking jobs, PC repair jobs. After my first jobless month I began looking into contracting work, and had some small successes there with another contact of mine in NYC - but it wasn't stable or steady enough to earn me a living.

I began to lose hope in finding a job in my field. At around the second month I began looking locally at jobs in computer retail outlets, where at least I could use my knowledge to help me sell stuff. None of the local houses were hiring, and neither were the chains - Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. I began to consider retail in any form - the local mall, other places - but none were hiring (or, at least, hiring someone with no retail experience).

During the fourth month I began to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Gas stations, fast-food, Target or Wal-Mart. I had a fairly promising interview with a telemarketing company, which might have become my fate if not for Tasha's diligence - you see, she never gave up looking for programming jobs in the first place. Throughout this whole process she would send me a list of programming jobs to apply for - and although I had already given up hope of getting one, she would hound me until I applied anyway.

Thank God for Tasha.

Near the end of the fourth month - after Ta's dad had told us that he wanted us out, kids and all - I got an email from a corporate recruiter for a multi-national military contractor who was interested in interviewing me. I wasn't terribly excited - I figured it would be another dead end, but I called her anyway. She asked me the standard bits - questions about my experience, schooling, etc. After we were done she asked me to come in for an in-person - I of course accepted, but still wasn't optimistic. The in-person is usually where I bomb; I get nervous, and when I'm nervous I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about.

But there was one plus-side: she told me that my interviewer wanted to see a code review. Here at least I would have the chance to prove I'm capable of programming, even if I stammer like an idiot through the interview. So that's what I did - specifically, I spent about 30 minutes building a simple recursive descent expression parser and evaluator in C# (very similar to the one I wrote in F#), and send that on. It ended up around 150 lines or so - 3 printed pages, so I figured it was large enough to serve as a sample, yet small enough to evaluate.

The interview day came, and off I went. I met my future boss (Dan) and his senior developer, and had the interview. We discussed my resume, my experience, my schooling. Soon we came to the code sample - which Dan had printed out and brought with him. At this point I was still quite nervous, though Dan had a very open demeanor - but when the code sample came up, I knew that this would be the thing to either make me or break me, as it were.

I shouldn't have worried so much - "Quite pleased" I believe the words were, describing the code sample I submitted. He asked me why I picked that particular topic, if I'd used that piece of code in a project - I told him no, but I've always been fascinated with compilers and languages, so since I wasn't given a specific assignment I figured I'd display that interest in the code sample. The more we talked about the code sample, the more they seemed to like me, and the less nervous I became.

After that we talked about technology, the trends therein, and how closely I follow new developments, and that sort of thing. I asked about the team, who I'd be working with, and where I'd fall in the spectrum. Surprisingly, he told me that the entire team is largely made up of lone coders, like me, who, also like me, are looking for more than the lone coder experience - they, like me, want to build a cohesive team that works together, rather than as separate entities on separate projects.

I was to suffer for a week before I found out whether I got the job or not. After the interview, I was stoked - this was a company that seemed to really get it, and was trying to put together a solid development team. I badly wanted this job - not just because I needed it, but because I truly wanted it.

Needless to say, I got the job. =) So this is where I work - and so far, it's been a blast. =) The people are great, the work is stimulating, and the company is stable - growing, in fact, despite the economy. I joined sort of at the ground floor on this particular team, and already I'm helping to set policy and precedent regarding how the team will work. I'm part of a committee tasked with developing a team-wide code standard, and along with our senior developer I'm helping to bring everyone up to speed on .NET (we have a great variety of development talent and experience, but not much .NET).

So there you have it - that's been my life for the past 7 weeks. =) Things are looking up for me, and despite the fact that I write code all day, my interest in it is actually *growing* rather than shrinking, as it did at my last place of employment.

The Future of EverHarvest

Michael and I have decided to separate our business - EverHarvest is no longer being hosted on his site or supported via his forums.

This does not mean, however, that I will not be continuing to keep it running. At present, the authentication service that allows users with active licenses will continue to run on Michael's site, and I will be effectively extending licenses indefinitely - that is to say, if you purchased an EverHarvest license at some point in the past, then you will very soon be able to use it regardless of whether your license is expired or not. This is a temporary measure however since license extension purchases have been removed from Michael's site.

I will continue performing updates to EverHarvest that are required as a result of EverQuest patches and client changes. In the event that a patch occurs before I have my new site up and running, I will be working with Michael to publish the changes and maintain EverHarvest's working status.

At the moment I am unable to field support requests except via my email inbox, which you can reach by following the Contact Us link at the top of the site.

Know that Michael made a decision he felt necessary to protect his business, and that he's not 'screwing me' or anything like that. He feels that my inability to provide timely updates to EverHarvest impacted negatively on his business (by virtue of association), and he has taken steps to mitigate any damage to his business's reputation it might cause.

As far as the money goes - Michael and I did share some of the revenue for EverHarvest at one point, but that was part of a deal regarding hosting and support (which he ended up paying back to me at the time anyway). He has provided the hosting of EverHarvest for free for longer than a year (if memory serves). I wrote the Autocrat framework upon which both EverHarvest and EverCraft are built, and he paid me for my time and effort.

Summary: it is my intention to build a new site for hosting EverHarvest. Michael is going to host the authentication server temporariliy while I get the new site up and running. During this time period, there will be no need to purchase license extensions for EverHarvest - your software will continue to work regardless of how much time is left on it. After the new site is up and running, your licenses will be back to normal (and I'll be applying some heavy license extensions as well to cover the last couple of downtimes, plus the time spent in this "limbo" between sites). Michael and I are communicating amicably, and are going in fact considering setting up a sort of 'partnership' whereby we recommend each other's services. There aren't any details on this yet but expect to see something on my new site (still unnamed) within the next couple of weeks.

PLEASE don't go on his forums and try to defend me, ESPECIALLY if your defense includes personal attacks on Michael or his business. That sort of thing will not be condoned by either of us - and while I appreciate the loyalty, it's entirely misdirected.

I'm back. =)

Well it's been a stressful several months, but I want to return to blogging.

In case anyone has been curious as to where I've been, here's the scoop. I am no longer living in Seattle WA, and have moved back home to Charleston SC. I lost the job in Seattle, and my family used that event to trigger the move. Apparently it's been coming for a while - everyone (myself included) was homesick. What followed was a week-long cross-country drive from Seattle to Charleston, during which we towed every earthly possession we could fit into our SUV and a UHaul trailer attacked to the back, along with our two kids, roommate, and a cat. If I have one life experience that I'd like to recommend to everyone, it's that - driving across the country.

After arriving back home, we ended up living at my father in law's house, in the upstairs guest apartment, and have been there since. Last month, he told us that we had to leave by the middle of November - hence my post earlier about needing a job in a month or we'd be homeless. I was fighting a bit of angst when I wrote that, so perhaps things weren't as dire as that (happy Ta?) - but it was getting bad.

But three weeks ago I started a new job - almost 4 months after we returned home. The economy sucks - but I'm glad I held out. I'm working for a large multi-national contracting company that builds *things* for our country's and our ally's militaries. I'm working primarily as a .NET developer, but so far I've been called upon to work with VBScript, VBA, JavaScript, and others, in addition to .NET. So far it's been a blast - I love the people, the diversity of work, and the general atmosphere. I will admit that they've got me a bit on the cheap - this is technically an entry-level position - but I don't mind at all. It pays the bills well, and affords me the opportunity to show that I'm worth a lot more than they're expecting, and so far, so good. :)

I have to be a bit careful with what I reveal on the blog - which is why I'm not naming my place of business, nor will I be talking about specific projects. I'll still talk about MacroCrafter stuff as the opportunity presents - I'm still doing updates, planning new software, etc.

A lot of what I'll be talking about soon will be process-oriented stuff. The team I'm on (which consists of 7 developers and 2 analysts) is largely made up of lone coders looking to build their team experience (which is exactly what I'm here for as well). I think we're going to be creating our own process based on Agile, which makes me happy as it's something I've been wanting the opportunity to get into for a while. One of the major perks of this situation is that I will be in on the ground floor helping to build these processes. I'll write more about this later as developments occur.

Hunter bot, simplified.

Everyone, thank Tasha (my wife). She said something to me the other day that really got me going on the hunter bot, and actually inspired me to write some real code. She said, "Just write it."

I've been spending so much time thinking about the hithertoo's and whyfor's about it that I haven't touched a single line of relevant code. My biggest problem is and has always been a combination of over-thinking and over-planning. Many of my project concepts are huge ideas - my web game that'll never be built is a prime example of this. It's so large that it would require a team of people as dedicated to it as I am in order to actually happen, but that's a pipe dream.

So in following Tasha's advice, I've managed to get a very simple prototype hunter bot working. To do this, I've opted for a far simpler strategy: instead of following a walkpath, the user selects a 'camp spot', and the system brings viable targets to the camp spot to kill them.

I decided to do this for one primary reason: it'll help me get something out the door. Features can always be added later - with the Workflow system I wrote for Autocrat, this is easy as pie, once I've figured out the logic. But for now, I'd like to get something out to everyone whose waited so long for it - and the camp-bot is it. I'll have a beta version available very soon.

Lol

Got my first comment spam today! Somebody (more likely a spambot) posted links to EQ2 plat buying sites on my post regarding running EH in a VM.

I wasn't aware my blog was popular enough to get the attention of spam bots... That's sort of flattering, in a weird and annoying way. =)

Running EverQuest and ShadowTeq software in a Virtual Machine

Running EverQuest and ShadowTeq software in a Virtual Machine

Required Software:

VMWare Workstation 6.5.3*	http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/
Windows XP SP2 or better (ISO or CD)
DirectX 9.0c	http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9226a611-62fe-4f61-aba1-914185249413&displaylang=en
Windows Installer 3.1 Redistributable	http://www.microsoft.com/DownLoads/details.aspx?familyid=889482FC-5F56-4A38-B838-DE776FD4138C&displaylang=en
.NET 3.5 Redistributable	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=333325FD-AE52-4E35-B531-508D977D32A6&displaylang=en
EverQuest 2	http://download.station.sony.com/patch/download/eq2/eq2-us.zip
ShadowTeq Software (Golem, EverHarvest)	http://shadowteq.com

* - VMWare is not free, and costs $189 for a single license, though there is a 30-day trial. Please note that I do not promote software piracy.

Introduction:

Described in this document is the method by which you can set up and run EverQuest 2 and ShadowTeq software inside a Virtual Machine. There are several reasons why you might wish to do this. First, if you are running an operating system which ShadowTeq does not support (such as Linux, MacOS, or future versions of Windows), you can run a virtual machine (VM) that runs a supported operating system, such as Windows XP, in order to run our software. Second, running inside a VM means you can use the rest of your computer while our software is running, rather than being locked into keeping the EverQuest 2 window always-on-top.

This process is fairly straightforward, if advanced. None of the steps below requires altering your current installation in any way, except for installing VMWare Workstation. Still, if you are not at least comfortable following a set of advanced instructions, I suggest finding someone who will be willing to help you through this. The good news however is that once your virtual machine is up and running, any changes you make to it do not in any way impact your existing system - so you can feel free to experiment inside the VM as much as you like.

This guide assumes you are using exactly the software outlined above in the Required Software section. Some of these (VMWare Workstation, Windows XP) can be replaced with higher versions, although this may change the steps. Please do not deviate unless you already know what you're doing. ShadowTeq won't be officially providing support for this, but I (Erik) don't mind helping out as much as I can - but if you deviate too far from this set of steps, I may not be capable of helping.

Step 1: Install VMWare Workstation 6.5.3:

After you've obtained a copy of VMWare Workstation, you'll need to install it. Double-click on the installation file to begin the installation process. This is straightforward - there aren't any important options to select, so choose Typical installation.

Step 2: Create a Windows XP Virtual Machine:

Now that VMWare is installed, it's time to create the Windows XP Virtual Machine. I'm using Windows XP Service Pack 2, but SP3 is also confirmed to work as well. To do this, you'll need to have either a physical XP CD in your CD-ROM drive, or have an ISO image of the XP CD you intend to use. When you're prepared, launch VMWare, and go to the File menu, select New, and select Virtual Machine. In the window that appears, select the Custom option and click Next. In the next page, ensure that the Hardware Compatability selection is set to 'Workstation 6.5', then click Next.

The next page allows you to choose where to install XP from. If you have a physical CD in your drive, select the first option button, then click Next. If you have an ISO image of the CD, select the second option button, click the Browse button to tell VMWare where your ISO file is, then click Next. The next page will ask you for your XP CD key, your full name, and an Administrator password. Fill in these details and click Next. The next page will give you an opportunity to name your Virtual Machine. I just left mine as the default, but you're free to use whatever name you wish. Additionally you can change where the Virtual Machine files are stored. By default, there's a 'Virtual Machines' folder in your 'Documents' folder that VMs get stored in. When you're done here, click Next.

The next page that appears will ask you how many processors to expose to the VM. If you have more than one processor available in your machine, choose Two. Click Next. The next page allows you to specify the maximum amount of physical RAM that the VM will be allowed to allocate. Note that this means the VM will consume AT MOST this amount, but probably less. I recommend 1024mb. After setting your desired maximum RAM, click Next. The next page allows you to determine the type of network connection the VM will have. I recommend leaving it at the default of 'Use network address translation (NAT)' as this will simplify configuration later on. Click Next. The next page is for SCSI configuration - nothing needs to change here; click Next.

The next page allows you to configure a hard drive for your VM. In our case, we want to create a new virtual disk, so leave it at the default and click Next. The next page allows you to select the type of virtual drive; this selection is largely unimportant, so choose the default and click Next. The next page allows you to set the maximum size of the virtual disk. I recommend 24gb for everything that will need to be installed, but you can choose more if you like. The other options on this page are fine at their defaults, so after you set the size, click Next. Click Next again to select the default name for the disk.

Now we've come to the end of the Virtual Machine creation; click Finish to have VMWare finalize your choices, power up your machine, and install Windows XP. This process is completely automated (if you've followed the instructions) and, when finished, will leave you at the Windows XP login prompt. To log in, type the Administrator password that you specified earlier in the password box.

If all's gone well, you should be greeted with a Windows XP desktop, and the Windows XP login sound effect. One of the first things you should do here is to increase the screen resolution. Currently it's set to 800x600 - much too small to be useful. To change it, right-click on your desktop and select 'Properties,' then select the Settings tab. Drag the 'Screen Resolution' slider until the resolution is at least 1024x768 - any less than that and the EverHarvest or Golem windows will overlap the game window by far too much.

Step 3: Install Supporting Software:

Now it's time to start installing software in your Virtual Machine. Assuming you've used XP SP2, you'll need to install DirectX 9.0c, Windows Installer 3.1, and the .NET Framework 3.5. You'll find links to these downloads at the top of this document. From inside your Virtual Machine, download the files, then install them in the order listed above. Remember, install them inside your Virtual Machine, not on your physical system! All the default installation options are fine for this software.

Step 4: Install EverQuest 2:

Finally, we can install EverQuest 2. Use the download link at the top of this document to download the EQ2 launcher (again, from inside your VM). Unzip it, then run it, and it'll install the base files necessary for downloading and patching EQ2. You should know the drill here - log in to your Station account, and let the patcher run... This will probably take several hours, but you can do other things while you wait.

Step 5: Install ShadowTeq Software:

Now it's time to get our software running. Using the download links on our home page, download the software you're interested in (again, while inside the VM), and install it according to the usual instructions.

... That's it. Really. =)

Step 6: Run:

This works the same as it does on your physical computer - run the application you're interested in running, and log in. Note that you will probably get a 'No Licenses Found' error - that's okay. Just follow the instructions found on this page and you'll be good to go. Configure the software as usual, and run it as usual - the only difference is that you're running it inside the VM.

Now here's the slick part - the culmination of all your efforts. Once the software is up and running, press Control + Alt - and your mouse will detach from the VM's mouse, and you can minimize VMWare, or tab away from it, or whatever - do anything else you want on your computer. If your system is beefy enough, you can even run another instance of EQ2 on your physical computer - or, even, in another Virtual Machine. Theoretically you can have as many VMs running at once as you want - the only limits of course are CPU power, available RAM, hard disk space, and networking bandwidth.

Step 7: Shutting Down:

Shutting down a Virtual Machine works the same way as shutting down a real computer - go to Start and select Turn Off Computer, then Turn Off. The system will perform its shut-down routine, then turn itself off. To turn the 'computer' back on again, select the VM in the left-most list and press the green 'Start' button in the toolbar on top of the window.

That's it!

No, really, that's it. Now that you've got the hang of this, feel free to experiment around. It's really hard to mess this up - and even when you do, you're just dealing with virtual machines - just reformat it if you do something unrecoverable. For more advanced uses of the VMWare software, you might want to consult their documentation, available from the VMWare website.

Enjoy, and good luck!

Late birthday present

One of our users has managed to get EQ2, EverHarvest, and EverCraft working in a VMWare Virtual Machine, and has shared the instructions on how to get it working with me!

Why is this such a great birthday present? Virtual Machines are like full computers running inside your physical computer - which means it gets its own (virtual) keyboard and its own (virtual) mouse. While EverHarvest and EverCraft still require EQ2 to be the topmost window on the computer, this can be true inside the Virtual Machine instance while NOT being true on your physical computer!

This means that you can DO OTHER THINGS on your computer while you run our software! Finally! =P

I'm working on getting the instructions in a more user-friendly form before posting them - which should come in the next day or so. Just wanted to post this to get the pot stirring, so to speak... =)