The forums will look different. They will have some features they did not before. They have lost the custom features that existed in the old version (such as Gil and Dragons). I doubt these things can be reinstalled in the new version as the coding is completely different.

Anyhow, please point your browser to the new forum at http://www.sygnus.org/phpbb/

Your profiles and posts will have carried over.
The rest of the site will be in random states of disarray due to our server move. Please be patient while we work on getting things back up and running.

What does this mean for our friends, readers and visitors…? Hopefully, absolutely nothing. Seeing that all transfers over smoothly, I’ve been assured there would be no downtime. But just in case you see something wacky going on, know that the site will be switching servers and anything could happen.

Not Another Wii Fit Blog!

And the Wii… well. I’ve played around with it. I liked what I saw. I thought it was fun and original. But that’s as far as my interest went since I have my trusty DS in hand. I’ve never really been much of a hand held gamer before the DS… but Nintendo won me back on their side with that system. But that’s another story.

Some people may not know but, long, long ago… before I touched my first Final Fantasy or even knew what the term RPG stood for, I was a huge Nintendo fan… I was there to play my cousin’s brand new shiny NES system (with the ROB robot and all!) and marveled at the wonder that was Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. I inherited his hand me down Atari system which I played until it literally melted. But after that, my eyes were only on Nintendo. Oh, and Sega could suck-it. I was so totally caught up in that age-old competition.

I got my first NES for Christmas one year, half paid by my sister and I with our life savings at the time. I actually still have the original system… it’s got to be 20 something years old now. I was big on Mario. I was big on Zelda. I watched all the cartoons.. had the comics. Subscribed to Nintendo Power. Mario Bros. 3 was the ultimate! I prided myself on knowing all the tricks and tips… I was a real Nintendo geek up until Jr. High when I bought the SNES with hard earned babysitting money. Then I rented Final Fantasy 2 (FFIV)… and the rest was history.

Though I enjoyed the Mario and Zelda games up through the N64… including Smash Brothers and the first two Mario Karts… I gravitated towards the Fantasy RPG scene. When Square went to Playstation, I followed. Though I own a Game Cube, I only have a few games for it… and slowly Nintendo became a thing of the past for me. In fact, once I got into PC gaming (which I abhorred when I got my first PC, go figure), I really didn’t play much in the way of consoles at all anymore. Well, with the exception of games on the DS… mostly because I can bring it to work with me and play during lunch break.

So back on topic, what really peaked my interest in the Wii? There are a number of things, actually. I’m interested in picking up fun games that can be played in short bouts… such as Mario Kart and Smash Brothers. I’m interested in messing around with games that feel and play differently. I’m interested in the wireless internet gaming the system offers… and I think it would be fun for short competitive gaming sessions. And I’m also interested in the Wii Fit… seeing I’m one that needs the extra motivation to get off my lazy duff. And yes… I do know it’s not a substitute for a proper exercise regimen. But people seem to enjoy it and I’m just looking for something to get me moving in the right direction.

Overall… I just want to get back in touch with why I played games over and over and over again without a thought when I was a kid. Games that aren’t so complex. Not so serious. Different and plain fun. The Wii seemed to have all that.

But then I discovered the hard truth. The Wii is STILL nearly impossible to find– shocked and appauled. Not a single store… mortar and brick or virtual… has the thing in stock. So over the past week or so, it’s been a hunt for the Wii. Eventually, I got sick of searching and waiting and ordered mine (at an excellent price) from a seller on Half.com. I didn’t feel like fooling with Ebay auctions, plus this bundle had two games I was interested in and an extra nunchuck (which I would have picked up anyhow).

Wii Fit is also absolutely impossible to find. As is Mario Kart. I’m starting to see a pattern here. I guess I better pre-order my copy of Animal Crossing before November! XD It seems like half the fun of owning a Wii is chasing down games you want as they come in-stock. I find it amusing for some reason. I did score a Wii Fit by pure luck and look forward to trying that out, hopefully next week. I’ll let you know what I think of it.

If you’re searching for certain games for the Wii and you’re willing to buy from stores online, a good site to check out is Wii Alerts. You set up what games or systems to track and the site will send you an email or cell alert (depending on how you set it up) to let you know when the game is in stock online. But you have to be fast… I’ve seen some of them sell out in the matter of minutes. If you’re really serious about finding something, that’s a place to start.

Up until now, old Wayrift comments that were carried over from the old HTML site were often pasted right within the comic post, underneath the Script Center. Dubbed “Comments of the Past,” they were happy thoughts, memories and discussions that I’ve preserved over the many years that Wayrift has been online. I’m such a pack rat… I can’t let anything go!

Now each of those comments have been individually posted into the Wordpress comment system. The coding of each comic page has been cleaned up allowing readers who are browsing the archives an easier navigation experience throughout the site.

Other good Wayrift news: We’re moving up in the Entrecard Ranks quite well. Drops have been up overall. Project Wonderful ads have also been successful in directing new traffic to the Wayrift site. Overall, we’ve seen a number of newcomers and folks reading through the loooong archives.

Hopefully this update will make that an easier process.

TsuYa & Zazo Wolf

Earlier in the summer, I announced that I would be working through a full length revision, edit and sight redesign for my Dreigiau fantasy fiction. I’m moving the site from a plain HTML to a Wordpress layout to begin with. But I’m also going back and working through six years of NaNoWriMo content and giving it the brush up that it needs.

Progress on this has been on and off. But I’m happy to announce that Books 1 & 2 have been converted and posted on the new site!

I’m still taking suggestions from kind proofreaders when it comes to corrections that other people might have to make. Thanks to Ven and Khatz for all of your help this far!

You can check out the current progress of the Dreigiau revision at the temporary site here. In time, I will be updating old chapter sketches, working through the site layout and making a better banner. I’m hoping to have all of this up and running before the coming of the next NaNoWriMo this November.

The biggest problem that I’ve had between all my sites is just that… there are so many different sites to keep up with. I have to decide which ones I really want to concentrate on supporting and promoting. For now, I’ve chosen to put a lot of focus and effort into spreading awareness about Wayrift.

For a long time, Wayfarer Wings has stood apart from my other sites. Feedback from regular Sygnus-goers seemed to indicate that it has been a somewhat daunting place to leave comments and discussions. I don’t know if that’s because it felt so separate from the rest of my projects… it had strange and snappy layouts… or what. But I’ve been searching to find a way to bring my blog back into line with the rest of my sites.

So I’ve decided to merge and integrate this site into the Wayrift website. Though WW will remain at this address and still have a separate RSS feed, layout and content concentration will center more around my site projects, especially the art and writing of webcomics and fantasy fiction.

I’m going to try to start out slowly this time around. Since Wayrift has its own update schedule, I plan on using this site to supplement the content that is already featured there. Once I get a feel for where things are going, I’ll figure out how to expand and kick this blog back into gear.

Hope to see you around!

I’ve been working on moving Wayrift back to a Wordpress layout — something I’ve been going back and forth on for a while. There are a lot of positive reasons to make the switch:

• Updates are easier
• RSS feed is automatic (I’ve been hand coding the RSS feed and often forget to update it due to this!)
• Site layout, while a little more limited, is cleaner (IMHO)
• It opens up the ability to track visitors, install stats and all the nice features that Wordpress offers… which a regular HTML site lacks
• Makes it easier to get the content out there to Google and other media sources

Just a slew of reasons… things I’ve learned are perks to using a Wordpress layout for any site. I’ve made the switch for Darkstar… and I’m working on making the switch with the revision of Dreigiau as well. I’m hoping most of my site will eventually go the way of PHP and Wordpress by the end of this year.

Now… the great changes that Entrecard brought. First, they added a Web Comic section! This was something that totally thrilled me — rather than having my comic tucked away in the Graphic Arts area, where it technically didn’t quite fit, Entrecard has actually gone as far as aknowledge the Web Comic niche. I haven’t used Entrecard as much as I should have for Wayrift since I discovered this. But I will be working on my drops soon. Shimmer has been a part of Entrecard for a while… but I’ve decided that right now, I really would like to focus on moving things forward for Wayrift in particular.

Secondly… Entrecard now allows the merging of multiple accounts! This has been a majorly big help for me as I’ve owned 3 different accounts on Entrecard and it’s been quite frustrating to maintain them all. I do approve of the manor that they’ve approached this as I know that due to the structure of accounts, this wasn’t an easy task to undertake. I’m especially glad that they allowed us to link accounts that already existed as that means we could keep our credits, comments and everything else in tact.

I look forward to working on moving things along for the revised Wayrift Wordpress site. I have a lot of comments to restore and a few tweaks to make… but once that’s done, hopefully the site will be whole and in a format I won’t need to change again for a long time.

I’m not sure what came over me today. But early this morning I got it in my head that I was going to start plugging away at the Dreigiau Book 1 Revisions. Again, I have no idea where this came from considering I haven’t even thought about Dreigiau (besides normal updates). It must be all of Rach’s talk about Books of Runne that made me realize it’s awful hard to push on with other new projects when the beginning of an existing project needs to be overhauled.

Part of the reason for this is because I’d like to convert Dreigiau to a Wordpress format, just like Darkstar was. Darkstar shows that Wordpress can be used as a “book” layout with the proper coding and plugins. But before I can set up a site for Dreigiau, I have to be sure all of the chapters are written, edited and in the proper posting order. Because I plan on fleshing out some sections of Chapter 2, even adding chapters where needed, that means I have to get moving on revisions before I can start transferring the site over.

Looking back at writing that is over six years old makes me cringe. Not that I think I’m the most spectacular writer in the world at this point. But I can just see how stiff and lacking the early chapters of Dreigiau are now.

Don’t mistake an edit for a re-write, though. I do not plan on re-writing a majority of the material. I don’t have time to do anything of that magnitude. Besides, I tend to get grouched at by people if I alter things from the original too much. ^^;

I also don’t plan on making this a scheduled project of any sort. I just want to be able to work on this idly whenever I feel like sketching up new material or working through an edit. So I have no real time frame in which I believe this will be completed. Up until now… it was something that hadn’t even begun. So I guess I’m doing better now than I was before?

And if anyone just happens to be interested in what’s going on in a writer’s head during revisions, here’s my Book 1 Changelog!

Question!

Have you ever had that itch to revise work in a long-term project and how did it work out for you? Why does it always seem like something was good at the moment of creation… only to seem really bad a few years down the line?! (Darnit!)

photo credit: china_puwa

Happy RSS Awareness Day!

Those of you who already use RSS and know how handy it can really be to send and receive updates through RSS — good for you! But the truth is, only a small number of people use RSS across the internet. Be it because they have not heard of it or simply don’t understand the benefits or how to use it — numbers of RSS subscribers are low and only slowly growing.

I was one of those who did not use RSS until late last year. I just didn’t know how to use it or how handy it could be once you got everything set up in a proper RSS viewer. Now I can’t live without it. I keep track of all of my favorite webcomics and blogs through my Google Reader account. There are probably a lot of other feed readers around, but I seriously LOVE the Google Reader. It’s become the one localized RSS feeder website that I check a number of times everyday.

It’s like getting the scoop on all of your favorite websites as they update real time! How can you beat that!?

What is RSS?

Rssday.org defines RSS as the following:

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format used to deliver information from websites and pages that get updated regularly. An RSS document (which is called feed) contains either a summary or the full content from a website.

The main benefit of RSS is that it enables people to stay connected with their favorite websites without having to visit them. Once you subscribe to a particular RSS feed, you will automatically receive updates from the website that publishes the feed, whenever they release new content.

For more information on how it works, including a great video, visit the website at http://rssday.org/.

What is on RSS?

Most major sites update via RSS now days. In fact, whenever I find a new webcomic or blog that I know I want to keep track of, the first place I click is my Google Reader Subscribe. Other applications, such as Feedburner make it quick and easy to make this happen.

Most of my own websites have RSS Feeds through Feedburner including:

Wayrift
Shimmer
Wayfarer Wings

I’m hoping to one day update all of my projects via a reader in the future.

So what are you waiting for? Find an easier way to keep up with all your favorite websites today! Just look for the little feed button!