Inspiring Quotes, Gaming, E-marketing And My Writing.

9/23/2001

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:51:00 +0000

I'm sitting here trying to come up with an ethical issue. I guess my big thing for the day is egoism. This is advancing oneself at the pain of others. I have never been much of an egotist and I sometimes wish I were more of one. I tend to be an altruist helping people out whether or not I get any benefit from it or not. I wish I could convince myself that I was worth the effort. I generally have low-self esteem and put other's needs before mine. I do however tend to help other out more when they return the efforts I give them. I try to think of myself as what the book calls a reciprocist. I do at times tend to be a sucker helping out those who don't deserve it and at great expense to myself.

found some more writing

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:45:00 +0000

down to earth to what is now and current and real. I went for a short hike today and meditated on a bench. I let my thought just listen to the sounds of nature free and easy within myself. I took a map had lunch not necessarily in that order and came back to here and now where I am. I emptied my cup so to speak and tried to just listen as people talked about what we were doing here in our writing session. so, ok why the fear of self disclosure? more so, why the fear of looking into myself? or is that just my own stubbornness? letting those walls down can be very scary for me unless there is a great amount of trust between myself and those I am sharing myself with, I remain a closed book. the whip cracks keep writing I say. The siege engines prepare themselves the ladders are thrown down and the war begins. Is it between me myself and i or the world and myself? Isn't the world supposed to be a peaceful place though? at least now we wish it was.

we dont need no education!

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:26:00 +0000

(helicopter in background)

(beat)

When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers who would hurt the children any way they could

A boring ready region upon anything we did exposing every weakness how the kid did bye the kid (laughter)

Out in the middle of nowhere
they were at home at night
their fat and psychopathic wives would beat them,
to within inches of their lives

(beat)

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the class room
Teachers leave those kids alone
(yells) Hey, teachers! Leave those kids alone!

All in all, it's just a
Nother brick in the wall

All in all, you're just a
Nother brick in the wall

(british kids)
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the class room
Teachers leave those kids alone
(yells) Hey, teachers! Leave those kids alone!

All in all, it's just a
Nother brick in the wall
All in all, you're just a
Nother brick in the wall

(beat)

If u dont eat ur meat u kant have ne pudding
How kan u have any pudding if u dont eat ur meat

If u dont eat ur meat u kant have ne pudding
How kan u have any pudding if u dont eat ur meat

If u dont eat ur meat u kant have ne pudding
How kan u have any pudding if u dont eat ur meat

(kids screaming)
(beeping)

Starting School and A New Job

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:21:00 +0000

I am starting school next week at www.champlain.edu. I am in their software development certificate program. I am taking a class in javascript and in relational database.

I also got a job recently at www.hrpstaffing.com as a executive recruiter. I get to look for people to fill positions in hospitals. I put some ads out today for jobs that are in our database. I can make some really big commissions for filling these jobs.

Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 05:32:00 +0000

I took a road trip with a friend from Vermont to Georgia to Chicago and back to Vermont again. I was on this trip for ten days. I had a good time and it was good to see the country. I saw lots of things like an underground falls and a u2 concert. I also have lots of pictures of this plantation in Georgia that was very beautiful. I saw some crocodiles up close there. I am ready to start work on something, what I don't know yet. I have a couple ideas for an it project and I've applied to some jobs. When I wasn't driving I did some studying for my online C++ class on the road. I now know what a pointer is. I also read some about classes in C++ programming. I have some other concepts thoroughly embedded in my head. I was exhausted after my trip though and slept for a really long time. I hope to connect with some contacts in Connecticut to work on a small project in C++ so that I may better understand the programming language. I want to do a simple text adventure game with descriptions and a map. The course work I am doing through http://www.gameinstitute.com has a bare bones outline of such an RPG game, I just want to do something a bit more complicated. Anyway, I will post a link to the game here. I hope to get it done by August 29th when classes start back up at Champlain College here in Burlington, Vermont. I am taking classes there towards a Certificate in Software Development. I hope to graduate by Spring of 2012.

took some time off

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:12:00 +0000

I have been taking some time off from responsblity since the spring semester at champlain college ended 3 weeks ago. I have some classwork to do through www.gameinstitute.com. I need to get going on that pretty soon. I mostly have been playing everquest drawn in by the free time they offered due to some hackers taking over the system and hacking all the players information for more on that: http://www.soe.com/securityupdate/index.vm?locale=en_US.

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:55:00 +0000

Munchkins

Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!

Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.

Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.

Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,

Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.

Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.

Let them know

The Wicked Witch is dead!

Mayor

As Mayor of the Munchkin City, In the County of the Land of Oz, I welcome you most regally.

Barrister

But we've got to verify it legally, to see

Mayor

To see?

Barrister

If she

Mayor

If she?

Barrister

Is morally, ethic'lly

Father No.1

Spiritually, physically

Father No. 2

Positively, absolutely

Munchkins

Undeniably and reliably Dead

Coroner

As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her.

And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead.

Mayor

Then this is a day of Independence For all the Munchkins and their descendants

Barrister

If any.

Mayor

Yes, let the joyous news be spread The wicked Old Witch at last id dead!

From: http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/thewizardofoz/dingdongthewitchisdead.htm

A new resume

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 00:50:00 +0000

I put a new resume online. I am going to get rid of the resume bucket link. http://www.scribd.com/doc/53112544/Resume

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:13:00 +0000

“A project is complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it.” ---Scott Allen

Crunch time!

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:09:00 +0000

End of the semester and lots of homework. I am in a software development certificate program at Champlain College and currently behind in my studies. I am waiting in the computer lab for a tutor who hopefully will help me catch up.

Small Venture

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:46:00 +0000

I bought an ad board today http://thefreeadpost.com/ I keep 100% of any upgraded ads that people buy. I am promoting it on some traffic exchanges i use:

http://www.freetrafficworld.com/?rid=13721
http://www.hitsboosterpro.com/?rid=22682
http://www.thetrafficdance.com/?rid=1602

I also get commissions from anyone that wants to buy their own adboard: http://incomeway.com/index.cgi?ref=335954.

Paper for school

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:43:00 +0000

Stuart Collinson

Intro to Computer Theory CIS 135-02

Instructor: Sarah Pettitt

Computer Crime: How it is changing our lives.

Computers and Computer Crime is changing the way we do business. Increasingly criminals are turning to the internet for their scams. Everyday, people are getting viruses on their computers, which are stealing information from them.

Identity theft happens frequently and people are having their credit cards and bank accounts hacked into all the time. Many think that the policies regarding e-crime are not adequate enough. According to the FBI in 2008 computer spying and theft of personal information is on the rise. “The Internet Crime Complaint Center, which the FBI helps run, has recorded more than one million complaints since its founding in 2000 and numbers are now running about 18,000 to 20,000 a month” (“FBI Sees Rise In Computer Crime”).

What can the average citizen do to prevent this crime? Awareness is a big piece of the puzzle. Scammers are sending out emails in response to resumes on the internet asking for social security numbers and bank account numbers. A typical scam will claim that the person has won money in an international lottery or is the beneficiary of a large settlement. Sometimes they will include a fraudulent job offer. Often these scams will have an international number to call to verify. I personally have gotten many of these emails and I ignore them all.

The key is to not give out this information, unless you are positive of the source. For instance, If the message asking for your information comes from an internal company source, verify the request with a phone call. Internal emails are subject to hack as much as your friends emails are. I personally have had my girlfriends account hacked into and for awhile her account was sending out spam to all the people on her list.

The need to keep information safe has prompted security firms to come up with new ways to beef up Internet Security. Recently, Commtouch introduced a new unified engine that combines three internet security technologies. The engine brings together messaging security, web security and anti-virus into a single engine (Commtouch; Commtouch Introduces Industry's First Unified Engine Combining Three Internet Security Technologies).

One person who thinks that more could be done to catch these criminals is Institute of Information Security Professionals chairman Paul Dorey.

“An act of leadership is needed to enable law enforcement to keep up with the challenge of electronic attacks,” (Young) he said.

As a nation, our response to computer crime and cyber terrorism is one of our key policy issues. As far as I am concerned the current administration hasn't done much in this area. The problem is as widespread and as big a threat as the war on drugs was in the 80's. Little has been done however to combat the problem. We as a nation need to come up with better solutions to combat cyber-crime. We can't keep allowing information to be stolen without serious consequences.

Works Cited

"Commtouch; Commtouch Introduces Industry's First Unified Engine Combining Three Internet Security Technologies." ProQuest. ProQuest LLC, 3 Mar. 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2011. .

“FBI Sees Rise in Computer Crime.” Baseline (2008). Gale Group. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.

Young, Tom. "E-crime Policy Is Not Working." Gale Group, 13 Dec. 2007. Web. 26 Feb. 2011

quote for today.

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:33:00 +0000

Rudyard Kipling
If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Facebook Pruning

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 23:48:00 +0000

I trimmed back my friends on Facebook today. I am hoping that this pruning of Facebook friends will actually lead to me growing the number of real friends I have. I still want to network with people. I am moving in some different directions now though so I am hoping that clearing some of the dead branches so to speak will allow for further professional growth in different areas. I changed some of my group affiliations as well. I dropped some groups I was in and joined some new ones.

Daz3d

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 07:11:00 +0000

I signed up to be an affiliate for daz3d an art and animation program. It is compatible with Unity the game engine/sdk I am using for the pirate game I am working on with some friends. I am floating their banner at the top of my blog now.

Global Gam Jam

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 13:03:00 +0000

This is my submission to global game jam,an event where you have 48 hours to make a game:
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2011/missile-launch this years topic is extinction.

Managing Small Projects

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 09:44:00 +0000

Title:
Managing small projects

Word Count:
1944

Summary:
Project management best practices can easily be applied on small projects to enable you to plan and manage your project successfully.

Keywords:
project management

Article Body:
As both an active project manager and project management trainer, I often get asked whether the project management best practices that are applicable for large projects can be applied on smaller projects. This is a really important question and one which all project managers must face up to when managing small projects.

Focusing on project delivery

One of the arguments against using project management methodologies is that they are very process-centric resulting in vast quantities of project documentation which are simply not practical or desirable on small projects. This is a powerful argument and any method which focuses on producing documentation at the expense of delivering the real business benefits of the project will be a hindrance rather than a benefit. After all, the name of the game in project management is delivering business objectives, not producing reams of documents.

There is an ongoing and active discussion within the software development community about the best way to produce
software on projects. More recently, some software professionals have argued for more agile methods of producing software rather than the more traditional heavyweight methods which focused on producing vast quantities of documentation.

Agile methods focus on delivery of software rather than documentation. With this in mind, I think project managers everywhere can learn something from the agile methods employed in software development. In short, this leads us to focus on project delivery rather than project documentation, although the critical choice project managers everywhere
need to make is how much documentation is really necessary?

Apply the best practices

I am a firm believer in only producing as much as is required by the project. Nothing more and nothing less. A simple rule of thumb is: if it's useful in helping us to deliver the business objectives of the project then produce it, if it isn't useful in helping us to deliver the business objectives of the project then don't waste time to produce it. With this in mind, I believe that in all projects, at a minimum it is best to apply project management best practices.

Let’s consider the best practices in turn and see whether or not the overhead lost in applying best practices is worth the benefits which can be gained.

Defining objectives and scope

Even on the smallest project there will be objectives which must be achieved. As a project manager, it is in your interest to define what these objectives are since you are likely to be assessed on whether the project meets those objectives. It is your responsibility to ensure the project meets those objectives and you are accountable for this. In short, the book stops with you.

Now suppose you don't define and write down what the objectives are, you are always going to be at the mercy of any boss who decides he's got it in for you. The defined and documented set of objectives is your insurance policy against your manager later coming along and saying you didn't meet the objectives.

However, there is another reason why you still need to define and document the objectives even on a small project. You want to satisfy the needs of the stakeholders since that is what you are paid to do as a project manager. If the objectives aren't defined, then you won't be able to meet those needs through your project.

Similarly with defining the scope. The scope forms the boundary of your project. If you don't define what it is, the likelihood is that it will grow and grow as the project progresses and although you might have started managing a very small project, before long your project could become very much bigger than when you set out.

You still need to document who are the stakeholders on a small project as well. By defining who these are, you can ensure that you cover all of their needs when you define the objectives and deliverables.

Defining deliverables

Somebody is going to have to carry out the actual work to produce whatever is delivered from your project. Even if the deliverables might be small and don't take much time to produce, they should still be written down. By documenting these things and then having them reviewed by others allows errors to be found. Your aim should be to document a detailed enough set of descriptions of the products to be delivered.

These descriptions will then be used by the people who will produce the deliverables. Even if these descriptions take no more than a page of text, it is important to write them in a clear and unambiguous way. If you don't write down a description, it means that the person making the deliverable can interpret what is required in unexpected ways which will only result in work being done later to correct the mistakes. So, always define and document the deliverables.

Project planning

If you were to walk up Mount Everest, you would never do it without a considerable amount of planning. Even if you walk up the hill at the back of your house, there is probably some planning involved - what time do you go? What should you take with you? It is the same on even the smallest project where you will still need to work out which activities are required to produce a deliverable, estimate how long the activities will take, work out how many staff and resources are required and assign activities and responsibilities to staff.

All of these things need to be written down and communicated effectively to the project team members. I've seen lots of people become unstuck because they think they need to use some kind of project management planning software such as Microsoft Project. This is an unnecessary overhead. I've noticed that people tend to waste too much time making their Microsoft Project Gantt charts look pretty, so that they lose sight of the reason why they are using the tool.

Instead, for small projects I find that creating a bar chart in Microsoft Excel is the best. It is simple and more than adequate for small projects. Just make each column a sequential date, write your tasks in the first column, and fill in the cells to represent the time the activity takes.

In addition to the bar chart, you will need to document the milestones on the project. Milestones are the dates by which you need to deliver certain things, or may be the date on which a major activity ends. The responsibilities of each project member must also be documented in the project plan.

Communication

Even in the smallest project team comprised of just a project manager and one other person, the project manager will still need to assign tasks and responsibilities to the other person. It can't be assumed that they will know what they should do without it being effectively communicated from the project manager. If the project manager doesn't assign them specific activities, then the chances are they will go ahead and work on things which are not needed by the project. So, either the project will end up delivering the wrong things, or the project will get delayed since time will need to be spent later on doing the activities which should have been done earlier.

You can communicate the plans via email, or give a print out of the plan to your project team member(s), or better still, call a meeting and run through the plan with the project team members. Remember, if the plan changes, you will also need to communicate the changes to your team as well.

Tracking and reporting progress

If we still consider our two person project team - the project manager and one other person - the project manager will need to know the progress of the activities which the other person is working on. This can be done in a variety of ways: a short daily email detailing the work completed, the work still left to do, and a list of any issues/problems. In most cases this will be sufficient.

Alternatively a short 15 minute face to face catch up can accomplish the same thing. Or a combination of the two things might be best. In any event, the project manager still needs to be fully aware of the progress that is being made so that progress can be tracked effectively.

Change management

Even on our two person project, changes are likely to occur. Requests for change usually come from stakeholders and it is your responsibility as project manager to assess the impact of accepting these into the project. To do this, you need a good estimate of the impact the change will have in terms of the extra effort and cost involved. This will often impact the schedule as well, so by having a clear understanding of how the schedule and budget will be affected you can make the decision as to whether or not you will accept the change into your project.

On a small project there shouldn't be any need for any fancy change control board to decide if the change is accepted. A quick discussion with the key stakeholder(s) should be sufficient for you to come to a decision providing you have worked out the impact on cost and schedule.

One thing you should never do is simply accept the change. Even if you think the change is small, you should never accept any change(s) without fully understanding what its impact will be on cost and schedule. That is a recipe for what we call 'scope creep' where the project grows bigger and bigger as more and more changes are added into the project. Before you know it, your small project has become a much larger one and you will inevitably fail to deliver your project to your original budget and schedule.

Risk management

There will be risks even on a small project. Make sure you have thought through all the potential risks at the beginning of the project, monitor the top ten risks each week (or top five if the number of risks is small) and keep looking out for new risks. Failing to manage risk properly is one the main causes for projects to fail.

The overhead in managing risks is very low. On a recent project, I drew up a list of what I considered to be all the risks on the project. It came to about 10 risks in all. Of these, five were serious risks. I worked out a plan to avoid or minimise each risk. In all, it took me little over a couple of hours to do this. Then, each week on the project, I would spend say half an hour reviewing all the risks and thinking of any new ones. At the end of the project, whilst some risks actually had materialised, because I'd identified a plan at the start of the project to minimise the impact of these risks, the impact of these risks on the project ended up being minimal.

So, with little up front and ongoing effort, you get a big pay back if you manage the risks throughout the project.

Summary

So, in summary, applying the best practices to even a small project can be done without creating too much paperwork or overhead. The best practices are the things which countless project managers have done on thousands of projects and are
deemed to be the 'best practice' because they tend to help you to achieve the best results.

Don't think that because you're managing a small project that you can ditch these best practices because if you do, you will regret it later when your project gets in a mess.

Pirate Game

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:45:00 +0000

I am looking at doing a new game with a pirate theme. I had a good meeting last night with some interested people. My role would be managing the team, working on sales and marketing the game. My studies in game programming are going ok, I feel like I have alot to learn though and have been feeling a bit overwhelmed. I am starting to feel inspired again though, which is good.

Dalai Lama Quote

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:05:00 +0000

I really liked what the Dalai Lama had to say today. I need to focus on what I have accomplished and not on the fact that things aren't really going my way.

Dalai Lama-
For healthy mental and emotional growth, we need a gentle, skillful, balanced approach, avoiding extremes. If we are becoming arrogant and self-important, the antidote is to think about our own problems and sufferings, to bring us down to earth. But if we are feeling overwhelmed, discouraged, helpless and depressed, it's important to reflect on our positive qualities or achievements to uplift our minds.

Listbuilding For Free With JV Events

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Listbuilding is one important strategy for internet marketers. It is the process of adding new subscribers to an email list. The term "adding" is not quite correct as you can not simply add new names and email address into your Autoresponder. People have to signup for your list on their own, that means they enter their name and email address into an autoresponder form that is located on your website.

People don't give their name and email address away for nothing, you need to offer them an incentive. Most people give away ebooks, software or templates in return for people's name and email address.

Once you have such a system in place you only need to drive traffic to your Squeeze Page (the website where people signup to your list).

A very easy way to get people to your website and on your list is to contribute your free gift to a Giveaway Event. These are events where hundreds of internet marketers team up... they all give away free gifts to get new people on their email list. All these gifts are listed up on one website and all marketers promote this website. This way everybody gets more signups than they would get if they promote on their own.

You can also use this listbuilding strategy, the New Year Giveaway has just started. Signup and follow the instructions... it's very simple.

Have fun!

Recycling an old blog post

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 09:59:00 +0000

one step, two step, three step over
The music plays on the bard takes the stage and all falls quiet and still as the people fall back to listen to what will unfold within there spirits.
listening quietly to the voices within our minds the band plays on and on. as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. all is quiet and still and the albatross? well hes a far and distant dream. the curse of the mariner doesn't apply here.

So what is my purpose here in these shifting sands? what story am I telling or is it just many stories with a similar theme. is the pharoh's curse the same as the marniers. is the restriction I am under to continue to tell a story everyday or lose my life, my happiness, my connection to mankind?

Where is the future leading? what battles have yet to be fought? so seriously who am I in this space and time? why do I continously fail to allow myself concrete connection to self. why do I seek to soar creatively and imaginitively 14 in the clouds, behind some kind of castle wall.

Giving away some ebooks

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 03:59:00 +0000

I'm giving away some Ebooks to anyone who wants to join my mailing list.

Name That Tune

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:15:00 +0000

Well, the first days are the hardest days,
don't you worry anymore
When life looks like Easy Street
there is danger at your door
Think this through with me
Let me know your mind
Wo-oah, what I want to know
is are you kind?
It's a Buck Dancer's Choice, my friend,
better take my advice
You know all the rules by now
and the fire from the ice
Will you come with me?
Won't you come with me?
Wo-oah, what I want to know,
will you come with me?

Creating a Work Breakdown Structure.

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart Collinson) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 07:35:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdlYTwDhqYE&feature=related. I really love this video. It inspires me to want manage a project.