Welcome to the wonderful year of 2012.

This year has a lot of surprises in store for us. I just know it. This is a momentous year for many people already. Whether you refer to the Mayans, or the Gregorian monks who gave us our calendar, there is certainly a world-changing event in the works.

Don't worry though, even if the world doesn't end, there will still be plenty of excitement to keep you busy. The world is changing, and hopefully, for the better.

Our governments are changing, and our world is becoming more and more self-aware. We are making breakthroughs in technology, politics, sciences, and everything else you could possibly think of. Of-course we do have to have some concern for the people put in power over those things; but nevertheless things will always get worse before they get better.

Keep your head up, and put on a smile. You can affect change without doing anything else. A positive attitude is infectious. Spread smiles wherever you can.

Prepare yourself for an awesome year. Let's make it a great one.

It's nice when people come together to support you when something totally tragic and unexpected happens. This is a true testament that there is still good in the world. Wealth, power and greed have no place in our world; and it has become ever-present to me that they play a major part in our world, our society as a whole.

I challenge you to find the good in yourself. Cast off your worries about others' thoughts of you. Let true self emerge. I believe that people are inherently concerned with their own preservation, but within their core being care about the good of humanity. I urge you to find your humanity, express that, and let it become part of your daily focus. To improve yourself, and in-turn, improve the world.

One of my projects, asoldier.net will be just that. The goal of finding those who are offering up their tributes and talents to others. Namely, our troops. The defenders of our great nation need your help. Our economy has put many soldiers in a crunch and many just need enough to make it till the next paycheck. I would like to start a fund asking those who are not hurting so much to contribute just a small amount. If we can bring together many contributors, even a small amount from each will mean a great amount of help for a soldier in need. Yes the government looks after their own, but some soldiers are not as aware as others when it comes to government aide. And not as many can take advantage of this aide when they're deployed. Their families should be able to help solve those issues without causing trouble with their chain of command. Some things can be problematic when you involve unnecessary people in personal problems. It can even complicate the matters further in many cases. If you've ever had to get an AER loan, you know exactly what I mean.

I'm looking for some immediate resolution to these issues.

I just finished setting up  Alasdair Rutherford's blog last week. He's a phenomenal photographer. Although setting up Wordpress is a fairly easy task, setting it up the way YOU want it is a little more difficult. Fortunately we managed to get it right.

's domain expired (visual-four.com) and unfortunately he was unable to renew it, so he managed to purchase a new domain (visualfour.net). Once-again unfortunately this meant that his entire account needed to be deleted and recreated on the system. Thanks to some clever help from the techs at Site5 and support from the guys at Lum, we've been able to restore  Alex's site.

We're still working on getting the forums at The Luminarium restored, but it's proving more difficult than I imagined. Bear with is a little!

We've managed to get Kopenhaver.com up and running as well. Staying busy!

is currently working on his blog so it's down, and he's still building his site, but as soon as it's up we'll get the word out. He's a little under the weather due to some poorly made parts, or bones. Damn things keep breaking!


I'm going to be having long days next week, but you can still reach me via cell or mobile email if you need to. Take care!

Well, I'm busier than ever. Lately it seems I can't get a moment to sit still... but here's a few updates just the same.

is an awesome artist and community enthusiast. Please visit and +follow. His blog supplies design and art inspiration. Visit it here

I'm an avid Twitter user now. I can't afford to upgrade my subscription right now, but you can visit my Twitter profile here

I'm also bulding a blog for . Sorry it's still under construction, no preview.

We've start work again here, after a month of leave. I relaxed, collected myself, and owned some noobs on Halo 3.

Anyway, more to come as I fill the gaps.

David.

I find it's harder and harder to get things done on a daily basis, and right now, I really don't even know what I should be doing. I've been pretty distracted with all that's going on in the world. It's time to get my head back into the game.

There's a few topics I need to study to get my mind up-to-par with the interwebs; ajax, perl, ruby on rails to name a few. In the mean time, I finished up HTM(L) For Newbies Volume 2. You can check it out at The Luminarium Forums

Reblogged at: [link]



I figured an proper introduction is necessary to allow you to better understand where I come from and why I do what I do. Let me begin.

My name is David Bixler. My Mother has spent the last 20 years travelling, and helping people. She calls herself a medical missionary. I have endured several family adaptations which have resulted in a somewhat scatter-brained approach towards life. Due to this scatter-brained demeanor, I have forced myself into a perfectionist state over the years. Recently I have overcome this unproductive phobia of imperfection and have grown occustomed to some of the principle GTD (Getting Things Done) fundamentals. With this newfound and growing interest in productivity vs. perfectionism, it's important to limit myself on how far I take things on a day-to-day basis.

Taking things easy, without cutting corners. That doesn't quite explain it does it? Think about this. You can over-do any project. It's much better to give yourself or your client a working product that performs its functions, versus trying to include every conceivable function and pushing back your deadline or burning yourself out altogether and never finishing. This can be said of many companies and frreelancers out there. Henceforth it is my intent to produce useful and organized information in a simple and attractive manner, instead of the sophisticated and over-informative trend that is sweeping the global workforces and internet today.

I failed to find a proper New Years resolution, and this is mine. I will continue this post after assembling some visual concepts and products.

I recently encountered a critical error with my Adobe License Manager... apparently I need to make sure my serial numbers are handy.

I've tried doing system restore, registry fixes, and several other diagnostics and such, and nothing comes up unusual and I cannot reinstall my products. The error suggested that I uninstall and reinstall my adobe products, and I've tried. About 10 times this morning. For some reason I can't properly uninstall or reinstall any adobe products, except for adobe acrobat pro.

I paid for the junk I should at least be able to install it right? I sure could use a helping hand trying to figure this out.

I've been promoting this for a minute.

I'm offering free webspace to anyone who has, or can purchase a domain name, and has decent art/design skills... or is trying to learn.

The specs are below:

Full domain support + cpanel
10gb of space
unlimited bandwidth
unlimited parked domains
unlimited subdomains
unlimited email accounts
unlimited ftp accounts
unlimited databases
Fantastico script installer
various other tidbits
Statistics including awStats (there's a couple of alternatives)
There is an online file manager for those of you not familiar with FTP
And there is also a webmail system setup.
-No ads
-No contract
-No obligations

Once the account is setup and you have a grasp on the cpanel, it's yours. Of course international laws abide, no pornography ( art and porn, there is a distinction ). Other than that it's up to you. If you're interested, reply, IM, email, whatever.

This is ONLY for dA members, if you're not registered with dA and don't have a gallery, build one up before you contact me.

If you have webspace or a website setup already, and you're considering switching hosts, that's fine too. Like I said, no obligations.

Contact me for more info.

There's been quite a gap in my updates, so here's a big update.
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Games:
I've got a massive collection of games now, but here's a few of my favorites and a brief descripion.

*Sins of a Solar Empire (Stardock) (*****)5 stars.
-- If you remember any of the Galactic Civ games, there's some massive scale conflicts that occur. Some seriously hard scenarios too. Well in Sins, it's realtime, and you can build massive fleets, control entire solar systems (after fighting off the locals) and the technology schema is huge. The game isn't hard to play, and it coaches you along as you expand your empire. The hardest part is learning an effective strategy to acquire and defend colonizable worlds. The best thing about the game is the massive battles. Capital ships and frigates and fighters, all the way from a kind of minimap mode zoomed into an arm's reach away from your capital ships. The graphics aren't too heavy for a low-end video card so it's worthit if you see it on the shelf. A must have for any strategy gamer.

*Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath - (EA) (****)4 stars
-- If you played Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars, this is a kind of alternate view of the whole timeline. In this game, you're name is Legion, a cyborg of sorts, with a conciousness layered over what used to be called Cabal. As Kane's right hand, um, robo guy, it's your job to command a massive strike force to slay GDI(as usual) and fend off any other adversaries you make along the way, as well as the Scrin. The plot is very similar, and some of the video clips are harvested from the first game, but the overall gameplay is quite different. Several new units and a few new structures play a part including a kind of long-range artillery(stealthed by the way) for NOD and mobile sonic tanks for the GDI, as well as several other technology upgrades etc. This is definitely worth the $20.00 off the shelf.

*Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of war: Soulstorm. (***) 3 stars.
-- Warhammer has evolved quite a bit. The earlier pc games involved just a handfull of races. Now there's about a dozen races to choose from, with very different technology trees for each, and a whole range of strategies to follow. Some new units, some old units done away with, and some new tech upgrades. The best part about this game isn't the new toys, it's overall scope of the game. The game used to be based on one planet, Cronos, but now it's based on an entire system of planets and moons. Webway gates link the planets and some of the moons and it's your job to conquer it all. You're faced with a tide on all fronts, and the near-impossible task of cleansing the system of the other-worldy heratics, as well as the traitors to the Emperor.

*World in Conflict...

I just started playing this, but it's looking very promising, for Sierra anyway. More to come on that.

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Movies

I saw Hellboy II while I was home on R&R, as well as Wall-E. I really enjoyed both of them.

Hellboy II (***) picks up where it left off in the first movie, he still hates his boss, his hot (literally) girlfriend is still a wreck and he's still a lazy tool. The good news is he saves the world from an elf prince. Yay for all of you DnD fans. I enjoyed the hack n slash portions of the film. The costumes were actually pretty well done. Some good humour too. It's worth a rent.

Wall-E (****) is a true American flick. Animated as it is, it takes place after the planet is overburdened with human waste, and the remaining humans plant their asses on some cruise ships to wait out the planet's sickness till it's stable enough for human life. Wall-E, a trash collector who, over the centuries has developed a kind of AI,a conciousness of his own. He collects things, he's curious, kindof like an ape, but with treds for feet, and a nack for runnin out of juice. This is a great family flick and it's worth owning.

Wanted (*****) Angelina Jolie co-stars and provides some serious attitude to the film. This is a non-stop action shooter, with some interesting twists. It's not your average shoot-em-up movie. Trust me, this movie will have your heart racing, no pun intended.

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Webhosting

I'm providing hosting for a couple of people now, as well as a massive art group/community found here and you can visit the forums here. They're very active and have some very talented artists. Visit them on dA <a href="[link] alt"Lum on dA">here

I'm also hosting
You can find his site here.
I'm hosting several others, and I'll post their links once their sites are avaialable.

I'm writing tutorials which will become available via the forums at Lum so be sure to check them out.

If anyone is interested in some free no-adds hosting, let me know. I've got plenty to spare, and you'll get your own cpanel. For more info, once again, the forums at Lum. Take care for now.

I've been stuck overseas for the better part of half a year, and I've got another 8 months to go, so I'm not looking forward to going back to Iraq.

I'm on R&R for now, enjoying some time off, playing with my daughter, and getting cought up on all things American. I saw Hancock and Wall.E yesterday, both being supreme movies. I highly recommend Hancock, which gives a kind of greek god theme to the old Superman schema. Will Smith gives a supreme performance so it's worth it to catch it on the big screen.

I have a few new games, and I'm way behind the times as far as reviews go, so hopefully I'll find time today or tomorrow.

I picked up a few DVDs. Sunshine, Skinwalkers, 10,000BC, Vantage Point, Pulse, and The Spiderwick Chronicles, all being great movies. The Spiderwick Chronicles offsets the lack of blood and gore in a hack and slash fantasy that Narnia and The Golden Compess deprived from its viewers, and includes a spectacular cast and theme. There's alot of features that catch you off guard in that movie so it's great. Not a chick flick, so guys, if your lady friend wants to watch it, I think you'll enjoy it too.

Pay attention to . This guy has a great art group started, and they're putting out some seriously good stuff.

I've been working on my skinning skills for the last few months, when I redeploy next year, feb-march timeframe, I'll be sharing my work with you. Stay tuned for some in-depth reviews. Till then, take care.

I picked up a few things the other day. ( I've been hitting up newegg, and the local shops ) I've picked up a few movies. Jumper ( 5 stars ); Cloverfield ( pending review );Gabriel (3 stars -ouch-); Hitman ( stars ). I picked up a few pc games. Timeshift, Blacksite-Area51, Hellgate: London, and Painkiller - Overdose. I'll be posting detailed reviews shortly.

I've purchased several new items recently. I've done fairly extensive research on each item. So, I figure some of you might benefit from my research (and maybe save a dime or some time).

I managed to fry my external enclosure for my old 500gb 10,000rpm Western Digital drive so I bought another of the same type/different model.
Azio Aluminum Series External Enclosure Item=N82E16817106095
It supports Firewire (1394) and USB 2.0. I wanted to give firewire a try since I've got the port on my laptop and never seem to have a use for it. It's supposed to run faster so let's see.
I've pretty much filled that drive up with various things and I decided to upgrade so I picked this up External 1TB HHD 1TB 7200 rpm precased external drive for about $220. USB 2.0 only (I'll probably just grab another case).


Say hello to Cruncha. He's an awesome techno/electronica artist. He's making quite a bit of headway but he's been laying off the beats for a minute. I hear he's making a comeback so look for his new stuff here> [link] and check Depthcore for the latest release.

And last but not least, got DAMN > [link]

Okay, a short update on my behalf....

Iraq still sucks.

Okay you already knew that. It's getting hotter here, it's getting closer and closer to what most would call summer in the states and yet it feels like July decided to drink a red bull and do go for a brisk jog because this place is HOT. Hotter than Halle Berry in that cat movie with the ripped up leather pants. Yeah, that hot.

Command & Conquer 3. This game rocks, especially if you have a potent machine to run it on. My laptop dishes out an incerdible 512mb of graphics pleasure, and it still seems to want more. For an RTS this game packs a punch, although I have to admit, it was a pretty thoroughly built game. Let's start off with 1-player mode. In campaign mode you have 2 factions to choose from. GDI (global defense initiative) or Nod..... no one really knows how Nod got their name, all we know is they are some lying evil vicious bastards who want the green stuff. The green stuff? It's Tiberium, named after the Tiber river where it was first discovered. This stuff is basically a crystalline parasite, it feeds off of anything it comes into contact with, it grows fast, and it emits deadly radation, a byproduct of it's amazing metabolism and it's incredible ability to leech natural resources from most any element(s) and grow geometrically.

You have all kinds of interesting characters in this game, and screw me if I can't remember any names, but it's got that guy named Sawyer in LOST as a bad guy on Nods side, it's got that chick from Battle Star Galactica too.... (you know the invisible blonde badass chick) ... oh and it's also got that asian chick (who turned out to be a sleeper assassin) yeah her.... as well as a few other memorable faces. I thought the game was worth the 40 bucks just to watch some of the movies.

The gameplay starts off easy, with a few ranked troops and a commando. But before you know it you're building massive bases, stealing your enemies resources, blasting and nuking the opponants to kingdom come. And if that doesn't eliminate them, the wierd aliens will.

The multiplayer is pretty righteous. It doesn't have the character modding that Warhammer 40k provides; but it does allow for a pretty comprehensive AI selection. Everything from a nice balanced AI to Steamroller and Rusher. You can have a rather large selection of opponants, or set teams if you prefer. There's really no end to the fun.

I'll tell you a little secret, when you beat GDI and NOD campaigns, then you get a Scrin Campaign mode added to the game's console menu. At first I thought this campaign mode was going to be cheap... but I was quickly amazed at the level of energy that was poured into this third campaign mode. The visuals are pretty righteous too, even though much of the CGI film-trimmings were recycled from the other two campaigns, the added effects supply a convincing outcome. You'll be impressed.
             
            Command & Conquer™ 3: Kane’s Wrath
-I have the expansion pack in the mail... so more on this soon.
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Eye on Design... once again!

I've been out of the designer's loop for a while. So my spot on the "Couch" is probably a topic that is out of reach. I'll be coming back to the graphics community with a passion so watch out.

I have a new laptop. It's not the greatest toy on the market, but then again, if you invest too much in a laptop... let's just pray I don't drop the one I've got. My last one didn't even make it to Iraq! It's a best though, and I'm glad I've got it. I had to bite the bullet and move to Vista, but I am not disappointed. Vista took some getting used to, and even some frustrating nights getting various applications to install and work correctly. But, with little effort (and more time than necessary) I've been able to get most, if not all of my games to play, and almost all of my important applications to install and run.

The desert is pretty hard on laptops so if HP comes through for me this time, I'll be eternally grateful. My visit to Afghanistan was mostly cold and damp so there wasn't much dust to speak of. My other HP did great in those conditions.


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Goals:
I'm going to be going back and relearning everything I ever forgot about design, coding, and skinning. I have a few styles coming out, which I believe are somewhat original... but then again everything (almost) has been done so it's going to be difficult to smack that mule without getting kicked. I'd appreciate any support you can give me on this. Suggestions for tutorial sites would be a super great help.

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Friends:
Some of you have been a tremendous support to me. Everything from little comments to letters in the mail has helped me during my time in Iraq and for that I am incredibly grateful. The dA community is by-far one of the greatest things on the web. I hope it never goes away and I hope all of you continue to deviate. I'll post more updates soon.

-David

Okay let's set a few things straight about me. I'm a nerd. I ADMIT IT... I'm not a geek. Yes! I wear glasses, but they're only used when I'm doing extensive reading or am exhausted. Geeks can't get a date because 1, they're too ugly ( probably due to bad hygeine i.e. acne ) 2, they have absolutely no social skills ( Grandma's Boy ) and 3, geeks aren't necessarily smart, but they are talented at certain things like Dungeons and Dragons, Final Fantasy ( the card game ) and Warhammer ( the board game ).

I like games, but I don't play them obsessively, I play them, I beat them, I go back and play them in a harder mode, probably get frustrated and try multiplayer instead, maybe a skirmish or bot game, or a variation. Maybe a few mods after that, then I critique it. I don't play it at all hours of the night and into the next day and forget to do important things, like call my wife. So the next time you look to call someone a geek, look in another direction.
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Now, for the topic... Crysis for PC.

Okay, let's give a few references before I jump in.

Mercenaries for XBOX
Halo 2 for XBOX
Unreal 2004 for PC
and Predator ( the movie )

Jumping in. Crysis was evolved from the well-made Crytek engine which was developed and used with a popular game called Far Cry which has a similar plot to Crysis, well, a smidgen anyway. In far cry, your boat gets blown up and you're stranded on some god-forsaken island and you're being hunted by, well, guys with guns, and of coarse, monsters...

Well in Crysis the opening scene starts off with a HALO style jump onto an Island dominated by the North Koreans. You're going in to try to retrieve some lost scientists and get some intel on some mysterious mumbo jumbo going on with the island.

The gameplay is deep. You need a monster of a laptop or a decent desktop to run this game at its minimum. I had my graphics turned all the way down and my brand new laptop could barely handle it.

The scheme is similar to Mercenaries for the XBOX console where you have mostly free-range gameplay and you can skip some checkpoints and objectives and move on to the next. If you veer too far from one of the available objectives or combat area, you get blown to bits, same as Mercenaries.

The technology schema is a little unique, but very realistic, to a point. Weapons are highly configureable. You pick up modules and attachments along the way, but when you start off your standard issue includes a 9mm, and a SCAR rifle. The pistol can be immediately equipped with a silencer and a laser designator. The rifle can be immediately equipped with a silencer, a sleeping dart attachment, and reflex scope. ( red dot ) Later you'll pick up a second 9mm and it will share the configuration of the other pistol. Both can be fired at the same time or you can set it to fire alternating shots. Unfortunetly you can't fire one individually (Halo 2 & 3). The SCAR can be easily replaced with several other weapons including the North Korean equivalent of a m249 and AK-47 medium. Both rifles can be equipped with silencers, flashlights, and a sleeping dart attachment.
Later you'll get an assault scope (crosshairs) and a precision scope when you acquire the precision rifle. You'll also acquire a laser designator and grenade launcher with multiple ammo types for hand grenades as well as the rifle's m203 equivalent. I'm not going to tell you about all of the weapons you find but that should be enough to get you interested.

Off the bat you are equipped with a very useful nanosuit. It comes with 4 modes which can be accessed a variety of ways. Stealth (Predator), Max Armor which is pretty much a temporary shield (Halo), Strength, which allows you to jump high, steady your aim, pummel enemies, or beat the living hell out of vehicles causing them to explode with the occupants still inside. You can also pick up some heavy objects and bash people with your weapon on hand. Your Max Speed ability is a short-lived ability. You can rush up on someone quick but you might not live long since it depletes your suit's energy supply quickly. Although it also recharges quickly, when you're under enemy fire, your Armor also drains energy from the suit so if you don't pay attention you're pretty much Scr...d.

You don't have the flexibility of GRAW II, such as being able to crawl in the prone and snipe the asshole gunning down your squad... but you have plenty of buildings to play house in. When you run out of ammo, no worries, you can use your depleted weapon as a bashing tool, pick up objects and toss them at the enemy, or switch to Strength mode and beat the living h+e(double hockeystick) out of them. If you so choose, you also can switch off your weapons to fists and give your assailants a proper thrashing.

The overall interface is very impressive, unlike the gawdy, and somewhat crusty GUIs most games have. The GUI loads surprisingly fast compared to the other features of the game... but then again, you are looking at next-gen graphics and gaming. Even with graphics turned all the way down, it's an impressive feat.

I had no issues installing and running this game on Vista Home Premium so if you've got anything close, I'd look into it, but here's your warning, you better have a beast of a machine, otherwise, check your return policy.