New Logo!

It has been a while since I've posted a new blog, but this time we've got a new logo! It's something I made in Illustrator and I really like the way it turned out. Its got a comical feel to it and it required me more effort than usual, which is a good thing. I believe that a person excels best out of their comfort zone and by challenging yourself everyday to do something you wouldn't normally feel comfortable doing you will discover who you really are and what you are capable of. So for anyone who is trying to learn webs design and graphic art, keep reading, studying, and most importantly, set high goals for yourself. You will see your work develop and become better after each project.

Here is our logo:

Until next time,

John Greene

Xbox One?

As most of us know it, the newest addition to the Xbox family will be released later this year. They have named it the Xbox One. Forget the whole 720 degree thing. They went with one. I was personally hoping for something more creative, but once again, Microsoft never ceases to disappoint me. This is what I know about the Xbox One.

• Blu Ray optical disk drive
• 8 gigs of RAM
• 500 gig non-replaceable hard drive
• An AMD GPU
• "Multitasking"
• It's black
• Voice control

This is just a basic list, but it does seem promising. The only thing that I am not too keen about is the non-replaceable hard drive. I have multiple hard drives for my current Xbox 360 and I find it convenient to use them rather than some sort of external source. Yet, since they are raising the ante by making it 500 gigs of space, this might make my situation irrelevant. I am very excited to see some live testing of it or reviews by anyone who gets their hands on it early.

Have a good day!

- John

Summer School

Today has been one of the days where you wish you had more than 24 hours. I've recently been on a informational crunch, trying to learn as much of everything as possible. I've realized that this is the least efficient way to go about this. Instead of trying to refine my knowledge of javascript, develop my html skills, learn PHP, Ruby, and Python, I've concluded that I need to focus on a single topic and just devote all the time I would be dedicating to everything else towards this one skill.

It's just so rewarding to feel the sense of accomplishment when you spend thirty minutes debugging a bit of code and finally see a working result. I just really want to keep learning more and more.

I notice I really sound lame. Wanting to learn and all.

So if anybody needs me I will be stationed in front of my drawing pad and dsktop for the next 12 hours.

Enjoy the day!

John

1000 Views!!!

Woo Hoo! We have reached our first benchmark of 1000 views on our blog. We would like to thank you all for reading our content and especially those who have given us feedback. It honestly really helps us. I hadn't anticipated this benchmark so quickly so I don't have any sort of gift ready for you.

If any of you guys have an idea (maybe a special lets play video) be sure to let us know and we'll do something for you :D

Once again, Thank you guys!

- John from Belliavis

Star Wars Can Never Be Destroyed

Thank all that is holy. Star Wars is not defeated.

It has been said that Disney has given the rights of all the Star Wars video game developments to EA Games, including studios like DICE, Visceral, and Bioware. I am beyond excited to see a Battlefront 3 created by DICE, and with the new Frostbite gaming engine, this could potentially be a game of the year.

With all great things comes the daisy downers. There is always the possibility that EA will balls it up once again and bring shame to the Star Wars franchise, but deep down in my heart there is faith in them and I believe that they can create something amazing if they put the time and effort into it.

That's all for now!
- John

Javascript or Flash?

I am a huge fan of codeacademy.com

They have a detailed, professional course design that really focuses on people new to the programming world. I started out there with the html/css courses when I started college and it really helped me gain an advantadge over my classmates. The only downfall was that during group projects I was the one doing the work. Besides, how do you evenly distribute the workload of designing and creating a website, especially one being created by novices?

I really enjoyed the majority of the courses, but there were a few spots when I simply didn't know what to do. After rummaging through the internet I eventually found my answers, but sometimes that is what it takes when you are learning a new language.

I have returned to the website with the anticipation of learning some real programming languages, such as Java and Flash. Codeacademy does not provide lessons for these two specific languages, but they do have a course for Javascript.

Now, this is my question. Should I start on Flash or Java? If there are any professionals out there who have learned from experience which one is betterm I would greatly appreciate some insight. I am one of those people who has to focus on one language at a time, mainly because I will start to combine the codes and bug my project up.

Have a great day!

- John

http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0

The Golden Dollar

We have just made our first dollar via online services! It's quite a good feeling, being able to receive money for doing something we enjoy and without having to actually seeing someone face to face. This type of transaction certainly is a new thing to how businesses work, and with it being my first time trying it I was very pleased to see how smooth the process was.

On that note, if anybody has any type of design project that they want young professionals (us) to take on, we would be more than happy to assist or even complete it for you. Typical examples of work we would do are logo designs, poster designs, powerpoints, short videos (commercials/advertisements/trailers/promos), and things like that.

Just contact us at Belliavis@gmail.com

Hope you all are having a wonderful day!

- John

Rainy Days

This is our first blog post that we've made on a rainy day. I feel that it's worth documenting. ANYWAYS...

Finishing up the last week of my sopohmore year of college, throwing together all my projects, assignments, essays, and whatever it may be that I am forgetting... Free time is about to be a major part of my life. Besides having a job, there isn't much you can do in the city, so you must think of other things to do. From what I've noticed over the past year, these are the most popular past-times done by people my age.

• Complain about the weather
• Go to the harbor
• Eat Sushi
• Look for apartments
• Look for jobs
• Get drunk

I have highlighted one's I religiously follow, more so by force of habit rather than actual desire.

The only thing that I have been able to really get a jump on has been our gaming community. Where there is a campus, there are nerds. Where there are nerds, there are ones who are obsessed by video games. And where there are nerds that are obsessed by video games, there are LAN parties. Brooks and I have hosted a few LAN parties back in the country, but due to the lack of population, it is hard to generate a constant group. I have started gathering a group of people I have met who would like to participate in one of these wonderfully wonderful experiences.

If anybody has any recommendations on games that would be fun to play with a large group of people on seperate computers, let us know and we may record this for you!

Go frolic in the rain

- John

Fun Day

Today is our day to go out and have a good time. And by that we mean laser tag. It is definitely one of the most fun things you can do around here, being in the middle of nowhere and all.

Today's post is more so a check in with everyone, but we are still accepting ideas about what to have on our Minecraft server. If you don't know what I'm talking about check out the older post and it'll answer some questions! Anyways, that's all for now, so have a nice day! Ta-ta!

- John

Video Games and Life

Brooks and I are very much fans of the Battlefield series. We both have Battlefield 3 on the Xbox360 while I have it on my PC too. My first encounter with this excellent franchise was way back when I was younger and Battlefield 2: Modern Combat was out. I had this game on my PS2, the slim one with the Ethernet plug in the back. I didn't have my own TV at the time and our broadband router was way to far away to run a cable from it to the TV. So I had found a small portable DVD set, the ones that you put in the back of a car to keep the kids quiet. It was a mess of cables and wires, but I had it set up right next to the broadband router and for many, many months I would sit on the floor with the 8 inch screen in my lap and tear it up on multiplayer. This was most likely the catalyst that turned me into the hardcore mutliplayer fan I am now. Brooks and I also both tried out Battlefield 2142 on our MacBooks... That didn't work so well. Those computers just couldn't handle those graphics quite yet and we were getting close to 10 FPS constantly. I then picked up the classic Battlefield 2 at some yard sale and threw that on my PC, played it for a while, then bought Battlefield 3 Premium.

I've had so many good memories playing this game, met some cool people in the process, and also exposed myself to the competitive side in me. Now I'm in college, and this competitive edge I have helps me succeed in my classes, work harder to show off my classmates, and all around set myself up for a good job. I can easily say that video games have helped me prepare myself for the future.

*so cliche ;)

Have a good day guys!

- John