Updates and YouTube Info

By Ben Wochinski on September 27, 2012

I have been very busy over the past two months! It was about that long ago that I decided to relaunch my YouTube channel as a place for my “Let’s Play” gaming videos. I’ve worked hard to bulk up the channel since then and now I really need to give things a cohesive feel.

You can take a look at the sidebar to the right to see what I have planned for my YouTube upload schedule. You can see my gaming, and so my channel, tends to focus on Minecraft and other indie games of that sort. I don’t plan on following that trend exclusively but I’m sure that will be the central theme. There are a number of things that I’d like to do missing from that schedule, but as I get more efficient at producing videos I’m sure I’ll be able to squeeze in more.

A game that I need to get back into the schedule as soon as possible is FTL: Faster Than Light. I had an absolute blast playing that game for the first time and I promise that getting more video of it up has been on my mind ever since!

Finally I want to mention that I wont be “spamming” this blog with every video upload I make anymore. I’ve added a new page which will show the latest videos on my channel, it’s up on the menu bar, you can check what’s new there. The only videos which I will post here are any vlogs that I do, as I hope to begin using those instead of posts here. They’ll focus on giving channel updates and announcements, along with personal bits about myself as I see fit.

I appreciate everyone who’s been watching and subscribing, and especially thank you to those who have taken the time to comment on my videos. I love comments! So until I see you from my first vlog, happy gaming!

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Blog Repaired!

By Ben Wochinski on September 22, 2012

Well that was a close one, but crisis averted! If anyone is a regular reader they may have noticed that my blog has been “stuck” for a good few days. The top post even had a YouTube embed error displayed. All of that was the fault of an error in a WordPress plugin.

Apparently somewhere along the line a plugin (I’m still not sure which one) wasn’t updated to work with a new release of WordPress, and when I upgraded the entire setup broke. Thankfully not the display side, but the entire administrator panel. It displayed what I have now learned is referred to as the “White screen of death”! It sounds terrible, I know, but all it really means is something is preventing the admin panel from loading, so it’s blank. I’ve been busy the last week between family, work, and trying to catch a little sleep, so I didn’t have the time to figure out how to fix the issue. Finally this morning I forced myself to take care of this!

The solution, which I found mentioned in a few places, is to disable all of your WordPress plugins. Since you can’t get to the admin panel to do this you have to go directly into the database. Now to mess around with the MySQL database isn’t for everyone, if you’re not comfortable, it’s best to get (even hire) help. But if you’re familiar, the fix is dead easy. Just go to the database, through whatever method you prefer (phpMyAdmin is one of the easiest, if you have it installed), and run the following SQL command:

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value='' WHERE option_name='active_plugins' LIMIT 1;

This will deactivate all of your WordPress plugins. It wont delete or uninstall them, and all the configuration will be untouched. Doing this allows the admin panel to load without any plugins, and should fix the “white screen of death” issue. Assuming you’re now back on the admin screen, you’ll need to check out all your plugins and try to find the one responsible for the issue. Checking the version compatibility can lend a clue, otherwise just enabling them one at a time and checking that everything works each step along the way will eventually yield results. If it breaks again, you know the fix, and then you’ll have the culprit.

I hope this information might be helpful to someone. Also, it serves as my rather long-winded excuse for not posting here in the last week. Now that things are operating normally again, I’ll be posting soon with some mildly exciting updates about my YouTube channel!

Until then, Happy Gaming!

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Google Fiber – Do Want.

By Ben Wochinski on July 27, 2012

Google Fiber Rabbit

I just looked at the website for Google Fiber. Holy crap that looks awesome. I’d even hit the “pre-register” button before I read about the pricing, and the pricing blows away any cable or internet provider I’ve ever looked at.

This is practically fantasy to try to imagine watching video, or uploading files, at gigabit speeds, and it’s exhilarating to think it could be here one day soon! I don’t know what their roll-out plan is like, but I’m expecting a relatively long wait before Google Fiber makes it to Milwaukee. Perhaps this will at least put pressure on other providers to step up their service.

Regardless of the timeline, I’m looking forward to one day soon being able to handle online media in the ways I want without all the skipping and buffering. And with gigabit upload speeds a huge obstacle will be removed from the path of the home content producer. I would fully expect this service to spur an overall surge of personally produced HD content wherever deployed.

I don’t know but I would expect Google Fiber to have very good latency on top of the speed, which will be unbelievable for gaming. Not to mention the obvious ease of downloading a full game, even a many GB, at whatever instant you’d like to play. But until the exciting near future of the internet, I bid you happy gaming!

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Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works | Motherboard

By Ben Wochinski on December 17, 2011

Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works | Motherboard.

Just read this piece tonight while plugging away at work. It’s an excellent point, and something that I’ve always thought needed to be rectified. I also think the same should be said for the judiciary, regardless of jurisdiction.

I understand that it’s a heavy burden to ask that every representative in congress have a deep understanding of the internet, but quite frankly that’s the job. As it stands, a fair number of congressmen may not meet the standards of what could be considered a high school level of computer and internet knowledge. To sum up something the article states, it isn’t even the lack of understanding that is the biggest problem, but the unwillingness to even attempt to understand.

This is the base on which SOPA  is now running through congress, and the thought is enough to make one sick. I can’t imagine what might happen to the internet if it passes, but I tend to imagine it like a digital martial law.

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