Brandon Starkweather

Going to Develop My First Video Game

Brandon — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:30:17 +0000

So I have decided recently to go ahead and start making the video game that I have always wanted to since I was a small child way back when I even couldn’t afford my own video games. Now that I have the means to create one, as well as the resources to actually pull off a decent game, I am truly excited. And long winded by the looks of that last sentence. You might be able to tell that I am an amateur writer. Well I plan on working on that as well since I am going to be documenting certain aspects of the development process and writing about it to help out the community that so graciously offers knowledge for free.

I will be looking for public input and possibly creative input as well if you are professionally interested in this project.

I have written a FaceBook Note with more Details here.

I want to thank you for visiting my site and please look forward to finding more information about this undertaking in the future!

Protected: Rivera Services

Brandon — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 01:25:05 +0000

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Protected: The danmark Group

Brandon — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:40:13 +0000

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Working on Blogs and more

Brandon — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:46:30 +0000

I usually awaken every morning and get started on what happened while I was asleep and then on what should happen while I am awake. Sounds simple enough ( how I like it ), but as we all know this can get very complicated fast. So when something happens and you are expected to react immediately then you should already have a plan in place for dealing with unexpected and important matters. Like this morning a fellow Blogger wrote about a Charity Album I helped to release on Recession Recordings and I wanted to make sure everyone I knew saw it and linked to it and wrote about it and ectera. Just a quick checklist in your head to make sure you can stay on track and do your best. Here is the one I am thinking of right off the top of my head:

How Important is this? (How much time should I spend on it?)
- Give yourself a time limit: 30 Minutes
Do I understand as much as possible about what is going on?
- Focus on Most Important Aspects; Set Quick Goals for your 30 Minutes Focusing on the Important Aspects
- Decide what can be put off for later and consider how it will fit with what you have already done for when the time comes.
Make yourself a Note or Reminder about what happened and what is left to be done later on.

This way hopefully you can internalize a reaction system so that you can minimize anything you may have to react to immediately and still feel confident about going on with the rest of your day. I know this advice is quite broad in a sense and can apply to a variety of situations, but when I had to apply it myself this morning I also felt about writing about it! Anyway if you have made it this far then I thank you and bid you good day!

UpDate:

Well I thought about it and decided to just lay out what I did real quick with my 30 minutes.

Like I said before I was doing my morning routine when an article had been published on a blog I don’t write for and they were talking about something I had been part of ( linking to me, therefore pinging my site ). So I decided to return to favor and help promote the effort ( Joplin, MO charity music album ) by doing the following things.

This Blog post (Create Digital Music 06.13.2011) had several functions built -in to help me spread the word.
- FaceBook Like Button (I Liked It and Commented as well.)
- Twitter Button Counter (I Tweeted it twice!)
- Comments (I Commented using the official RR Logo and Site/EMail info as well as some important info.)
I wrote a quick thank-you on the RR Blog for the article written on CDM
- This Blog post links back to the Joplin, MO article and the main CDM page.
- It also auto-tweets (and then pushes to FaceBook Page).

And now I sit back and watch the stats and see if it helps to get any donations for the victims of Joplin,MO!

Recession Recordings Joplin, Mo Charity Album

Brandon — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:32:48 +0000

Some of you might have heard (or been touched) by the recent tragedy that has befallen Joplin, MO in the form of a Tornado. Well some of us at Recession Recordings felt that we had to do something, so we created a Charity Album that is available for free with a donation to our chosen charity. I was able to quickly bring this project online so we could help as many people from Joplin as possible.

Check out the Charity Album page on Recession Recordings to find out How To Donate

This Bring Back Before Charity Album Preview player will play the first 35 seconds of each song and links to the Donation Instruction page as well as display all pertinent information.

I made this player using Wimpy Player which is a service which allows a develop design great custom media players. I am able to create unlimited players for any purpose or crazy idea imaginable. The Charity Album uses the same skin as the rest of our albums to help make things easier. I like this ability even though it is ultimately a Flash based technology. It is still a great example of various applied techniques (Graphic Design, UI Design, WebDevelopment) to bring about a great end result!

TWU SAMT

Brandon — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 03:46:42 +0000

I was recently able to work with the great Music Therapy students from Texas Women’s University in Denton, TX and make them a new website. We brought together many different elements (Wiki, Podcasts, Public Site, Mobile Site, E-Commerce Site) into an attractive an easy to use system that will benefit this student organization for many years to come! Be sure to check the great things they are learning about music therapy at the TWU SAMT Site!

Here is a link to the main page for the TWU SAMT WebSite. There are several sub-sites that are linked to from the main menu as well.

TWU SAMT | Texas Women’s University Student Association for Music Therapy

Update:

Also I just wanted to note a neat feature of the WordPress iOS App that I was able to use on the TWU SAMT Blog. I took a screenshot of the end result ( seen below ), but you can see that I used my iPhone to GeoTag the location of the community drum circle as well as take the videos and upload them to YouTube. I just love my iPhone!

WordPress iOS GeoTagging Feature seen on TWU SAMT WebSite

Chocolate Fountain Expressions

Brandon — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 03:42:23 +0000

I have been doing work for Chocolate Fountain Expressions for a few years now and can say that our recent WebSite upgrades are going quite well! I am pleased to say that we are on track and things are looking much better for this business. Once the entire plan is finished Chocolate Fountain Expressions will have come a long way as far as the internet is concerned!

This site is made using WordPress + Elegant Themes and WPTouch for the best Cross-Platform and Touch Mobile experience possible!

Check out the main Chocolate Fountain Expressions WebSite Here.

Chocolate Fountain Expressions is a Specialty Dessert Catering business that services most of Texas and New Orleans. They are going to be undertaking an aggressive marketing strategy in order to ensure their presence is well known in all the relevant regions. I would just like to highlight a few quick features I thought were a nice touch.

Here are some screenshots of the Mobile version of the site that I developed:

Chocolate Fountain Expressions Mobile Menu

Chocolate Fountain Expressions Phone Numbers

Chocolate Fountain Expressions Mobile Reservation Form

Chocolate Fountain Expressions Drop Down Menu

Chocolate Fountain Expressions Mobile Photo Gallery

Protected: Jessica Leza

Brandon — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:23:13 +0000

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

WordPress for iPhone

Brandon — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:53:22 +0000

I just wanted to write a few words about how much I love Word Press on my iPhone. I currently own a 3Gs 32Gig and I love setting it up on my Goby Tripod and using the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard to really get going! It is so much fun to be able to ride my bike down to the park and setup in only a few seconds

I did have a nice time today writing for some of my other blogs down at the park

Welcome to My Site!

Brandon — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:44:51 +0000

Thanks for visiting my personal site. Soon I will be adding more information about various things I like to study and write about. Mainly Technology, but you never know what will happen next! So stay tuned by following the RSS Feed or what have you and let me know what you think!