I recently launched a new version of the Hushed Casket website (http://hushedcasket.com). The Hushed Casket is my local gaming community. We were once hosted on a section of Bungie.net. We needed more features than was offered at B.net, so we bounced to a shared server and our own software.

We ran SMF (Simple Machines Forum) for over a year. I recommend that forum over ANY forum software out there. However, the community was long overdue for more Web 2.0 features. So, I ported the SMF database over to Drupal (a system I've used for over 4 years) and it is rocking. I ported over all users and all of their content (except for a few private messages).

The new cooked Gamers website is live at http://cookedgamers.net. The look is mostly stable. I'm adding more features by the week. Watch out for new CPL videos from synide (once he gets finished encoding them).

Thanks goodness I installed a spam filter on cookedgamers.net when I had the chance. I have to admit I haven't touched the backed of that site in quite a while. After doing some upgrades to the Drupal-powered site and preparing it for a relaunch, I noticed that I had a lot of comment spam in my database. Nearly 60,000 pieces of spam.

So, I went into my SQL database and ran

delete from comments where status = '1'

which resulted in:

Deleted rows: 56779 (Query took 4.2604 sec)

The cG.net comments database table went from being 85MB to 320KB in filesize after the deletion and optimization.

I have hacked out a module to produce XML feeds of comments on the site. Right now, I'm displaying sitewide comments here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/rapzilla/comments

I'll be able to better follow conversations on the site now.

It was a yucky week, but the Hushed Casket network is back online. cG, Midnight in Iraq, BIA.GBXD, rap, HaloPortable, H2PC are all back.

Mintz of Halo:Portable was recently featured on Bungie.net. His site was hosted on the backend of this site. He was doing 25GB of traffic per day at that time. This quickly used up the 100GB of bandwidth provided to me by Host Gator. Host Gator was unwilling to sell me more bandwidth. There were willing to sell me an $80/mo semi-dedicated hosting package. I almost did it until I realized I didn’t choose Host Gator because of their semi-dedicated hosting plans. I chose them because they had affordable and reliable shared hosting plans.

I told Media Temple my case and they gladly took my business while I left some sites offline. So, now I’m running a share-server at (mt) and one at Host Gator. I’m liking (mt) already with their fast and friendly customer service customer service on the other end of the telephone. I may end up punting Host Gator all together.

More to come later.

This list is not organized.
Neither am I.
I played for the cooked Gamers.
I was one of the best Halo PC players in the world competing at Cyberathlete Professional and Cyberathlete Amateur level as well as other venues.
I hosted the first public Halo Custom Edition server on the internet.
I am a member of the Hushed Casket, my Huntsville-based gaming community.
We LAN H1 on XBOX regularly.
I'd rather play H1 than H2.
I was at the top of the H2 leader boards after its release.
I started the THX network in 2003.
THX has gotten exposure through the New York Times, Digg, Wired, Kotaku, etc.
I helped synide start haloTV.
We were the first to broadcast a HALO match live over the internet.
I started Halo2PC.org to blog about HALO 2 for Vista.
I need to give that website more attention. (wait for it)
I'm currently running the final version of Vista Ultimate.
I got my start in the HALO world at halo.bungie.org.
Thanks for the great website, LWu.
I helped them setup their popular HBO-COERCE server.
I'm the godfather of haloportable.com.
Mintz owes me a lot.
I got a mention in the game manual of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30.
I'd rather play with a keyboard and mouse than with a controller.
It's about input devices, people. It's not about consoles and PC's.
That said, I game on an Alienware Area 51.
I have been invited to beta test HALO 3.
I like to kneeboard.
I like to snow ski.
I'm on MySpace
I'd rather you find me on Facebook or Virb.
I am currently beta testing Shadowrun on XBOX Live.
It's really...
I've started a blog about it here: Shadowrun the blog
I've got a lot of work to do on this website.
I'm rebuilding an Alienware Area 51 ALX.
I'm holding out for the new ATI DX10 cards.
And the April price cuts on Intel processors.
Got an E6600, then it fried. Had to get an E6400.
Not happy about that.
Got an GeForce 8800 GTX.
Very happy with that.
My Alienware Aurora ALX is built just in time for Shadowrun and HALO 2 (PC).
Some of my writings have been mentioned/link to on Penny Arcade, IGN, Kotaku, Joystiq, Newsweek, ...
Shadowrun for the win!

The webcams:

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Hi there. I'm still building the site, but it's largely functional.