CakePHP: version .0.10.0.1076_dev

The rapid development Framework [CakePHP](http://cakephp.org) yesterday made an [announcement](http://cakephp.org/pages/announcement) that its latest and greatest version ever, the eagerly awaited 0.10, has arrived.

This release has a new folder structure, which means that users of the framework will have to fiddle with their existing apps once more to get them up to bleeding-edge status.

I started a little HowTo document at [Writeboard](http://www.writeboard.com/), which quickly [grew, at the wiki](http://wiki.cakephp.org/migration). The new wiki is a “lightly skinned” [DokuWiki](http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki).

If you already have an application for Cake, which is not migrated, get onto the IRC channel `#cakephp` at `irc.freenode.net` – everyone is there to help you.

And, if you have no idea what this framework is, or what it’s good for, you might want to peek in there anyway, and ask a few frequently asked ones. See you!

RPG Patterns book released under CC license!

Role-playing games now have their own [pattern language](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language) (Wikipedia’s defintion is great) book. Fascinating stuff!

In computer science there is a book called [Design Patterns](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201633612/104-0265062-8435910?v=glance), which is a spin-off of the architecture book A Pattern Language. Both are classics.

Now a person called **Whitson John Kirk III** has written 250+ pages in a CC-licensed PDF on the parts that make up roleplaying games.

He covers ground from Rolemaster to My Life With Master, so no lack of breadth there.

There are diagrams that condense ideas The pattern *Class Hierarchy* has a picture on how character careers lock into each other in games that support characters that advance in their chosen trade.

I am just amazed by this, so please read this, or parts of it. Christopher Alexander’s book on architecture has a lot of talk about how important it is to not read the whole thing in one go, eat it piecemeal. Otherwise you’ll get bogged down in details. So, one pattern a day. No more.

**Download** it here: Design Patterns of Successful Roleplaying Games (.zip) by Whitson John Kirk III. (CC license!)

Via: [Jason Morningstar](http://www.meekmok.com/sassy/archives/002916.html).

“Svindyrt ringa mobilt över Sundet”

Det är svindyrt ringa mobilt över Sundet, enligt vetenskapligt test.

Öresundsinstitutet testade att sända SMS och ringa lite:

> Då framkom att 45 procent av både svenskarna och danskarna tycker att de höga samtalskostnaderna utgör ett större problem än eventuella kulturella hinder eller språkproblem.

Ja, det är svindyrt. [VoipBuster](http://www.voipbuster.com) kanske kan vara något? Gratis till fasta (alltså landbaserade) telefonnummer, om man ger dem 5 euro (som man får ringa för, till mobilnummer).

Fixing horrible websites

Sometimes the choices someone else did in their CSS does not suit you. Often, you give up, never to come back to their site, or fiddle with the size of your browser window. Using Firefox and its [Developer Toolbar](http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/) extension by Chris Pedrick, I have now gotten around to using my own stylesheets (with small changes in them) on websites I use a lot.

These two steps show how I added my own width to the website The Forge, which is full-screen wide.

First, create a CSS stylesheet (what I did what set the rule `body { width:660px; margin:auto; }` in a little CSS file, and save it on my computer where I can easily find it. (You can use the one I use: download it here).

Turning on the CSS file for a page is done like this:

Persisting to use that CSS file is done like this:

Greg Costikyan resigns from Nokia, starts up company

Games designer Greg Costikyan has resigned from his position at Nokia, and started a new company, [Manifesto Games](http://manifestogames.com/). It aims to provide “a viable path to market for independent developers, and a more effective way of marketing and distributing niche PC game styles to gamers.”

A fine motto:

> “PC Gamers of the World Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Retail Chains!”

He needs people, so if you’re unemployed:

* You have **excellent web development skills** (PHP, Linux, Apache, mySQL, HTML – some or all) or graphic design skills, and are willing to work on something like this for, in essence, equity and air.
* You are an independent developer and/or publisher of games aimed at niche audiences, or the operator of a niche MMO, and are willing to offer a non-binding LOI announcing your willingness to work with Manifesto Games.
* You have strong game industry and/or e-commerce credentials, and are interested in helping us achieve our goals.
* And, of course, you think you might be interested in investing.

(My emphasis.)

The comments people made to the article are nuggets:

> This is gonna go. This is the beginning! Godspeed Greg!

and

> Your intent is admirable. I have hope for your faith. I will be watching this blog as you outline the plan in detail …

Dogs in the Vineyard, the Vision

Dogs in the Vineyard, the Vision is a story about how the game “DitV” came into its own: became itself.

Oh, I am moved. Take a load of this

> I have wanted to contact you ever since I bought the game. As a member of the LDS faith, an avid role-player, a student of history, a lover of fantastic fiction, and a fan of westerns, I believe that I am your ultimate target audience.

> I loved reading this game and I got a bunch of my LDS gaming buddies together and even invited my father, himself a convert to the church who doesn’t do pen and paper role-playing, but is a gun nut and historian in his own right who started the Utah chapter of the Single Action Shooting Society ([SASS](http://www.sassnet.com/)). He expressed some anxiety to me about playing a game with me and my friends, and I scoffed at him. The SASS is an organization of western shooters, who meet and have shooting matches in full period costume, using only period weapons, and who all go by period aliases.

> Compared to Dad, my friends and I are all couch potato posers!

Neologism: “Podmenting” (augment media using podcast)

O’Reilly tech dude Rael Dornfest is also a Battlestar Galactica fan, I take it.

He tips us off to **a podcast you can watch in tandem with the TV episodes**. The producers have used this “small parts loosely coupled” methodology to give fans more than they can cram onto DVD’s (that are on tight shipping schedules &c).