New Stuff! A fresh start+

Hello, how do you do!?

So there’s going to be some big changes here, not changes that will force you to go explore and re-learn the website. Oh no, I think I’m done with the redesigning for now. But what is new will definitely clean up the site, introduce you a form of entertainment on Wednesday nights, bring all my works together, and make this blog/site a way better experience. I’ve got new shoes, a haircut, a more annoying personality and sleep deprivation from thinking this through all last night. BUT, nonetheless, I know what I’m doing (Probably.)

So what’s going on?

Ben-A-Ball United

No, I’m not starting up a football team… although that would be quite interesting… Since I started Ben-A-Ball I’ve been using all these different free services such as Zymic and 4Shared, Box.net and Dropbox.  There are many others that do different things, but the point is, it’s very untidy. By clicking on a download link for one of my programs it would take you to 4Shared or Box.net, although this is nice, it really takes away from the site, because it just feels … messy.

Zymic.com is a free hosting service that I joined in 2009 when I had my old blog, the reason I created it was that my old blog, (On Blogger.com) couldn’t store files, so I wanted something I could use to post downloads and stuff on.  I also used it as an update server for all my programs.  My account is now gone, I’ve deleted it. I haven’t pushed updates to all my programs, so they’re going to be a bit lost. Unfortunately people will have to come to the site and download new versions of the programs when they’re ready.  The other problem with Zymic is that because it’s a free service, many people create dangerous virus-ridden sites, this means that the shared IP is blacklisted and you can’t actually access my site on there.

I also used Zymic to send game development news to my games, I apologise to those incredibly weird people who actually still have those games, and play them. But it’s for the best. I’m bringing it all to this site.

Ben-A-Ball Downloads

One thing that the Downloads section of the website never offered very well, is downloads. They were displayed inside a disgusting grid and were linking to all other websites and … yeah, yuck. But now, Ben-A-Ball Downloads, is awesome.  Now its cleaner, displays all content created by myself, and you can easily download Software, Graphics and more organised by category.

Free Media

It’s also exciting to introduce the Free Media category of the Downloads Page, basically if you have a project to do, whether you make money out if it or not, there’s now a growing collection of completely free media to use. I plan to release “Ben’s Library” at some stage, which is my own collection of photography, recorded sound effects and music which I’ve built up over the years for use in my own videos and graphics.  So something to look forward to if you’re a YouTube developer who is sick of all those pesky copyright notices.

Ben-A-Ball Podcast

At this stage the Ben-A-Ball Podcast isn’t pumping out anything at all, but it will be soon, hence the reason iTunes has turned its nose up at it.  I planned on making the Ben-A-Ball Podcast about the posts I write on this blog, so, it will be. Every week a new podcast will come out, but they won’t appear on iTunes to begin with, so, that’s where this next heading comes in.

Talking about podcasts, want to hear something really exciting? For those that like NeWs! a school show that I’m the producer of, you might be interested to here that the NeWs! Podcast is now available on the iTunes Store! In case you missed it! Click here, here or here.

Vlog My Blog

Call it a late decision for a New Year’s Resolution, I will be producing this show that will be on every Wednesday on YouTube, it will be myself talking about the post of the week, (next heading will explain that) and discussing it further.  It’s also useful if you would rather listen than read. Can I keep up this ridiculous idea? Am I really that crazy to stress myself out even more? This year is going to be a lot harder than last year, and I was dying last year with time limits and such… Ah, I can sense the stress creeping up already.  This series will be very different to usual videos I’ve been taunting people with for the past 3 years on YouTube, so I’ll probably lose that fan base… yeah, 4 people, I think I can handle that. [It’s actually 120 odd, they must be alien like me.] So hopefully you’ll tune in here and enjoy the series every week throughout 2012. This podcast/show will start on the last week of February, possibly sooner!

Post-letics

Well that didn’t really work, it’s meant to mean Post-letics as in Posting and athletics together, so that it’s almost like a sport. The spell check just came up and told me that I meant “Prosthetic.”  What I mean by ‘Prosthetics’ is that I’ll now be posting more regularly, once a week in fact. Sometimes there might be more than one post a week, if I’m feeling extremely argumentative. These posts will all be about 500 words+, so reasonably short, yet still a bit of a read. They’re about half the length of this post. I feel that I will definitely have a few complaints with this one, something tells me I won’t be able to keep up, so, if that is the case, just shhhhh.

Author Resources 2.0

The Author Resources page was a measly attempt at helping authors of Ben-A-Ball write posts, and since it was created the site has changed so much that the stuff that’s on there doesn’t really work anymore. SO! The Author Resources page has been revamped to help out Authors in a more clean, informative and useful manner. Yeah, yeah, so at the moment it doesn’t look as flash, it’s more like a downgrade, but who cares! Off you go Authors! Get cracking!

Eycon – USB Customiser 2.0

What’s this? If you haven’t heard of it, Eycon – USB Customiser is one of my programs, and it’s recently received a fantastic makeover along with bug fixes, tweaks, enhancements, and a built-in icon gallery for those that can’t be bothered searching the web for an icon. The next program I have to finish off is Scribble’s Notepad 2 as well, so that’s coming some time this year I hope.

SO! There we go! A list of things to come, things that are coming, things that are already here and meh…

It’s going to be an exhausting 2012!