After graduating from Loughborough University, I’ve decided I now have time to blog about projects, technology and general life. In this post I’ll talk about a new project and the current work I have on, as well as a thought about the Xbox Live Arcade.

Firstly – the new project, dubbed ACS. I cannot disclose too many details for obvious reasons at this stage; however I will say that it is in light of the ‘green’ age that we’re experiencing at the moment. It’s a web site which I think allot of people my age will use to generate a bit of cash from unused gadgets. The project itself is the full package – logo design, site aesthetics and dynamic scripts, login facilities, checkouts and administrator backend. Luckily, the client has given me scope to select the technology and design as I see fit. (At the moment I’m leaning towards ASP.NET as I need an excuse to try out my new Visual Studio 2008 install!). At the time of writing, the logo is complete as well as the site design – I have attached a teaser image to this post, more will follow as the launch gets closer!

WebSME is also in play at the moment, with ongoing conversations with JCK Joinery, I have a mock design for the sales page on paper and will look at transforming this into Photoshop when I have a break from other work. This shouldn’t be to much of a task, a simple xHTML set of pages. The main feature of the sales site will be the online ‘live’ demonstration which I used in a presentation to the original clients and professors of the university at the end of the academic year.

It does seem like forever since I was designing and developing, however I seem to have slipped back into the swing of things quite quickly and I am more than impressed with the design for ACS. Granted, I could have worked faster on the design, but this was mainly due to losing all of my custom Photoshop patterns (doh!) on my Vista partition of this new setup (Part 4 of the build log will follow soon). I also have finally found the time to construct an ‘About’ page on CarlMason.net, check it out!

Aside from designing I have been giving my Xbox 360 a workout, as it took a back seat towards the end of University. I’ve recently completed both Bioshock and The Darkness. Both of these games are great and highly recommended, I will definitely be playing Bioshock through again to pick up all of the achievements, which is a rarity for me in FPS’s. This is added to recent completions Halo 3 and GTA:IV the later of  which is still my favourite game in my ever-growing collection. I’ve also picked up ‘Just Cause’ for a small fee, so I shall be trying out this old sandbox game and posting my opinions in here.

Finally, I seem to have developed a bit of an obsession to classic titles from the Xbox Live Arcade (honestly, what a genius idea it was to charge people for these old gems!). Sonic 1, Sonic 2, TMNT, not to mention Streets of Rage 2! These old games, with slightly spruced up visuals are great to play through and the achievements offer a challenge which you didn’t have in the good old days. The ability to save makes them a bit easier too! I also purchased Sudoku and N+ off the XBL arcade this week. Sudoku is mainly for Sunday mornings in bed and N+ is ridiculously addictive yet very frustrating, I recommend both!

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