Aranai now has an RSS Feed! I've also added a shoutbox courtesy of YShout.

Summer break somehow manages to be too long and too short simultaneously. School starts up in September, after a few months off for work, vacations and general rambunctiousness. Time to get cracking on all my summer plans.

Some cool apps I've been playing with:

• Vanilla: a new arrival in the forum market. Vanilla is trim, clean and open-source. Get it Here.
• Ruby on Rails: purportedly the greatest thing since sliced bread. I haven't had a chance to see if it lives up to the hype, but it certainly sounds impressive. Get it Here.
• WinBinder: a Windows binding for PHP. Allows you to access the Windows API via PHP scripts. Get it Here.

And a link for good measure:

• Kick Ass Classical: a collection of information about (and audio samples from) some of the most popular classical pieces of all time. A fun page for classical fans like me. View it Here.

After a great deal of fuss and a bit of stalling from my old host (SiteTurn), I am now moved over to GoDaddy. Thanks to SiteTurn's antics, I had to shell out an extra $20 with them to avoid losing my domain, but everything's hunky-dory again.

Some miscellaneous stuff:

• Graybit: accessibility tester that allows you to see your site in black and white. Aranai seems quite readable. View it Here.
• Web 3.0: an interesting article on the burgeoning (and slightly hysterical) realm of Web 2.0.
• Cutthroat: my game project's blog/dev site is now formally open. There are a couple downloads (including the mostly-working precursor to Cutthroat) and several entries. Check it out if you're bored.

So here it is, Sunday, and time's-a-wastin'. I should be doing my homework, but I am in fact randomly browsing the Internet instead, a mildly amusing but ultimately futile endeavour greatly aided by the advent of browser plugins such as StumbleUpon. Yes, in this modern age we've become too lazy to find things on our own; now, thanks to the Information Superhighway, we don't have to!

To make a long story short, most of what's on the Web isn't worth the paper it's printed on, but once in a blue moon you find something interesting, or worthwhile. The following link may or may not be one of these things, but without further ado I give you...the cliche finder:

http://www.westegg.com/cliche/

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Welcome to the new and improved Aranai A7. It isn't quite 2007 yet, but 9 months can go by in a flash, and who knows when I'll have to time to overhaul the site again. The 2006 version of Aranai wasn't the cleanest or easiest-to-navigate, so I decided I'd jump the gun a bit and get a new design out the door now. Mathematically, it all adds up: the last three versions of Aranai have been a few months late, and now this one is 9 months early.

In addition to looking fairly spiffy, A7 is notable for being the very first version of Aranai to comply with both the XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0 web standards. No more layout tables or ugly, browser-dependent code (though there may be some ugly, browser-compatible code). The site has been tested in Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox 1.0+, Opera 9 and Safari, and should behave identically in all of them.

The site is now divided into the following sections:

• Home: this page. News, updates and other information will be posted here.
• Work: my resume and online portfolio. Anyone need a website built?
• Code: code snippets and personal programming projects in a variety of languages.
• Words: my fiction writing. Short stories, novels, etc.
• Pixels: my 2D and 3D image gallery. Take a look, let me know what you think.
• About: what Aranai is, why it is, where it came from and where it's going.

Some Latin text: Claritas est etiam processus dynamicus, qui sequitur mutationem consuetudium lectorum. Mirum est notare quam littera gothica, quam nunc putamus parum claram, anteposuerit litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula quarta decima et quinta decima. Eodem modo typi, qui nunc nobis videntur parum clari, fiant sollemnes in futurum.