The Gaming Podcast "Character Select"

I'd like to welcome everyone here to the new Podcast "Character Select". This podcast was developed so that, myself, along with a few friends can get together and talk about all games we love, games we are excited for, and games we think should be avoided all around. The first of our podcasts consist of 2 audio podcasts talking about the MOBA game "Smite" and the RPG game "Dark Souls" and our 1st video podcast highlights the Zombie-Survival game "Dying Light". We take an in-depth look at each and every game by playing them ourselves/watching others play it as well as by looking up information found on various websites and from the creators themselves. Each game has its own special quirks to them and exploring those and experiencing them themselves is the best way in which we can deliver an informative and entertaining podcast to all of you. Going from one genre to the next we give ourselves space between the same types of games so that it will always be a fresh review of whatever we are looking at that day and that we won’t be too comparative towards other games we have already done. The gaming world is a large one that only keeps expanding and with each new game comes a new experience that you have not yet seen. While all games may not have the experience you desire, we will do our best to give you an inside look at a game so that you may want to try it yourself or stay away from it. This is a never ending world we have stepped into and we are up for the challenge of exploring this vast, ever expanding universe and we invite you along with us on this journey so that we may all experience a new and wonderful world together.

Dying Light Podcast

Dark Souls Podcast

Smite Podcast

E Commerce Website

1. Explain the type of website

E-Commerce websites are specialized websites which have various menus you can choose from to make purchases online so that you don't need to be searching all over the place for a specific item.

2. Purpose of the site

The purpose of these sites are to allow people to buy things online and have them shipped to themselves or to others in order to avoid having to deal with the hassle of fighting other people over an item or dealing with an out of stock item.

3. What is the advantage of this type of site

You can buy almost anything online as well as you can buy stuff only offered online as well as it is easy to be notified when something goes on sale, or is finally being sold to the public, or you don't have the ability to go out and make the purchases so you don't have to trouble anyone or yourself and just have the item shipped to you.

4. What is the disadvantages of this type of site

When you purchase an item online it takes a while to get to you whereas if you purchase it in store you have it right there. There is also no guarantee that it will get to you in decent condition or on time because of various handling/delay issues.

5. What is needed to set-up the site

You need a directory for the site so people can navigate easily to the type of items they wish to purchase, an up to date listing of all items available at the company at the moment, pricings for each item individually and a way to make purchases whether through paypal or a credit card or some means.

6. What would the pages include for this site

There would be a home page for the site where you can see special deals or current hot items that the site offers at the moment, separate directory pages for each specific type of item that is sold as well as a specific page for each individual item, a customer service page for ways to track your purchase or get help with certain needs and a shopping cart page so you can view your current purchases as well as make the purchases for the items.

7. What type of maintenance is involved and needed for this website

Constant updates to current sales of items, item prices as well as if the item is in stock or not and possibly how many are currently in stock.

8. What software is needed to develop this site

You can go through separate softwares for the site such as Web-Hosting Service, Shopping Cart Software and Card Processing or you can go through an E-Commerce software pack such as Volusion, Shopify or Shopping Cart Elite.

9. What coding methods will be used

HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript and MySQL

10. What type of customer/client/individual/company uses this site and why

Normally big companies with large warehouses use these kinds of sites to get rid of inventory they don't need as well as make a profit but these kinds of sites can also be used by people who have specific skills to make unique or personalized items that people would find interesting and can't purchase from normal stores and things like that.

11. Give examples of this type of site (Images) and Company names

 Newegg.com

 Ebay.com

 ThinkGeek.com

12. What makes this a static website or a Dynamic website and why

This is a Dynamic website because it has multiple parts of it that uses flash and interactive information on it.   It keeps the home page up to date with current special sales and lets you scroll through them without losing your place on the site where you are at.

13. What type of hosting, server and other technologies are need to launch this site

You need a Web Hosting site to host your coding, a Card Processing application so people can make payments, and a Shopping Cart program so they can pick what they want

14. Include references for your research

http://www.edinteractive.co.uk/article/?id=4

http://www.newegg.com/

http://www.xislegraphix.com/website-types-ecommerce.html

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1035548/what-does-ecommerce-programming-involve

Social Media: YouTube and Twitch

                One piece of social media that plays a big part in almost everyone's lives nowadays is YouTube, and a slightly small but upcoming social media is Twitch.   We all know and love YouTube because it lets us watch things from all around the world whenever we want and we can find a video of almost anything on it.   While we enjoy watching our favorite YouTubers each and every day I think we sometimes forget that we are watching other people and who those people are.   There are many YouTubers out there who actually do a lot for the community and for others with not only their videos but through other means such as charities.   One of my current favorite YouTubers is Markiplier, and while I love watching him for all his silly and foolish videos I also enjoy watching him because of the type of person he is.   He is very active with his YouTube fan-base and tries his best to bring them together for a good cause, such as his monthly charity livestreams, and lets everyone communicate with each other and bring them closer together. I like him because he not only actively helps others with what he does but he cares about bringing the people who enjoy watching him together and helping them find people who enjoy the same things as them.   He also actively tries to meet up with any fans that may be at social gatherings such as gaming conventions and personally talk to them and spend time with them and things like that. 

 As I've mentioned Twitch is a similar social media that is growing larger and larger with each day going by.   It is a livestreaming site, which as long as you have a computer that can handle the processes you can stream anything you want over the internet for others to come, watch and chat with yourself and each other.   You can find almost any game being streamed at any time and it brings a fresh experience to watching because you can interact with the person or people directly instead of waiting for a video to come out and commenting on it.   It is a lot more interactive than YouTube and can bring people together a lot quicker.   The downside of it though is that while you have the interaction with the audience continuously and instantly, you have to deal with the people who only come to your stream to annoy you and annoy everyone trying to watch and interact with you.   While there are ways to deal with them, such as banning them from the stream or timing them out, it doesn't stop the initial action and they can find ways around the bans and time outs to come back and just bother everyone again.

I feel that both these social media websites are important on how we live our lives and how we communicate with the rest of the world.   YouTube can let us see things we wouldn't normally be able to see in our daily lives and we can watch them as many times as we want. Twitch lets us interact directly with the person we are watching as well as everyone else watching them and it can help us grow closer as a community.   Both of these sites work wonders for social media and without them we would certainly find a rift in our online community that only sites like these can fill.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Review

My second review is going to be about an anime called The Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It is a different type of anime and an older one than most of the popular ones today but if you are looking for a high value anime this is the one for you. This anime is about a boy's rise to the top of an empire that spans throughout space. Although the anime is placed in space as well as multiple planets, it is populated only by humans with no signs of alien life anywhere throughout the episodes. Instead most of the episodes go from beginning with the main character Reinhard Von Lohengramm's rise to power, to his battles against the Free Planets Alliance to unite the whole of space under one rule, to the eradication of a terrorist group known as the Terraists, to the eventual end of his rule. The anime is filled with emotion, character development and a look into humanity and the power people have in themselves and what they get from others. If you like space battles, tactical thinking, character depth, and anime of the highest quality this is what you are looking for. All I will say is if you find yourself loving a character give up now, they will all die eventually just like in Game of Thrones.

One Piece Review

I figured I would start with a rather common and widely known anime for my first review, so I chose to do One Piece. One Piece is an anime about the age of pirates coming into play in the world they live in all looking for the greatest pirates treasure, which is named, you guessed it, One Piece. The pirate's final words were that all his treasure was together at the end of the most dangerous sea known as The Grand Line. The story follows our protagonist Monkey D. Luffy through his beginning adventures of finding a crew before setting off for the Grand Line. As a child Monkey D. Luffy ate a cursed fruit from the sea known as a Devil Fruit which turned him into a rubber man giving him powers to fight against others. While he isn't the brightest captain a crew has ever seen he creativity and loyalty grants him some of the greatest crew members he could have hoped for and together they make their way traveling through the Grand Line occasionally getting sidetracked and gaining more crew members but always continuing towards their goal.

One main reason I picked this anime over other common ones such as Naruto and Bleach is because although it's storyline and style is like theirs, One Piece tends to always follow towards its final goal, whereas Bleach and Naruto tend to fall off towards other things in the middle of the show. One Piece is a very funny and entertaining anime to watch if you are looking for one that still continues to put out episodes and have extra time to sit down and watch a couple of episodes a day. It is interesting seeing all the creative ways that Luffy and his crew come up with to fight off enemies or get past certain points in their journey. Although it can drag on some battles and make it seem a little Dragonball Zish it is still a worthwhile anime to watch and you will not be disappointed with the epic battles and the downtime between the traveling.

Introduction

Hello all and welcome to the Shark Blog. For the next couples of weeks you shall be getting reviews of the japanese cartoons known as Animes from me. I am a big anime/manga fan and I have seen/read plenty of each and I look forward to bringing you reviews on a wide variety of animes. We will be going from short, funny animes to ongoing, thoughtful animes and hopefully you'll have already seen/heard about some of them. I look forward to bringing you the best reviews I can do and hope you'll find some interest in any of the animes I review.

Beefy Beard Games