Hello, is this thing on?

Welcome to the start of both my new journal and my new website, trazoi.net. At time of writing there is not a lot here, not even a main index page. There’s just this journal that I still haven’t properly configured yet. If you are reading this soon after the posting date there is likely to be big changes in the next couple of weeks as I play around with the site. In retrospect I probably should have waited to the weekend.

For those who don’t know me, my name is David Shaw, and I’m a Australian postgraduate student. While I may briefly touch on some of my academic studies, the main focus of my journal will be on my hobbies, prime of which is developing computer games. I have another journal on GameDev.net, where I post under the name “Trapper Zoid”. This journal can be considered an extension of the one I have at GameDev.net. At present I am uncertain as to the future of my old journal; most likely I will still keep it running with an executive summary of game development posts on this journal.

I am mainly starting a new journal here so I am regularly using my own web space. The main reason for me starting up trazoi.net is get experience in running my own web site, so it makes sense for me to be updating things over here. Additionally, since this is my own web space and not managed by another party I’m more free to do whatever I like with it. While I am fairly happy with my GameDev.net journal there are serious limitations on what I can do which now no longer apply. I also have an awful lot more web space to play with for images, music, programs and so on.

Furthermore, there have been numerous occasions where I’ve sorely wanted my own web space. The most recent example was when I hosted a short game development competition over at GameDev.net; I needed to ask for volunteers for hosting space. While I’m lucky there are many generous people out there who are willing to help me in situations about this I figured it was about time to go get hosting of my own; it’s not like it’s that expensive these days.

Thus the reason for this website, and by extension this journal. Tomorrow I’ll post some more about what I plan to do with this site. For now, I’ve got some more tweaking to do. Don’t forget to say hi though if you’re here!