APIs are available for Twitter/Facebook/Diigo/Flickr and these were relatively easy to work with. Some of the JSON returned was aimed at JSONP rather than server side consumption but I worked around it.

The gaming feed was slightly more of an issue. There are a few sites which collect data from Steam, Xbox live and PSN etc. The most notable being Playfire and Raptr, however neither site have any public API available though which is a huge shame. Steam also has really quite pathetic Web APIs available which are very little use.

The best solution I found was using Raptr. Raptr at least lets you auto tweet activities so I set up a Twitter account just for Raptr to tweet to and used that.

Technical Solution

Using Quartz.NET and a bit of reflection I created a Job for each feed that I want to collect and have them running every 10 minutes. I then use Newtonsoft Json to parse the results and throw them at Raven DB which is what I’m using for the data store for this feed.

Each job uses a WebClient and then calls DownloadStringAsync to download the result. A simple solution really.

And when loading the page I load the last 20 updates and throw them out on the page.

Yes I got a tattoo and yes it is a Zelda Triforce Eagle. Boom.

They handed out these programmes at the door and had a small amount of merchandise available, which was way too expensive so I didn't bother getting any.

The symphony was in the Hammersmith Apollo and there was a huge projection the latest trailer for Skyward Sword projected on the outside of the building as we were queuing to enter.

There was a large screen which featured lots of in-game footage to match the musical arrangements (massively nerdy but amazing).

The symphony was introduced by Eiji Aonuma and Zelda Williams gave most of the track introductions.

They played music from most of the modern Zelda games including Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. This track was a particular highlight for me (Nintendo may get this taken down). 

The performance was amazing and and I'm looking forward to getting my CD with the Limited Edition version of Skyward Sword.

It turns out I really don't like flying but it was definitely worth it. I flew with Thomas Cook, it wasn't exactly comfortable but as I've had no other flying experience I can't really judge, the nerves definitely didn't help.

I stayed with friends in Surrey which seemed a nicer place than they claimed it to be. Downtown Vancouver was stunning and we saw Distant Worlds at the Orpheum Theatre.

We also went to Granville Island Brewery and tried a lot of their beers, they had a really great Maple Ale which I need to somehow get imported here.

We also went to the top of Grouse Mountain and The Eye of the Wind and the view was amazing.

The best bit for me though was taking a cruise from Vancouver Harbour around Stanley Park and watching the Celebration of Light from English Bay. 

I'm now going to look into using some new tech on this site, I really want to use Node.js for something so I may add that to here. There's also the possibility that I use it in the "game" I started to make using canvas. http://home.grhughes.com/ (Doesn't do much other than movement with the arrow keys right now.)

I ran into an interesting problem with upgrading a web app that was made using Google Gears and SVG ,the problem is that Gears is no longer supported so this app basically only works in Firefox 3.6 which isn't the fastest browser in the world. Because of the heavy Gears reliance I can't easlly get it to work in newer browsers as Gears hasn't been maintained. I was looking at WebSQL but that seems to be dead too, so other than rewrite half of the app I'm not sure what I can do with it now.

This looks like it's going to be one of the best MMOs released in quite a few years, probably since WoW. I just can't help noticing that it looks a lot like WoW unfortunatly. I hope the story part adds enough to make the game feel less like another WoW clone and more like another great Bioware game.

I'll definitely be buying this and this cinematic is amazing, so now give me a beta invite you bastards.

This game is massively addictive, absolutely love it. In other news, I'm off to Canada in July, yay.

Buy this game.

I'm looking forward to Ocarina of Time which should be released in the next few months. The entire thing should be improved a lot when Nintendo release the update that adds a browser and store.

The other gadget I've bought recently is the Amazon Kindle which is also awesome and great for the gym.

I've not done much in the way of programming lately outside of work, other than the small changes I recently made to this site. Although I recently had a bit of time which I used to play with Tapestry which is ...interesting. I'm not convinced but may knock something together when my workload drops a little. 

My biggest problem with it is the number of side quests, they seem to have gone for quantity over quality, there are loads of them but none are very long. Generally a very good game though.

PAX happened recently and they showed us a new SWTOR trailer and some new gameplay footage, I have to say this game looks amazing. There are a lot of WoW like things to it but it doesn't look to be a complete clone which is rare. I'm really looking forward to it. 

I've been playing WoW again since the Cataclysm launch and while I enjoyed the content Blizzard seem to have really dropped the ball as far as the end game content is concerned. The 10 main raiding just doesn't seem to work. There's far too many 10 man guilds and most of them seem to struggle to get enough players online to actually do anything. 

In other news I've just updated this site, I've switched to typekit, changed the font, made a few style tweaks (I suck I know) and removed the separate picture page. 

That' s about it.