I haven’t been posting updates or writing as many articles here as I’d like to, and it’s mainly because I’ve been busy putting the final touches on a website I’m about to launch. I don’t want to give away too many details or build too much hype, because frankly it’s not that big of a project and was never intended to be.

However, it was a project that I intended to learn from, and in that regard, I think I’ve succeeded - and that’s really what I want to continue doing for the rest of my life. Furthermore, while the project was an exercise in improving my web and software development skills, the end result will also be something that I will actually use myself - not just some pointless academic exercise. Another nice effect was the experience of seeing a self-directed project come to fruition over the last few months - albeit at a slow rate, usually only several hours per week, but nonetheless I’ve improved my self-discipline as a result.

I will say that you can get somewhat of an idea of what this site will be about by browsing through some of my previous posts. But, that’s all I’m going to say at this point.

With the recent rumours that Beatles representatives met with both the makers of Rock Band and Guitar Hero to discuss the possibility of a Beatles-themed game, I’ve been more than a little excited at the prospects of rocking out to these tunes. (See more coverage at Wired and the original FT article)

Whatever the outcome, it could be a deciding factor in what console (if any) I decide to buy. I’m already feeling the pain of no DLC for the Wii version of Rock Band, which is putting doubts into my mind as to whether I should have bought the Wii version.

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I’ve just starting playing around with the Google Static Maps API as a complement to the regular Google Maps API, which as you probably know, is for JavaScript. The Static Maps API, on the other hand, provides a way to display static map images. This is useful in situations where you just need a non-interactive map and don’t want the overhead of an Ajax/JavaScript-based one.

However, I ran into some minor problems related to the API key usage with the Static Maps. Basically, an API key is tied to a certain domain name so that Google can keep track of your site’s usage. This means that the API key is tied to the domain name of the web site where you’re using the Google Maps API.

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