Rant Archives - mellowism.com

I never learn…

So… Long time no see… As it should be then I suppose.

Working with this blog made me feel like I was going on the right track. I felt like what I was doing was fun, and that made sense.

Now, as so many times before, I’ve been busy with yet another, new project. Introducing blait.no!

It’s almost kinda sad to be honest but at this point I don’t care. I am really enjoying the work I’m doing with blåIT, and I enjoy doing it together with a friend.

blåIT is a web designer and IT support company. Where it might fork at a later state we’ll see, but for now this is the area of expertise we’re focusing on. I am bringing my web design skills, and Thomas, my friend is bringing his computer skills and together we help small businesses with their everyday IT problems, and help them develop web sites.

So far we’ve invoiced 5 company’s, all for IT support and because of the work Thomas has done. I have done one site for a friend, nordicstyle.as, but I didn’t charge for that. I did it more as a learning experience for myself.

Again, hopefully I will keep on writing this blog, and more often. Of course I have more plans with blåIT, and other plans with other company’s as well…

Until next time…

It can be frustrating

Making a website is haaaard… I mean, it’s a WordPress site so it is as easy as it possibly can be I guess but still… Getting everything to look like I think it should, to function as I think it should. It can be annoying. You change one thing, save, change another, save and so on. After you revisit a page you haven’t had a look at for some time you realize that something has messed it up… But what was it that messed it up!?

I now feel quite satisfied as how this site looks. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone with any creative sense whatsoever, look at this and think that it looks dull, and need more color and so on. However, as someone with the lack of any sense of creativity thinks that at least it’s functional.

I use to joke with a friend that I not only have a dominant left brain-half but I am missing my right half all together, making me lacking basic creativity.

I used to have an old WordPress site, with a basic theme, looking like every others first WordPress site. At least now I have a paid theme and after trying and failing in creating a site MANY times, I now feel I can say that; I have my own website, my own blog and I feel proud of it!

Learning to code…

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Learning to code… the hard way…

Learning to code I want to be an expert at something. But I’m not. I don’t put enough time in anything to have the chance of becoming really good at it. Nothing.

So many times have I found something on the internet and thought to myself; “Wow, this is really cool. I want to learn more about that. This is how I can see myself doing for the rest of my life!”. After a couple of days, I lose interest again. Find something even cooler, and start focusing on that instead.

I don’t have a life motto. But my approach to becoming aware of new and interesting stuff is; Can someone else do that, then there is no reason why I can’t. So this is mainly the reason why I started trying to learn to code.

What I started with…

There are so many coders out there. And there is a lot of ways to learn to code. And every one has the best way to learn. The following is just a handful of resources I have been through while trying to learn to code:

The last one was when I thought I REALLY had to start from scratch.

Udemy 2D course

Udemy is REALLY nice!

The one I’ve spent most time in is a Udemy course: Complete C# Unity Developer 2D – Learn to Code Making Games which is on sale at the moment of typing this for $15. But Udemy often has it classes on sale so if you are interested in it and it’s not for sale, I recommend adding it to your wishlist and buy it when it’s back on sale.

It says I’ve finished 30% of that course but I’ve done more than that. They have re-recorded some of the material, I guess because Unity has been updated, so my progress isn’t registered correctly.

But I want to do more of that course. It was really good and I learned a lot. It’s just that I… lost interest at that time and it’s hard to start again…

If you have the tenacity, or perhaps I should say; if you just have ANY determination, since mine is very low, I really recommend this course as something to go through if you have no experience in coding, and want to start learning just that.

My dream of creating my own game

When in high school, you are (in Sweden at least) 18 years old and deciding on what you want to do for the rest of your life. I played a lot of games back then (as I still do), and wanted to be a game developer. I had no experience in coding what so ever, I just enjoyed playing games and I knew that if given the opportunity, and acquiring the skills necessary, I would be able to create good games that other would enjoy playing. And I still believe that.

However, the game industry back then didn’t flourish as it does now. At least not the indie game industry. So going after a game development career was a big risk. A risk my family didn’t want me to take. And I agreed. I came to my senses, and choose to do something that was guaranteed in giving me a job; International economics. Exciting…!

So to this day, I still want to become a game developer. And it’s not to late! At least that’s what I keep telling myself…

What did I learn from this?

I have of course learned some C# from the Udemy course, and other courses, but I am nowhere near being able to teach anyone any coding. I’m at that stage where I can read a code and somewhat understand what it does, but couldn’t correct it if it had bugs. I still haven’t understand the syntax so that I can by myself figure out what I should write after a certain class or a function and so on. Hopefully I am there someday, so that I can just reference the API to be able to finish my code.

I can however list some of the many different resources I have come across, and give you some of my feedback in regards to those resources, and HOPEFULLY I will help someone get started with coding.

If you have any tips on resources that are fun and educational I really appreciate your thoughts in the comments.

For my part, I just have to complete the Udemy course… I. Just. Have to…

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][mk_blockquote font_family=”none”]For a more in-depth article on how I approach learning game development check out my latest article post here.[/mk_blockquote][/vc_column][/vc_row] READ MORE

Getting somewhere… Getting anywhere?

OK, so here I am…

After almost exactly a year after my first post in what was suppose to be a new blog, a new project…
So I initially created this website because I wanted to do something that potentially could bring me some income eventually. I dream of the day when I can quit my job, and just continue working by myself, with my own projects. As many others do as well I’m sure.

Even though it was a year ago I still think about this site, and my other projects as well, every day. The problem with me is just that; I have too many projects.
I have too many interests, and not one that I excel at… Looking at some of my friends, and my girlfriend, they all have something they are specialized in. My girlfriend is a magnificent baker and creates lovely cakes. One of my friends is a very skilled web designer. Another is a photographer and I even have one that is a doomsday prepper. But he’s really good at it!

The thing is not one of them have the interest in making something out of their skill that they can call their own. Not one of them is interested in starting their own company, and become their own boss. Not one of them is interested in creating what I see as the ultimate way of make a living; a passive income. And this is frustrating for me because this is all I ever dream of.

So I like to play video games.

I am a father, a boyfriend (we’re not married… yet!), a family man if you will. I work in an office during the day but I like to call myself a gamer. And I’m a proud gamer. A proud nerd. I also like IT in general. I like to learn new stuff that involves me sitting in front of a computer or phone or console or whatever. You get the idea. If it’s learning to code, learn functions in Excel, customize my Android phone, learning WordPress, HTML, CSS or customize my UI in World of Warcraft; it doesn’t matter! As long as I’m sitting in my man-cave, my home office (a small room where I have my PC), I enjoy myself.

And I like YouTube!

One day a couple of years ago I started making Youtube videos. At first in Swedish. I did some Minecraft videos, a series of “How to setup a Minecraft server” and other review like videos. I can’t say they were very good but I can’t say they were bad either. The point is I liked doing it. I always liked helping others with what I know. Although it’s not a lot, the limited things I do know, I enjoy teaching others. So while creating some Youtube videos I started learning video editing.

My girlfriend bakes as stated before. I was never satisfied with the outcome of the photos of the cakes. So I started looking at photo editing. She started getting some followers on Facebook. So I thought it would be a cool idea to create a website for her so I then had to learn to do that. And why not make it a online store, where we buy stuff from China, place our logo on it and sell it. So I had to learn how to make an online store.

The thing is, this is just some of the things I dabbled in, in the last couple of years. And as a father of 2, the number of things I’ve learned with the limited time available in front of a computer, is quite a lot. Although I’m no expert at any of it, I’ve not perfected anything, I have learned some… Just enough to get started. What should I do then?

I will never be an expert

I will never be an expert at any of those things. Never be a pro web designer, a pro Youtuber, be a successful game developer, run a successful online store or even be a pro gamer! But what I’m good at; is starting new projects!

So this website is going to be my hub. My projects page. It was initially thought to be where I log my process in learning game development. but let’s broaden that. Let’s make this a blog where I try to write down how I started learning different things. What I found in my research of something I wanted to learn. Something that had my interest at that time, and hopefully this will help someone out there. Hopefully this can be somewhere to start learning something new, where we together will go forward and try to find other resources and other ways to increase our knowledge in that specific field that might interest you.

What then?

So here’s my idea… My CURRENT idea… And this will be available not just in English, but the plan is to write everything in also Swedish and Norwegian, since I got that going for me. I know three languages. Again, not perfected, but at least some.
Oh and by the way, it’s not going to be limited to web design, games, IT in general… No, there will also be topics of economics, parenting, psychology and I might even through some politics in there as well!

This might change though… It might be another year for my next post… But I hope not…

First post

So the time has come to when I post my first post here on my own site. I hope this works out as I intend. If you read this for the first time; Welcome to my site! Hope you get a feel for what I do and what I try to accomplish.