A few friends and I have been working on a game for quite a while. We're finally done! FattyWars is a multiplayer space shooter. Designed for playing with unlimited* friends, and you can also play against the computer. Works best with dual analog controllers, but keyboard/mouse works too.

You can download it from the FattyWars page. Works in Windows, Mac, and Linux.

* seriously. As many controllers as your computer can handle

Working from home is going pretty well. I've been going into the office near Ann Arbor about once a month, which is nice to work face-to-face with my coworkers (plus visit Cherith!). Besides that, phone, email and IM keep us in touch pretty well. And our project, FossForUs continues to be going well. It's quite functional and useful now, so one of our main goals is to start driving more traffic there.

Here's a few pictures of my home office setup:

One of the nice things about the desk is that there's a retractable crank so I can raise/lower it by about 8 inches:

And the whole front ledge can go up/down about the same amount. So I can get the keyboard & mouse high enough that I can stand up for a while to work:

And here's my view out the window, a few days ago. Spring is trying to get here!

Even for someone like me, who knows about open source software pretty well, it can be hard to find certain software. And I'm sure it would be harder for other people to find out about good open source software.

At my new job we've been working on a site to do just that: Fossfor.us. FOSS stands for Free Open Source Software, and we actually are making the site for people who don't know what FOSS is at all. There are loads of screenshots, video demos, feature lists, etc to help you know if software is what you want or not. And you can browse and search by function or by alternative (e.g. find me an alternative to AIM, or Microsoft Office).

We've got a lot of features (and some bugs) to still work on, but go check it out and download some awesome free software. You deserve it.

Feel free to post suggestions here, or use the "feedback" link on the bottom of Fossfor.us to send a note to our team.

In the past week I:

• Walked around Chicago in really cold temps. Cherith & I went to visit friends.
• Almost burned down Cherith's house. I left a light on that had a cloth on it, and started a small fire. No real damage, fortunately
• Made red hot cinnamon apples. And a few pears! One recipe suggested it and they were pretty good too.

I'll be starting a new job in a few weeks. I took a position at SourceForge Inc (formerly OSTG, OSTN, Andover.net, VA Linux, VA Software). They run sites like SourceForge.net (open source project hosting), Slashdot (news for nerds), ThinkGeek (geek gifts) and others. I'll be working on a new project within the company, not any of those sites. They are based on out California but have an office in Ann Arbor. I'll go to Ann Arbor sometimes, but primarily be working from home. That should be interesting I'm looking forward to it a lot... I think I'll enjoy the kind of work I'll be doing there, and the telecommuting should give me a lot of flexibility.

I will be sad to leave Cornerstone University. I've made lots of good friends there and truly enjoyed working there. I'll still be in the area, so I hope to stop by and visit now and again. After I gave them notice, I had a week before our long Christmas break that I spent writing lots of documentation of the things I know and do there. Not the most fun thing to do. After break, my last week there will be full of lots meetings. And trying to squeeze in some more documentation and finish a few more tasks from my list.

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!