Thoughts

  • May 20, 2006

    A sad day in baseball

    Today, Barry Bonds ‘tied’ Babe Ruth’s lifetime home run record. Barry Bonds, a man who has a bigger strike zone, better baseballs, more games and steroids under his belt. Now understandably, The first three are just because of the time. But because he took steroids, he should not have this record, like his single season HR record, and Sosa’s and Mcguire’s (if in fact, they did take steroids). Or if you want to put them in the records books, put a star by their name or something. No matter though, Babe Ruth will always be the greatest ball player who has ever lived. Later

  • May 18, 2006

    Another Year Gone By

    Well today (or really yesterday) I had my last final of my junior year, which more or less makes me a Senior in college, under the assumption I passed all of my classes. I’m pretty sure I did. I could talk about the events of the year, as I have done in previous ‘end of the year’ posts, but I think this post bears something different. I am going to be a Senior in college. That kind of scares the shit out of me. More so because I have found a job. One I will start this summer and work during the school year, and then, if all goes well, will turn into a Full time job after school.

    At the end of my senior year of High School, I titled a post “I guess this is growing up” (I was big into song title titles) and I talked about the whole moving on/growing up thing. I guess I could be jumping the gun with a whole growing up speech, or another one- but I don’t think so. I am feeling very anxious. I have a full time REAL job. This is going to be my last summer vacation. It feels a little strange. Plus, next week, during Senior Week, I will say good bye to all of my senior friends. A lot of them really did help me through out the year, and I will be sad to see them go. I also know that I will now be in their position and hope I can fill their shoes. I will do my best in any case.

    As a junior, I learned a lot about people, living in your own house, and my business. I have seen it grow into something maybe even more successful than I thought it would be at this point. I am relieved that the school year is over so I can relax from school for a little, but know as a Sole Proprietor, there is no rest from the business. I also know I will have a great experience this summer working what I will consider my first real developer position. And I look to my senior year with excitement and apprehension. But maybe right now, I should go to bed and worry about next year, well, next year. Later

  • May 10, 2006

    The Bamboozle 2006

    BOOZLE06

    There is a lot to be said about the Bamboozle 2006. I went to Saturday’s show and I have to say that it was pretty f’ing wild. My friend Eric and I got there at about 1:30pm and the first thing we did was a meet and greet with Streetlight Manifesto. But that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. Entering the outdoor complex, we made our way towards the main stages, where the really good bands were playing. We saw: Armor for Sleep, Mae, Reliant K, Sliverstien, Hawthorne Heights, All-American Rejects, Thursday and Fall Out Boy. We moshed hardcore to Silverstein, got beat up, throw down, surfed people and saved people during Hawthorne Heights, Rocked out during All-American Rejects and had some fun during Fall Out Boy. There were three categories we used to rate the show. Most Surprising Band, Best Band and Best Part of the Show.

    Most Surprising Band: Hawthorne Heights. Say what you will about their music, but they have one hell of a stage presence. They got the crowd going, interacted, and just knew how to put on a show. The music wasn’t too bad either.

    Best Band: All-American Rejects. During their set, they threw out beach balls, toilet paper (paper heart), moved the crowd and just did a great job. The crowd wasn’t too violent (for the most part). They made it seem like a small club show where you could really connect with the band.

    Best Part of the Show: Panic! at the Disco playing with Fall Out Boy. It was amazing. Fall Out Boy was like “How bad do you want it?!” The crowd blindly cheered. They start playing “I write Sins not Tragedies” by Panic. Enter, stage right, Panic! at the Disco. They played 1/2 way through the song and transitioned to Sugar, We’re going Down. It was awesome, even from far back you could feel the energy.

    All-in-all it was an awesome experience and unlike any concert/festival I have ever been to. You can find some pictures Here. Later!

  • April 21, 2006

    OMG MySpace!?

    OMFG

    As many of you might know, I was a big hater of MySpace. This was because of all the emo, 12 going on 20 year olds that infest its system, as well as the horribly (HORRIBLY) done layouts. I mean, they break every rule in the “Book on Good Design,” that is- picture as background, a million animated GIFs, embedded music, super wide layout, no color scheme. It’s all wrong!

    So, I was going to make it my undertaking to fix it up, and learn how to make it look awesome. However, Mike D. of Mike Industries beat me to the punch. Much thanks to Mike D. for the time he spent making it “web developer friendly,” if MySpace could be such a thing. What I hope to accomplish when I get some time (Lord knows when that will be…) is to make it real cool and add some of my own things to build on top of what Mike did.

    What I like about MySpace, after you get through lines and lines of CSS to make it look nice, is the social networking aspect of it that Facebook has. I figure it’s a good way to put my name out there. We will see what comes of it. You can check it out Here. Let me know what you think. Later!

  • April 5, 2006

    Now I have seen everthing

    Mac Boot Camp

    I think Disney put it best when they said I saw a peanut stand, Heard a rubber band, I saw a needle that winked its eye. But I think I will have seen everything When I see an elephant fly. Well ladies and gentlemen, the elephant has taken flight. Intel Macs are booting Windows, officially. Get the software off of their site here. I knew a couple of weeks ago of a hacker who managed to boot XP on an Intel Mac, but hackers do all kinds of crazy stuff that mess with the powers that be. This is different.

    This is monumental. Mainly because now I have no good reason to hate Mac computers. Some of my readers know I am not a big fan of macs because of how proprietary they are were. But now, Intels, and WinXP legally booted onto a mac. What is the point of buying a dell or gateway now? I mean, there are the IBMs, which are untouchable in my eyes. But now you can have the multimedia aspect of a Mac, with the familiarity of WinXP. I got to say, I don’t really know what to think. Even though I just kind of told what I think. Will I buy a Mac now?? Probably. Will I enjoy it? Not at first. But it will probably be like sleeping in a new bed. Kind of ehh at first, but you get use to it. Let me know what you think! Later!

  • March 16, 2006

    Then and Now

    I like to read old posts from time to time, just to see what I was up to. I’ve noticed a few things about my posts as I read closer and closer to the present. First is my spelling/grammar. A year and or so ago, my spelling and grammar were atrocious. I never spell checked or proofread. Now I do so every post. Since this is my third year writing like this, my spelling, grammar and vocab have also gotten much better. Next is length of the post. Then, I was writing because I felt like I had to. Some stuff that is not in these archives (my one-level-above-LJ) was just a few sentences on my day; nothing worth reading. Now, I try to give a good size post and cover everything I want to talk about. Last is the subject matter. I now have a better idea of what people want to read about. Granted, this is my site, but no one cares about what I had for lunch today, or that I spoke to the girl I like. I try to keep it interesting.

    So I guess I am writing this to apologize to those who read older posts. They are poorly written, there are type-os galore, and I curse too much in them. But, try to see past that to what I am really saying 😉 Later!

  • March 6, 2006

    X3: The Last Stand

    X-Men 3

    During 24 tonight, they premired the X-Men 3 Movie trailer (I wasn’t watching 24, as I’m not caught up, but my friend told me when they aired the trailer). I have got to say that this movie looks amazing. After seeing the first two, I hold these movies pretty high, adn think that these are among the best comic book movies (if not the best). X2 was better than the first and it is rare that a sequal is better than the original. I cannot wait for this movie, and will probably be among the first to view it. You can view the teaser on the website .Visit the Site. Later.

  • March 5, 2006

    Newsvine

    Newsvine Logo

    Quite some time ago (January-ish?), I got an email saying that Newsvine, a very intrinsic project by Mike Davidson and Co. was in BETA testing, and I got an account. I wrote one article, and then stopped using it.

    However, It does seem like something I’d like to write for, if I have the time. I am faced with one problem, however. Since I write a lot on here, what do I write on Newsvine? Should I repeat myself? Should I keep it to one topic or area on Newsvine? Would that be worth doing? I also have to explore Newsvine more to see all of its features. Maybe there is a simple way to take care of my little problem. This is my main site and I would like all of my writings to be here. But I would also like to get some exposure on Newsvine. Then again, I would also like the time to write a regular piece for Newsvine…Later

  • February 15, 2006

    Coding Process

    Here is a paper I recently found. It’s on my coding process (after being a coder for about 2.5 months), and was written my freshman year of college…

    What I do BEFORE I write any code?

    Before actually coding any program, I have to make sure I understand it. Usually, I will understand what I have to do, but not what that means when it comes to writing the program. However, for the last 2 assignments we’ve had, I sat down, and wrote exactly what I had to do, and then what kind of methods I could use for writing that program. This took some time on my part. Just recently I’ve realized I should do this, and it makes writing the program so much easier. Since this course is my first experience with programming, It takes me a little longer to actually realize what I have to do and how to go about doing it. This is, I should also mention, the longest part of the process for me. For the current program, we actually had to write and hand in what we thought we had to do. We had to set up an array that took the inputted number and added 1 to t hat spot in the array. Ex. If 50 was the input, the a[50]= 1. Then the program had to print out the array with the number in that array. So this example would print 50: 1. After figuring out what I had to do, I thought of the best solution. Since I am new to programming, the best solution might not be the best, but I want to be sure that the program works. My solution was that I should set up an array, then use a for loop to make each value in that array 0. Then read in the Int. with a while loop, and made the loop terminate with a value less than 0. After each number was read in, I set up another for loop that, if the value in the array spot was greater than 0, it would print the array spot and its value.

    What I do BEFORE I get my first clean compile?

    Before my first clean compile, I go back to make sure that I didn’t miss anything. If I did, I would fix it. This is before any compile. I align everything to make sure it is all written correctly. Then if I compile, and it is not clean, I fix the errors the best I can. Sometimes, this would include asking a friend for some pointers on where I messed up. With this particular program, my error at compile time was that the file input class Prof. Plishka provided was not updated. So I went out to the website and got the updated one. I make sure everything makes sense, and then I proceed to my first clean compile.

    What I do AFTER my first clean compile?

    After my first clean compile, I first pray to God that the program works. Sometimes, it does. Usually, it doesn’t. So I go back to my code to check where the problem might be. After checking through the entire program- pretty much line by line, I assess where the problem might be and solve it accordingly.

    Quite a bit has changed since then, and now coding is ‘like a second language’ to me. I don’t really need to put a lot of thought into how I will do something, just into how I can make it better, more efficient. I use a lot more print statements for error checking now than I did then, and they really do help pin point any problems. I don’t need to check line by line any more, since I am more familiar with whatever languages I use, so I usually can tell what is giving me trouble. As for asking friends for help, that is always good to do. Writing code is like writing a paper in the sense that you might over look errors because you wrote it. Later.

  • February 6, 2006

    Teach yourself how to program

    As some of you may know, I have taught myself a lot of the programming I know. It started with HTML, then CSS, some JavaScript, and then I moved on to PHP and MySQL. AJAX and Java are in the works, though I have some help from school with Java. In any case, I thought it might be good to write how I went about teaching myself PHP.

    With HTML and CSS it was a little easier because I had Frontpage to learn from. But the best way to learn those 2 things it to look at other people’s source. I still do that occasionally when I see a cool CSS effect that I want to try. There are also an infinite amount of resources on HTML, as well as other Web based languages. W3 Schools is, in my opinion, the best.

    PHP/MySQL Programming for the Absolute Beginner

    Learning a programming language like PHP is a little harder than that because PHP is processed by the server, and is invisible to the user. When I taught myself, I first purchased a book that familiarized me with the language. PHP/MySQL Programming for the Absolute Beginner is great for that. It covered not only the language, but some theory behind programming. I strongly suggest you learn theory if you are serious about programming. While languages change, theory will always be the same. Don’t just learn the syntax of a language- but how and why each component works- Ifs, Whiles, methods/functions, etc.

    In addition, read online tutorials, how tos, and do it yourself. The programs from that book and books like PHP for Dummies are good. Do a program a day- even if they are simple and easy. They are meant to teach you how to use certain types of syntax. My Del.icio.us links on the side usually have some good PHP/programming resources. PHP.net is and will always be the best. It’s a huge database of all of the php functions- Functions are code written outside of the main program that can be called upon. The ones on php.net are built in, already written. These will save you massive amounts of time you would spend writing your own stuff. PHP has over 700 built in functions. Occasionally, on this site, you will find something I have written, and I will make the code available for download.

    It is not always easy to learn a programming language, but if you work hard, do practice programs and READ, you will be well on your way to writing your own apps in no time. Later!