Jeff

homework-less is not work-less

So I am beginning to become sleep deprived. I have only gotten 4 hours each of the past two nights. That is all thanks to Java and its difficulty to not be C++ (I really like a standalone binary, so sue me). I got it working properly last night around 3:00 last night (this morning?). I don’t have any homework, just big work assignments (2 projects due the end of the semester and month long labs). sigh

So for one project, it sounds like we have to do all the web interface stuff in JSP (Java Server Pages) versus something much more friendly (like PHP or Python). sigh I also need to get to my lab stuff in OS, which I really don’t feel like working through SSH now (especially since I can and do all of my development on my laptop natively). I also setup Django on my web server and got it working with Apache and installed it on my laptop. This means I can begin developing this site in Django just for kicks. I may move back to using PHP since it lets me have more control and I am a lot more comfortable with it. I am going to hopefully rework a number of things and begin implementing stuff soon since I have all this free time. First I will see how the Django works, else I may have to get some other things working for PHP until I am satisfied with it.

overhaul

WARNING: THIS LOOKS LIKE SIN IN INTERNET EXPLORER, PLEASE USE SOMETHING ELSE PREFERABLY FIREFOX.

So if you haven’t noticed (which means you must be reading this from RSS) I have redesigned the site. I have spent the majority of the past week on this. And other things as well, I got a good amount of work in for my part time job and am making good progress in my classes. But I felt the need to start thinking of new designs for my site (I felt it was getting old) and am incredibly pleased with out it turned out (its kind of exciting when a design actually turns out how I envisioned it). But I am not going to stop here, I plan on overhauling how things are run in the backend too, first in PHP (which is what it is all written in) and then eventually migrating code to Django (a python web framework) but that may be a stretch. I still need to style the gallery and that will have to wait a bit while I recover some of my creative talents. I am going to have to eventually re-implement my by-browser styling system as a few things are a bit different in Opera… and I’m not even going to begin with Internet Explorer, please just use something else (I’m looking at you Devin). I need to re-add the footer section, I have a few different designs sitting around and I will eventually tweak them until they look acceptable to me. Until then, you are stuck with the 5 most recent entries in each tag set.

overdue

So I haven’t updated this in ages (like 3 weeks…) and I hit the button in my bookmarks toolbar and realized that I’ve grown tired of the design. I’m also getting up the energy to stand up and sit on my bed to work. I probably will get around to redesigning this sometime, I have an idea mocked up on paper, which means little since my ability to recreate paper concepts on my computer is very limited, but we shall see. It looks good in my head, still very simple and I’ve gotten a few different techniques to try with it.

Anyhow, I’ve been busy with classes. Senior design has consumed a lot of my free time along with my part-time job. I’m already on my second task and pretty far into it, it’s pretty neat and I think I will implement another neat feature that will make it even neater for now. For our senior design project, we have settled on a quad-rotor. You can follow it here: LINK. I am the one updating the site mostly, hopefully in the coming weeks I will add pictures. I will probably end up mirroring all of them here anyways. I also am getting back into Java and undertaking Operating Systems. I have confidence I should do fine in both courses, I just need them to get rolling.

I’ve been enjoying going out and doing things with friends (mostly Devin and Dave). We have visited Chumley’s twice and then the other day we played Edward Fortyhands and had a very fun time. Nothing really matches the absurdity and entertainment you get from doing everything with two giant bottles of beer taped to your hands, well almost nothing. Try it sometime, petting the cat… with a forty taped to your hand, standing up from your chair… with a forty taped to your hand, scratching your arm… with a forty taped to your hand, opening a door… okay you get the idea I hope.

Well, I’m going back to Java, my good old friend… for now.