February 2004
Learning a new programming language
I wonder if many people find themselves in the same state of mind as myself. I really love programming and I’m always very interested in learning new programming languages. However, I have one little problem. I can never really “get into” a new programming language unless I know that I’m going to get some use out of it.
My language of choice is PHP since I am extremely proficient in doing...
"Real" Interview Tomorrow
Well my real interview with T-Mobile is tomorrow! My time I spent with the senior engineer last week was well spent I believe. This time I need to impress the actual person who in charge of hiring me :)
My Weekend
Well I had a pretty fun weekend :) Friday was my birthday and I had a pretty good school day, which isn’t hard seeing as how it only consists of a single lab and a single class. I was told at the 357 lab we were doing was going to be difficult. Luckily for me I’m already pretty good at this class and that I was sitting next to two pretty sharp guys.
We worked together to solve almost every...
iScrobbler. Audioscrobbler support for iTunes. A...
Well I’ve been trying to use Audioscrobbler for a while now by utilizing the iScrobbler plugin for iTunes.
Maybe its just me, but I’ve noticed that this application quits a lot. It is a menu item so I don’t really notice when it disappears, but it does, much like Meteorologist does from time to time. I’ll launch it, use it, and I’ll look up there a few hours later and it has gone AWOL on...
Happy birthday to me!
23, so old :o
Darnit
I back up so much stuff and the one thing I didn’t backup (the version of clintology2 I was working on) gets accidentally deleted because I gave it a horrible name (ugh).
So I’m the all-around jackass for the week ;P
Interview Today!
I’m heading out very shortly for my interview with T-Mobile down in Indianapolis :) This is my “second” interview with them. They called me out of the blue one day a few weeks ago asking for a phone interview.
We did that and I guess it went well because he asked me to come down for a in-person interview. I have a good feelin’ about today ;)
MT-Blacklist v1.63 beta (rc2) is out
Bug fix only!
Fixed “my variable” bug which caused some people to have 500 internal server errors when running MT-Blacklist and even MT
Fixed a bug on the initial default list screen (when blacklist is empty) where the link to the add screen was hard coded (Thanks Joshua Levitsky!)
Fixed a bug where a popular debug module (Data::Dumper) was called even when not required causing an...
More PURU updates
My first OS X app that actually does something!
!{margin: 10px;float: right;}http://phaedo.cx/archive/purux.jpg 389×210(purux)! I noticed the other day that Purdue had begun to offer a free little visual basic app that PC users could run and it would pull bandwidth usage data from somewhere and update the desktop app with updated data on how close you were coming to your daily limit of 1GB.
The app also does some other things, like disabling...
NetNewsWire 1.08 gains Atom support
Brent Simmons, NetNewsWire developer, has backported the Atom parser due to be released in an upcoming version of NNW to the current verison. As of today you can download special beta versions of 1.08+atom and begin stress testing the Atom parser!
In other news here’s a cool tip for iCal users. Try hitting CMD+OPTION+2 or CMD+OPTION+3 up to 7 to display 2,3,4,5,6, or 7 days at a time. This...
Webdev Links
Project Creep and Client Changes
Don’t Design on Spec
I am the president of the internet
You heard it here first :)
Data/Instruction Transmission Robot Links
This is one of the more complicated issues of the robot. We’ve got to be able to receive every bit of data that is sent to the robot. Transmitting data isn’t going to be that hard, but encoding to make it reliable will take up a significant portion of the main loop.
Fortunately, in autonomous mode we only need to transmit when certain events occur. Manual mode requires receiving commands...
Locomotion/Odometry Robot links
From reading around the web today, I’ve decided that my current proposed method of odometry with our rover will probably lead to a few problems. Based off a rough idea I sketched up in a matter of minutes, I would check to see if each wheel had reached the number of rotations I specified and if not I would keep applying voltage to the wheels. When one of the wheels reached its goal, I would turn...
How do you keep focused on the task at hand?
I find that if I’m not “in the zone” when it comes to getting a task done, I can be easily distracted by reading the Ars Technica or Something Awful forums, my aggregator, TV whatever.
So I’ve gotten into the habit of doing a few things when I really need to focus.
Absolutely no IRC, Aggregators, IM clients can be open
Claming Calming music should be on. I’ve grown partial to “Drone...
Three new VB.net apps
God these are worthless :P But anyways as a testiment to tradition, here they be
Payraise Calculator (payraise.zip)
Multiplication Teacher (multiplication.zip)
P.S. THE ANSWER IS 45!
Schedule Book (schedule_book.zip)
As always I’ve added some cool little features. Last week I played around with menu bars (check out the encryption program). This week I tried my hand at...
This space reserved
The robot project is coming along great! We’ve actually received all of the major components of the project including:
Robot base with DC motors and wheels
H-bridge controller module
Atmel micro-controllers
Two 433MHz transceivers and one 433MHz receiver
20 Infrared emitted diodes and 20 phototransistors keys to said diodes
point to point boards, wiring, stand-offs
LCD...
There comes a time...
…in every person’s week when you simply must drink straight from the orange juice jug.
!http://phaedo.cx/images/98058293.jpg 320×240(clint drinking from an OJ jug)!
Ermm FireFox 0.8 out today
Firefox – Take Back the Web”>
Well it seems that the Mozilla Foundation has changed the name of their stand-alone browser once again :) Its now called FireFox and has reached version 0.8. The name change is due to the fact that Firebird was a hotly contested name change (Firdbird DB was one of the biggest whiners) so I can see where they’re coming from with the change ;)
FireFox 0.8...
Good ol' USA
Lycos said that Jackson and searches related to the Super Bowl halftime show the day after the big game amounted to 80 times more searches than did the usual No. 1 celebrity search, Britney Spears. In fact, Jackson and halftime searches that day outscored even the largest one-day total for terrorist-related searches on and after September 11, 2001.
Got some work in on Clintology.com tonight
This site’s successor, clintology, has been, up until now, a site where I just threw random images, resources and resumes. My goal is to transition away from phaedo.cx (which expires in april or something) to this new domain.
Keep in mind when you see these that I’m merely in the “throwing around ideas”/“putting things here and there” to see how I like the layout. These might not even...
NASA engineers crack me up
I was just reading Asa’s transcription of today’s press briefing on the mars rovers and these two quotes stood out at me as pretty funny :)
Here is the part we brushed. This is a big surprise. All I could think to say, like Mohamad Ali, “This is the greatest interplanetary brushing of all time”
and this one:
Q. Can you draw any conclusions about the weather from this dust you’re seeing on...
Robot progress
Yesterday our parts started to arrive. The first part to reach us was the lynxmotion dual H-bridge module. This thing is pretty neat, it lets you control both motors independently with 6 pins. I took it home last night and wired it up to my micro, power supply, and robot motors and it worked like a champ. It was a little anticlimactic when its all tied to a million wires on your desk though...
Job Interview, Orkut, Mini Pepsi
I had a phone interview with a HR manager from T-Mobile based out of Indianapolis/Cincinatti. We talked about me and the position they have open (RF Engineer), which isn’t quite what the name implies. That’s not a big deal though, the job sounds like its a job and it sounds like its got good potential for promotion and/or getting experience in “da real world.” Their job description is as...
Textile 2
OMG OMG OMG. Everyone’s favorite shorthand text formatting plugin for MT has finally come out of 2.0 beta into full-on version 2 format :)
Textile 2 for MT. Its insanely easy to integrate textile, why hasn’t wordpress done it yet :) If they haven’t by the time I switch over to WP I will most definitely be hacking in textile support ;)
Audioscobbler: Thumbs up so far
So I signed up with Audioscrobbler yesterday and since then I’ve listened to approximately 262 songs
My top artists?
Yellowcard – 18
Saves the Day – 14
Something Corporate – 10
New Found Glory – 8
Zebrahead – 8
Reel Big Fish – 8
The Starting Line – 8
Nerf Herder – 8
Sum 41 – 7
The Early November – 7
They’ve been making changes to the site in the past few days,...
Mail.Appetizer
Mail Appetizer is an awesome plugin for Mail.app that pops up one of those awesome translucent rounded status windows (think of when you hit your volume keys on your mac or the “Event Bezel” in Adium )
Here’s a peek of Mail.appetizer informing me of a new email on my computer:
!http://phaedo.cx/archive/appetizer.jpg 293×400(appetizer screenshot)!
It doesn’t quite come out right in the...
Life is moving along
Well things have become quite hectic quite quick! I’m doing well though. We’re whittling down to-do’s and bugs on our main client’s site. The “spotter robot” project is also in full swing. We’ve got code in the works, parts on order, and schematics drawn up. Things are beginning to solidify :)
I’m also quickly becoming the “fountain of knowledge” in my ECET 359 (VB.NET) class :) I should...
MT 3.0 to enter private alpha testing in a few...
Alpha testing to begin soon
We’re starting to coordinate our round of alpha testing for Movable Type 3.0 that will occur prior to the public beta. If you’re a Movable Type authority, plugin developer, web standards advocate or just a Movable Type user with an active commenting community and want to be involved in this round, please drop us a line using the Movable Type contact form.
Random Links for the Beginning of February
What makes a good domain name
Some interesting things to think about when searching for a new domain name. My #1 rule is to keep it easily typable and catchy ;) Also links to a neat site called Deleted domains
Kuro5hin hosts an article priming Windows’s users for using Mozilla Firebird.
Apple updates Java to 1.4.2 and Safari to 1.2, check your software update :)
Audioscrobbler is a...
Green Day Single Featured in Super Bowl Ad
The track just appeared on the iTMS.
You can thank my trusty iTMS RSS feed :D