Monday, 15 June 2009, 18:59:39 MDT comments(2)

Today was my first day back at work. I started a new full-time position in Administrative Systems at Clayton State University. It was a pretty good first day. I got plenty of warm "welcome back"s from everyone around OITS. It's nice going to work where people already know you. It alleviates the first day awkwardness. It's also nice knowing how things work so you can get all of the necessary stuff done quickly (parking permit, staff id, etc.).

Mr. Simpson and I spent a majority of the day wrestling with the ICVerify software in the External Relations office. A combination of poor documentation and backwards incompatibility proved to be our downfall. The rest of the day was spent installing Windows, and its multitude of updates, on my desktop.

Overall, quite a good first day.

Thursday, 14 May 2009, 22:19:36 MDT comments(0)

Early last week I learned of some cheap MIDI controllers from Korg. Evidently they released the nanoSERIES recently. I've been needing some sort of MIDI controller for a long time. I just couldn't advance my occasional music production without one. So I looked around on eBay and found the complete nano set, brand new, for about $20 off retail with free shipping. I decided I couldn't pass it up. The package arrived on my doorstep this past Tuesday. I immediately set to playing with the "nanoKEY" and "nanoKONTROL."

Today, I give you Space Dream. Another ambient tune. I had the song mostly finished a few hours after I started messing around with it. But I wanted to get some feedback before releasing it. My buddy Jason, who doesn't even like this kind of music, was kind enough to help me out. After a few more hours of work I decided it was done. If Jason likes it, then it must be pretty decent.

In regard to the MIDI controllers. So far, I have only used the nanoKEY and nanoKONTROL. They are definitely good devices for the money. They are not the sturdiest of instruments, but they aren't meant to be. I think they are going to work just fine for someone like me; someone who doesn't do this very often and just needs something that can send the notes and sequences. Plus, all three fit comfortably on a TV dinner table. Perfect for someone whose desk space is at a premium.

Thursday, 30 April 2009, 21:34:17 MDT comments(0)

After my post on not being able to find a job some things started picking up for me. I got a message back from a job I had applied for (but nothing from them since), a call from someone else about a job that I can certainly do (and have applied for it), and, most exciting, I've started a web design/development business with a friend.

I was going to wait until we had completed our first project before writing about it here, but this site needs some new content. So, I introduce you to Platypus Web Productions. Our site is still undergoing heavy development, but it is in a decent enough state to unveil (hopefully Chris agrees). It looks great in every browser except one — Internet Explorer 6. Actually, it looks just fine in IE6 after the fix for transparent PNGs is applied, but that takes place after the page has finished loading.

Which brings me to a question: why are you people still using IE6? Almost 50% of the traffic to this website for the month of April has been from user agents claiming to be IE6. I realize IE8 has only been out for a month, but IE7 has been a "critical" update for Windows for a long time, now. Are that many of you really using Windows 2000? Can you not upgrade? Or install any other browser?

I'm particularly curious about this from those of you reading this website. I imagine that most of the people viewing this site are more technical in nature. The evidence supports this. Most of you are downloading my winfo program or my Zen Photo external image script. I even got a hit on my X login program this month. Yet 67% of my traffic came from Internet Explorer users. What gives?

Wednesday, 15 April 2009, 11:51:22 MDT comments(0)

Since I graduated, one of the things I have been doing with my free time is playing World of Warcraft. I have certainly had the free time to play it, and it's a fun game. One of the best things about the game is the ability to alter the user interface, and extend functionality, via user made add-ons.

The default user interface reports your character level progression via a progress bar. This progress bar is broken up into pips, where each pip represents 5% of your level progression. In addition, you are able to earn "bonus" experience if you rest your character in a major city or an inn. This is represented on the progress bar by a blue color. Clearly, this is a very simple method of giving you the information. You are able to turn on a display, in numbers, of how much experience you have earned, and how much is needed for your next level, but it is also limited. So I decided to fix this by writing my own add-on.

I wrote my add-on in late January, and early February. I put off releasing it because of a couple of bugs and a missing feature. Yesterday I decided that the add-on is plenty useful without those bugs fixed, and that releasing it to the public should be fine. So I posted it to curseforge.com. The add-on is named XPLog. It has been posted for less than a day, and it has already had quite a few downloads. Now I just have to polish it up.

Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 18:35:34 MDT comments(3)

So it has been a couple of months since I have written anything here. I really just don't have much to write about. I haven't been doing anything technically interesting. I've mostly been sitting around the house wasting the days away, occasionally doing something constructive. I watched Lost In Translation last night and came to the conclusion that my life, right now, is a lot like the character Charlotte's. She is "lost" and doesn't know what to do with her life. She sits around her hotel room, occasionally wandering around Tokyo, trying to find something interesting. That's pretty much what I have been doing since I graduated.

There is a difference, though. I know that I want to program for a living. Be it traditional application development, web development, or game development, I know that that is what I want to do. There are just two problems:

1. The economy sucks and isn't getting any better any time soon.
2. All of the jobs that are available I don't qualify for.

I believe we all understand point one. As for point two, that is what is truly depressing. Everyone wants "5+ years experience" with things I do not have experience with. Or if I do find a job that I know I can do, there is at least one requirement that I don't meet. So when I do apply for the job I never get a call.

And that is why the content here has shriveled to nothingness. So sad.