Saturday, February 24, 2007

Stupid monitor!

Of course, we have to have a 3:4 720p HD monitor and not a 16:9 one... If we had a 16:9 720p HD monitor, then I would have found my perfect desktop. But since we have a 4:3 and the monitor won't place the image onscreen as it is, I have to see nasty bars on the sides of the screen. I guess I really want a higher res monitor too, going for a 19" widescreen. Perhaps I should. :)

Anyways, the desktop I'm using is so darn cute. (By my standards, anywhoo.) It has the kind of art that I wish I could draw... :(

OMG!

I found some useful information on something I wrote a long time ago. It was posted on "teh hidden site." It involved cyanide and chemical bonds with a certain element and their role in causing someone's death. I found out that my chosen transition metal actually does bond with Cyanide. Fun. :) Also, it unmasks the untruth of my fiction, as that form of cyanide explodes when in contact with most acids, the HCl in the stomach included. That didn't happen in my story/poem/whatever-it-was.

Speaking of writing, I began a new story. This one will be completely in third person. It actually has a title, unlike most of my compositions. It's called "Fleeing the Scene." It makes a lot of use of police radio-speak, which I had to look up on Wikipedia to know myself. I bet a lot of other people will have to look them up too. XD I'm such a nerd. As it stands now, it's the front of a sheet of notebook paper and still possible to be shared here. If I deem it such after I have two side of the sheet filled, I will post it here, else it will be posted on dA or my MSN space thing. :)

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Thursday, February 22, 2007

I've been writing...

I picked up my story again. Just last night I wrote a connection between what I had written upstairs before bed last year and what I wrote in classes the past couple of weeks. I then realized something: I write better for my stories in front of my computer, but I write academically better without the computer. Odd. Anyways, I was going to post the story thus far on dA, but I then remembered that I wanted to fix some typos that Word missed and revise some things.

It's one of the first stories I wrote that actually involves violence, suicide, and death. Yes, you'd be surprised, I've written some pretty morbid poetry before. (I don't think I posted the worsts of it anywhere) This is my first attempt at using it in prose, which I just recently picked back up again. (I had been doing poetry for a while.)

Perhaps tomorrow on my MSN space or on my dA account I'll have it posted after I edit it. Since it invovles.... well... something, I won't post it here, since not everyone who sees this knows about me that way. (And I know how wrongly that can be taken, but I can't find a better way to say it.)

So Matt3402.com has taken the backseat again as I move with my ever-shifting interests. Photography, writing, web design, computer repair, computer programming, etc., etc. I wonder how long it will take for me to finish my blog site so I can start working on my normal site.

I haven't touched my other "hidden" site in a while either. I modified the story that's posted there a bit, as that's the one I was connecting to the other bit. Since I had to modify the plot a little, the "old version" is no longer correct, thus I should delete it. I don't know how I'm going to do that though. Maybe I just have to restructure the entire "Library" section of the site...

Before I go, (It's pretty late here, 0:17. I have to get up by 06:45.) I ask anyone who visits to PM me if they even think they know what the secret I hold is. I posted it here before, but I ended up editing it, or so I thought. I missed it once. See if you can find it and learn. This will be my official exposure. I will not edit this post to remove anything, else I shall punish myself in ways I shall not describe for fear of concern. (I'm a big boy now. I need to learn to confront my problems rather than try to hide my wounds to the inside to seem less vulnerable while actually making myself moreso.)

So, about that exposure. If no one catches it, I'll post a typed copy of something I wrote for one of my friends explaining it.

What I said about it in the other post I linked to in the P.S. still stands. Read it and comprehend.

Hasta Mañana.

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Monday, February 19, 2007

Fun with Photoshop/PSP

Well, Adam posted the picture, people mentioned it. I couldn't resist. In all my poor photo-mutilation skills, I present "Jeff as Sakura Cosplayer."

That's all for this post.

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Sunday, February 18, 2007

Finally I'm getting somewhere!

I have actually gotten past the style part of my pages! FINALLY! It took me hours upon end of debugging to get it right, but so far so good. If you'd like to see how it looks thus far, you can click here.

I might never go to CompUSA again. They seem to always advertise things that they aren't actually selling. I went in today to get a graphics card for my old computer. Not only did the salesperson try to make me get a PCI-e card of a similar model, I was shown nearly the exact same thing for $50 more than the one I wanted to buy. Not to mention that there wasn't even a place for the one I wanted... This is the second, maybe even third, product that I went there to find and was caught in a "settle, pay more, or leave" situation. It's terrible!

But there is one thing that I liked when I was at CompUSA: I touched the famed iMac HD! It's HYOOOOOGE! I swear that it's screen must be wider than my shoulders! My sister really wants me to get a mac now because she learned about iLife from me, so now she knows it's better that Windows Movie Maker. :) I'm so evil for introducing Apple technology to my sister, I know, but I can't help it, I love macs! XD

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Friday, February 16, 2007

  

I admit it! I AM AN IDIOT! You remember how a while back I mentioned that I was writing a story? (A long while back?) Remember how I forgot the passwords? Turns out, I go in to look at the directory they're in, and I think that I'm opening a different file, but I end up opening "jeff.doc" I enter the passwords that I was expecting to use on "untitled-story.doc" and start reading the past stuff so I can keep the flow going correctly. Then I'm thinking, "Wait a minute...That's not how this story started! Thats....OMG!" Then I had a moment of temporary insanity while I celebrated the fact that I was so stupid that I used the same passwords on every other word document I had ever composed! I feel like a complete moron!

As for the blog project... I haven't worked on it yet for tonight/today. (and it's 2:53 as I write this line.) My internet connection was down for about an hour, so I couldn't get in to get the file from my host's servers via FTP. The cable modem was blinking it's Receive light at me, which means it lost its Receive channel on the cable network. The send light was out, and so was the "Online" light, so I was "Offline." It was a very lonely world isolated to just this small LAN.

Which reminds me.... My dad wants to move the modem and router upstairs. All of our computers in the basement here take advantage of what little extra boost the 100BaseT network will give them, but I am afraid that there is no wireless network card that will work properly with Win98 or NT. So I told my dad he would probably have to buy a wireless ethernet bridge and a Fast or Gigabit ethernet switch and install them as a replacement for our wireless router, reducing the cost of buying 2 wireless USB or PCI adapters to about $150 and still allowing flexibility. I asked him if wireless access points could be used to bridge distances in a PtPo802.11 type deal and he was acting like I should know that. See, the distance from the intended install location and the placement of all the cables on the network, it would be well over 200ft to run a connection upstairs. So we're screwed for going the cheap method. The longest cable we have is a little over 15ft, and it's crossover, but used because of the MDI/MDIX capability in our router, which probably wouldn't work with any other switch.... yeah, we're having network fun. I just told him he should buy different antennas or raise the router up on the wall rather than set it on a desk. He doesn't know if it will help. I think I might pull the cord for \\MAIN out and move them up high and see if he notices tomorrow when he uses his laptop. :) I won't even say a word about it either. This should prove interesting.

Speaking of interesting, they now sell "one-handed" keyboards. How does it work? There are two models: A full sized keyboard for a normal desktop, and a "mini" model for desktops with tablets and such. How does it work? If you hold the space bar, it emulates the opposite side of the keyboard! For example, holding space bar, the F key will type the J, Q the P, and so on. That;s pretty nifty, eh?

I'm going to buy this graphics card for my (\\HSRESQ or Angela) computer soon. It has DVI, VGA, and S-VIDEO ports/jacks on it. This way, I can get cool monitors and they'll work betterer. (I.E. maybe they 19" monitor isn't too far out of sight.)

I thought I lost $35 today, but I found it in the pair of jeans I wore yesterday. :)

Well, 'tis time for me to scram here. Seeya! :)

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Thursday, February 15, 2007

More working.

I did some work on designing the blog site. I even started submitting the mockups to validators and getting promising results, except the accessibility one... If you desire to see it, click here. The default theme is very minimalistic, opting for simplicity and easier to modify CSS documents. This way, I can easily let my PHP scripts read the cookie and choose the appropriate theme and plonk it out. This way, I have have large print, high contrast, and different color schemes all together. This allows the user to have quite a bit of choice on my blog site, hopefully allowing people to choose colors that will not distract them, hopefully keeping them from just clicking the "X" button. This isn't going to be the hardest set of scripts I've written, but they aren't going to be easy either. I have been wanting to do this user-switchable themes deal for quite some time now, but now I think it will actually get implemented. More than likely, there will be a select box that has the name of the theme or the colors in it, default on 'Large Print' and then 'High Contrast' and the default followed by any color schemes. Also, since the entire system is being read out of a database, it can be added to and modified easily, allowing for quicker deployment of new themes.

I'm working on this pretty slowly, but thoroughly, so hopefully I won't end up with a lot of bugs when I finish the project. :)

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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

"School's Out For..."

One day.... and then 5 more! :)

So yes, to answer your question, Kitsune, I did have the day off. The "five more" is a planned break. My dad had a late start at his work. When I woke up, my sister was playing the PS2, and she told me we didn't have school today, so I went back to bed. :) I'm not expecting to have tomorrow off, although if we do have it off, I will gladly take it.

I can make no mention yet as of if I have done any work on my site, since at the time of writing I haven't used this computer all day long. But I am working on getting to it, after I take my shower.

Well, I'm off to take out my contacts, shower and piano-a-tize. :)

EDIT: I did some minor work, but I didn't have a whole lot of time to do anything. My next task is to actually decide on the design on the site, as I have structured the databases and such in preparation. I have to decide exactly how it will look to make the theme thing work, don't I?

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

More work!

I did slightly more work on my other blog system thing. It so far will allow users to use a different style than I have by default, thus I can have high contrast, large print, etc. modes. Nifty, eh? I'm going to try to make it compliant with all the standards and also try to make it meet accessibility requirements, just because I can. :) I never actually tried to make my sites blind/vision-impaired accessible before. This should prove interesting. :):):):)

*Hopes for no school Tuesday!!* XD!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: I finally remembered to change my password on the computer. Here's the hint I gave: "Be proud of what you are." Sounds like it's just a motivational line, but it's actually how I can remember what my new password is. I know, I'm a dork. :)

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Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Whee!

Well, I don't remember if I posted about this before, but I am making a blog where any IP that isn't one I specify can access it without a password, thus keeping who I want to out. I actually began this fun experience. Since it's not a public service, I don't have to make it as advanced as MyOtaku in the database usage sense. (I just need a place to stow comments and the actual entries.) Thus, there is a little more privacy. Someone has to know the password, else the PHP script just tells you how you need the password to access it from "the IP your computer is using to connect to the internet." The easy way around that is to go elsewhere and use a different network (Hijacking Wifi, anyone?) or go to work/school/library and use their internet connection. Obviously, I'm not able to harvest the IPs of all these places that my family could use to get there, so I'm depending upon lack of discovery and difficulty of remembrance to keep people out.

How far have I gotten? I have the Auth system completed! That's it. Later, when I find my school's IP, I'll password that one too. Then I have created an administration folder that I can password protect to keep regular users from making posts, since they won't have the username/password combo to get past the HTTP authentication. I have done this with the "hidden site" to keep it's auth files protected.

Anywhoo, I still haven't found all the right parts for that PC that I want to build. The motherboard has an 8-pin 12v Core Voltage connector, 24-pin ATX plug, and the video card I want has the 6-pin PCI-e Power connector. Yeah. I NEED the PCI-e thing, but I have heard that 24-pin motherboards will operate just fine with a 20-pin ATX plug, as motherboards with 8-pin Core connectors will run fine with a 4-pin core plug, but I'd rather see the holes filled up. :)

Anyways, it's 11:21 on a Monday. This t*****n needs to sleep.

P.S. I know only a few know what the "t*****n" bit is about, but I couldn't help but mention it. :)

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Sunday, February 4, 2007

Oops!

I blew up my power supply today. I was observing inside my computer and when I pulled my hand out of the case, my thumb caught my fan cable and it ended up shutting my computer down. How, I don't know, but it killed the power supply. So now I get to buy a new one, and I think while I'm there, I'll buy two so I'm ready for when I start to build my new machine. :)

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