Geek and a Half

September 29th, 2005 by Jake

Most of you know I have a small knack for graphic design. Well, I’ve finally signed up as an artist, or “deviator” over at deviantART. You can view my main page and gallery here: SpikeX on deviantART.

If you’re a member, you can post feedback on my deviations (art I decide I want to add to my gallery). We’ll see what I add, it’ll probably mostly be 3D art; I’m pretty good with Bryce, but there may be a few other things I do in Fireworks, as well.

September 26th, 2005 by Jake

Before you begin your vast exploration of the Internet, be sure to read these guidelines first. They’ll tell you everything you need to know. =)

September 20th, 2005 by Jake

Yeah, I’m bored, and I need to kill a half hour before I have to fake doing Cisco stuff, so I’m gonna blog about today becuase it was one of those better days you have.

I went to TCD and gave everyone mIRC, then ran UnrealIRCd on a Linux box, and we all chatted on IRC. Of course, I had an O:Line, so it was most fun for me. I chose not to let my teacher know about this. Well, I shouldn’t say he didn’t know, he just chose not to monitor our conversation. He knew I had an IRC server set up, he watched me do it. Nothing else really important happened there, that’s basically all I did was IRC then talk to Mr Rutz about random stuff (Earthlink, SBC, how Windows sucks, Modems and Linux boxes, Cisco, the HyperTerminal (yes, we still use it), that kind of thing).

Got back, English was boring, we had already done both things he had planned for us today, so we kinda did nothing the whole period, which was cool.

Psych was boaring, I’m beginning to find that it’s going to be one of those types of classes where you have some kind of debate or presentation every other day. Damn.

PE with Bishop was gay as usual, it was one of those hot days so I just kinda stood around and not did anything, which probably got me nothing better than an F for the day, but, hell, I’m just too lazy to run around in *checks AccuWeather on Trillian* 90 degree weather.

Math was actually cool, we just fucked around with our calculators and that was the lesson; the rest of the time I just talked to people.

So, yeah, that was my not-so-bad day. They’re actually mostly like that, only sometimes do they suck. *checks time* And my dad will be home soon, so I have to fake like I’ve been working on homework the whole day so I don’t have to mow it. *opens Cisco* Later.

September 19th, 2005 by Jake

So since I have a blog, I figured I’d go and find that old script, “iTunesBlogger”. It basically updates a page to let people reading your blog know what you were listening to last. Then I thought: Hmm, that can’t be so hard. Hence: iTBlog 1.0.

Coded with Microsoft Inet COM Control, Visual Basic 6, PHP, and MySQL (pronounced “Sequel” =P), it loops through every 2000ms or so and checks if the song has changed; if it has, send some POST data to a PHP page on this site which sends the POST data to a MySQL Table for storage. If the page is called as an include, it will echo the song in the database. The HTML tags are added to the mix in the PHP page.

So, now when you check my blog, check what I was playing last, as well. Oh, and I must warn you: I frequently repeat songs, I’m very picky about what I listen to when I’m on my computer.

If you want iTBlog for your own blog, post a comment and some means for me to contact you, and I’ll see what I can do for you.

September 15th, 2005 by Jake

If you don’t like reading long blog posts, trust me: This one’s worth your time.

Okay, so I went to a CWUG meeting today. It was really cool, it’s what you’d expect in a Microsoft small office building: Free samples in the hallways, state-of-the-art conference rooms and hands-on computer labs, that sort of thing. Oh, and just for the record, when I went to the bathroom, the toilet did not crash on me. =D

So we start the meeting off by announcing the Xbox360 winner, who wasn’t even there. Oh well, early Xmas present for him (Xbox360 is shipping on November 22nd). Then, randomly, one of the Microsoft Reps pointed to the guy in front of me wearing a Sox hat, and he goes, “Just for wearing that hat, you get a gift.” The guy shrugs, like a “Okay, whatever.” kinda thing. So halfway through the Vista portion, a Microsoft Rep comes out and gives him this huge Orange/white box that says “Windows Server Systems Package Deployment Kit”. Inside: A full hardcover set of Server ‘03 books, a few sample programs, a wall poster about converting Server NT 4.0 to Server ‘03, and best of all: a Leatherman Pulse multi-tool (souped-up pocketknife) engraved with the Windows Server 2003 Logo. We were amazed, all that (probably upwards of $500 in stuff) all for wearing a Sox hat? I was thinking to myself, “Wow, these Microsoft people aren’t as bad as they’re cracked up to be.

After that, we got a lot into Vista, people asked all sorts of questions, and there was that one time when a guy asked if Windows indexes all your files, the rep said “Yeah, on-the-fly.” So the guy asks, “Well, what if there’s some files or web pages on my drive I don’t want indexed?” The room went silent, then we all burst out laughing. Nobody said anything, but we all knew what this guy was talking about. Funniest moment of the night, by far.

So, after that guy was done, we did some tutorials on Digital Video Editing, which was cool, learned some stuff I didn’t know before, which will help in the future. End of that section.

After the conference, first-off, an MS Rep comes out and gives my TCD teacher 3 OEM Versions of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. I just stared in shock. He wouldn’t let me have one, but he said we were going to put these to good use, anyway. So, then we went out into the hall, where there was a huge mob-scene. Apparently they had boxes of free books, some actually half-decent Hardcover books. So I got two: “Active Directory for Windows Server 2003” and “Introducing Windows Server 2003“. Okay, yeah, cool books, and these could be worth something if I sell them.

So I meander back to go find Kevin and Joe in the conference room, and I stop to see a guy holding a full boxed hardcover set of J++ books. So I go, “Where’d you get those?” He says, “Across the hall, there’s more teacher’s stuff you can go get.” I was like, Okay, let’s go then. So I got Kevin and Joe, and as soon as we go into this office-type room, the guy goes “Yeah, go ahead and take anything except the Xbox.” I go, okay, yeah, there must not be a lot here. Boy was I wrong. Both sides of this mini-lobby were stacked full of resource books, like the kind you see at libraries, the huge, think kind. Free for the taking.

Kevin, Joe, and I went absolutely insane. Between the three of us, we could start a library. I’m not even gonna begin to explain all of the stuff they had there. But, of course, I took pictures of all my stuff with my very crappy Logitech QuickCam Express. Here’s the results of my Microsoft Raid:

And for those of you who enjoy Photography, an alternate perspective of the books is there for your viewing pleasure.

And then, afterwards, this guy walks over with one of those orange boxes that I told you about earlier, and he was like, “Here, take this. It’s extra.” I thought it was empty, so I could carry all my stuff, but it was the same thing the other guy got, even the knife! I was amazed even more.

So, overall, I would say it was a great day. Got lotsa expensive stuff, and for what? Signing up and listening to the guys talk for a couple of hours. Hey, you can’t beat free books, pizza, pop, software, and dessert.