Bachelors by 30?

Time to be serious...

2006-10-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

Well. This blog is dead. Why?

I won't finish my last class until about 2 or 3 weeks after my 30th birthday.
I won't get my diploma until 6-8 weeks after that.
I still have neither the energy nor content to make something of it

So. What does that mean? I have family and friends that are all interested in me doing a blog at some point. I guess what it all measn is that a new blog will be out in the not to terribly distant future. If you have interest, you'll find it - especially if it turns out successful.

That's it.

Go home now...

What is it about blogging?

2006-06-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

Why is it so hard to keep up?
Why is it difficult to think of a focus?
Does it really accomplish anything for the average person?

I'm not going to pretend to have any answers for any of these questions. I am going to say that I like the idea of publishing a blog/personal website. I think the problem is that my life right now is relatively boring.

I have interesting going-ons at work I could talk about, but that's bad form. Additionally some people have been getting in real trouble by blogging about such things lately. Some people talk about family, and outside of my immediate family (my wife and I) I see this as bad form - not to mention I don't really know much of what goes on. I've thought about keeping school on the forefront - but I'm so sick of it that I don't want to think of it outside of what I need to.

In all, I hold on to the hope that when I'm done with school I'll be able to do something. It'll probably be a personal web site more so than a blog. I'll probably start it as a way to keep my hobbies active. I hope to get into doing something after school...

Another casualty in the Blogosphere?

2006-05-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

I'd like to think not. I just might be though. I haven't updated in over a month, almost two now. I have two saved posts that are nothing more than a brief topic synopsis for me to expand on. I have no plans to join MySpace anytime soon - but maybe that's a sub-culture of the Blogosphere and therefore not an issue.

I plan to blame school until I've graduated. After it's done I guess I'll have to step back and consider that I'm just not the blogging type if I don't keep up.

Anyhow. I just wanted to try and help the brain burn I have going on. I have a paper to write and I just cannot get it started. This hasn't really helped - but it did at least distract me for a bit.

No more networking!

2006-03-18T09:17:00.000-08:00

Wow. With those networking classes over I am actually pretty happy. I am in the second week of the UNIX class I have to take, which is really more of an introduction to the concept that UNIX can be used in business or some such thing.

Now, to get everything out on the table I am a "WinTel" kind of guy. I like to dabble in programming, but am more of a project manager than a programmer. I like to dabble in web stuff, but would rather pay someone else if it's a real web project. I am one of the system administrators at work, but am working to move into being a group lead on the track to management.

Ok. With that out of the way, we are really concentrating more on Linux than Unix. The instructor has recommended we use Knoppix. One of our classmates recommended DSL run in either qeum or vmware. My older brother gave me xandros for Christmas.

I've played with DSL a bit and it seems like it'll do for the majority of class. I have a second hard drive (alternate drive really) for the laptop and plan to install xandros on that within the week. I am currently downloading Knoppix via torrent.

After all is said and done I imagine I'll still be a windows guy because in addition to all the above, I like gaming. I admit there are games available for Linux, but the majority are still for PC, and moving forward also for consoles...

Time, oh how it flies.

2006-02-20T08:39:00.000-08:00

It's already time for another entry as I struggle to keep somewhat of a schedule. It's interesting that I try so hard as I have no readership right now, even my older brother has forsaken me. I do this only for myself, and to try and create a steady habit. Eventually I may be able to use some of the old writings in here as fodder for a "real" blog in the future - but we shall see.

So, what shall I write about today? I think I should figure out something to add to the other blog I am a co-author on, the what did you learn today one. The problem is that I'm always learning so much, I never really know how to encapsulate it. I guess that means I wouldn't be a very good teacher. In fact, the ability to impart knowledge will be important whether or not I am a teacher as I hope to someday have a family. This does not actually address the main point of this topic though, which is what I should write about in this blog today but rather that I really should write something in the other one.

I'll have to get back to work for now and re-visit this later after some thought...

I never did think of anything. It's been a crazy week at work, and this class in school is killing me. Now it's three days later and things at work have come to a finely balanced point that could be going in either of a couple directions, most of which are not that great. I'll provide details later, when I have a better idea what's up. For now suffice to say that I need to spend some time playing video games...

iRobot Roomba Red Review

2006-02-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm a little later on this than I had originally planned, but here goes...

Background:

iRobot released the first automatic vacuum in the US a few years back. I remember hearing about it and knowing that this was something I wanted to have for my use. Part of this is because I do not like housework, and part of it is because I love gadgets. It really has nothing to do with wanting to clean the floors well while saving time for myself - but that's a pretty neat side benefit. I never did own one of these though, and from what I've heard it's not to big a deal that I didn't. These first issue robot vacuums were like many first issue products and had their fair share of "personality" from what I hear.

More recently, they released the new "Discovery" line of roomba robots. These were basically Roomba 2.0 and were all identical for the most part. The differences being color and accessories that were sold along with them.

The Roomba Red is the bottom of this pile in price, and has the only other change from the rest of the discovery line. There is a missing mode button on it for the "Max" mode. Apparently this functionality can be had simply by using one of the remote accessories. I have not tested this, but do not doubt the validity of the claims from those who have.

I had the perfect opportunity to buy one of these this year as I want more than anything to help my wife have more time. She was working a tremendous amount and felt horrible that she wasn't keeping the house as clean as she wanted (me, I thought she was doing better than needed - but that's another blog entry). With this product I could give her the ability to vacuum without having to take the time to vacuum. It is truly the closest I imagine we can currently come to giving the gift of time, save perhaps a robot lawn mower (again, another topic).

I had decided on this gift a couple of month before Christmas, but my wife is the financially responsible one so she handles our banks accounts. This meant I couldn't actually buy one until right before Christmas - the "blackout" date we set where neither of us was allowed to look at what was being spent where. Unfortunately this precluded me from a couple of small sales and deals that went by - but I was still able to get it for a pretty decent deal from Sears. I also got the extended warranty from Sears as I have had a couple of those from different retailers in the past that were well worth it.

Onto the review:

Opening the box we were greeted with a nice round red, relatively heavy thing. I think I was expecting it to be smaller and lighter than it actually was for some reason. I had even brought it home from Sears and still felt it should have been smaller and lighter than it was. This is not to say that it is to big or heavy, it's a pretty good size and has almost no weight. I think I had been thinking it would be closer to a Frisbee for some reason. As it is it's about the size of the part of an upright that is actually on the floor, the part with the brushes, brush motor, and wheels. It's probably about that heavy as well. It is very easy to pick up and carry in one hand.

It was packaged quite well and I think it would have survived shipping with no problems at all. There was a small manual that should appeal very nicely to the average consumer that wants to buy something and have it just work. There was also a cleaning tool, and a spare replacement filter. As with any other vacuum on the market most of the profit over time for the unit is probably from the filters (bags for the ones that have those instead) as opposed to the sale of the unit itself. An enterprising person or avid DIYer would probably be able to easily make new filters for the unit using the plastic frame from an old one to save money.

We had to start by charging the unit for at least 16 hours. The charge indicator light showed green after about 4 to 6, but we stuck with the instructions to be safe. The cord is lengthy enough to reach outlets behind objects with no trouble. There is an AC-DC converter built-in to the cord that increases the bulk, but it is not overly huge (as I've heard the one for the XBOX 360 is...). I would put it at around the same size as one for a notebook computer.

The next day we decided to try it out. I had done some serious reading on the unit so I had an idea what we needed to do. Additionally, the instructions gave tips as well. Basically, we needed to pick up before using, just like you would have to for a regular vacuum really. We also needed to watch it the first couple times it did a room. Not actively watch the entire process, but check in on it occasionally and make sure it hadn't gotten stuck.

We picked the bedroom. It's a decently sized room with little to nothing on the floor to being with. We closed off the closet and picked a small garbage can up off the floor. We then put it in the middle of the room, hit power, hit start, and got onto the bed. We watched the vacuum for a few minutes as it did a couple of patterns, and then we fired up the TV. The vacuum was quiet enough that we could watch TV with it running in the same room. We did have to run it loud, but not much louder than we have to when a train goes by. (We live in a condo with train tracks less than a full block away...)

The vacuum went for around an hour and a half, most of it's battery life. When it was done it made a "cheering" sound to indicate "mission successful" and that the room was clean. When it gets stuck or has trouble it makes a "sad" sound to indicate it needs help. We took the back off to empty the dustbin and it was quite full. We decided in the future to leave the bathroom door closed and do it as a separate room, but more on that later. Emptying the dustbin was very straight-forward, remove and dump. We also removed the filter and tapped the dust off of it. About every 3 or 4 times we run it we also use the provided tool to comb the brushes and cut anything wrapped around the brush or beater (threads/hair). We sometimes do this more such as after doing the bathroom.

It had been quite awhile since under the dresser or nightstand had been done - so we decided to try it on a room that had been vacuumed more recently next. We did the living room. Armed with the knowledge of how the bedroom went we sectioned off the room and cleared the floor. We started the vacuum and kept track of it. We discovered it occasionally got stuck under the loveseat to where it couldn't back out (we have since solved this - but I digress). When it got stuck we would free it and hit the button to get it to continue and it would jump right back into cleaning the floor. Again it took around an hour and a half. There were a couple of times it would get a blue light on the top, the noise level would increase slightly, and it would hang out in one particular area. This meant that its sensors detected more particulate than normal. Exactly what this baseline is and how it is determined I do not know, but it apparently can tell when the floor is especially dirty. At the end of the run the dustbin was again quite full. This may be partially explained by the fact that our old vacuum was in a state of dyeing.

At this point we decided the vacuum was a success and were ready to sell it to our friends and family.

Parting thoughts:

We have learned how to better use the vacuum over the last month and a half. We run it almost every night in one room or another. We have the house sectioned off into 7 or 8 days, about 10 areas. We keep a chart on the fridge dry-erase board so we know what has been done lately and what hasn't. Even now on a new filter and after weeks of use the dust bin still comes out pretty full after the vacuum runs. It may seem to take longer, but we can do the whole house by the end of the week only investing about 45-60 minutes of our time vacuuming. (Actually clearing the floor and restoring stuff after as well as cleaning the unit.) We have some rooms we can start on our way out the door and others we run during dinner. The filters are quite reasonable at around $5 each after shipping (packs of 6) They last anywhere from 1-3 months depending on the environment they are used in and the frequency of vacuuming.

Some say the roomba cannot replace your regular vacuum, but it has replaced ours. It easily has the power of an average upright and the versatility is much more than any regular vacuum on the market. We have a dirt devil for the stairs and our floors are doing quite well.

If you have a large house and want to do away with vacuuming you'll need a couple of them. If you want it to be hands free you'll need a few. The best value can be had by manually starting it in a room, charging it back up (there is a rapid charger available) and then manually starting it in another. This will also give the best overall coverage. When money is no object one of these in each room with a scheduler base station will make it so you only have to "empty the garbage" every day and clean the unit every week depending on the room. Everyone's needs will probably be somewhere in-between these two extremes. The more square and empty the room the better it will get it clean. Rooms that are separated by a doorway are usually best done as two separate rooms. Rooms that are side by side and only have a half-length wall may be done as one, but results will vary. The invisible wall is difficult to learn as there is absolutely no indication of where the massive beam is going, physical barriers work best.

There is a module you can get now to feed your own programs into the roomba. My initial thought was that this was great, but my follow-on cautionary thought was performance. Part of why the robot does such a good job is repetition. It goes over every spot in the room multiple times. Programming it to follow a specific path loses this and could result in rooms getting less clean. I do hope to get that module sometime in the future though, it would have its uses... ;)

Another class down.

2006-01-19T09:47:00.000-08:00

I have finished another class at the University of Phoenix Online. This one was a 300 level networking class called Network and Telecommunications Concepts. It wasn't my type of thing really, I'm basically an application/os layer guy when it comes to computing. It did have some level of interest though, and will probably eventually help me in my programming while definitely helping me in my current network administration job.

Next I have Network and Telecommunications II, a 400 level course. Again, it's not really my thing but good to know. I hope I can make it through without a ton of trouble. My grades for the first one aren't posted yet, but I think I may be getting my 4th B of 19 classes. This wouldn't be so bad, but I did get 2 D's along the way so every A really helps bring that overall average back up.

I can definitely see the light at the end though. After these two classes I get a Unix intro class which should be easy, a Windows networking class that I need to check on testing out of, two web programming classes (can you say ASP?), and finally two C++ classes (I need to change the second class still as it's currently set to be some ebusiness class). Assuming I stay on track and pick up three lower div classes (all science of some sort I think) I'm graduating in less than a year, in fact about 11 months from now on December 17th of 2006.

That's all for now, I think I'll keep this post being about school and nothing else - part of the whole "focus" thing that blogs really should strive for. I think my next post will either be all about the Roomba Red or general happenings in my personal life. Both of these posts will be coming in the future tough.

A month later...

2006-01-03T08:38:00.000-08:00

I know, I'm definitely the pot. In all fairness, my brother would have every right to rub it in, but hasn't so much as said a word - not even in his bit about dead blogs.

Anyhow, first and foremost - the MINI won. (See here and here for background...)

With that done, I said there would be a great write-up on the whole process. Since I was trying to surprise my brother with the car (and most especially my younger brother) I didn't write up anything here, but I did end up finding a great place to write, and that's here, at North American Motoring. I was able to share with others that went through the same stuff and keep my sanity for the most part. (I am CeridianMN on that board...)

The short version is that we ordered the car in October (the beginning) and then started to wait. We made a couple of small changes to the order, and then we kept waiting. I watched the cars progress all the way to the dealer, where we then waited some more for some more work to be done. We finally got the car right before Christmas, I am exceedingly happy and my wife is glad it's finally over (the wait).

I'll post some specs and info with many links in the near future. I don't have the time to make this a fully fledged MINI blog though.

That leads to the last point I want to address in this quick posting - what is this blog? As the about section mentions I am attempting to finish my degree. This takes much of my free time to be honest. As such I am not willing to commit to a single topic right now. When I finish school that may change, I may even branch out to multiple blogs for a couple of different topics I have in mind. Until then - this blog will have posts generally from those topics and personal life. Truth is that I'll probably ditch this blog when I do graduate. Probably I'll re-name the blog and use it as my personal one and/or the one for the idea that works the best.

What are those topics? I'll probably post about the MINI a bunch. I would like to get some PC gaming interest stuff covered. I am hoping to learn to program in JAVA and may talk about that experience some (worked through over half of the SAMS 24 hour book during my last between class time). I got my wife a roomba red for Christmas and may talk about that some. I might talk some about the church we are part of. The possibilities are endless really, especially since I need to try and also come up with things that I learn and fit into a small form factor for the other blog I'm part of.

I really can't say much, but....

2005-12-05T10:31:00.000-08:00

It has been over a month since my older brother updated his blog. I have been the high side of two weeks. I had meant to update it last week but didn't finish my project, and then this weekend was horrid.

Anyhow, my project.

Nothing much this time. I finally made an Amazon.com wishlist. That's it. Search for my name on Amazon and you'll get my wishlist.

The more meaningful thing that comes of this is my project for next year (with a January birthday that's just too close). I've mentioned before the desire to move to programming, and now I have something I actually want to write. I want to figure out how to create an amazon wishlist that is comprised of links using my amazon associates account. Granted, this is a relatively simple web-building project more than an actual programming project, but I'd like to automate it to the point that you get a browser add-in that lets you search for items on amazon.com, and then when you get to the item/page you want you simply select a drop-down menu object or a button and it gets added to a wishlist. When someone browses your wishlist, clicks a link, and buys it you would then be credited with the sale as an amazon associate. Of course, this may kill some surprise if you do not have the fortitude to not look at what you've sold coming up on the holidays, but then again the regular wishlist is the same thing.

So, that's my project. I don't know that I'll finish it for next year, but after I graduate I will theoretically develop a little more time...

Not a bad week.

2005-11-17T20:30:00.000-08:00

In the last week or two I have received two "Hollywood movie money" gift certificates in the mail for one free movie each, had a Weber portable charcoal grill delivered to my door to be discovered two days later, and saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the night before it came out.

The first two were delivered by a prize fulfillment center. It turns out that all those times (every day for three weeks) that I logged in and tried to win the LG Life is good instant win game paid off. I didn't win the MINI Cooper S convertible, but I apparently did win the movie tickets as a second place prize in the sweepstakes drawing, and the the grill as a prize in the second chance drawing - I think. I'm actually not 100% sure what prize I won how, but do know that they both came from there. That's $60 or so worth of prizes! The downside is of course that we have a small portable grill already, but the prize one appears better, or worth more at least.

The advance screening of Harry potter was a little different. I once tried to start a business with a friend of mine. Did all the paperwork, registered with the state, everything like that. Turns out we didn't have a good business plan. We had good ideas and intentions, but no solid direction and not enough drive. The business was an IT focused business, and as such we ended up on a lot of mailing lists. Most of these have faded over the years, but some have followed me to my new address. A month and half ago I got one from APC. It had a picture of Harry Potter on it. Turns out they sponsored an advance screening. The invitation was for one person and a guest, so tonight my wife and I went from work to a restaurant, had a quick bite to eat, and then to a theater to watch a presentation of about 45 minutes from APC for some of their new technology. It was interesting to me, but bored my wife quite a bit. For our trouble we were then given a screening of Harry Potter, starting at 7:15. This was 4 hours and 45 minutes before they had their public showings. We also got some dollar bun cold sandwiches, chips, pop, and veggies before hand, and a voucher for a free popcorn and pop in the form of a survey. They also provided a packet for kids with a puzzle for them to have something to do during the presentation. These kids puzzles were all turned in and a drawing was held for a Harry Potter board game. Incidentally my wife was a bit bummed she didn't get a chance to enter that drawing.

On a more practical front we've talked to the bank and two reputable on-line lenders and are fairly (about 99%) sure of who we're going to borrow money from for a vehicle - but that's all I'm saying about that for now.

In all, it hasn't been a bad week.

Post upgrade write up.

2005-11-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

I did a server migration at work last weekend that ended up being rather uneventful.

The change was upgrading a Microsoft IIS 5.0 server to a Microsoft IIS 6.0 server. I did a lot of research for this change almost a year ago, then again this summer, and finally again two weeks ago.

The first time I was going to do the migration one of the primary stakeholders put a hold on it. They cited not being ready for the uncertainty of migration as their reason. I gave them the benefit as I had other server upgrades from Windows 2000 to 2003 to do.

The second time we went to do the upgrade I discovered that the version of ColdFusion Server they were running was not compatible. I also learned that we needed to buy the new version, I even specced out a couple of places to get it from and forwarded the information on. They sat on it.

This last time they finally got the software purchased and I committed a time, not giving them a chance to back out. They were fine with it this time though, especially since the old server no longer backs up to tape.

I ran into a small hitch the Friday before the migration. I felt really stupid the next morning with our Cisco consultant when it turned out that the old server had lost it's default gateway in IP configuration. I started to ask him how that could have happened, and then stopped mid-way through with an "Oh wait, it's a Microsoft Server - never mind." I'm honestly not sure how that happened, but cannot believe I didn't check such a simple setting.

Once that was taken care of the next 4.5 hours were spent running the IIS 6 migration tool and creating the ODBC connections on the new server. The IIS side of things went flawlessly and with no trouble. The ODBC connections went almost as flawlessly. There were some directories outside of IIS that didn't get copied over, but I was able to get them copied over so the database files could be referenced.

Monday morning the fun began. Any migration results in things not working, right? This was no different.

The AutoDesk MapGuide server seemed to not be working right. After about an hour and a half of working with the admins for that software package (in-house) I discovered the problem. Turns out that the executable that was allowed during the IIS and MapGuide install was not the one referenced in their code. I needed to either get all of their code changed, or add the proper file to the proper list. The file's were the exact same file name/version/function. I got the new location added in and everything started to work.

After this we had a few small ODBC issues, and SQL permissions on the server were somewhat messed up. (consolidating the SQL servers to a single cluster is a project for next fall I think, but I know it's a whole different story...) Those have been mostly straightened out. Tuesday I think I only had one or two things to do, re-map a couple of user drives so they could maintain some of the aforementioned databases for instance.

In all I would say a successful migration with minimal headache. Microsoft seems to have done a lot to improve their upgrade path compared to what people had to deal with when I was still in the Navy. It seems that now almost anyone could be a Windows system administrator, but you still want someone who knows what to do or how to find the right answer when things do not work out right.

Lost Coast.

2005-10-31T16:53:00.000-08:00

I like Half-Life 2. The first one was a little annoying as it became a bit of a platform jumper near the end, but the second one never seemed to get just plain annoying to me.

Recently, a couple days ago in fact, Valve released the HDR tech demo "Lost Coast" which happens to be set in the Half-Life universe. (I have previously talked about this move here.) I played through the game part in about 15 minutes. This included spending some time just admiring the view I may add.

Just as an aside, the minimum recommended specs for the game are not quite met by my computer, I need a slightly faster processor to get it to stop complaining to me. It does seem to handle alright though. I was able to play through at 1600x1200 without much trouble. The HDR effects don't always work quite right on my too-dark monitor, but do pretty well. I did have trouble with the commentary part at those settings, and ended up dropping resolution to 1024x768 to go through it with the commentary enabled.

HDR is neat and adds a lot visually to a game. My monitor is getting old and runs dim - so it isn't as well done for me as it could be. What I do know is that running Day of Defeat Source at a buddies place with my 17" LAN Party "mobile" monitor it was noticeable and nice though. Maybe in a couple years I'll get an LCD to replace my current CRT - or it may all wait until I can get a new system.

What I want to share is the commentary. The last time I have seen something similar is while playing Medal of Honor Pacific Assault: Director's Edition. Many games have special editions with "making of" features available on the disc, but in this game there were historical fact pop-ups during game play. These were actually pretty interesting, but they killed gameplay as they were intrusive and didn't pause/stop/effect the action in any way. Taking the time to read them basically means you aren't taking the time to play the game.

Lost Coast has done it differently. There are 14 comment points in the game. They will occasionally take control of the game for you to show you what they are for. They range in content from technology showcases to design decisions. The points at which they can be activated are very obvious, and they can be de-activated at any time.

They put a context on "making of" that is hard to explain without actually experiencing it. They never detract as you can have them turned off, as I did the first time I played. Turning them on they are still not intrusive, although they do basically preclude total immersion. Since you have to turn them on for this effect it is assumed that at this point immersion isn't that important anyhow.

I remember the first time I watched a movie with the commentary track. It was very interesting. I was able to hear and understand the reasoning that went into what I saw on the screen. This was similar to that experience, only better. The same way a good video game is much better than a good movie, that same video game having commentary during actual play is better than a watching clips of a game with commentary. The ability to look what is being talked about on your own terms is just as good as the ability to explore an environment on your own terms.

The last comment mentions that they are doing the in-game commentary as an experiment and would like to gather feedback. I for one would like them to do this with more games, and other designers/producers as well. Done right it would make the extra money for a special edition a lot more worth it than some video clips, interviews (that can usually be found on-line) and a cloth map.

Amazon.com

2005-10-31T08:30:00.000-08:00

So, I signed up for Amazon affiliates this weekend. This is in preperation for joining my brother in a "team blog" idea that he has. Since he'll be doing the maintenance and hosting he'll be getting the (minimal) google ads revenue. Eventually if it were to become an actual revenue stream this model would be examined - but for now I'll need links from amazon to get anywhere. As this blog actually has a chance to go somewhere I decided to go ahead and set-up.

That's all for now. Coming soon: Half-Life 2: Lost Coast musings...

The Vehicle Decision

2005-10-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

So, for starters I am nowhere near as regular with this blog as I would like, and not nearly as up on various news as I would like either.

For the first one, I guess it can partially be attributed to the idea of competition as my older brother has a blog and I immediately commented to him that I would withhold judgment for a month.

(For the record, it is still going (although still broken in IE as of earlier today) and I must concede that it looks like he's managed to make it over the "exploratory stage" and will be publishing regularly, more than I can say for myself as of now.)

For the second one I used to have a blog, but have since deleted it. I had managed to keep it up with some decent insights on the state of gaming and gaming news for awhile even - but eventually it lost out to school as a time focus.

Anyhow, on to my point. the vehicle decision previously mentioned. I was thinking about it the other day and decided it would be much more fun to surprise people. Granted, I am sure that only my older brother reads this blog, but you never know what kind of random google search you'll come up on these days.

So, I am going to track the whole decision/purchase/attaining process and eventually will post stuff about it. Probably around my birthday, January 24th. We figure we'll be in a new vehicle before Christmas as mine is getting pretty bad so this leaves a good couple of months to make sure most of our friends/family have been surprised.

That's all for now. I am working on creating a standard weekly schedule for myself to include working out, school, time with family, and blogging (probably squeezed in with school). Once I have the details hammered out I'll probably write a segment on that quick as I don't have a ton of other stuff to blog about what with the major purchase decision facing us being kept secret...

(Funny note, on runing the on-line spellcheck "blog" "google" and "blogging" were identified as unknown/misspelled words...)

Time to buy a car.

2005-10-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

So, Heather and I have known for almost a year that we need to eventually buy a car, probably sooner rather than later. We finally made the decision this weekend.

Our two options have been a Chrysler Town & Country Touring or a Mini Cooper S. Amazingly, the options we want on each put their prices at almost the exact same.

One of the driving reasons behind getting a minivan is the future family we want to have. We need something larger than a sub-compact or compact car for that. Neither of us is in a hurry to deal with baby seats in a small car. Another reason is for when family visit from out of town. Getting more than two people from the airport is basically impossible in a small car, and only one of us can go get two people.

The Mini is more of a fun car and has an advantage of easily fitting in the existing garage space, and better fuel efficiency. It will also retain its re-sale value better, comes with a 3-year maintenance warranty on top of the 4-year warranty (3 years standard for the minivan), and has a 12 year unlimited mile rust-free guarantee.

We have spent a lot of time looking at the different options and trying to figure out which would be better for us as a family.

In the next day or two I guess I’ll start detailing the process and how it goes for us (with some added history) – I guess I finally found something to write about a little bit more regularly huh?

Killing Creativity (take 2).

2005-10-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

I just lost 30 minutes of ferocious typing a small rant about database classes being boring.

In this rant I identified these database classes as the current root of all evil in my life. I think the loss of the work has proved the point.

So. My goal is to write at least two more decent, meaningful posts before my database classes are over. I figure once they're done I'll be back to my full working capacity. My regular creativity and need to share thoughts will return and I'll be more effective at work as well.

I'll start those posts by the solution we find to a particular problem we're having at work. This problem is with a new domain controller we are trying to get deployed. I'll post more later, I already typed a big old post on that to a forum earlier today.

A Goal

2005-10-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

Near the beginning of my upper division classes were two programming classes.  In these classes we learned to program using Java.  I was pretty happy with this as one of my goals is to move out of support and administration and into application development.  Now I have a problem.

The only way to really learn a programming language is to use it.  I am working full time and attending University of Phoenix online full-time.  I hope to get my bachelors by 30.  This means I need to stick to the class schedule and find a way to squeeze in three lower division classes to finish my requirements.  That gets me graduated right before my birthday.

The problem is in adding Java study and programming to the mix.  A dream is to be able to pass the J2SE certification by the time I graduate.  This gives me the degree, the cert, and my experience in support/admin roles to move forward with.  I would theoretically have at least one custom-built application as well.  (How else would I learn enough to pass the exam?)

I currently have three concepts I would love to turn into programs.  Two are games and one is a utility.  I have more conceptualized for the utility and will probably start on it soon.  It has the added benefit that it will do well with a built-in database of some kind and I am in database classes right now.

The time problem is simple.  I have very few hours left in the week after working and school, and by the time I get to them my brain is usually close to burnt out.  I have taken three weeks to read a chapter of “thinking in Java” for instance.  I have managed to find database software to use, and obviously know what platform I am programming on. (I may try scaling to J2ME in the future…)   The next step that I see is building the database and then building the program from the back on forward.

As I have time to move forward on this and reflect on where it is at I’ll post progress and “lessons learned.”  Hopefully, by the time I graduate I’ll have an actual shareware product available for download…

Half-Life 2, Source, Steam, Valve

2005-09-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

There seem to be a lot of people confused by the fact that Valve is releasing two separate things for HL2 this fall.

The first is Lost Coast - a 15 minute playable tech demo. This demo is set in the HL2 universe and has actual, official side story based in the HL2 timeframe. It is free and targeted for high-end systems. It was originally going to be a part of the HL2 release, but the developers felt that it did not work with the flow of the story. The demo has a main purpose of showing of the implementation of HDR that Valve is using in the Source engine. If you don't ever play it you won't miss much as it's not insanely important to the overall story - HL3 will still make sense.

The second is Aftermath - a full expansion. My guess is that this will take about 1/2 to 3/4 the time of the original HL2. It will probably cost about $20 from Steam, and eventually may get a boxed release (from interviews it sounds like probably coupled with whatever the next expansion they do will be, incidentally sounds like <i>maybe</i> something with vehicles) for $20-$40 depending on what comes with it. This is an integral part of the HL universe and takes place (from the sounds of it) almost immediately after the original. It will incorporate HDR technology, as will every expansion and HL add-on from Valve from here on out. It will also expand the AI capabilities of the engine.

Why are they doing this? What does this mean for the future of Valve, Source, Steam, and HL2? From the sounds of it every expansion pack will include something to expand the core engine, turning source into an ever-evolving engine that should last for many years. This is a novel approach to the "new engine every three years" development from the past, and quite possibly a brilliant departure. The theory is that by the end of three years Valve will have updated the source engine enough to be considered a new engine - and in fact done even more and better overall updating than if they spent three years working on a new engine. For instance, they are able to concentrate on one thing of the ten that make the new engine better. This one thing takes much less time to do as there are fewer variables changing. This saved time over the course of all ten things they want to do will allow them to make two extra things. At the end of the three years instead of an engine with ten major improvements there is an engine with 12. As an added bonus players get content throughout the life of the product.

Steam makes this possible as each release does not require the consumer to go buy a new box of software. The engine is updated for them, and they only have to buy new content (expansion packs) - but not all content. Valve can release a single "episode" of a new product for free, perhaps demoing new technology (similar to the HDR demo) and get the response of the public before presenting a full retail product. Another option would be to explore a new “world” or game play style without committing a full project. This makes exploring new territory in gaming much less of an investment for the developer – this can only be good for the gaming community.

The last thing I want to point out about Steam is how it fixes what many see as a huge problem with today’s entertainment market strategy. Steam allows the people who conceive of and create the application to get the money for it. Instead of allowing a publisher to have all the rights to their product (intellectual, source code and otherwise) so that they can sell it and only pass on a small percentage of the profit – the developers can now skip over the publisher and host it via Steam. Yes – there will still be a fee. I do not know exactly what the fee structure will be but I imagine it will allow the artist/programmer to actually get something back for all the hard work they put in.

Most of the reference material for this post was the Computer Gaming Monthly and 1up.com interview with Gabe Newell. Very good listen/read.