Wednesday, April 25, 2007
All systems go
Near the beginning of this year I took up a project, that I had conceptualized, and started designing the actual system with a good friend of mine. The project was a customized scheduling system for the company I work for during the school year. Scheduling systems aren't truly exciting or awe-inspiring for the most part, but it's been a great experience so far, and I am continuing to learn a lot from it.
The main thing I've learned is that engineering a product from the ground up is actually a lot more fun than I thought. Like everyone in my major at Rose, I've done several systems like this in the past, though on a much smaller scale. However, this one proved unique in it's own ways, and I've had more fun that I thought I would.
Anyway, yesterday my partner and I demoed the project to 115 people and fortunately it didn't break! Which is especially good, since it launched today at 12:01am. Well, now that's it launched I can stop stressing over it, since the development can slow down in pace a bit. Maybe I can spend a little more time planning a summer in the "cousin-loving" (sorry, had to) state of Kentucky...haha
The main thing I've learned is that engineering a product from the ground up is actually a lot more fun than I thought. Like everyone in my major at Rose, I've done several systems like this in the past, though on a much smaller scale. However, this one proved unique in it's own ways, and I've had more fun that I thought I would.
Anyway, yesterday my partner and I demoed the project to 115 people and fortunately it didn't break! Which is especially good, since it launched today at 12:01am. Well, now that's it launched I can stop stressing over it, since the development can slow down in pace a bit. Maybe I can spend a little more time planning a summer in the "cousin-loving" (sorry, had to) state of Kentucky...haha
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Light at the end of the tunnel
Sorry, it's been quite some time since I last posted. Life has been busy, and I haven't made time to post until someone complained yesterday...
New York City:
For spring break I made a little trip w/ the folks to NYC. Wow, this place is pretty crazy. It's absolutely incredible how much there is. Another surprise was how clean (relative to my expectations) and safe the subway system felt. Of course, we only used it during the day, but it was better than I expected. However, after doing some research, I learned that in the last decade NYC has moved into the top spot in the ranking for crime safety for the 10 biggest cities in the US (as in it's the safest). Nonetheless, I think I'd seriously consider a job offer if I landed a decent one in the big apple!
First launch event:
Well, this Tuesday is my first ever launch event. I get to announce a new web application I've been developing with another guy for about 3 months. We have to demo it (crosses fingers) in front of around a 100 people including the directors. But we've worked hard and I'm confident all will go well. It's been a great experience doing the project and I think I'd be happy doing web dev as a career later on. Wish me luck on Tuesday
Light at the end of the tunnel:
The best news right now is that I'm over halfway done in my last really busy quarter at Rose-Hulman. I'm taking 20 hours of class, and combined with a gf and a job I get busier than I like at times. But that's alright, time goes fast and I have next year to look forward to. Hopefully I can land a job in the fall (pending a potential recession) and cruise through my senior year.
New York City:
For spring break I made a little trip w/ the folks to NYC. Wow, this place is pretty crazy. It's absolutely incredible how much there is. Another surprise was how clean (relative to my expectations) and safe the subway system felt. Of course, we only used it during the day, but it was better than I expected. However, after doing some research, I learned that in the last decade NYC has moved into the top spot in the ranking for crime safety for the 10 biggest cities in the US (as in it's the safest). Nonetheless, I think I'd seriously consider a job offer if I landed a decent one in the big apple!
First launch event:
Well, this Tuesday is my first ever launch event. I get to announce a new web application I've been developing with another guy for about 3 months. We have to demo it (crosses fingers) in front of around a 100 people including the directors. But we've worked hard and I'm confident all will go well. It's been a great experience doing the project and I think I'd be happy doing web dev as a career later on. Wish me luck on Tuesday
Light at the end of the tunnel:
The best news right now is that I'm over halfway done in my last really busy quarter at Rose-Hulman. I'm taking 20 hours of class, and combined with a gf and a job I get busier than I like at times. But that's alright, time goes fast and I have next year to look forward to. Hopefully I can land a job in the fall (pending a potential recession) and cruise through my senior year.
Friday, February 02, 2007
American Ignorance
I'd like to comment on a couple absolutely absurd situations I learned of this week:
1. The first story is in the city of Boston where men placed bright led signs portraying a simple cartoon character flipping observers off. This was to advertise an upcoming movie release. While maybe not completely inoffensive, city officials arrested and are planning to place criminal charges upon the two men who placed the signs around town (who where simply doing their jobs).
They are being charged because some brilliant citizens saw the signs and thought they were bombs. The flashy signs with some wires sticking out apparently resemble explosives. I'd sure hate to see these individuals walk the Vegas Strip...Anyway, instead of the police actually investigating and asking questions, they basically shut parts of the city down, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. So basically, ignorant and paranoid citizens of Boston are putting two marketers in prison for up to 5 years because they put up flashy signs.
Oh, and the same signs were put up in several other American cities where no incidents occurred...
2. Now consider the case where a substitute teacher went to crayola.com on a schoolroom PC and a pornographic popup appeared, plaguing the minds of observing students. Unfortunate? Yes. Criminal? No. Regardless of what I think, the substitute teacher now faces up to 40 years pending her sentencing hearing.
You see, the prosecution argued that this proves the SUBSTITUTE teacher visited pornographic sites and caused the incident. Hopefully, anyone reading this blog knows that the judge and jury (that convicted her) are absolutely insane to begin with. Everyone who has surfed the internet, especially on someone else's computer, has no control over the popups that appear.
Not convinced she's innocent yet? Well, a security specialist who investigated reported that the popup was generated from advertising malware installed by a hair styling website. But was he allowed to testify fully? No. Why not? The story doesn't specify, but the quoted specialist doesn't seem too pleased.
Now that we've seen the stories, we can take one of two lessons from it.
Lesson 1: People who put up flashy signs should be thrown in prison if people think those signs resemble a bomb (even if it's a green rectangular alien made out of LEDs). It also doesn't matter if the same sign prompted no response in several other cities.
Plus, if you're substitute teaching a class and try to show them a legit website and a bad popup appears, while minors are observing, you should be tossed in the can. The fact that the IT dept. admits it didn't keep the filters up to date doesn't make a different.
Or
Lesson 2: The internet allows us to see how incredibly ignorant many of the inhabitants of our country, even in elevated positions (judges, attorneys, police chiefs, etc...) really are.
I for one, go for number 2. What do you think?
1. The first story is in the city of Boston where men placed bright led signs portraying a simple cartoon character flipping observers off. This was to advertise an upcoming movie release. While maybe not completely inoffensive, city officials arrested and are planning to place criminal charges upon the two men who placed the signs around town (who where simply doing their jobs).
They are being charged because some brilliant citizens saw the signs and thought they were bombs. The flashy signs with some wires sticking out apparently resemble explosives. I'd sure hate to see these individuals walk the Vegas Strip...Anyway, instead of the police actually investigating and asking questions, they basically shut parts of the city down, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. So basically, ignorant and paranoid citizens of Boston are putting two marketers in prison for up to 5 years because they put up flashy signs.
Oh, and the same signs were put up in several other American cities where no incidents occurred...
2. Now consider the case where a substitute teacher went to crayola.com on a schoolroom PC and a pornographic popup appeared, plaguing the minds of observing students. Unfortunate? Yes. Criminal? No. Regardless of what I think, the substitute teacher now faces up to 40 years pending her sentencing hearing.
You see, the prosecution argued that this proves the SUBSTITUTE teacher visited pornographic sites and caused the incident. Hopefully, anyone reading this blog knows that the judge and jury (that convicted her) are absolutely insane to begin with. Everyone who has surfed the internet, especially on someone else's computer, has no control over the popups that appear.
Not convinced she's innocent yet? Well, a security specialist who investigated reported that the popup was generated from advertising malware installed by a hair styling website. But was he allowed to testify fully? No. Why not? The story doesn't specify, but the quoted specialist doesn't seem too pleased.
Now that we've seen the stories, we can take one of two lessons from it.
Lesson 1: People who put up flashy signs should be thrown in prison if people think those signs resemble a bomb (even if it's a green rectangular alien made out of LEDs). It also doesn't matter if the same sign prompted no response in several other cities.
Plus, if you're substitute teaching a class and try to show them a legit website and a bad popup appears, while minors are observing, you should be tossed in the can. The fact that the IT dept. admits it didn't keep the filters up to date doesn't make a different.
Or
Lesson 2: The internet allows us to see how incredibly ignorant many of the inhabitants of our country, even in elevated positions (judges, attorneys, police chiefs, etc...) really are.
I for one, go for number 2. What do you think?
Labels: Americans, ignorance, news, paranoid, teacher
Monday, January 15, 2007
Anxiously awaiting...
Windows Home Server. This is a new product announced at CES 2007 that will be released sometime this year...or so they say. Anyway, it'll basically be a lower powered computer that you would leave turned on at all times
- Automatically seeks out and backs up all PCs on your home network
- Data redundancy to protect against a hard drive crash
- Data centralization, which means all the hard drive space will show up in one central location, even if you add/remove hard drives
- Remote management (you log in remotely to change settings)
- Remote file access anywhere you have an internet connection (comes with a domain name, something like lastname.microsoft.com to access your files)
- Health monitoring (tells you if any PCs on your network have virus scanning turned off, are not fully updated, etc...)
Labels: microsoft, preview, server
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Back to the real world
Well, break was pretty sweet. My girlfriend actually got me an Xbox 360! That's been consuming a decent portion of my time! Going to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl was also a very cool experience, and if you've never seen Bourbon Street, you should make the trip (I recommend you go after you're 21 though).
Also, I actually go to see pretty much my entire family at one time or another, so that was pretty nice for a change!
Well, now that I'm back in the Haute, I have to return to the "real-world" of hw and going to class. It's sort of annoying, but this quarter is already half way over! We actually schedule classes for next quarter in a few days. I'm strongly considering overloading again so that my senior year can be very light class-wise; I'll be busy enough with recruiting and enjoying my last year of undergrad.
On a more sour note, I traded some gift cards on www.cardavenue.com and still haven't received the other persons cards. However, I'm optimistic because their feedback seems legit; so, maybe they're just on vacation or something weird is going on. That said, my other trades went very smoothly.
Well, that's all for now, I need to check out updates on MacWorld and CES...
Also, I actually go to see pretty much my entire family at one time or another, so that was pretty nice for a change!
Well, now that I'm back in the Haute, I have to return to the "real-world" of hw and going to class. It's sort of annoying, but this quarter is already half way over! We actually schedule classes for next quarter in a few days. I'm strongly considering overloading again so that my senior year can be very light class-wise; I'll be busy enough with recruiting and enjoying my last year of undergrad.
On a more sour note, I traded some gift cards on www.cardavenue.com and still haven't received the other persons cards. However, I'm optimistic because their feedback seems legit; so, maybe they're just on vacation or something weird is going on. That said, my other trades went very smoothly.
Well, that's all for now, I need to check out updates on MacWorld and CES...
Labels: family, gift cards, new orleans, Terre Haute, vacation
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Allstate Sugar Bowl
Hey everyone, just thought I'd let you know I'm going to be heading down to New Orleans (for the first time ever) to the 2007 Allstate Sugar Bowl to watch ND beat up on LSU.
I happened to get an invite from a good friend up at ND who had an extra ticket!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
I happened to get an invite from a good friend up at ND who had an extra ticket!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Christmas is coming
Well, one more week of class (yes I have a whole week left) until break! Even though I have several tests and assignments due, I don't think the week will be to bad. Maybe it's just because there's light at the end of the tunnel for a full two-week "vacation."
I put vacation in quotes because Christmas can turn out to be as much work trying to fit in every different Christmas celebration for every different part of your family. Not to mention I will have homework and that paperwork for GE isn't filling itself out either.
Oh well, the break will be nice, and I get to see some family I haven't seen in awhile! Hopefully everyone likes what I got them, and hopefully I ace some tests in the next few days...
I put vacation in quotes because Christmas can turn out to be as much work trying to fit in every different Christmas celebration for every different part of your family. Not to mention I will have homework and that paperwork for GE isn't filling itself out either.
Oh well, the break will be nice, and I get to see some family I haven't seen in awhile! Hopefully everyone likes what I got them, and hopefully I ace some tests in the next few days...
