Tag: Personal

Content about me and things that are happening in my life. Anything but work and programming.

Alight, The Nathan Lindstrom site is now completed.
Man, projects with good people never last long enough! Check out his site here.

I had promised a few posts back that I would push up some of the mockups I made for some of the contract work I've been working on the past few months. I can't post mockups from all the projects, but here are a few.

 

UTS

Here's the original website for UTS. It was designed several years ago. I was told that they wanted to change the logo, but to design the mockups with the current logo. Sadly, the didn't have any high-res versions of the logo.

 

The first redsign used the same color-scheme as the original site. This was very difficult since the color scheme was gold, green, and navy. 

After this mockup, there was more direction to what they wanted with the second mockup. We tried adding in a longer design (not splash-ish). Also, I was told I could work with other colors and logos.

This mockup has a cleaner, corporate look. There is defined seperation between the text and the other interactive elements. The client did like the warm, dark look.

This mockup was much closer to what the client wanted, but they asked for another design that blurred the content with the other elements (feel like the site is floating in the browser).

This was the final design. The logo was added again, but only the text. The glow doesn't look great, but it is just a place holder at this point. 

It's important to note that the design is very similar to the other, but the "islands" for the text have been removed to open up the design and give a completely different feel.

 

Calvary Academy

Here is the original site for Calvary. As you can see, the site doesn't render well in webkit. Also the site is trying to expose as much information to the user as possible. This site was created for the school by the hosting service. I was brought in to design a site that would help direct the users to the most important parts. Also, they wanted their site to look "cool" for the students. Generally, "cool" and "sexy" are used in human interaction to mean "simple" and "complementary" in a design. Often times, clients don't have an idea of what they want, but they are quite certain they know what they hate.

Calvary has really only had one mockup. It's rare to get it right the first time, but I was very lucky in this case. It helps that I have a close friend who knows the decision makers. I was able to bounce the mockup off of him first and make some minor tweeks before sending it out. 

 

So, that's a few of my mockups. If anyone is interested, I can go in-depth on how to take what clients want and turning it into a mockup that means the same thing to them.

Tags: WAD(5) Personal(20)

So I've been finding a lot of extra work recently (which is good, since the little one is adding new expenses).

I was contacted by a very talented photographer, Nathan Lindstrom, to redesign his site. He and a friend had been working for a while trying to design the site in javascript, but ran into a few snags trying to get the user interaction just right. Right out the gate I asked him if he had anything against Flash as a platform. I had seen some very compelling Flash sites for photographers. I told he we could make the site very dynamic (completely powered by a site XML). In two days we have gotten further than the previous Javascript site.

It is actually an interesting problem. He had presented me with a single screenshot of the mockup working and the javascript source code for the project (which didn't run). If it wasn't for that screenshot, this project would have taken a lot longer since we can't meet in person.

The project has also been good for me since I haven't been working much in Flash recently (focusing on Flex). Since the site is so visually driven, it made more sense to build it all in Flash. I quickly remembered all the quirks of working in Flash with as3. I try my hardest to spend all my coding time in FlashDevelop and outside the designer.

It's been fun because he wanted a personalized scrollbar, and somehow I'd never build one before (that grew and shrank based on content). It's a fun bit of geometry and logic to get it working just right. 

Tags: Personal(20)

So I just finished recording my second podcast. This one is... interesting. I had my app throw errors twice and not return any results for one of the queries.

It's pretty much the same thing that happens at any demo. Everything runs great, and then you show it off and everything breaks.

Luckily, I was able to fix the bugs that caused everything. So the podcasts may become part of my unit testing scheme.

I left all the mess ups in the podcast because I'd rather be coding than video editng. Also, I feel it lets you know that this is a real project (also, why I haven't released a beta yet).  

TukiTuki Podcast 2

Let me know what yall think in the comments here. 

Tags: Personal(20) FollowerofJC.com(10)

So it's time! I finally started working on a video podcast for tukituki.

Since I'm not going to release an alpha build every night, I figured I'd release some simple videos to let you see the development in progress.

This video was actually created Friday morning (around 4am), but when it finished converting it to a swf, it was 145MB. That's a little high, even for my tastes. So I just got it recompiled now and here's the link to the podcast video:

TukiTuki Podcast 1

Please understand that the intro clip was made a while back. I wanted something to put in the front of the clip. Also, I'll be making a clip tonight (hopefully) since I just finished directory checking and searching.

Enjoy!

Tags: Personal(20) FollowerofJC.com(10)

Well, I've finally started work on my old project named "Quincy".

Quincy was a media database/viewing tool. When I first wrote it, it was in C# with MSSQL. It didn't really work that well, since I was basically using SQL to store blob data of serialized objects. This meant that querying for data required me to load and iterate through all of the objects. Yuck...

The project has been renamed to "TukiTuki." It is using Adobe AIR and SQLite for the database handling. I was originally going to use Python to communicate with SQLite database, but commication between Python and AIR was proving to be very difficult. I was really afraid that I was going to have to use Apache with PHP for AIR to get the information. This would really hurt the portability of TukiTuki (although there are ways). Then I found this article about using AIR to talk to SQLite.

Now, this means that all my queries will be written in flash (a HUGE web-app no,no). Usually I would swallow razor blades before doing this, but since it's a desktop application it changes everything. I guess it's because I started programming with internet applications, and am now trying to move to the desktop (which is completely backwards).

I've just finished the database creation (with my rough-sketch schema). I'm excited about releasing this app, because I feel it will get used by a lot of people, and AIR is good way to ensure that it will not be stopped by OS dependencies.

Since I'm using AIR, the formats will have to be in MP3, FLV, or MP4, though. I just started ripping all my DVD to MP4 using Handbrake with AnyDVD (because DVD43 doesn't work with vista64).

More news to come!

Tags: Personal(20) FollowerofJC.com(10)

I just got this message on facebook for a video I uploaded.
Kinda stinks that they are adding a two strikes your out system, but I guess they are really worried about legal battles.

I stinks that they remove the whole post, as apposed to jsut blocking the video, so all the comments are gone too.

Please Read This!

Notification of Alleged Copyright Infringement

Hello,

We have removed your video entitled "Lanbunch Independence Day" uploaded at 4:13pm June 24th, 2008. We did this because we learned that your video might include copyrighted material owned by a third party, such as a video clip or background audio.

If you are the copyright owner, or have permission from the rights holder to upload and distribute this material on Facebook, you may file a counter notice of alleged infringement by following the link below.

Please note that if you re-upload this video without filing a counter notice, or if you upload another video that infringes on the rights of a third party, our system will again remove the content. This could cause your access to the Facebook Video application to be disabled, or your Facebook account to be disabled.

To file a counter notice:
File a Counter Notification

For Facebook's video removal policy:
View the Policy

The Facebook Team
copyright@facebook.com

I acknowledge I have read this information.

Tags: Personal(20)

Sweet!!!

-------------------------------------

Thank you for your purchase.

Your order number 24719652 for 3 Random Crap has been received by Woot on 10/23/2008 and your credit card has been charged $8.66.
Your order will typically ship within 5 business days. To check your order status, go to the Your Account tab at www.woot.com, log in and check your order history.

Please review the information above and report any discrepancy immediately toservice@woot.com. Make sure your user name and order number are included in all correspondence related to this order.

Here is a link to the discussion of this product on the Woot Community Forums:
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=2685943

Thanks again for shopping at Woot. Please visit us again at www.woot.com.

-------------------------------------

Good day, as you might have guessed!

Tags: Personal(20)

Well, my personal company is now hibernating. With this news I have been out seeking new employment. I found a job with a small company, Prodea Systems.
I'm excited, the logo has a swoosh and a globe ... it's gotta be a good company

I've also taken on some other short term side projects (while I was looking for a new job). I'll be posting my developments soon.

As for my future tutorials, I plan on making some new ones focusing on flash development. In the past I had always shied away from this. My fear was that Flash was too much of a fad, and newer technologies (AJAX) would be better for me to focus my tutorials on. But I'm tired of people writing bad user interfaces.

For this reason, I'm going to walk through the process I take when designing a new interface. I believe that while I'm not an expert at this, I'm not trying to help the experts. My concern is that if Flash is going to continue as a good web technology, and now desktop deployment platform, developers are going to need to start wearing designer hats too. My tutorial will be based on helping them do just that.

That's pretty much it for now. I'll be posting more later.

Tags: Personal(20)

So, work has switched over to mainly application tweaking. This is a nice break because it doesn't require a lot of design, or thought. It's really just bug fixing, and stuff like "adjust this image so it's 4 pixels over in the negative x direction."

Anyway, I've been using trillian astra for a while. I was a trillian pro user ever since Miranda stopped being updated on the AIM side. The primary dev, snaphat, freaked out because he was the only guy working on it. So he left to focus on school, and I went over to Trillian.

Astra is pretty nice, but its web-side (primary new feature) seems a little lacking. It's just difficult to get the "extra options" to work nicely. The web-trillian is written in flash (heart) and runs well as far as flash-apps are concerned.

See, I get my own little trillian signature. It's supposed to show all my connections. I have personalized it, but none of them show up. Luckily, Trillian has focused a lot on the main app too. They have file transfers working almost perfectly, now!

 That's all for now. I'll be updating more often now that I have stuff working.

Tags: WAD(5) Personal(20)

Yeah, so it's been forever (as always).

 Bull Session is the company I know co-own and work for (if you've missed that). We've made our first product, and are currently testing the market to see what we should do next. I've been spending the past week doing spikes of different technologies. This is the fun part of the job!

So, I may be a bad person... I went to Barnes and Noble today and left feeling pretty good about myself. I walked in, found some good python and Actionscript 3.0 books . I took the ISBN numbers (why do we have two ISBN numbers now?), browsed to half.com, found the books at half (how it gets its name) the price, and purchased them INSIDE of Barnes and Noble. I did feel a little guilty, so I bought two reference manuals (totaling $20).

My smart phone has totally changed the way I shop and act. I now know where I am at any time, I know the price of everything online. I feel like an empowered person. I really like writing code on and for my phone! I have python and C# on my phone, so I test small ideas on the go! The only problem come when I want to get away. It's like telecommuting. At first it's amazing! Your office is in your room. But after a week, you begin to realise that you can't ever get away from your work.

I also installed Doom-CE and Worms world party on my phone. It's nice being able to play games on my phone without having to pay a ton of money. My old vx9800 was based on Brew , which requires every app be registered to Brew (BDS) before it can be run (registration costs money). Since Brew requires registration, Open Source community has been slow to develop for it (causing J2ME to take off like wildfire).

Firefox tab effects and stylish (get stylish themes here). Get it, and be happy.

My wedding plans are going very well. I am currently planning our honeymoon. Maui sounds like a lot of fun.

Thanks all for now! Later! 

Tags: Personal(20)

Well, it's been a while since I updated my blog... So here we go.

I got a car, I got a woman, I got a project, and I got tired. I got rested, I got more tired. I got a flat, I got a spare.

That's about it. I'm going to be adding a new project to my projects page soon. It's called ADMIN (Adam & Dawn Movie Internet Navigation) , and yes, I know that acronym is a stretch.

I'm currently working on adding chat to it so Dawn and I can talk to eachother.

I'll be updating more soon about the startup I've been working on. Until then, go play on ADMIN . It's linked to IMDB. I was originally using a webservice to grab in the info, but the requests were taking 2-5 seconds each... so I just wrote my own. 

 

Later!  

Tags: Personal(20) FollowerofJC.com(10)

Well, work at verizon is getting more and more boring. I have, on average, 3 conference calls a day.
Let me explain what these calls are like.

• Call 1: 9:00am - "Hey everyone! What are your plans for today and what got done last night? "
  
• Call 2: 11:00am - "Hey everyone! What have you done since the 9am call?"
  
• Call 3: 5pm - "Hey everyone! What has been done since 11am? What are you doing tomorrow?"

On average, these calls go from 30 minutes to an hour. That's usually 2 hours of my day gone. That's 1/4 of my day, every day, consumed by stupid phone calls. On these calls, generally there are 16-20 people and only 4 programmers.

I don't hate them, it's free time for me to not work. It's like a 25% of a sick day, every day!
But Verizon needs to learn to organize their people and time better.

::Car::

I got a car! It makes me happy!

It's a 1992 Dodge Stealth!

For more images, click here.

Tags: Personal(20)

Well, it seems I'm always busy...

These past two weeks have been crazy! I've been working on stuff I never thought I'd be able to! Needless to say, x-pound isn't getting the love it needs to stay a current project. That is way I'm just going to give you all the link now. That way you'll whine to me and tell me to make it have this feature, or work on this browser. Because with the work I'm currently doing, I don't have time to devote to thinking up more stuff to add to it!

http://www.x-pound.com/

I guess I should take a little time to explain what has happened. I was taken out to lunch last week by a friend of mine. He came to me with a really great idea! After I talked to him a little, and told him how we could implement it, I went home and started researching. I didn't start coding until Sunday afternoon. By that evening I had a mockup that worked on our intranet, but not the internet.

I've done work for this friend before in the past and I really love his projects. They are usually fast and fun (one day turn around time). As development continues, I keep getting more excited! It hasn't even been a week yet, and I have actual applications with shape and fluidity!

Verizon is still paying the bills (the other job is just for fun for now) and my boss has switched me over to another team who deals with data mining (I go to college to be a miner? I hope I don't get the black lung *cough*)

Woot stinks, so it's off to bed for me.

Tags: Personal(20)

Well, I've been working for about a month now at Verizon.
I think I'm beginning to understand this new life. I've been learning faster than before (when I started college).

Verizon work is fun! I get to play all day with code and stuff! I'm a CDI Software Application Developer/Analyst (I'm not making that up, it's my real title!). Basically, I work all day on fun webstuff! AND THEY PAY ME TO DO IT!
Oh man! If they only knew I was doing it for free before!

I feel a little weird. I've been complaining to my friends and family about this code that I've been altering this past week. It's been a real pain since it was written by someone who doesn't know javascript very well at all. Anyway, I found out today that the girl who wrote it quit this week! I'm not sure if it was because I'm basically re-writing all her code because it was ugly or not. I hope she gets a good job somewhere where she can do what she loves (and I hope it doesn't involve javascript )

I've been thinking a lot about single life. I have decided that I like it! I really do like being single! I can hang out with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law! I recently have been getting to know my brother ben a lot more. Life really is good here in Double Oak, Texas! God has been so good to me and I love this!

Oh! Also, I get to talk to all my friends from college and laugh at them when they tell me that the have exams! It's AWESOME! I'm such a great friend!

Well, I better go. I'm going to talk more about x-pound when I work a few more of the bugs out.

Tags: Personal(20)

Well, I'm heading down to College Station tomorrow around 6am. I'm excited.
I'll be spending some time with my old friend, and former professor, salih yurttas. We are working together on his website to revamp it and make it more user friendly.

I'm also going to be hanging out with my old roommate and a few of my friends. It should be exciting.

I'm also setting up a guy with the AT&T servers so he can do all the work I used to do. I'll be moving all my junk over to his dorm so he can do the maintenance and such.

Today I got to hang out with my friend from college. We and his girlfriend played on his wii and talking about all the old friends and what they were doing with their lives. It was fun. 

Tags: Personal(20)

So... I got a call today. It seems that verizon is in need of a software engineer who can program in flash, javascript (with ajax), and c#. It's an 8-month contract job, so I'm not extremely pumped, but it's still a lot better than sitting at home on my duff all day (maybe I'll get them to get me a discount on my cellphone service! )!

I'm also still working a lot on my new project. It's changed to x-pound. Now, I understand that many may think that sounds like a porn site , but it's not. It's a play on "expound." The project is forming up very nicely now , although I have a lot to still add (I have a list a mile long). more information will follow.

I'm off to program more on the project and maybe play a little advent rising!
Later.

Tags: Personal(20)

Well, I wanted to update everyone on how the site and job search is going.

 

I had two interviews today. Both went very well, both were with telecommunication companies. I interviewed with Verizon and AT&T. I feel like I did well.

The Verizon interview was all on AJAX and flash. Luckily I have a huge history in both, so I was able to answer all the questions the interviewer asked.

The interview with AT&T was for a job that is very similar to my old chemical engineering job. They are taking courses and trying to put them on the internet. I was able to talk all about my past work in that interview too, which is good.

I'm heading out tomorrow morning to go to a "we're all getting back together" LAN party. It's going to be awesome!

I better go to bed now. I have a secret project that I've been working on. I'm calling it "pound"
It's still beta, but I'm loving it! It's a lot of fun.

Later. 

Tags: Personal(20)

This is just a quick little rant.

My friends and I have been noticing that myspace is getting more and more cramped with... junk. this came very apparent when I got an email today from Nellie...

From:	Nellie
Date:	Jan 5 2007 1:09 AM
Subject:	I want to be your favorite hello and your hardest goodbye.
Body:	Since this is going to be the forth message to you, I will make this last one short. I keep getting errors on the page when I send it off Here is my email address... pretyamethysts17m at yahoo.. I am seeking a friend for now, since I am newly single from my last bad relationship Like a friend with some added benefits type of thing eventually. I'm adventurous, love to dance, love to drive fast, and love to watch sports, live. My best friend is always talking so highly about this site, always telling me how she met her boyfriend on here, so I decided to T.O. on her account and see if I have any luck, until I create my own account some time If I even decide to create my own, I dont want to spend too much time on here. She spends all day here sometimes, so I make fun of her alot. hehe. Anyways, talk to you sometime. Byee!

So, when I got that email, I just started laughing... I think myspace had a great idea when it was started, but they totally sold everyone out!

That's why I stick with the only true and awesome stalker tool. But I won't tell you what it is...

Tags: Personal(20) Miscellaneous(1)