Well, with as busy as work has been, my reading time has definitely suffered. The few times during the day I would normally have free, I usually dedicate to doing some Oxford Publishing programming..or something semi-productive.
However, I still try to find time to read through the multiple periodicals I receive (eWeek, Infoworld, Network World) and the two books I'm currently (very slowly) reading: John Adams and The Art of Unix Programming
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Things around here have been going great. I've been working on several projects lately that have taken up a good bit of time, causing the lack of updates to this site. (I do plan on doing some work to it soon...)
I've done a good bit of work to the Demopolis Chamber site, trying to get the interface a little nicer. It's still a basic design, but looks alot better than the old one (in my opinion).
I got a chance to re-work the Olemiss Helpdesk Site. I used a basic template that was given to us by the publications office, setup the site to use html include statements (+ css) which made it MUCH easier and more efficient to update. I think we've done a pretty good job!
My other project (Nightclub.com's ClubConnection) has been moved to another server, and has been slowly coming along. I think I've got most everything complete, I'm just waiting to hear the results of the latest code/site review before making many more updates. We'll hopefully be making that site live soon...I'll post the link when it happens.
I've also been approached to work on a few other sites. One for Marengo County (Alabama), which could turn into a fun little project. I don't have many details for the other site...just that a former worker at the Helpdesk passed my name along as a possible Web Designer for somone
Also...I may have some pretty big news coming up.... just cross your fingers for me... I'll know something next week!
The thought that work may be better this week was definitely wishful thinking. The way I started the week was by oversleeping (I woke up at 9:00 alarm still set, but never went off...) then dashing to work where I was welcome by more lovely phone calls. I was late to a hiring comittee interview, due to my reminder e-mail being sent to the wrong address. The iBook STILL hasn't arrived (though it's now in Memphis). Then to top it all off....bills bills bills...
The last two weeks have NOT been great at work. They have definitely been the longest two weeks since I started working there nearly 7 months ago. Between my tire blowing out, my spare blowing out, getting ticketed for parking my fiance's car in fac/staff areas (almost getting it booted at that), a ridiculous number of irrational/hateful customers, crazy (proven baseless) allegations of helpdesk impropriety, and Ashley's laptop frying it's motherboard, I have been trying to THOROUGHLY enjoy doing nothing this weekend.
Regrettably I have to go back to work tomorrow, however I'm optimistic this week will be better. We have a helpdesk party scheduled with lots of good (free) food. Ashley has a great 12.1" iBook on the way (which I definitely look forward to playing with :) ).
After toying around with the XML and doing a little PHP Hacking, I've finally got a working RSS feed on the site!
I'm currently working on coding an easy interface to insert blog entries into my mysql server, and am typing this entry in it now. I'll be adding more features soon, but if it all turns out as it should, I'll be able to update this blog MUCH easier.
Keep checking by for more website improvements! I will hopefully be able to spend a little time this weekend working on my phpMyamaroK utility (as i've not touched it in months).
You may or may not have noticed, but I'm slightly retooling my blog to use mysql. This will hopefully make updating it a good deal easier. Plans are to have an easy form I can fill out, insert the title/contents/date into my mysql server, then the blog.php page spit out those contents into nice separated div's. This should also allow greater customization possibilities with css.
The excitement builds! :)
In the midst of re-vamping the blogging, I've decided to figure out this whole rss thing. I'm currently in the process of creating a rss compatable blog for this site. Keep checking and hopefully I will have mastered RSS soon!
Gregarius
After using several different rss aggregators, I think I've finally found one that does most of what I'm looking for. I've been using bloglines for a while now, mainly to keep up with digg, osnews, gentoo universe, and planet gnome. It's been wonderful, however I was really hoping for something more customizable. Finally I found Gregarius. Gregarius is installable onto your webserver, and can easily be configured to grab all the rss feeds you desire. It's been great so far, I've had a few minor gripes, but I'll checkout the latest version from the SVN repository ..maybe that will solve some of them.
Well, things have been going well so far this year. Work has been great, and I've got some work on the side for a local publishing company creating a Club Connection Website. It's been a great learning experience so far, and has forced me to sharpen my PHP / HTML / CSS skills.
New Site
As you see, I'm in the process of redesigning the site in order to make the site more modular and easily updateable. With CSS I'll be able to change the look of the site on a whim. ...plus, I think it looks MUCH better now. Feel free to send me some input!
There's still LOTS to do, but it's coming along nicely. I REALLY need to spend a little more time on the project and figure out an EASY way to echo the songs in order. I hacked a way to do it, but it wasn't completey reliable and SLOW, so I just took it out for now. Anyways, the amarok_select.php page looks MUCH better, but I hope to eventually add album art, and create interchanable templates ...ie phpsysinfo. Anyways, check out what I've done so far, and while your at it, look at the CODE.
My dainty little amarok scripts have now become an "official" project.
phpMyamaroK is a script written in PHP that will allow you to display your amaroK library on the web. All that is needed is a PHP4 capable webserver and amaroK configured for a MySQL music libraray.
To see the latest "stable" release, click here
For the latest development version, click here
PLEASE NOTE!
These scripts are currently hastily hacked together. I will soon be adding tons of features, and cleaning the interface a great deal. As of right now, they simply allow you to select an artist, then display all albums/songs by that artist. I will be doing much more work on this in the future!
I've finally created the drop-down menus for my PHP Amarok script. In its current state, the script shows three independent drop-down menus. I hope to shortly make them dependent of each other...as in when selecting the artist drop-down, only the albums of that particular artist will show. This will be easy, I just need to make some time. Right now the "improved" script can be found here.
Work at the Helpdesk has been going well! Though there was a week-long delay before I was actually able to begin work, I was able to enjoy my free-time without the stress of finding a job.
Computer Related:
On the Gentoo front, after 8 hours of compiling, I finally have the nice shiny OpenOffice 2.0. The Gnome (Ximianized) integration is impressive.
On the Amarok script, I hate to say that I've done VERY little work. I've transferred all the data to tables, but need to do some major formatting work. Eventually, I'd like some nice tables with album art, a search function, or an easy drop-down box selection. All in good time I guess... As always, see the product of the script here and the code here.
As of Friday (10/07/2005) I am a Senior Helpdesk Consultant for the University of Mississippi! I interviewed for the position Thursday morning and had a good feeling about it. However, as with all things, not two hours after getting the job, I got an interview for another position at the University paying $10000 more. No big deal though, I'm sure that I'll love the Helpdesk position. It will be very similar to what I did at the University of Alabama, just on a more senior (and full-time) basis. I really enjoy helping users and working on computers in general, so this should work out well.
Just got back from a weekend trip to Demopolis Alabama (my hometown). My fiance and I were invited to a friends wedding. Obviously, seeing how I was gone, I didn't get any work done on my amarok PHP / MYSQL script.
In other less positive news..I didn't get hired for the Helpdesk position. There's supposedly another one that will be on the HR website soon though. In "better" news, I'm still in the running for the System Analyst I position at Olemiss. Keep your fingers crossed!
I'm currently working on a php script that will allow me to display my amarok mysql music database onto a webpage. This is my first foray into using MYSQL from PHP, and it is suprisingly easy. Currently, the page simply lists all music files by Artist, then Album. You can check it out here. To see the code click here. This is still a work in progress, and isn't too pretty. I'm going to work on the formatting and usability as days go by and time allows.
As I continue a search for a job here in Oxford, MS, I've found that I have way too much freetime. So, I figured that after many weeks of delaying work on this website, I'd finally do something with it. What better way to kill my tons of free-time, than to start a blog?
So, here's what's been going on in my life:
- For those of you who actually know me, Ashley and I are engaged! She's been busy (as always) with law school, but is doing well.
- I've applied for two positions at the University of Mississippi: Helpdesk Consultant and System Analyst. The Helpdesk Consultant position would consist of assisting users at the OleMiss Helpdesk, and would more or less be a promotion of what I did working at Alabama's Helpdesk. (a job I loved). The System Analyst position (from what I understand) will consist of Administering a UNIX system and various SAP programs and databases. It'd allow me to gain valuable UNIX and SAP experience which would definitely help me in the future. I'm really looking foward to both interviews, and would LOVE either job. I've already decided to take whichever one I'm offered first.
- Gentoo Related: I have now migrated my Gentoo system to GCC 3.4.4. After re-compiling my system over the weekend, I was dissapointed that I didn't "feel" any performance gains, however I kept my old basic CFLAGS in the interests of stability. The system is blazing fast as it is anyways.
- More Computer: I now have OS X (x86) running in VMware from within Gentoo Linux and it runs great! It was a little slow going at first, however after performing the "tweaks" that I found on the following site, OSX is running nice and smooth..and not killing my CPU.
Here is the site: OS X x86 Speedboost
That's it for now, though there's more to follow!