Like what you see?
If you are a professor, student, program director, business-owner, or a person who simply wants their own web page built for them,
or you are having scripting troubles, or you need help with something technical - I DO accept offers and proposals. Simply Email me
at either of the links provided at the bottom of the page, with a brief explanation of what you would like done, and we can work something
out. Often times, I will create pages for other students for free, just allowing myself to cite the work in my own portfolio.
Jan. 9, 2008
Hello, Everyone!I recieved an email yesterday from a representative from one of the local student groups around campus, asking me to renew their website. They said that they found my page, and read that I did website designs and renovations. Apparently, my site inspired them into thinking that I was some master web developer. Unfortunatly, I told them that I did not have the time available at the moment to renovate their page. However, I kept thinking to myself after I sent the letter about the renovation of MY site. After all, it's nothing flashy or special. It is severely outdated (but hey, what student web page isn't?), it looks very amateurish, and that little flash bar advertisement is beginning to be very annoying in my mind.
What I'm thinking I need for this page is a complete reworking. Tear down the old foundations to the soil, and rebuild anew. For the most part, this site started as an educational tool for me, more of a LAMP "sandbox" than a real webpage. I think for the most part I wanted to be able to build everything on my own, just to say and prove to myself that I could "do it" on my own. After desinging other webpages, and gaining exposure to Open-source software and freeware, I realize now that, ultimately, the real skill, talent, and knowledge of any developer is debatable; what cannot be argued, though, is the developer's ability to deliver. Basically, what I mean is that the final result is what really matters. In that regard, I'm thinking of using some pre-existing web templates to redesign my site. I still like my administrative back-end better than any other dynamic-content uploader, so I'll keep that. And I'll probably keep my hitcounter, because....hey, nearly 500 hits? For a student page? Thats pretty impressive, in my mind. ;)
On the other hand, creating a custom made site retains alot of individuality...Alot of these templates are re-used and they physically look like a template. What I Like about my design is that it is relatively unique in the way it looks. Maybe I will write my own code to retain the site. However, I do NOT like the use of CSS on my page right now....honestly, tables are way more effective at creating page layout than CSS EVER was! Lesson well noted....
Not that anyone bothers to check this page anymore, but expect some changes soon! Ultimately, it's going to come down to whether or not I have the time availble to me to do all of this upheaval.
Apr. 17, 2007
Kudos to me! I actually got around to doing something productive! The message board is now up and functioning; it can be found under the 'BULLETIN' link on the navigational bar. Feel free to drop a line! The comment board and associated form are in their beta stages at this point, and I will probably do a little bit of reorganization as far as the format of how the comments are presented. I will probably make the email not a required portion for the form, or maybe give commenters the option of having their emails displayed or not. But relax, I'm not going to do anything malicious, such as add you to a spam-mailing list, or send you viruses constantly...this forum board was created for educational purposes only, as well as telling everyone out there that I CAN design custom made forms. I only bring this point up because of a bit of advice I recieved from a colleague yesterday about the futility of re-inventing the wheel. Understanding the technological achievement that the wheel was, being able to derive the wheel from *roughly* the same beginnings, I feel very proud of myself!Along with the forum board, you will also notice another link labeled 'Web Administration'. This is my personal access to the records in the database via a web-based form. It allows me the power to edit and delete records from a backend form with a private login. Simply put, it allows me not to have to muck around as an administrator with Navicat or shell scripts to edit entries in the database. It is merely an invention that I use at my office at work, and it seems like something nice to have
For now, I don't know if there will be many more updates that will be noticeable to you fellow browsers. The next big changes (and they are inevitable), are making the website as a whole more dynamic and publishable. By that, I mean incorporating all of my existing pages into PHP format so that the site as a whole is more easily updateable and managable. Currently, most of the pages that I have designed are in raw HTML, and the site is pretty concrete. Even this updates are physically entered through straight HTML code. An example to make this sort of thing easier would be to create an administrative form under the web administration back-end, and to simply enter news posts into a form. Then, the database would echo back the bulk of the records onto this page, so instead of directly typing all of my information into raw HTML, the bulk is stoered in DB's (and aren't databases so much cooler than direct HTML anyway?) This will all be transparent to browsers (hopefully), but will make my life easier. Hopefully, I will have the time to update this page frequently and keep everyone (all 3 of you, I'm sure) interested.
Apr. 6, 2007
Huh, it sure has been a while since I bothered to poke around these parts...It feels like I'm a broken record at this point, but I've been fairly busy at my job and school. This last month has been devoted to the two weeks of finals, and the post-finals two weeks of recovery (whose prognosis treatment required a road trip down to Palm Desert, just FYI ;)Well, I wish I could offer some cool new updates or software that I have been working on, but I don't have any. Instead, my time has been devoted to reading my new book, "Beginning Game programming." This book's emphasis lies on writing games in C (This is *C*, not C++...step up off before I jam my foot in your object-oriented ass), with the use of Microsoft's DirectX library. Just last week I created my first game that utilizes DirectX. I suppose the term "game" gives this trifle of a piece of software too much credit...perhaps if someone wishes to cry, I might put it up on the website.
HOPEFULLY (and I say this everytime) I can get some cool PHP / MySQL development stuff on here very shortly...at my work, I'm creating a faculty directory set of tools that works very much like FaceBook. Users can register their own username, and have their own informational page about them...Hopefully, if this thing gets going, this would be the sort of thing that I would love to feature on my own website. We'll see, though.
Feb. 28, 2007
Cool new update! OK, well not really...nothing has been updated besides this current post that you're reading...The big news, though, is that MySQL is finally agreeing with me and I am now able to connect to and access my databases through PHP scripts! (*Pause for Applause*) Yes, this may sound like technical jargon, but thats because...it is. Really, all I want to do is store information easily and be able to get at it later. If you haven't had any experience with MySQL or Delphi or Oracle, or you don't even know what these are, they are database tools that essentially store REALLY BIG tables. The entries in this table often act like variables for your PHP scripts. So, in all simplicity, this is just a giant list of variables that is kept global. I really wish HTML could handle something like this...it is a real pain to constantly go through PHP and MySQL to access this stuffThat rant being said, now is when I can build some really cool stuff! The message board is going under development ("under development"...that even sounds cool!) so that, hopefully soon, it will be up for people to post on. Expect forms and counters to make their way shortly...I'm not sure what for, but they're coming! The difficult part is that I've been trained to be a hired gun...all the knowhow, but no direction. Oh well, I like the label of hired gun...makes me seem really badass, like Boba Fett (I apologize for that "Star Wars" reference...I promise it won't happen again...)
Feb. 14, 2007
Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone!
Shveet! After a few days of serious (OK...not really serious, but busy) updates, the site has gotten a much needed face-lift. The only things that have really changed are the colors, icon, and flash movie on the main page. In addition, the Portfolio section has been fixed, so old HW is no longer visable by other people. In addition, you might notice I have a few new sections on there, as well as removing alot of older ones. Game Design and Bulletin Board are two newer additions that will hopefully be up soon (just as soon as I can get around to fixing my MySQL problems...gosh darn, it's hard!) Game Design will be a section that will more or less chronicle what I have learned, in that hopes that I can, in turn, inspire others to turn their attention to game design. The Bulletin Board will simply be a message board where people can post their comments and have other people see them. This part has been giving me all kinds of trouble, primarily because 'I R teh Suk'...Blargle.Feb. 9, 2007; 9:05 A.M.
My my, how lazy I have been! I can't believe that this is my first update on the page since last year! Well, here's to 2007, babe!Can't say I have much news, other than my own little nerdling rants. I quit my job with DDS, and I now work as an assistant web developer for the UO Housing center. I have my own little desk in the development, and I get to show up whenever, pretty much. Needless to say, I love doing this job! Being a web developer has always excited me, ever since I created this page last year! Unfortunatly, I haven't necessarily been living up to my promises of adding more content to this site, and its mainly due to my busy schedule...I'm taking 18 credits this term, in addition to a part-time job. Yikes, stripes! But at least with my job, I can still nerd out and design web pages. Actually, my immediate supervisor has taught me some really cool things with PHP and MySQL. These two technologies are those kinds of things you hear over and over so you think that they must be very important, but have little know-how in how they work; this is still more or less true, but in the two weeks I've worked there, I've built my own database and implemented a PHP form checking script that is going to go up on the UO housing center. Finally, I see the power and use of PHP and MySQL together, and I currently think this is just the coolest thing ever! Although my supervisor, who has been doing this for the last 10 years, is kind of annoyed with the semantics of PHP, I think its just because he has been doing it for so long it just seems like old hat to him.
Regardless, in the wake of "smarting up" on PHP and MySQL, I realize that I need to devote some time to developing cool features on this site with these two technologies. Already I have my web space installed with MySQL...the database is actually running right now! PHP isn't that hard to setup either, so now the real question is...what do I want to add? I was thinking that an ideal first project would be to install a bulletin board on the site...something real simple. Then, Not only can I have a page that displays a bulletin board, I was thinking of adding a Javascript feature that would take the first few words or so of the last entry, and make a running ticker on the main page, with a link that people can jump to. I don't think this will be that hard, but rarely is this kind of stuff considered "easy." Only time will tell...
As a last and final thought, I've noticed that my hit counter is over a hundred now, and I am quite sure that I haven't checked up on my site more than 100 times. Who actually reads this stuff? My guess is is that I have somehow attracted bored CIS students who like to browse the student-made pages to steal HW solutions... shame on you! In the honor of everything that is good and sacred, though, I will be removing the files from my portfolio. A portfolio is supposed to be a collection of real, honest work...not a bunch of simple "make this error-prone code work" type of things! So...DL them while you can, ya hacks! You're laziness won't save you anymore!
And if you're not here to steal HW...send me an email! Really, I mean it. I am honestly curious who comes here and checks out this page...I'm curious.
Oct. 13, 2006; 12:16 P.M.
(Currently in 475 McKenzie, the CIS 313 classroom)Friday's are a sort of mixed bag for me...they are my hardest day, because I usually have to work late the night before and I also have the most classes (which means I stay the latest on campus) on Fridays...at the same time, its also the beginning of the weekend! Today, though, is a very tense Friday for me... this afternoon I will be hearing from the LogicTools people. Either I will be hired for one of their student internship positions, or its back to DDS for the year. It's not that I don't like working for DDS...I really do think its a good program. It's just that I might have the opporitunity to start working on something great and meaningful, something that I could start building career experience on. Only time will tell. In other news, I will be designing the new-and-improved DDS website (since the last one hasn't been updated in over 5 years). This will finally give me the chance to utilize my knowledge and skills towards something meaningful, rather than my personal blog-page that pretty much only I visit. Look forward to seeing that in the near future. Finally, as a capping note, I will be adding a new chapter to the site...Game Development! Now I know what you might be thinking...why keep adding chapters when the ones you have are currently not working? Good question....and, unfortunatly, I don't really have an answer. This site is sort of like a collected memory of my thoughts...they are random, ever-bouncing and energenic, careening from one topic on one day to 70 others the next. Don't like it? Make 'yer own page! The Game development section will mostly be a collection of online tutorials, just as the previous chapter, and they will be updated whenever I get a free moment (which is not very often, as stated multiple times.) But keep on the lookout, because it's something that I have been very passionate about in the last few months, and anything that can hold my interest for more than a week is definatly a\ strong passion...Be on the lookout for that in the future.
Oct. 4, 2006; 10:11 A.M
(Currently writing from Chiles 227, the CIS 314 classroom)Phew! Haven't updated the site in a while, but then again, I haven't realy had alot of time to do so, either! My schedule is keeping me alot busier than I had previously assumed, but I think it should all be work that i can do. This really has been the only free spot that I can afford to update (which is, as truth may have it, right in the middle of class!) In accomodating my busy schedule, the only thing that I have had to sacrifice in order to make time is my computer-gaming hobby/addiction. This shouldn't be too hard for me...in fact, I do believe that giving up the vast majority of gaming time will be best for me; instead of playing games, my free time has been spent learning how to make them instead! Right now, I am currently reading "The Black Art of Java Game Programming," by Joel Fan. It's a fairly dated book (published 1996 - 10 years ago), and based off of a deprecated API (occasionly I get compiler issues, but the Java 2 platform can still read the deprecated libraries, so the sample code provided still compiles), but it is a good introduction to many of the key points in learning how to program games in Java. Many of the reviews of this book are not kind...critics usually complain that Java is a horrible choice of a computer-language for game programming (and not necessarily on the merit of the book and the concepts themselves.) This is OK, as most of these reviews are based around the publication date of the book. Java 1.1 might have been a horrible choice for game programming at the time, but 10 years of service has done wonders for Java. Currently, Java is a formidible choice for a programming language, although *STILL* just a tad slower than C or C++. With compting resources what they are today, I don't consider it that big of a worry. If someone gives me a good reason as to why I SHOULD be concerned, I would be glad to hear it. After all, this is supposed to be a resource site, n ot an advertisement for Java. I tend to just hype Java up as it is the language that I have worked with all throughout the 200 level Computer-Science courses at the University, and thus I am most familiar with it. With most of the applications that I will be sharing, run-times will not be an issue. They are introductory programs designed to teach; we won't be needing optimized functions that need to run in linear time (Don't worry if you don't know what that means....I myself barely know what that means). Hopefully I will be getting the first set of tutorials uploaded within the next week or two. I also intend to fix the guestbook section, which is currently giving me a whole $%!#-load of problems. Finally, a simple counter will be added...this one is just a borrowed script (you know, the "Copy this code segment Here!" type of scripts), and I will use it until I program my own counter. I am a big fan of doing things myself versus borrowing from others, which is probably bad in the "Re-Use" world of computers. *Sigh* Ok, time to start paying attention to class, I think it's just starting to get interesting. Until next time...