Home ownership, bills, working a lot, puppy, more bills, working around the house…  It feels like I barely have time to breathe most of the time.  I guess that is what life is about, the next phase in a way.  Less time for friends, less time for family, building my own family, my own life.  Not being in college anymore is a total departure from what I have been come accustomed to.  It is nice on one hand.. no homework or projects sucking the life out of me..  Now it is just house projects and work projects doing that.  It was a trade of sorts.  I am happy with my job and it is a lot less time consuming than school was.

I was on a walk with the dog last night and I was remembering back when I was in High School; it seems like a lifetime ago.  A different town a different day.  I remember lifting weights in my parents basement at 1:00am listening to the radio.  It was just a neat time in my life.  I didn’t have many worries or concerns; I was young.

I have seen 1:00am only a couple times since I have been out on my “own”.  I think that is good having a schedule and such.

This post has nothing and everything to do with technology.  Technology is a passion in my life and it has taken me to where I am today, but technology is playing a different role in my life recently.  Since I have less time to see people that I have seen for years technology is a great way to keep in touch and see what people are up to.  Actually a friend I had in High School contacted me on Facebook yesterday, which was pretty cool.  I haven’t seen her in years.  She has a cute kid.

I have been on Facebook, Myspace, and other social networks for many years, but I think their role has changed.  I think when I was younger they were an addition to face to face encounters and now they take that place.  It is good, I think, because otherwise I would not no communication with my hectic schedule and life.

I don’t know if I am growing up or growing old.  Maybe neither.  I am changing because life is change.  It’s definitely not easy.  There are so many sacrifices that I am not used to.  With responsibility comes sacrifice to a degree.  I gain so much from my sacrifice though.  It’s a good trade.

1)  Just use an old VCR!
2)  Just use an old computer!

End of thread…  End of post… That is where the story ends and it leaves a lot to be desired.  I have problems with both of these solutions.

1)  The VCR is archaic
2)  I don’t want to leave a computer running in a room that will be used sparingly
3)  I don’t want to wait for a computer to boot up

This can be negated if you have a cable box that already does that.  But there are still people out there without cable boxes.  Or don’t want a cable box in every room or on every device; I’m sure the cable companies want you to.  I can’t seem to justify the extra $30 + fees for the box to move away from basic cable.  Renting a cable box seems like a dirty tactic to me; in the long run they have to make a killing.

I have NetFlix so if I want to watch a movie I can just get it off of there.  Also, there is NetFlix streaming which is awesome.  I do not want to give the cable companies more money – it’s already highway robbery.

The problem with this is that projectors do not have a TV tuner.  It doesn’t know what to do with the coax connection.  Projectors cannot tune (most of them that are out there anyway).  But I believe there is a happy medium… a product by Ambery.com -> Super Video to WXGA Converter.  This device works much like a cable box expect that you can buy it and use it how you like.

It takes a coax connection (Clear QAM), it won’t decrypt any of the pay channels like a real cable box, and converts it to composite, VGA, or S-Video.  Composite will most likely be your best choice for a projector.  I believe they also have one with component connections.  If you are looking for HDMI I’m not sure what will be needed – I’m guessing an upconverter of some sort.

Clear QAM is important.  If the device is not Clear QAM then it will not be able to tune to the cable frequencies.  If you have been looking at the Analog-to-Digital most of the ones that I have found do not have clear QAM meaning they will not work with cable; you will need an antenna to retrieve the signals.

My coax cable runs into the Super Video to WXGA Converter and from there the S-Video runs into my projector.  I also have component cables for in the future.  There is also some HDMI lurking behind the panel, but I don’t think it will be needed for awhile.

This face plate comes from, LibertyCable, an interesting cable that does orders by the phone, but none-the-less has a really great product; not too many other choices out there.

So composite into the wall that runs up to the projector that is mounted on the ceiling.  It’s really that simple.

I hope that can add some clarity to a problem that can be over/under thought.  This is my geeky trade-off do-the-job kind of way of doing things.

As I have stated many times before… I am an avid listener of podcasts and video podcasts.  I love them because they help me stay up-to-date in this frequently changing world of IT.  I would have to say my newest vidcast that I have been enjoying lately has been HAK5.  They are just a bunch of real down to earth people talking about technology!  They are a bit goofy but that’s okay with me.  I believe they were recently added to revision3, and I’m quite glad they were.

I really enjoyed the piece by Chris Gerling on reverse engineering on .NET applications (and more).  This is a very handy skill to have especially since I work with .NET.  As I watched the podcast I didn’t think much about it.  I found it to be very cool and engrossing; tres geek.  I like how they broke the segment down onto multiple episodes (inside of being deluged).

Come a few weeks later (now), a couple of the network guys came to my cube and asked me if I could help them with an application a previous developer wrote.  I politely said “Sure! Not a problem”, which they responded with “Great one catch though, all we have is the EXEcutable and we need it ASAP”.  I think that was actually two catches, but anyhow.

I said calm and coolly, “all we need to do is decompile the application get the source code and we’ll be ready to go”.  I suspect it was not the answer they were expecting.  I was calm and cool because I just watched the great hak5 episodes that involved reverse engineering!  Hot dog.  I earned major cred points for my attitude and how quickly I was able to reproduce the code for the problem.

After inspecting the code we found the problem to be a configuration code; not a development bug.  This was such a critical step the problem solving process.  This also proves that learning is a lifelong process that needs to continue beyond school and become apart of your life.

I started a new job as a Software Development Engineer, which I’m quite excited about. I think it is a great start to my career. Though it is tough to be the new guy at a company. Having to prove yourself and your worth is always a challenge, but I think I have a great opportunity to succeed.

Cheers.

Cool site Two Weeks For Kina

This is what the elves listen to while wrapping the presents for all the little boys and girls.

Happy Holidays!

It seems every few months or so sites like www.whydiggisblocked.com come about spewing FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). I think this is a marketing ploy to drive more traffic to their sites – these things get a lot of visibility on Digg and Reddit. Before this iteration there was www.whyfirefoxisblocked.com. It’s not the users that need to change, it’s the sites that think their visitors should have to conform to some statistic. The web is not a one size fits all business model. You have to be flexible and change for the users.

I visited the sites to see what I was truly missing with having Ad Block Plus installed and what I found was amazing. IT WAS ABSOLUTE CRAP. ReadWriteWeb has a nice write up on the Economic Idiocy of blocking social media… short conclusion: basically these people are idiots.

Traffic is good for a site, it is healthy, in fact, it is the lubrication that keeps everything going or something. It’s about the conversation that this Internet technology creates. It is amazing. If you need ads to keep your site alive, I’m sure a lot do, find a better way to drive funds than smacking banners and ads all over your page. I don’t know, GET CREATIVE or INNOVATIVE.

Endorse a product, ask your users what they like, anything something, but not that same crap that we hate. I’m so numb to banners on websites as it is. There has to be a better way than isolating traffic to your site; that just seems counter productive.

public void brent() throws busyException
{
int freeTime = 0;
return;
}

School has thrown me into a constant state of work and deadlines. I’m glad I have found time to sleep as of late. But I have not forgotten about you all. I have had lots of ideas, but no time to express them. oh yes my lament.

This is not a bad thing I guess. I would much rather spend my time writing and exploring various topics; I think I learn way more this way. And in the future I think we are all going to be in a constant state of education the way things are moving today. New technologies are being implemented daily. The landscape is in constant change. But yes, this is not a bad thing because I am learning a lot of interesting things and can apply them to my life. This is a good a thing.

So what I wanted to talk about was Human Computer Interaction (HCI), more specifically the User Interface (UI). Probably up to this point in my technological education I wasn’t too concerned by what the user thought. My thinking was this is how it is and we must adapt to the technology. I think that was a big mistake. Technology should conform to the user; this is my new mantra. Users are not stupid – the technology makes them feel stupid – and that is a big no-no.

I’ve been applying this to various aspects of my technology life. When a fellow worker says, “I’m so stupid I can’t figure this out”. I explain to them that it is not their fault the software was written poorly. That the UI was not made for the novice. I think telling this to family members who want computer support also helps. Everyone get frustrated because they think they are problem and in fact the problem is the technology.

We’ve been seeing a lot of UI design changes in software like: Windows Vista, Ubuntu, Mac OS, and Office 2007. The computer industry, software and hardware, is trying to make the UI more intuitive for all users. I’m not sure if this is good or not, but if it can alleviate some frustrations for users; I think that can only be good.

But on the flip side of this train of thought… is a one size fits all UI possible? No, probably not, some users like things a certain way. So UIs in the future will easily adapt to the user and make the experience more natural. This will be an interesting area of study to follow in the coming years.

And when all else fails there’s always the command line

shutdown -n

This meme was started by Christy’s Coffee Break. I like her blog, it’s got quite the geeky appeal to it. The freaky fridays meme is an interesting idea I think, something different. I like these niche posts that explore different things.

The Death of a Loved One

I’m not much of a believer in ghosts, ghouls, or shadowy creatures of the night for many various reasons. I’m not so sure how much I believe in a great afterlife, I think it is an attempt of our brains to try to comprehend this crazy world. Death is not an easy think to deal with, when it is loved ones, friends, or complete strangers. I think it is easy to put ourselves in their shoes, which is why death is so personal.

Time: 2000-2001, the turn of the century occurred, Y2K was a bust, and I was finishing my last year of high school. Also, this was the most trying year of my entire life, so far.

I had dealt with death before that point in time and I thought I was fully prepared for what was occurring. One of my good friends at schools died from a insulin related complication. Another one of my classmates committed suicide. And another one of my classmates that went to another school at the time was accidentally shot with a shotgun and died. School was crazy and looking back it was mostly a blur.

Furthermore, my uncle, stepfather’s dad, great-grandmother, and grandmother also died in this time period. If you weren’t counting that was 7 people in a time span of a year. I was definitely burned out on funerals. I think the hardest death to deal with was my grandmother’s death. As a young child she would take care of me on numerous occasions. She was such a kind hearted woman and backbone of my dad’s side of the family.

The accumulation of all the past months of death was at its peak and I didn’t know how much more I could take. My family and I were at my grandma’s house after the funeral and were looking through all the old pictures. So many great memories in the pages of the photo albums sprawled across the floor. The tears were welling up for many different reasons. The good times, the bad times, the times that would no longer be. The world had changed.

In the darkness of moments, it seems the littlest things can bring you back from the fringe. As I could no longer view memories of the oh-so-recent past, I decided to go out on the back porch for some fresh air.

As I walked out on the back porch, I looked to the sky, and I saw one of the brightest shooting stars I have ever seen. I don’t know if it was coincidence or someone up above looking out for me, but after that point I knew everything would be alright. Maybe it just put everything into perspective; we are small in the grand scale of things.

I’m not sure if it was really a strange coincidence or not. That shooting star has played a big role in my life and for whatever reason it has helped me. For all the loss I have seen in my life: I will carry on not only for myself, but for the ones that are not with me today.

//END

I’m not going to tag anyone with this meme. The meme stops here. This was a fun little experiment, so I will see how it plays out.

You are now entering a place where only the truth matters. No more bullshit, no more lies, and no more corruption.

Okay, there is still bullshit, lies, and corruption, but the Internet is redefining how we become informed about things. There was a time when the news at 10 was how everyone got their information. Now you can get the information anytime you want or need it. This is a turning point in history. Never before has there been a global information network this robust. There were teletypes, MORRIS code, radio, satellite phones. The Internet is truly remarkable in the way it connects people and ideas.

I really don’t think governments around the world are ready for this fundamental change in how people become informed. It’s hard to believe there are corrupt governments in this day and age. Militaristic governments shooting monks, journalists, etc in “Burma” or Myanmar. Let this not be a smoke screen. There are problems elsewhere in the world. Let’s not forget Darfur.

The time it takes to become aware of problems is instantaneous, thanks to bloggers, news services, and satellite imagery systems. Awareness is key to solving problems. I don’t think the problems of the world will be easily solved, but awareness, I feel, moves things in the right direction. I’m glad that blogging has ushered in the return of the FREE PRESS. People talking about society, life, struggles, achievements, and oh yes TECHNOLOGY.

To really bring this point home I’m adding a link to the Nirvana Musing blog. The blogger, Amit, posted screen shots of a banned commercial, a truly remarkable ad by MTV.

This is why the Free Internet Press is so important. I don’t think you’re going to see this any newspaper, magazine, or TV show.