I wish I was this cool!

Maybe I'm just too much of a geek, but I find this (direct link to a video) unbelievably impressive.

Yes folks, that's a scanner... as in the device that sits on your desk and magically helps you get your pictures and documents into the computer.

Major props to the guy who figured this out, or at least documented it.

Ok, this is kind of broken

I noticed a really strange idiosyncrasy/broken system today.

I'm running Windows XP Professional, I'll use some screenshots to demonstrate what I'm talking about:

Let's say I'm connected to a network, in this example it's my home network, and I want to disconnect from it. I highlight it in the list of available networks and click 'Disconnect' in the lower right hand corner of the window. I get the following dialog box: (click to view full and escape the horrors of compression)


So I click 'Yes' - makes sense so far, Windows disconnects from the network and all is well.

However, if I get into the advanced properties dialog for this connection and then select the appropriate network and click "Properties" and then finally move over to the "Connection" tab, I see the following: (again, click to view full)


Ok, somebody explain this to me... according to my earlier choice I'm not going to automatically connect to this network anymore, and in fact it DOESN'T automatically connect to this network. So why in the WORLD is this checkbox checked?

Am I just stupid and misunderstanding this? (Not beyond belief) If anyone has a sane explanation for this - please, comment, I'm listening. :-)

Maybe it's just life with Microsoft products, eh?

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Well, maybe it was, I've resurrected this site, at least for now.
Maybe this is just a one-night stand with my blog, (uh, right) and I won't be back tomorrow, or ever, but I guess we will all have to wait until tomorrow, etc. to find out.

Ok, so I guess I'll try to run down a long-overdue update of goings-on.

When last we left our hero he was in his second semester at the local community college - taking 15 course hours, working through 11th grade material and working a 15-20 hour a week job. We find him now taking 7 course hours at that same college, continuing to work through 11th grade and blissfully rid of that job. This is his story.

Ok, I'll try to stop being so weird now, but it's probably not gonna happen.

I stopped writing on this blog simply because I was so incredibly busy. I've even started a few posts in the past months and been pulled away to work on something and left them incomplete. Perhaps that shows I can't finish a task, I'd say it just shows that blabbing in a public place is not high on my priority list. (... and Robert Scoble goes into shock. ;-) )

So, as far as school went this past semester I made it through all of my classes without major event, still carrying a spotless 4.0GPA, yay! Let's see how that holds up when I'm actually taking hard courses.

This past semester I was in ENG-111 and CIS-115 on campus - NET-110, CIS-130 and CIS-152 online.
ENG-111, a composition course, writing various papers, great fun. The teacher and the group of students in that class was really great, there was about a half-dozen homeschool students, so that always ups the quality of a class. *ahem*
CIS-115, Intro to Programming and Logic, once again a whole lot of fun, but this time due mainly to the instructor, I've had several courses with her and I make a nuisance of myself by hanging around her office a lot, she's sharp, really a pleasant surprise when I consider where I'm going to school.
NET-110, not too bad of a course, about networking, but taught incompetently. The course material was a Network+ training book, which I read and it was excellent, unfortunately the actual course didn't come close to the quality of the text. It was basically an English class, but with technology-related subjects. ("Write a brief paper on what WEP and WPA are and how to use them." I think I actually used the book IN the course once, it was all stuff I already knew. Heh.)
CIS-130, Survey of Operating Systems. Several flavors of Windows, OS X, Novell, Linux, not very challenging, but still a pretty good course, the instructor was nice and very accommodating when I accidentally missed a deadline due to sickness.
CIS-152, Database Concepts and Applications. A pretty good class, I actually struggled somewhat with this, I had trouble with a few of the concepts near the end of the course and at that time the instructor was busy with some other things they needed to be doing and was pretty much unavailable to help me. I thankfully still managed to pull out with an 'A' though.


My job, this changed a lot this semester. I got the new job late in the summer semester, working for a guy fixing Windows computers, it was OK, but as I said many times to friends "It's not bad, but I definitely won't be turning a screwdriver for the rest of my life."
Things went well there at first, I worked on computers, the boss managed and brought in customers, wizz-bang it all works out. But then in early September we started to work on the website for the business... hoooo boy. I built the whole ecommerce site to his specs in a few weeks and put it in front of him. He instantly became the "Customer from Hell"(TM), he wanted this different, that different some random thing that customers will never see different because he doesn't like the color, etc, etc, etc. This happened over and over again, I would build exactly what he requested and he would change his mind or add a feature that was "required." I don't mind big projects, I don't mind long projects, but I can't abide projects that will still be in the build stage when I'm dead. So that ridiculous mess hanging over my head started to really make life there miserable. In early November the boss finally came through on some things he'd been promising me since I had started working for him, which was nice. However things continued to go downhill, I was being asked to interface with customers more and more, and our clientele was... frustrating. I don't mind dealing with a competent customer who wants me to create with code what they can conceive in their mind, it's really a joy. When you're trying to troubleshoot problems on a Windows box over the phone with someone who can't use proper English (or even enough poor English that you can at least guess what they're getting at) and doesn't even know how to unplug their computer, well - it will drive you to the edge. My blood pressure has probably been permanently knocked up several points just working at that place.
In the middle of December I informed him that I wouldn't be back to work for him as of Janury 1, 2006. He begged and pleaded and tried to appease with various offerings of greater pay and the like.
But that wasn't the issue, the issue was two-headed - something he can't change and something else he can't change quickly.
He cannot change who he is, not in the foundational areas of his actions, methods and thought processes. And, in conjunction with that, he could not change the direction of his business and the clientele he was attracting and serving.
Both of those drove me almost mad working for him. This town lacks a really good computer repair company, and he's in no shape to take that place.
Even as I was walking out the door for the last time he was trying to negotiate my return at some time, asking me to give him a call if I had free time. This I agreed to, I have no problem with that, but then he asks me to promise that if I have free time I will call him and offer my time to him.. what in the world?? So yes, on my way out the door for the last time he gave me an outstanding example of why I'm glad I no longer work there.

So I'm now in the midst of the first time in almost 3 years (I reached the legal age to work in this state a little less than 3 years ago.) that I haven't actively been working a job with some firm of one type or another. Interestingly enough, I have yet to apply for any job. I seriously average approximately 1 job offer every 6 months. Not bad for a kid, if I do say so myself.
In a few weeks, once I get a gauge of how much work this semester is actually going to require of me I will probably contact one of the firms I left a while back - I'm reasonably certain they'd like to have me back to work there, and I enjoyed the job. :-) (I suppose this begs the question of why I left that office: I left for another job with higher pay and a closer location to where I'm living, going across town everyday was getting old.)

Break! My holiday break this year was pretty good, had a good time seeing family, etc. I also spent a lot of time studying random things I'd like to know but don't always have time to learn. Many colleges are now putting webcasts of various courses online, over the break I went through an entire course on XML and the first 1/4 of CS61A (A good course, I didn't abandon it, I'm still working through it. :-) ), both from UC Berkeley.

Today break ended, I had my first day of class, this semester I'm taking:
CIS-151 - Java Programming, doesn't start until Monday, I talked to the instructor today, he said it is absolutely *swamped* - heh, bet it'll be less than a dozen people at midterm.
ENG-114 - Professional Writing and Reporting, started today, seems to be a decent course, it's in one of the new buildings on campus, nice classroom.
ACA-111 - College Student Success, gag me.

I'm taking a relatively small course load this semester because I had a lot of trouble last semester keeping up in my homeschool work with so much going on outside my house, so I'm throttling back to try to get a lot of home stuff done that needs to be done.

This thing is really getting far too long, so I guess I'll wrap it up now. Dunno if I'll be back soon, guess you'll have to come back and see. ;-)

This just in... yesterday anyways...

Confirmed: There IS such a thing as "too much studying"

I confirmed this one independently yesterday. (With a little help from my dad.)

After we got home from church yesterday afternoon I went straight to work studying for various things, college classes, high school work, etc. I worked on all of this pretty much nonstop until the middle of yesterday evening.

At which point I got out from underneath my laptop and books, and out of my chair.

I proceeded to wander around the house making "engine noises" (You know, like I was a race car or something.)
(Stop laughing, it's not that funny.)


My dad is standing in the kitchen getting something out of the fridge (Or putting something in, I don't remember exactly.) and he just kinda looks at me like I'm crazy.
I just gave up one of those "Yepp, I AM crazy" grins and explained "I think I spent too much time studying today."
"Yeah, I think so." He agrees, and shakes his head.

My brain had pretty much ceased functioning after the programming/English essays/Algebra 2/Chemistry combination I'd endured that afternoon.


Beware the dangers of studying too much!    

Latest news from my world

Well, I'm running the Build 5219 bits of Windows Vista (Codenamed Longhorn), good stuff, a lot of really nice eye-candy that's been brought in over the older Beta 1 code branch. I think MS has the potential to do good things with this OS. But it's still a race against time, and Microsoft has a tendency to lose those.

Also of interest: I'm involved in starting up a videogame development club at the community college I'm attending, I'll post more information on that as it becomes available. If this continues, we will eventually have a website, so hopefully I'll be able to pass that information along somewhere down the road.
All work with this club is purely preliminary at this point, we're getting a members list together. Then we're going to figure out the best time for us all to get together. Once that has been decided we'll be meeting and arguing over intelligently discussing stuff like which engine we will use, what kind of game we're going to actually make, etc.
If it works out the way we envision it (haha) it will actually be a pretty cool deal. :-)

RAM Upgrade! Party!

As the title implies, I upgraded the RAM in my computer today... w00t w00t!

I bumped my Sony Vaio laptop up to 768MB over the 512MB I was running on. There's a noticeable speed increase, not huge, but definitely noticeable.

--

In response to Tom Major's comment on my last post:

I agree that Vista is going to be pretty incredible, and it is definitely going to be groundbreaking in some areas, but I look at it this way:
Look at how much faster the development cycle for OS X has been, they have been able to implement features in half the time that MS was promising to deliver them. (The "instant" desktop search is my favorite example of this, but there are others.) Heck, Google beat Microsoft on that one.
Microsoft has just gotten too big. What makes them so powerful is going to be their undoing, they have the strength to crush all the competition, but by the time they've brought that strength to bear the enemy has moved.
Right now I feel that (minus the massive user base, of course) Mac OS X is pretty much on a level playing field with what Windows Vista will be when it's actually released. That means that Apple still has a year and some change to to keep innovating, to keep advancing, Mac OS X 10.5 (Or maybe even 10.6, depending on how this goes.) will probably be out around the same time as Vista. That's two major versions from now. That's huge.

I think MS has the potentional to kill all the competition, but at their current rate it feels like they're going to show up after the battle has already been decided.

Another thing about Longhorn/Vista:
I know it's currently just in Beta stages, but right now the install process seems hopelessly broken... it's unbelievable the hoops I have to go through at times to get an install up and running.
I'm about to try to install the x64 edition again, because I really want to be able to run it.

Granted, Office 12/Office Vista looks like it's going to be simply stunning, let's just hope they don't kill productivity with impressive graphics.

I guess I'll work on that install now!

I switched mail clients... (Plus a whole lot of other stuff)

OK, I’ve dumped Outlook. Yes, it’s a nice platform, but I’ve decided I don’t really like it. I’ve switched over to the open source (and, of course, free) companion email client to Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird!

I like Thunderbird because it is open source and free, and not only does that mean a good deal for me (can’t beat free ;-) ), but I like what I feel open source/free software does for the software market. Open source software encourages anyone and everyone to “jump in,” to add their voice (or their code, really) to any project, and I like that. If I decide I don’t like a feature Thunderbird, if it’s within my technical skill set to do so I can change or remove that feature in my copy of the program.

As an added bonus: Thunderbird is just plain fast. Yes, any of you Outlook junkies will say “but Outlook has so many more features, and this and that and the other thing” yeah, those are great, and I’ll admit that Outlook certainly has its place. But that place is not as my email client, at least not right now.

I’ve used Thunderbird in the past, but I drifted away from it when Mac OS X Tiger came out, because Mail.app was so well integrated into the OS and supported the new Spotlight feature so well, I instantly gravitated towards it. ( (Up until a few days ago I was using my Powerbook exclusively for email, for security reasons.)

This mention of Mail.app reminds me: Once again, Microsoft is ripping somebody off. I saw a video over on Channel 9 of an interview with the Outlook Express team. (They’re now re-formed as the “Windows Mail” team.) Ok, “Windows Mail” that alone is half rip-off, I mean, yeah, what else are you going to call it? But it still sounds all too familiar.
Also of interest is how much they’re trumpeting their new integrated search feature, it’s the same thing that Mac OS X Tiger already has… so when this comes out in late 2006 it will almost be a two-year old “innovation” and MSFT still thinks they’re being brilliant and original. It’s kind of pathetic, really.

I think Windows Vista (as this new OS is to be called) is really going to be the tipping point for Microsoft. If they can’t get their act together and put out a really good product, they’re going to have some serious customer defections. Especially if one considers the anticipated price tags on their various editions, I mean, from $99 (for what can barely pass as a completed OS.) to $999 (For everything, even the kitchen sink! <g>) (I think those were the numbers? I’d have to look it up…) to get a copy of a really useful OS you’re probably going to have to drop between 2-400 dollars, or you could just get Mac OS X for $130.

Wow, this has really turned into something of a ramble/rant, sorry about that. I guess I’ll go do something besides sit in front of a computer for a while. :-P