Rhetorical eloquence.
First of all, I’d like to start this blog entry by a simple conversation I’ve had with Gwen minutes ago, while I was thinking of what I’m supposed to be writing here. She told me what my intro should be; the four-liner chat log says everything about it:
8:41:36 PM Foster, Gwendelyn: i really don’t know what to say
8:41:39 PM Foster, Gwendelyn: but i want to blog
8:42:52 PM JMacalinao: tapos… (Translated: then…)
8:45:25 PM Foster, Gwendelyn: then say random things
Then random things I shall write! Although my Twitter basically says everything about what’s happening in my day-to-day living, including my replies to other people’s actions, there are also things I haven’t included there.
Like this site, for example. First off, I’d like to thank Mallory for changing my link on her site, without even telling her what my new site is! It’s either she has meticulously psychic powers, or she basically looked at her comments, where coincidentally, I posted one. Second, I got Janine to post my link on her blog, because I basically told her to. That’s three links in total now. Come on, guys, I need a lot of your websites — and traffic — on my site! Heh. (I’m thinking of putting up my host’s link here too. I really have to thank Jonathan for hosting my sites.)
I haven’t thought of how I would implement my portfolio page, but I do know WordPress is going to do the rough job for me, setting up all those page. Structure, and as always, content are the big problems in this portfolio.
Things haven’t been going so well with our software project, EASE@Haven, mainly because of the bombardment of documentations and the lack of development man-power. The interface is almost done with their main functionality intact, but the other part of functionality that we all love, the error checking part, is so difficult to implement in the system, that I had to force myself to use plugins along with the already easy jQuery library. I hope we get everything ready by this Thursday.
Other projects have been bugging me lately, too, like the microprocessors/microcontrollers project. We had to do a bicycle speedometer using a sort of old-ass microprocessor (M68HC11). Since I’m doing all the programming (in freaking assembly code), I shouldn’t have the problem with how I’m supposed to work the program with the circuit. But it seems we haven’t done anything about the circuit itself, which is a bummer.
Oh, and don’t forget all the papers we have to submit in the coming days! They’re falling on us like hailstorms!
As for my iPhone updates, I’ve upgraded it to the recent 2.0.1 firmware. Nothing new. What’s new is the extraordinary theming you can have when you’ve jailbroken it and installed WinterBoard. It’s basically like SummerBoard on steroids, because its theming capability is so amazing. Who knew that you can make a theme that changes — no, animates — your wallpapers in your homescreen! Definitely blown away on this one.
Hmm… Looks like only tech and academics are the only stuff I can brag and/or rant about for today. Other stuff have been full of dullness and false alarms in the past month, although I can’t complain about them now. I’ve already done that in the past five years, and I can’t afford being a broken record. (Yes, being one is a waste of time and money.)
The 8th of August of 2008 is a lucky day, can’t say anything wrong about that. It’s just the case of where the luck is going (or went, since it already occurred to you).
Edit: It’s officially 11:11PM while I’m writing this. I wanna greet my cousin Jacque for her twenty-third birthday today (August 11th). I almost forgot it until my Friendster birthday e-mail alerted me. Hurray for unsolicited e-mails!
iPhone 2.0
A week ago, Apple launched the App Store for iPhone 2.0, and I must say, it’s really not too shabby. I know, I know, there are those unbelievably priced applications that have pretty much no use for me, or have interfaces that don’t deserve to be part of their apps in the first place. But there are some apps that I would really use (or in this case, already using), or that has really cool graphics (like some very impressive games).
Let me start off with what I’m using right now. It’s called WordPress for the iPhone, and it works like magic. Okay, not really, but it’s useful when you’re offline, but still wanted to blog stuff. Like when you’re in some remote place, and you want to rant about how low-tech the place is, this is the app to use. It’s also easy to set up - just enter your URL, username and password, and let the app do its work. Of course, it’s only for WordPress (2.5.1 or later), but have no fear - there’s also one for TypePad (by the TypePad developers, of course). The only thing I’d request for improvement is rich text editing, since I’m quite stuck to putting HTML tags here, and that alone is tedious. But since it’s also a limitation throughout iPhone itself (I mean, without text highlights and selection, it’s pretty much next to useless), I might forgive the WordPress developers - for now.
Next one is Twinkle. It looks so darn nice, it encourages me to post twits over and over again. Other than the new [purple and gold] graphics, and the separate Tapulous profile - its purpose in Twinkle is unknown, probably for backup - the application is similar to its earlier version (0.75), as it’s supposed to be. While the first one has bugs (lots of ‘em, unfortunately), the next revision is already waiting for approval as of this moment. Well, shouldn’t updates be automatically approved?
Another app that I can approve is Super Monkey Ball. If you haven’t seen games in the old iPhone firmwares, I really hope you haven’t. The only good ones were Pool, Labyrinth, and Neverball (a spin-off of Super Monkey Ball). This game, along with Enigmo, Bomberman Touch, Tap Tap Revenge (well, not so much, but it’s addicting), and other cool games, they bring the next level of mobile gaming into your own hands, and they bring the best of the iPhone capabilities. I mean, compared with the third-party app Neverball from the previous firmware, Super Monkey Ball is fun, it’s fast, and it has quality comparable to Nintendo DS and Sony PSP games - most likely to DS, though.
That, and other useful apps like Remote, Midomi, and Evernote make up about an eighth (rough estimate) of almost a thousand apps in the App Store, because to be honest, there’s a lot of useless apps out there. I can probably forgive apps that are free of charge, but for a paid app that does nothing? I’ll most likely expect those apps to drop their prices to a dollar, if not free. Of course, I’m not the one to complain, because I’m going to be happy with the real third-party apps since the firmware is already jailbroken. Oh, well. Where’s my video recorder?!
Synchronized.
Sometimes, synchronizing your stuff is fun, and useful at the same time. I managed to sync up all my calendars, tasks and contacts through my desktop running on Mac OS X, my notebook running on Vista and my iPhone, thanks to this web service called Plaxo.
This is how I would usually go into doing stuff starting tomorrow… (By the way, I decided to bring the notebook everyday, just to try this stuff, and how bringing one will actually save me from those dreaded deadlines.)
Every morning, I open up my calendar (in the desktop, it’s called iCal) and have a look at what I’m supposed to do. Let’s say I have a report to be done tomorrow, and so I start doing it, until it’s time to go to school. I sync up my iPhone to the desktop. (Right now I’m doing it through the dock, but when iPhone 2.0 is released, it’ll be through WiFi.) After doing some non-technology-related stuff, like taking a shower, I go to school. Before the first class starts, I make sure I’ve connected through the school’s WiFi or LAN, so everything can be synced. Throughout my classes, I make notes, and when I’m done with them, I upload them to the desktop through FTP. Let’s say there’s going to be an exam next week, so I open up Outlook on my notebook and put it on my calendar. And, let’s say, for some reason, I’ve finished the report, so I open up the “event” and add the file as an attachment. I sync my notebook and iPhone at the end of my classes, just to make sure that they’re all up in the cloud (I mean, in the Plaxo server). When I get back home, I see all the stuff I’ve done during my classes, and I’ll probably put in a reminder for that report I’ve made, just so I wouldn’t forget to print it tomorrow.
It’s a pretty sketchy simulation, but I think you guys get the point. The system’s kinda messy, but when I get hold of Live Mesh or maybe force myself to pay $99 for MobileMe, maybe it’ll be much more efficient than Plaxo.
Needed: Balance and harmony.
Here’s the thing: My parents gave me a [new] laptop. (I won’t be giving any more “why” details.) It’s mine, since I have full responsibility for it, but with a “shared” condition. Shared - the rest of the family should be able to borrow it, with consent (for the siblings) or without consent (for my parents). It’s unlike the desktop I’m using, where it’s basically off limits to other people. So, there.
For more deeper specs, it’s a Compaq Presario V3700. 14″, Core 2 Duo T5550 (1.83GHz), 160GB drive divided into two partitions (as usual with every new laptop), 1GB RAM, Intel 965 chipset. The [current] average notebook computer. I’m fairly contented with it, well, as long as it only lags barely, just like my desktop.
In other news, Gwen speaks of the truth. Don’t tell until you know what you’re doing. Don’t do anything until I know what you’re doing. I won’t do anything because I don’t know what to do. (Get it? xD)
I think my life’s just not too balanced right now. God’s giving me blessings, for sure - He’s just not putting them at both ends. Yet. Makes sense, right?
What’s EASE?
Since my professor in INTROSE has (sort of) approved our project, let me actually tell you what this EASE thing is all about.
Basically, EASE is short for “Enrollment and Accounting System for Educational Institutions.” In the logo above, there’s the EASE thing, plus the @Haven, telling the visitor that it’s made for Haven Montessori (a school founded by my mom). That’s basically it: A software that will help my mom have more vacations, than to have more stressful nights. And to prove to my mom that this is what I’ll do when I go to an actual programming job.
Right now, I’m thinking about doing it in HTML/PHP and MySQL, all in a cool SSL layer, just to be “secure.” And probably one part of it in Java, then the database located on and off-line. Sounds cool, right? Well, let’s see if we can actually do that.
Oh, yeah. I’m starting to do some prototypes. Like, interfaces. Web interfaces. What fun. (You can obviously see why people don’t take me seriously. Even in…)