Author Archives: Ed

New Horizons

Posted by on March 1, 2012 No comments

So, after many years of talking about it, I’m actually going to write some apps for IOS/Android.  Last Friday I went out and bought a Mac Mini and went through a couple of Objective C / IOS courses on Lynda.com.  I’m finding things a lot easier than the last time I tried, because of a few things:

  • IOS 5 storyboarding is easier than the old method with just XIB files
  • I have an open mind about Objective-C – after learning both Ruby and Python recently, it was a little easier to get out of my language bigotry
  • I have a decent machine to work on.  I was trying to use an ancient Mac Mini that I got from a friend of mine before.  It worked (barely), but it was very painful.
Since I was able to make some Cocoa apps no problem, I decided to kick it up a notch and learn OpenGL ES 2.0.  I had messed with OpenGL and DirectX in the past, so it wasn’t too big of deal to start working with OpenGL ES.  And, since I’m able to do 3D stuff now, I cracked open Blender again and started doing some modeling.  In fact, the icon I used for this post is a sprite that I made in Blender for a game that I’m working on.  Also, I’ve been learning the power of python from within Blender (although I still haven’t gotten vertex exports working perfectly yet).  Hopefully I’ll have something new and exciting to share soon.

Tools I Can’t Live Without

Posted by on November 20, 2011 1 comment

In my daily routine, I use several apps/tools/websites, here’s the ones that I use (and highly recommend), in no particular order:

Toodledo - Great productivity tool for Getting Things Done (GTD) – Lately, I’ve been set up 20 different projects, and rotate between them, and am actually managing to get more things done than I was when using paper and pen.  It has an iPhone app that syncs well, and have had no issues with it – I even became a premium member because I use it so much.

Evernote - Great all-around note-taking program.  I use it to write notes when I’m doing sysadmin work, or recipes, game ideas, etc.  Great tool to do a brain dump of whatever I’m working on.  Has an iPhone app that syncs.

eBay – I can’t forget the place that keeps the lights on :)  I use eBay for lots of things, including increasing my video game collection in the basement, and selling off extra things around the house I don’t need any more.

VIM - Excellent text editor – I’m a command line guy, so I don’t even use GVIM (the one with the GUI) – I use straight VIM from the command line.  It can do so much, and I know I’ve only cracked the surface of it’s capabilities.

Gmail - I’ve been a Gmail user since the invite-only days, and haven’t looked back since.  The philosophy of Gmail is simple – archive everything, don’t file.  The biggest advantage is the fact that I can do a lightning fast search of my email (and chats) for the past 7 years, which means that for every site that I’ve signed up for or order I’ve placed, I can look it up.  I also use the Contacts feature within Gmail as my main contact manager.  I sync this with my iPhone using their Exchange server, so I keep my contacts all in one place (as opposed to scattered from program to program, which is what usually happens)

PuTTY – Since almost all of my work is done via command line on remote Unix machines (for home and work), I rely on having a good terminal program to get there.  On the Mac, I just use the standard built-in terminal, but on Windows, I use PuTTY.  It’s free, and it does exactly what I need it to.  I’ve tried using other terminals like SecureCRT, but I always come back to tried and true PuTTY.

Chrome – Browsers go in and out of fashion with me, and lately my favorite has been Chrome.  It’s super fast, secure, and it’s not a memory hog like FireFox.  I’m interested in writing some HTML5 games, and Chrome is where it’s at for that as well, so I don’t see myself changing anytime soon.

Picasa - Another Google product, surprise surprise :)  I have a *lot* of photos.  I’ve tried several different programs for organizing them, and Picasa is where it’s at for me.  I’m actually considering switching to a Mac for home use next year (I’ve been using a Mac for work for the past 6 months and love it), and I’m not sure I’ll stick with Picasa then, with some potentially better programs out there.

iTunes - Love it or hate it, it’s the program to use if you use iDevices (which our household is full of) – I switched to iTunes (from WinAmp) a long time ago, and don’t ever really see the point of switching.  It works.

KeePass – I’ve you’re like me, you sign up for a lot of websites.  Well, I can’t memorize usernames and passwords very well, so I need a program that can work well (at least on Windows) to be able manage my accounts.  Unfortunately, it’s not very platform-independent, so I’ll probably need to find something else soon.

Google Reader - More love for the almighty Google.  I use their reader to get my daily dose of geek news.  I have tons of subscriptions — so much so that I get thousands of items in my feed a week.  Keeps me up to date.

Google Calendar - My whole family uses Google Calendar to keep track of all of our hectic schedules.  I love the fact that I can sync with everyone’s calendar on my iPhone and be able to add/view events for my daughters and wife, and vice versa.  A necessity in this household.

Google+ - I’ve been a + member since the very beginning, and really like it for keeping up with people I find interesting on the net.  Not many of my “RL” friends have moved over to it, but most of the “Technorati” have, and it’s cool to see what’s going on in the industry.

Facebook - Ah yes, Facebook.   As much as I love G+, Facebook is here to stay.  I go there when I want to see what my friends and family are up to, as 99% of them won’t use Google+ or Twitter.  Still fills a need.

Well, that’s about it for stuff that I use all the time.  Do you have a program or website that you think I should check out?  Let me know, since I’m always looking for the ideal way to do things.

Cool Tools: VIM

Posted by on November 17, 2011 2 comments

One thing that I cannot live without is a text editor, namely VIM.  VIM was first released as free and extended version of the VI program found on all Unix machines.  I first cut my teeth on VI when I started my sysadmin career, and switched to VIM a couple of years later.  VIM by default works mostly like VI, but i’ts highly configurable, and has a lot of power, especially when you start working with your .vimrc.  Since starting with the editor, I’ve carried my .vimrc from machine to machine, and company to company.  I’m continually updating it, and while there’s not a ton of stuff here, I thought I’d share it in case someone gets some value:

" Ed Salisbury's .vimrc
" Last Modified: 11/17/11

" Make VIM act like VIM, not VI
set nocompatible

" Set up TABs
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set softtabstop=4
set expandtab
set smarttab
set autoindent
set smartindent

" Set up syntax highlighting
syntax on
filetype plugin on
filetype indent on
set formatoptions=qroc
set cindent

" Misc settings
set number       " Print line numbers
set background=dark
set pastetoggle=<F2>

I’d consider these settings a starting point for doing code/web development. Of course, there are tons of more complicated .vimrc files out there, but this should be good for starters. If you’re interested as to what each of these settings do, you can type :helpin VIM and it will display the help file.

MyPixelPal v. 1.6 Released

Posted by on August 8, 2011 33 comments

I’ve released version 1.6 of MyPixelPal.  Nothing major in this release, just minor bugfixes, like the bead counts not showing up.   Please let me know if you see any other issues.

Wow, it’s April already?

Posted by on May 1, 2011 3 comments

So far, 2011 has been very good for me, albeit a bit busy.  I have so many projects going on right now — so many that I’m not sure where to begin.  I was reading a “guide” on how to manage this situation, and it said to list them out, and then pick the easiest things to get done and go from there.  I’ve started to do this a little bit, but I feel like this is a project in and of itself!

Since it’s now spring, people have been selling things on Craigslist, and I, of course, have been buying them.  Today’s finds came in the form of three different posts.  The first was an Apple ][e, the second was an Intellivision and the third was a Neo Geo Pocket Color.   These were going for decent (i.e. cheap) prices, so I couldn’t pass them up.  Here’s how my day went:

Went to pick up the Apple.  The guy had it set up on his back porch and had me come take a look at it.  It worked fine, although it didn’t have a disk drive, just the CPU/keyboard and monitor, for $30.  Sold.

Next was the Intellivision.  It was at an estate sale, and he had a big box full of stuff.  For the right price (in this case $30), I don’t even look at stuff closely — I just grab.  He had some vintage toys as well that he threw in for a total of $35.  Into the back of my Highlander it all went.

Third was the Neo Geo pocket color, plus 6 games.  The unit was in great condition, games in cases, etc.  Picked it up for $40.

After a nice day out with the family, we finally got home and I unloaded everything.  I then started looking at what it was that I actually bought.  It turns out, there were 2 Intellivision II’s and 1 Intellivision III (boxed), plus like 20-30 games (complete) – I still need to go through them all, but I did some preliminary searching on the net and was a little shocked to find that a lot of the games were very rare — for example, “Spiker”, complete in box goes for around $240.   Others were Commando and Body Slam (complete) — each going for like $70-80 a piece – crazy!

So, here’s where I’m at with my new finds — I know I got a killer deal on everything today (that’s the way I buy stuff), but wasn’t expecting to get *that* good of a deal.  Now, I need to go through everything, inventory them, clean up the consoles, test, put the games into box protectors (just bought 100 today) and figure out what I want to do with them.  On one hand, I really like having lots of systems and games, but I’m not sure I need all of this stuff. I’d like to eventually set up a store on eBay to sell everything, but until then, I gotta figure out my plan.  I’m glad I bought the stuff, but I need to get a handle on everything.

One project that I’d like to work on is a database to keep track of the stuff I have.  I’ve thought about using off the rack software for this, but it always gets to be a situation where it doesn’t quite work the way I want it to.   My current thought is to create a generic web-based database solution, that makes it so that I can easily modify it for the collection du jour.

I still want to work on MyPixelPal ver. 2.0, but with everything else I’m working on, it’s hard to fit it in.  I have another program that I want to write to manage music collections (the way *I* want to)   I want to work on restoring the Atari 1040 STF I got from my cousin when I was out in California last month, using a hydrogen peroxide treatment.  I want to work on hacking my 2600′s to have S-Video and analog audio out ports.  I want to finish organizing my music collection.  I need to finish organizing my family photos.

These are a few of the projects that I have going on right now, and I’m going a little crazy trying to keep track of everything, to the point where I feel overwhelmed and don’t do *anything*.   What do you do to keep some sanity when you have many projects going on at once?

What Happened to PerlerPal?

Posted by on December 9, 2010 10 comments

As you might have noticed, perlerpal.com is no more.  I recently got contacted by some lawyers that stated that I was infringing on the Perler® trademark by using that within the website name.  I was a little shocked, but knowing what I do about trademark laws, I know that you have to fight for them to keep them.  I wasn’t too bent out of shape about it, as it’s not like I make any money from the site.   The odd thing is, when I created the tool (way before transferring it to it’s own domain), I didn’t even think about the infringement.  I thought that it sounded good, and just went with it.  I had created it for me, my kids, and the rest of the internets to be able to make “Melty bead creations” easier.

After a couple of days of noodling, I my wife came up with MyPixelPal.com.  I moved everything over and changed links wherever I could find them to the new location.  In a way, this was a good change.  Since the tool can be used for other crafts (cross-stitch, LEGO® bricks, other melty-beads), it makes sense for it to have a more generic name.  The new site doesn’t have any of the new features I’m planning, but at least it’s now no longer infringing.   Please let me know if you find anything broken with the new site.

Publish or Perish

Posted by on December 7, 2010 No comments

Something that was going through my head today as I was brainstorming on ways to be more productive was the phrase “Publish or Perish”.  The deal is, I have many projects that I have either not finished (but got so close!) or finished, but never shared with anyone.  For whatever reason, I either don’t have the desire to finish the project (usually because I feel that it’s just not good enough), or I don’t feel like people would be interested in what I have to show them.  For the past year, my best friend Chris has been bugging me to post a paper that I wrote in my English Comp II class last year about the film Pulp Fiction.   Well, in the first (of many I hope) things to share with you, my dear readers, here it is.

Pulp Fiction – A Modern Classic

New MyPixelPal Site in Development

Posted by on November 18, 2010 2 comments

To my perler people — I’m working on designing a new version of the perlerpal mypixelpal site, and will hopefully be including things that people are interested in.  If you have something you’d like to see in the new version, please let me know, so I can accommodate you if possible.  Here’s some of the features I’m looking at having:

  • User logins with Facebook login support
  • Everyone having their own area for reference images that won’t go away periodically (unlike today)
  • Your own palettes (instead of sharing with everyone)
  • Generating an image instead of using tables (which should fix some browser printing issues as well as have a more finite spacing ability)
  • A resizing option / cropping
  • A forum to discuss the site vs. my blog
  • A gallery where people can upload photos of their finished creations
  • Rating and comment system for the gallery
  • The ability for users to flag inappropriate gallery images

That’s what I have so far.   If you have any ideas on what would be good to include, please let me know!

Fun with WordPress / Disqus

Posted by on November 17, 2010 No comments

So, I just learned tonight that the comments that I had been posting in response to comments people had made were not making it to the web, although they showed up in the dashboard.  Not sure what’s going on there, but needless to say, I was disappointed to find out that the stuff I had commented on never got seen.  I know I’m not the most diligent of responders, but this is ridiculous.  I’m going to make it a point to go through and respond to everyone (again).   This time with feeling!   Thanks for your understanding.

Timeslicing My Life

Posted by on September 26, 2010 3 comments

Time keeps on slippin...
Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of projects I want to work on, vs. the amount of time I have to devote to them. I’m down with GTD, so I’m familiar with setting up projects, next actions, etc., but that doesn’t seem to help me actually get anything done. Typically, I like to work many hours on projects, which doesn’t fit well with having an increasingly large number of projects to work on.

After a while of thinking about this last week, I thought about how a computer handles multitasking, and on a whim, I googled “timeslicing my life”, and found an interesting article by Chris Brogan entitled Timeslicing for Humans, which appeared to be exactly what I was looking for. I started doing this on Saturday, and have managed to get a lot of things done this weekend, most of which I’ve been putting off until I had more time to work on them. Working on things for 20 minutes at a time (going over as needed), I’m able to cycle through the 20 projects I have allotted in 4 hours, allowing for 3 cycles on weekend days and 2 to 3 on weekdays. If it keeps working for me, I’ll consider working several of my work projects in (but will keep them cycling all day, instead of finishing at normal workday’s end. Many times, I have no idea what I should work on next. I fixed this by using a 20-sided die, and re-rolling if I’ve already worked on that project in that cycle. When done with all of the projects for that cycle, start the cycle over.

Something I’ve found that’s interesting with this approach is that with some projects, I don’t know what to do next. I use that time to research my next actions. I use Evernote to keep track of my projects/next actions, which works really well for what I’m doing. Another cool thing — some projects I tend to backburner because they’re not interesting to me at the moment, or dread them for whatever reason. I’ve found that giving them 20 minutes of my time is no problem at all, and that the time actually flies by!

If you find yourself having too much to do, with too little direction (my issue), I invite you to try this out — it might work for you. And with that, my wedding photos are finally scanned, and a new blog post has been written. Something must be working right…