Particle System Simulation
Decided to revive a program I liked in college.
I was doing most things in Turbo Pascal then. I remember spending hours tweaking it and leaving it running like a screen saver.
Blog Changes
- I took some time to remove some tags from previous posts. Some have gone away completely, and some have been converted to other existing tags.
- Many tags now have icons associated with them.
RSS Feed changed
I changed the blog rss feed from Atom.xml to JSON Feed. If you were using the old feed, you will likely need to delete and re-add with the new one. I highly doubt many people I know would even use RSS, but thought it was worth mentioning, just in case.
I changed it because the JSON feed is easier to deal with and the reader I use handles it fine.
Do over again
Changes to the blog layout and mechanics of posting to it. It was a statically built site. I would run a local job to generate the site and then upload the output to the server. Very fast, but it was a pain to update the blog. So, I didn't. Now I can upload a single file to add a new blog entry. This means the pages are dynamic now, so things are a little more complex and more can go wrong on. I also ran into a few issues on initial deploy that I will need to fix now, but nothing major.
I now need to refine the procedure for posting to the blog. It's fairly simple depending on whether there are images to add for the blog entry. I also have to make sure that I update my local source control with the updates. Otherwise, I could lose content if the server has to be re-deployed. I may end up writing an app or some shortcuts for this, but I think I can accomplish most of it with a combination of the Drafts app and the Working Copy app.
Getting side projects done
I have had this on my list of side projects for so long, it's crazy. It feels good to have it done. I have some other long term features to add that I can start now. There used to be an image gallery, and I still have the images, but I'm not sure about the metadata that powered it. I think I have it in an old backup copy.
Adding a dark mode based on browser configuration is also easy - I already have the ability to change themes in the CSS.
Another Big Blog Update
Well, it has been a year since I last updated the blog. Too long, I update Instagram, Twitter, and even Facebook more often. I need to change this.
Why do I not update the blog more often? Hassle, I made it too hard to update the blog. I need to make it easier. So I have changed how the blog works on the server side. It's not as efficient as the statically rendered version of the site. But I have more control over how the site works, and it's easier for me to add new blog posts.
I'm currently planning on keeping my other accounts, but I will likely just be re-posting from the blog, or posting links to the blog.
So let's see how it goes this time.
Styles and appearance of this site will likely change around as I decide what I want.
New Website
Meet the new Website, same as the old website.
I switched to blogger a while back. It was nice having free hosting. But I have to say I've remained underwhelmed with the features there. Posting was nice, but then the app was removed so I had to go to the website to post, or find a third party app to post. Theming was nice, but I'm a programmer and I sometimes want to add something funky to the site.
Back to roll your own site. Well, almost.
- First get your data out of blogger. It's great that google makes this easy to do. You may have to write some code to get the images and convert the blog posts to a format that can be used somewhere else. I think Markdown makes the most sense.
- Pick a hosting service. I decided to use Linode. I should be fine with the basic plan $5 a month.
- Pick a blog engine. I'm going with Hexo it's a simple node based engine that generates a static site. This will reduce processor costs.
- Pick a theme - I started with the default Hexo theme.
- My domain is still being managed by hover.
How do I update the blog
- New posts are created normally in Drafts on my iPad or phone. Since their written in Markdown I can create them any where I want to.
- I have created a few actions in drafts to help with post creation.
- I add tags to the blog entry so that it is easy to find within the site.
- Once the post is ready I save it to a shared drive so I can generate the updated site with Hexo.
- I then deploy the site to linode. For now I'm doing this manually - but this can all be automated.
Chromebook First Impressions
On a whim, I bought an ASUS Chromebook C300MA-DB01. I wanted to see if it could work as a secondary work computer. I don't have a laptop at work, and I'm not comfortable with leaving my Macbook Air there all the time.
I fully expected to be a little disappointed with the performance and screen quality. I also expected to be annoyed by the simplistic browser based OS. Wow! was I wrong. If you are ok with storing things in the cloud, and using Google services, then this might be a perfect second device. While on my work network, I can ssh into my main computer, I can remotely edit code, and I can test websites with chromes developer tools. All of my Chrome bookmarks and extensions were there the moment I logged in, and there's a good selection of apps on the app store.
The only problem I have had so far, is with getting my work VPN connection setup correct. The Chrome OS needs to provide easier setup for VPN configuration. However, based on information other Chromebook users have compiled, I should be able to get VPN working correctly. It's just not a simple configuration. If I use it mainly at work, I won't really need the VPN to work.
I could easily suggest this as a secondary cheap alternative to a table or laptop for my Developer friends. Some of the newer models even have better screens. But, don't expect something this cheap to blow you away with build quality.
I can easily suggest a Chromebook as a primary device for family members or normal people that do not require special software or graphics heavy games. Most people do not need more than this. And it's more secure and easier to use than Windows or Mac OSX.
Broken Images
I imported blog posts from our older Wordpress blog, but have not fixed the image links yet - I'll be doing this as I can, so be patient please.
Picture Gallery
I have been working with the Flex 2 SDK and Flex Builder. I re-wrote our picture gallery in Flex. It requires Flash 9, and should prompt you to install it.
Update
This part of the site does not currently exist. Long dead tech.
Oops, Site was broke
Hmm, looks like the site has been broke in Explorer for more than a week. The problem became visible when we added the Amazon links. Apparently there was a missing greater than on a script end tag. Firefox was fine with it, but Explorer freaked all out.
Problem fixed, there's nothing to see here, move along.