Older blog entries for 8bit (starting at number 8)

I got langmast back to the way I had it before, only now in GTK-- (config file w/ checkboxes to modify.) Okay, so it's a tad bit more advanced in development now (creates tab in notebook for each language in config.) I ran into a little jam, but hopefully I can get it out of the way by monday. I haven't been programming for a while cause recently I've been extra lazy. I set up a simple perl script to display text files in a textarea so I can edit files from school. The java ssh app screws up the vi session so badly I can hardly stand it. Now all I gotta do is bug my bro to install gtk-- so I can start developing. Humm, but I can't actually RUN it from school. >Stupid though< I'll modify the vnc server (vnc no like firewall) so it displays a single window as a gif w/ an imagemap. Clicking on the imagemap makes the xserver click there on the x app and reload the page w/ the results. Text could be entered with a small input form. hur hur hur, boy I have some stupid ideas. Maybe though...maybe.

I recently switched back to WindowMaker from E, and this time I'm accepting the dock (but not the clip.) Becuse I'm using the dock I have to rewrite a modem control app I wrote a while back. Most of the code was ripped from Beej's Network Guide, but it does the trick. I have a crappy little 486 dial on demand server and I wrote a set of apps to turn on and off the modem w/o telneting in using UDP. It's very insecure, so if you feel the urge to trash the system look around magpage.com for a box called rooter. Yep, I have a dynamic IP, so I pretty confident you can't do much. Maybe I'll package the whole system so lazy people and non-programmers can have the luxury of not logging in.

I'm reworking my webpage. Right now there's nothing, just a stupid coverpage. I dunno, should I go ultra-graphical or keep w/ the simplicity. Ohh well, I guess it depends on what I want to put on the page (programs I made for sharing and braging, and that's as far as I got.) Ohh well.

mwuahahha. it do be the night of the dead. Ohh well, who cares. As my classmates go out trick or treating (yeah, it's sad hearing 16 and 17 yearolds talking about what costume they're gonna wear), I have better things to do. I got a new mouse :) My old mouse kept on screwing up and I ran out of mouse buttons to replace the broken ones with, so I got a Logitech Marble. I don't really like the idea of a mouse not haveing three buttons, but I can get use to it. I'm also getting interested in Darwin. Seeing how I only have Intel boxen, I might have to learn and do some kernel programming :) That should be fun. With MacOS X I just might get a Cube :) If I only had that kinda money (*drool* .5gig ram, 40gig hdd, 22" theatrical display *goes comatose*) As for language master I'm not getting much work done cause I'm too damn lazy when I get home. I try programming at school, but the librarian doesn't like me using a java SSH applet, she wants to know what I'm gonna do and what exactly SSH is. I'll do what I damn well please on my computer and not explain it to anyone. I REALLY hate it when people ask what I'm doing on the computer because it's usually something stupid and embarassing to explain ({sarcastic gay lispy voice} I'm picking out themes. *tisk* Don't you just LOVE this façade?) or too complicated to explain to someone who doesn't really care (I'm writing a one-liner to download all the pictures from this site and then generate a webpage for it by using some basic unix shell scrip and perl, but for some reason it's not working. Oh, I forgot the semicolon! Duh! *other person nods and says `yes' and runs away frantically*) So that's pissing me off. So far she'll let me use it, but she has to contact her supervisor. *thwacks head* So annoying I can't find words to express it. Okay whatever, I'm done with me weekly ranting. I have to pluck my gray hairs (yes it's true, I have gray hairs.)

After careful consideration, I've decided to learn Gtk--. I figured that if I used a work around I'd only have to make another one for other things, so Gtk-- will clean that up (hopefully.)

There's this OneVote thing at school. Channel-One (a stupid morning news program that they play during homeroom,) wants all the highschool students to vote for president, governer and district rep. They're doing this to get us interested in politics. Bah! They didn't even have a write in box (votes done via web, yep their server crashed after all the schools had their students do it at the same time :)! I want to vote for McCain (you heard me,) but no. They had the independent part buy and the Green party (the heck? green?), but NO write in. Ohh well, I voted for Bush if you had to know. I know he badmouthed the net, but so does every other politician. Bush was just being flat out honest on his position.

Okay enough politics. Another thing is I finally got gNapster and tried it out. I must say its impressive, this whole p2p thing I mean. My philosophy on it is this. Abstract things should be 100% free. Information, knowledge, books, music, photography and other visual arts, movies, etc. That doesn't mean source code mind you. They can keep their code so long as its freeware. (but idealy everything should be public domain.) Pretty much anything that can be expressed in 1s and 0s is free. Of course we get into more complicated matters such as authers rights, but pretty much things are copywritten, so don't plagurize, and if the author wants money he can publish his work on hardcopy. Hardcopy isn't abstract, so that's gonna cost. Just thought I'd put my 2 cents on this issue.

Now if y'all excuse me, I have some Jimi to download.

ack! I finally get started on language master and I run into a jam. It seems GTK doesn't like people using class members as a callback. I have two choices, I make a non- class callback and use a struct data pointer that has a pointer to a class function, language number and toggle state. OR I can use gtk--. I dunno, it might be worth while to learn gtk--. I think I'll take it easy for a while longer. I just might try studying with these notes I collect. I dunno, in the past reading notes did nothing, and I still they they're a waste of paper.

Ho hum, loads of things to do, but I think I'll just sit and wait for nothing. Got a new project I wanna do. BIO: Biologically Intelligent Organism. A gameboy game, and obviously far far down the line. Right now I got a couple firends willing to help, but I don't plan on doing anything till winter vacation, and maybe not then either. Language master right now only has a GUI, I need to shove a config file reader in there and some preliminary word-list editor, dictionary and tester...then I can work on fine tuning the good features. I learned about class inheritence, some wacky stuff there. Right now I'm so lazy I think I won't even make this program, or any other for that matter. I'll just ease into my cozy routene of wake, eat, school, homework, tv, sleep and be done with the world. Well, no. One of my goals in life is to make a mark on the world. Not so much as having a household name, but to change the world globaly for the better. HAH! The only things I can think of to acheve that is to do a cunning coup and take over the world, impliment a shogun system for a government with me pulling the strings. Or I could just work to fight stupid patents, get people to write PUBLIC DOMAIN (screw open source, you know not to plagurize, it called COPYRIGHT...GPL this, EULA that!) and tell rich fat-cat artists to cram it! I thought that artists did it cause they like to entertain, but no, now it's all about the money. And that's another thing: MONEY! The cycle of money in Joe Shmoe's life. Birth, play until age four, go to school to prepare for a job, get job, work until too old to continue working, retire and lose money with no income, die. There is NO room for fun. You don't understand real FUN when you are younger than four. When you are old and retired you are too old and feble to have FUN. And when you are in between everything truely fun takes months and years to do and experience. But you only have a two week vacation every year to relax. No room for fun, just room to relax so there isn't a big prole-bourgeois riot. Well FAH! I think I'll become a hobo, thank you very much. Ohh to hell with it, I'm just gonna watch some TV and go to sleep.

Ack! My radical reducer didn't work so I have to debug that. That should take a couple of days. I decided to expand Spanish Master into Language Master. It seems that English words are starting to pose a problem too. And what the heck, I'll throw in Esperanto while I'm at it. (Yes I know Esperanto, but not fluently. Mainly knowing the words are preventing my proficency in this language.) That will take a longer while because I still need to learn about class inheritence. I'm not going to use wxWindows because the developers were too dumb to include a tutorial. I'm writing LM in GTK+ and forgetting about a windows copy for now cause my grades depend on it. :)

Well, all these projects are taking a very long while because I am depressed or something. I dunno, I just have no motivatoin what so ever to program anymore and that's scary. I had to write redrad (radical reducer) with pencil and paper! When I'm on the computer I just sit there and chat w/ people and when I get away from it I just watch TV or something. Well I guess it's not depression cause I don't have thoughts of suicide. But then again I hold life very high and wouldn't remotely think about it. *shrug* I guess I'll have to take my C++ books and code to class and TRY and not look too geeky. Damn high school people are too judgemental. :) ahh well, two more years.

Necesity is the mother of invention. Well, that's the case for now, but I still think it's a crock. I'm taking Spanish and I find that I can't remember all my words. So, I'm going to ressurect my ancient Pascal SpanishMaster program. It was written for DOS and had it's own input technique which was pretty dope at the time (simulated deadkeys.) Now I'm going to reincarnate it into Spanish Master TWO POINT OH! (echo, echo, echo) It will be written in wxWindows because I'd like to have a Windows version and 'cause I'm always learning. You'll soon realize that I like to learn something and then rarely if ever use it from that point on. For example, Motif. I can program Motif, but I dumpped it and went for GTK. Now I'm going for wxWindows.

Anyway, more on SM2. It will save a master list of words and let you look through it like a dictionary. It will also let you create quiz lists in preperation of unit quizzes. The program will (hopefully) remember which words you look up in dictionary mode and how often you get words right in the quiz so it can fine tune your tests. This will probably be the most difficult part to implement after wxWidnows. I'm also looking for a graphics designer to make a nice SM2 logo :) For once I actually care how my program is going to look.

I'm also getting back into Z80 assembly. I'm polishing off my Radical Reducer (as seen on ticalc.org) for the TI83. I wrote this like three years ago and found it to be extremely stupid in design. :) I found a TI-Basic program that did the same thing and going to use the algorithim used there and plug it into my assembly program. Why? Assembly is FASTER and it will look much nicer when you run it. So look forward to that as well.

Wow, I'm doing so much. I just hope I don't forget to do them in all this excitement. :)
Pues, mis amigos, ¡chao! (you gotta love those deadkeys)

Okay, I haven't been doing much since I've been going back to school. I've been swamped with homework and school just leaves me too wasted to program. :) It seems my sleeping habits need readjustment and that means no caffeine after school. :( I actually did manage to bang out two programs before school, Alarm and Pig. Alarm is usable, but for some reason the eSound process leaves a core file behind. Can someone fix that for me? Both programs were made for the heck of it, (but I acutally use alarm to remind myslef that the Invisible Man is playing on SCI-FI! Too bad I forgot to set an alarm yesterday.) I've decided NOT to make a FreeBSD ports manager because the fatures that I'd put in it were already provided w/ console commands, so making it would only be academic. I'm looking for programming projects peoples! Help me fight the boredom! For now I'll just be working on my webpage and maybe to a regular article on stuff I see in the news. *shrug*

My preliminary webpage is up (see url above.) I'm starting to learn GTK+ so I can possibly create a ports manager for FreeBSD. Hopefully I won't get bored or forget about it before I start. :)