Pokin' around the code

I've been messing with some more codes as of this past week, and weekend.

I've finished up completely rewriting the Product Pages for the new release of HitRunScore.com, and have finished up all but a couple graphics for the FreeformFrog.com store. I even started looking into creating a Twitter Google Talk bot replacement.

I've got the concept written down, which didn't take long to deduce. I just have to get all the pieces working, and then make them work together. There are a few things that I need to find out if they're publicly accessible, or if only Twitter could access them. If they are the only ones that can access a few particular features, then recreating the bot will be a little more difficult, but not by much.

I also finally got around to updating the CSS and adding/removing some Widgets from this blog. Got my Last.fm playlist up finally, and installed Songbird on all my computers where I listen to Music, so I can start scrobling my songs as I listen - since I am listening to them for nearly all of the workday.

That's about all for now - all I do lately is work: at work, at home, and in bed (with a laptop on the nightstand).

Post-Valentine's Day update

Well, I've been focusing a lot of my spare time on my tech projects that I have going lately...and that seems to be the pattern around times like this weekend: when ever there is relationship fodder going around in my life, during those time that I cannot participate, I turn my attention to technology.

This month is dedicated to getting the Freeformfrog.com store online for the first legitimate time in the previous 5 years of conceptualization. I've been keeping up with how things are going via a blog so that people will get to see what goes on behind the scenes of a store, but also to use it as a platform for extending the reach via twitter, feedburner, and (later) the social sites.

It's been a good full-duplex experience for me, because at the same time, I have a parallel project at my real job, that is essentially redesigning our entire yahoo store. During my own store setup, I've gotten to implement some of the ideas for utilizing social networking that I was not immediately permitted to use in our own store...but also developed new ones, that we *did* utilize (primarily by just doing first, and asking later, if at all). I figure if it helps my job, or helps my personal store, it will help me.

I also discovered today that Google allows for syncing one's Windows Mobile phone, via ActiveSync, to get one's Google Calendar and Gmail Contacts. Unfortunately, you can't sync multiple calendards from Google - just the main one. So that gave me the outlet to cancel my subscription with OggSync, which I had been using before - and which I had no problems with (except the annoyance of the popup when I tried to exit, letting me know that it'll start up as needed because I told it to - granted, this was a setting I chose, but the notification still annoyed me).

So now, I have an interest in setting up [[Apoch]], my Windows 2008 Server, to house an Exchange Mail Server, and redoing [[Oracle]] from XP to Windows 2008, so that I can set that up as my phone's remote Exchange Server. Then I'll be able to get my home emails to my phone over the mobile internets. That will help with fulfilling orders on my new store, since I'll have to be on top of it, if they order a 1-day delivery.

Otherwise, on the social front, there have been a couple contacts made with people from my distant past. I find it interesting how memories that has since moved to the furthest part of the back of one's mind, can be brought immediately to the forefront - as well as the physical/mental affects this resurfacing can induce.

Anyway, this weekend went by quick...the week went by quicker than it felt like it would last Monday too. I didn't do anything on Saturday, but tonight I saw Bolt with MoriEndi, NarcolepticTime, and Beef. It was good for what it was - but wasn't something I was terribly interested in seeing when I saw the previews. It was a typical Disney mushy-adventure-sad-happy story. But it was also only $1.50 - so no complaints there. I did notice that they also have Yes Man and Day the Earth Stood Still showing at the same theater. So I will probably go see those on my own for such a cheap price.

But for now, I'm off to bed. I have to finish my project tomorrow at work, because I'm now a week behind due to several unforeseen complications with regular work, mixed with trying to get things right on the first try with the project.

Out on a limb...

So...I don't have a solution for the previous religion post. I just know I fail alot when it comes to matters of philosophy, and in matters of psychology - I find that I am an exception because of the skewed perspective I have of things. So, I'm just going to go about my business, with whatever direction the whims of my mind take me...and lately there has been new direction.

It's been a month into this year already, and my local friends (which were formerly my Plano Friends) and I have been going on photoshoots with some of the younger-crowd from flickr...namely Rachel and Eric to this point...and it's been fun. It's been good to get out of the house, and find something creative to do - to try and get some different perspective on the world, but not perspective that I have to adhere to.

Like I've mentioned in previous posts I've been doing a lot more coding lately - even more at work, and that too has given me a different perspective on things. It's kind of empowering really to realize that it's withing one's realm of accomplishment to think of what hasn't been done, but would serve one's purposes better - and then to go do it. I envy the ability of carpenters and electrical engineers to build things like buildings and electronic devices on a whim. But at the same time, I'm glad that I can either write or hack computer code to make it do what I want on a whim.

I started working on the FreeformFrog.com store this past weekend, and I nearly finished the modifications to the code, and the new design graphics, and most of the configuration in just one day. You'd think it would be simple since I've restarted this store at least 5 times in the last 5 years. But this time, I gave myself a fixed date for completion, and it should be live and accepting orders March 1, 2009.

I decided that since my boss won't let me design our new store in the manner that it needs to be designed and developed, then it would behoove me to create another source of income for myself, incase things do not go as well as planned.

I'm finding it more difficult than any previous website that I've designed, because I'm apprently not the one designing it - even though I have to come up with preliminary designs in order to convey the page structure and technology to a handful of people who were, apparently, born with no imagination whatsoever.

Whatever. It's just a testament to the fact that if I were allowed to handle this as the web developer, since I'm sitting in that position at the moment, I'd already have a working website up by now - we started in November.

On that note, and having said everything this far, I've made a subconscious decision to move forward in this direction...to start expanding my skills on the things that I have been putting off for years because I didn't believe I could do it. Something changed this past winter though, and all the sudden, I was able to formulate the internal workings of information systems in my head.

It's just reinforcement, I guess, that it's what I'm made to do...and it has become a cure for the bordem that was starting to set in being couped up in the apartment all weekend. So that, combined with adding a couple friends to the group on a more regular basis, has got me feeling like I'm going out on a new limb to see what's at the end of it.