Time seems to be really good at running away with me. So, anyhow, here's the scoop on stuff. Things are finally slightly lighter on the homework side of the world. I did get my new monitor. It's nice having two, but I don't necessarily like the CRT, cause it's big and gets in the way, so I might get rid of it. As far as MLX 2.0 goes, I made some progress over spring break. The bad news is that one of the features is proving to be more resistive than I'd expected (almost there though) and there's another couple big features to implement that I'd sorta forgotten about. It's gonna be good though when it rolls out.
Oh, and only 5 weeks of school left. Plus, a bunch of those days off. Two next week 'cause I'm going for a college visit. The week after, one because of ACT (which I've already taken and don't have to do again) and another for a college visit. The week after that is normal, but then the two weeks after that are AP tests, meaning I'll be missing like 4 days of school (4 AP tests) AND we don't have Friday of that last week, so... It's almost over. YAY!!!!!
My apologies for the complete lack of updates. Things have been absolutely crazy busy since winter break. Time's sort of run away from me, and I can barely believe that summer vacation is only 2 months away - even so, it can't come soon enough. What most of you probably want to know is, what's going on with MacLampsX 2.0? To be honest, it's not much. I think (and don't take my word for it, since I haven't looked in quite a while) that there are only a couple little things left to do for MacLampsX 2.0. I was planning to release a companion program, LampFactoryX, at the same time, but I'm starting to think it'd be a good idea to just release MLX alone because it's been so long. The good news is the week after next is my spring break, and I should finally be getting the second monitor (and the free time) I need so that I can wrap up development on MLX 2.0. The bad news is that the second monitor was supposed to be here today (the tracking page even said loaded on the truck for delivery), but then FedEx decided to unload it from the truck and hold it at their facility until Monday (four freaking more days) for no apparent reason. Ah well.
MacLampsX 2.0 isn't ready yet, which means it won't be happening this Christmas. At least, not beforehand. I've still got A LOT to do before 2.0 is ready, and I'm going out of town from tomorrow, and won't be back till January, so... no 2.0 this year. I will be taking a laptop along, so I'll probably get a chance to work on it some, but I doubt I'll make much progress. In the meantime, I've still got a lot of packing to do, and a lot to do before I start packing, so I'm off... Happy Holidays!
Another progress update here, while I'm procrastinating from my work - I've been working on MacLampsX a bunch this week. Managed to either put off or not have (I'm not entirely sure which) most of my homework, so I got more done than usual. Partly due to being sick. Anyhow, I thought I'd give an update on how development is coming. I think I've finished maybe half of the hard work. I'm less than half way through my list of things to do, but I'm pretty sure that the first five things required the most work because they came with a major change of architecture, which should encompass all the major changes I needed to make for the rest of the updates to fit in. Which is basically to say that I'm making good progress, and I'd really like to be coding now instead of doing homework.
Just thought I'd let you all know - I spent today home sick, and the so the last six or seven hours have been spent sitting in a big poofy rocking chair under a big thick blanket typing code while being roasted alive by my iBook. Seriously.
Anyway, the good news is that I'm getting really really close to having it ready for multiple screens. Let me just say it's been a lot of work. Mostly because I'm also trying to improve the internal structure too, which should make it easier if I decide to go up to more screens (right now it's limited to four), as well as making other things easier in the future. Hopefully it'll also speed up the drawing a touch. We'll see. Now I think I'm off to take a nap.
I'm hard at work on MacLampsX 2.0, but there's still a lot to do. And I know all of you with Intel Macs want a Universal Binary. So... version 1.2 is here, introducing 1 new feature: Universalness. Go get it now.
Just for reference, on my shiny new MacPro, the UB version uses less than a third the CPU that the PPC version did (so, 0.4% instead of 1.4%).
The next month or so, I'm planning on updating MacLampsX to version 2.0 (on top of all the other stuff in my life). 2.0 will have a number of major improvements, including two of the most requested features, support for multiple monitors, and Universal Binary status. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though. I'm planning some other really sweet stuff, but I'm not going to tell you just yet. You'll have to wait and see. Release for 2.0 will be sometime between Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas, depending on how things with school, life, etc. go between now and then.
Feel like political change? Help us to work to repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006. NoMCA.org. The MCA violates the constitutional protections of habeas corpus, establishes ex post facto law, removes the guarantee of a fair and speedy trial, and violates the Geneva Conventions.
WOW... 2 updates in one day. I must not have enough homework. Or maybe I'm just ignoring it... I think that must be it. Anyhow, I just uploaded some photography to the Miscellaneous Stuff page. For lack of a better place to put them. I should really redesign my site with some new categories: Software, art, news, links, tutorials... Anyway, off you get to see the photos.
So, um, I got a Mac Pro this past week. And an iPod. And a new printer/scanner for college (I thought I was gonna get the printer essentially for free, so I went ahead, even though I don't need it for another year). Yeah. Sweet. Oh, and it's fast. Like before, on my iMac, I could barely play a 320x240 H.264 movie without dropping frames. Now I can play two 1080p and one 720p H.264 movies at the same time without dropping frames. Things seem to be almost instantaneous. And I could, if I wanted to, now play music in iTunes at the same time as I do other things. And the activity monitor now uses about 1% CPU (out of 400%) instead of 10% (of 100%). SWEET! See, like, right now, I'm compiling a bunch of software I use, and I can barely tell it's doing anything, except for a few little clicks from the HD every once in a while. Now if I can just get some time away from my homework for a while to write some good apps.
Oh, and while I'm here... I wanted to note a couple things to check out. First, the My Dream App Competition. It looks like if you haven't already seen it, you'll have missed submissions, but there should be some awesome products turned out, so... Second, is Robert Newman's History of Oil. Absolutely hilarious, yet terrifying at the same time. Almost enough to scare me into actually doing something. Maybe. Hopefully. I wonder if I could get a bicycle generator to power my new Mac Pro. Hm...
Isn't it wonderful how time runs away with you? Another two months, and I barely have anything to show for it. This site seems to be turning into a once-every-two-months-I-post-a-blog type thing. AAAAHHHH. I don't like blogs.
What's that? You want to know WHY I'm posting today? Why would you want to know that? Well, I'll tell you anyway. I wanted to inform you all that you should go see "An Inconvenient Truth." Now. Don't look up what it's about before you go, or think about not going or anything like that. Just go look up the time it's showing at the theater nearest you and go see it. I promise there's a good reason. (And no, it's not that they're paying me to get people to see the film). Oh, and for what it's worth, my family bought a Prius. It's cute. It's my dream car. Now I have to come up with another dream car... the tzero is promising...
It's been a while. Two months in fact. We've just got a few days left in school. High school swimming is over, summer swimming is starting up. (yeah... I swim, in case you didn't know). My old iMac died on me about a week ago (flyback transformer or something)... anyway, I picked up a replacement (same model) for it on ebay for about 25 bucks, and the new one has a much nicer display (much much brighter, etc...). So, now I'm back up and running, ready to go for the summer - I've got a couple pet programming projects I'll be trying to turn out this summer, so maybe you'll see some of that. And I think that's enough rambling now. Bye. Oh, and hopefully I'll update more over the summer. God knows I'll have more free time. No, I don't believe in god.
Have you ever met an inspiring TV ad? I've only ever seen one. Apple's "Think Different" advertisement. It runs like this this:
Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
If you've never seen it, I highly recommend that you go see it right now. I generally find it pretty inspiring, and if you happen not to like Apple, you can just ignore the fact that it's an Apple commercial (i.e. ignore the last three seconds or so of it).
In addition, since I was feeling inspired, I made a couple desktops with the text from it... you can pick them up over in the quasi-official desktop gallery
I decided to finally move all the old news updates that have accumulated over the past several years to a separate page (that way casual visitors need not load 20KB worth of my ramblings. I've been toying with the idea of redesigning the site lately, but I think I'm going to wait at least until this summer to do so, for a number of reasons, which I don't feel the need to specify here.
It's been a while. Mostly due to musical. And I get one day off, and look where I am... back here updating. Blah.. By the way, have I mentioned I LOVE photoshop? I spent the last hour (yipes!) messing with some photos I took back in... January I think it was. Lots of things you can do. Have I mentioned I LOVE sebatier? It's a bit of a pain in the darkroom, but in Photoshop... Anyhow, the result is that you have another pic you can download... it's going in the "desktops" gallery under Misc. cause that's where it fits best... which reminds me, I need to reorganize... I'll do that later. Oh, did I mention I'm going ISO on my dates? yyyy-mm-dd in case you weren't aware.
*Note To Self: enough of the ellipses already!*
People have been having a problem with a particular crash in MacLampsX. I fixed it a while back, but was hoping that it would be uncommon enough that I could wait a little to release (i.e. until I had some more features or something like that to add). Unfortunately, it seems to be more common than I'd expected that people don't have TimesNewRoman (that's what causes the crash), so, I bring you all MacLampsX 1.1.1.
Yay! School's out for the holidays! To celebrate, here's a new desktop.
Sincerest apologies to all you not running 10.4 who downloaded MacLampsX yesterday. I jumped at seeing a new compression option (bz2) in DiskUtility for 10.4, and decided to use it, since it produces smaller files. However, in order to decompress it on anything other than 10.4, you must add .bz2 to the end. As of right now, a new download is in place with the correct packaging system. It also includes a "Spacer bulb" which I left out of yesterday's release by accident.
Well, I didn't get to use the ideal solution for my problem, because Apple apparently never bothered to implement certain aspects of the AppKit properly. None the less, I'm pleased to announce to you all today, the immediate availability of MacLampsX 1.1. I'll stop now, since you'll want to be rushing off to download it. It's not as though I had anything more to say anyhow.
For those of you waiting nervously on the edges of your seats for MacLampsX version 1.1, the release is imminent. Unfortunately, I've got one minor bug that I need to work out that has to do with a change Apple made to the AppKit back in 10.3. It causes 10.3 to draw some text upside-down in certain cases while 10.2 draws them correctly. I'm trying to decide how I want to deal with it, and as soon as it's taken care of, we'll have 1.1 "on the shelves" as they say. Happy December
So, I should really be doing homework, but who wants to do that? I decided to procrastinate my making a little poll that you guys can fill out to tell me what I should do in future versions of MacLampsX. Version 1.1 is coming along (slowly). I might have it for you, except that my HD got trashed over the break for some reason. Not sure exactly what it was, but the filesystem got corrupted, so I had to erase and reinstall, which meant that I didn't get to do ANY coding on Thursday and very little on Friday.
Hey hey... fall play is finally over, and I'm getting to the point where I actually have a chance of getting my homework done. Yay! That also means that I now have time to do some work on stuff here. I was going to keep this a secret, but... well...
Basically, the holiday season is coming up again, and with that, I anticipate a large number of people to discover MacLampsX (I remember I used to go looking for an OS X version of HolidayLights every year about this time). That will hopefully mean an increase in the number of bulbs available for MacLampsX. Since the current format for bulbs doesn't allow for people to take credit for their bulbs, I'm hoping to release version 1.1 of MacLampsX, which will, among other things, support additions to the bulb format that allow authors to take credit for their work. This minor extension of the bulb format will be backwards compatible with the original, since the new fields are optional. There will, of course, be other improvements in MacLampsX 1.1, however, since none of those will effect bulb artists, I'm not telling you about the rest of them until I release... I'll just suffice to say that it's mainly new feature stuff, but there will be a bug fix or two as well.
Things are starting to lighten up as we approach Halloween here. I've got a couple of little things in coming down the assembly line, which I hope to have ready for you by Halloween or so. Not much news lately, other than that the fall play crap is coming along, and is almost over, and then I'll feel free again. The only new thing here is just a few minor changes to the MacLampsX documentation... cheers.
Wow! I'm getting really good at not updating my site at all frequently. That's what happens when you take too many classes, or when too many of them are AP classes (or both).
So, yeah. Not much to say, except... Today is the International Day of Peace.I was going to do something to celebrate (probably just wear a t-shirt proclaiming the holiday to school, but...), except that the same classes that are keeping me from updating the site also keep me from doing anything else.
Just a little update on what's coming up: I've got a pretty busy fall ahead, with 8 classes total. The biggest things are the two AP classes, which have quite a lot of homework; my photography class, which keeps me busy for a couple hours a week in the dark room after school; my technical theater class, or more precisely, my job as lighting designer for the fall play; and, potentially, my Digital Video Production class, which, though it's not too demanding right now, may require some time outside class to film stuff. That all doesn't concern you all to much (other than taking up loads of my time), but I do have a couple things that do. I've got a few little things I want to kinda work on this fall (other than just keeping up with schoolwork). I'm thinking of trying to do some arrangements of a few songs (using lilypond), so I may have some midi files up here at some point, and I'd like to bring out at least a small update for MacLampsX. Also, I've got another app that I'm working on for you guys. I'm not saying what it is just yet, but I think you're really going to like it.
Let's see... Not too much new, but it sure is nice to be off school for the summer. Pushed through a minor update of the old Zipper, which has now been named ZipperLite to make way for a product which I hope to begin soon, which will be similar but have many more features.
So... I finally get time more than a month later. Ah well. Happy Valentine's Day! (again). Sorry the new pic is so late. I haven't had much time lately due to a large number of things, all related to school. Now, leave me alone. There won't be a desktop pic for Easter this year. End of story.
Gaaa! Valentine's Day already! I don't even have a desktop done... it's close, but not quite there yet. If you really feel the need for a copy, drop me an email. Otherwise, it should be online as soon as I get the time (unfortunately, a bit late for proper celebration. Oh Well...)
OK, so it was more than a week. Big deal... MacLampsX is here! Enjoy!
Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas. That's right folks. Straight off the production line, we've got a new desktop picture to give out. Enjoy it while you can... Christmas is only 20 days away!!!
Oh, and, I think I might just have a little surprise for all you in a week or so!
We had an eclipse a couple nights ago, as a lot of people did. I spent an hour and a half lying on my roof watching the eclipse and taking photos. I did a bit of processing on the images with Photoshop, and the results are online for anyone who cares.
Oh, and Happy Halloween.
I found out why the .dmg was so big(see below)... turns out, HFS+ partitions have to be at least 3MB... so, I used UFS instead, and magically, it shrinks down so that the dmg is 48KB... guess which one I'm using now...
The holiday season is almost upon us. Halloween is just around the corner, and Thanksgiving and the Winter Holidays (Christmas, or whatever) aren't far behind. I'm hoping to come up with some cool desktop pictures, photographs, and maybe icons for the season, but it'll depend on how things go.
PS. Don't forget to vote on November 2.
New little TicTacToe app today... I was gonna make a fancy .dmg as a package for it, but the dmg was 1.5MB, and the stuffit archive was only 300KB, so that kinda decided that... Anyway, check it out if you want.
Things just seem to get way ahead of you sometimes. I spent almost a month in Europe this summer, and with that and swimming, I have quite a lot to do.
The good news is that I've been working on an update to Zipper quite a bit (no idea when it'll be done, but...) as well as bits and pieces on other programs. I've forgotten to mention it up til now, but I've written a few tutorials about various stuff, and they are available through a link on the Misc. page.
So much for entering Pixelpalooza... I think I'll work on some icons for a whole year (to enter them in 2005), and then maybe I can actually win.
Who was I joking when I said there might be an update to Zipper? So much for that...
On the good side, I finally bought Photoshop, so I can actually almost do real graphic design now. And, pretty soon, I'm gonna buy a book so I can learn to really program...and THEN, I'll put out an update for Zipper. Don't look for that too soon though. Happy Spring Everybody!
Valentine's Day is coming up! I made a few icons for anyone who's interested...
Also, new in the icon field, I traditionally post a crappy entry (not intentionally so... after all, wouldn't it be nice to win a cool prize) over at the Iconfactory's Pixelpalooza Contest. I haven't yet submitted, but do not fear! I will. (I have 'til the end of March anyway...)
Finally, if I get inspired to get my homework done early, there might be an update for Zipper sometime soon.
I seem to be getting slow on site updates here. First things first, I added a small bit to the misc. page, and so, if you really really want to, you can head over there.
Next, I want to bring up a little politics (probably a bad idea, but there you have it).
Free speach has been an important to Americans for over 200 years. Now, more than ever, technology is used to communicate. The internet is a vast resource, however, most people spend more time watching TV. One thing that almost everyone watches on TV is the SuperBowl (did I spell that right?). And so, of course, that can be one of the best places to use one's right of free speech (in the form of advertising). However, CBS has decided to tell some companies that it will not air ads that they are ready to pay for.
They have turned down two ads(to my knowledge): one from MoveOn.org, and one from PETA. As I see it, this is major limitation on our free speech. While it is true that those groups can still have thousands access their ads online and with other stations, people will have to go out of their way to do so. It shouldn't be a company's right to pick which ads it airs, provided the ad is paid for.
Anyway, I wanted to invite all of you (all 2 or so, probably) to check out the ad from MoveOn.org. Click here to play the ad.
Ha hah! And now, presenting... Zipper!
Head over to the Apps page to check it out!
Sorry, nothing new this week either. Y'know... finals week. (actually, it's all the semester projects that I'm having to deal with). If you're lucky, I'll crank out some software and maybe some graphics Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, when I'm off school. Also, just as an FYI, with the possible exception of Wednesday, Thusrday, or Saturday, this is the last update, cause I'm gonna be out of town for X-mas.
Um... nothing new right now(on the site), but I started work this week on a app I'm gonna call "Zipper." I hope to have a beta version done by next weekend.
Yay! My homework is almost all done (I left some at school). Anyway, I'm starting to run out of good ideas for download stuff here, but I went ahead and put a few more links on that page.
Just a quick note this week, no new stuff. I've got a lot of homework this week, so I won't be doing any more on the site. I wish you all a Good Thanksgiving. Maybe I will update the site on Wednesday, since I have that day off school.
I have a couple replacement 'screens' for the Mac OS calculator that I posted this week. In case anyone cares, I do have an excuse for missing last week's update... I had the flu and a nice fever, so I stayed in bed. One more note, I replaced the pictures of the ice storm with some that are about a quarter the size, so save server space and make viewing them easier for those without broadband connections. Oh yeah... and I'm feel like telling everyone that there are TWO addresses you can use for this site: http://arcticmac.home.comcast.net/ and http://home.comcast.net/~arcticmac/. It doesn't matter which one you use, but the first one's not got that yucky key in it, so it's easier to type.
Another small set of icons is available over in that section. Also, we had a bit of an ice storm here this weekend, so, being a computer geek, I put a couple on online for people to see.
I think the site optimization is about done now. Also this week, I'm announcing a new set of icons (not that they're very good, but...), so head on over to that page and check 'em out.
I'm still working on optimizing the page's code, so everything will look nice, but for now, I just added some icons. Enjoy!
Stupid web browsers don't all work the same. So, this site will look a little different in all the different web browsers! It should look best in Safari, Mozilla, Netscape 6, and Netscape 7 (as well as the other Mozilla based browsers). I seem to have a bug in my code, and there are some little white lines (ok, grey) that aren't supposed to be there in Safari. If anyone can shed some light on the situation, I'd be very greatful!
Anyway, I intend to put up new news and content here about once a week.