FunnyLookinHat’s /etc/var/self/log.txt

Here’s a video…

Before I forget I just want to post this bit of code - took me way too long to figure this out - it’s a long story. In any case, if you’re ever using PHP to get google geocoder information and it’s stored in a JSON Object - you probably realized it’s hard to find a particular key at times because of varying levels of data returned by google…  in any case, you can use this function to quickly and easily get the first result for a matching key.

function getPlaceValue($object, $lookingFor) {
foreach($object as $key=>$obj) {
if(strcmp($key,$lookingFor)==0) {
return $obj;
} else if(is_object($obj)) {
$ok = getPlaceValue($obj,$lookingFor);
if($ok) {
return $ok;
}
}
}
return false;
}

That should work for any nested object as well…  so enjoy!

I’ve been building a ridiculous to-do list related to the programming and video encoding I do for work, my personal programming projects, book/game/movie reviews, sharing code that I’ve created, trials and tribulations of submitting iPhone applications, and more…  all things that I fully intend to post here so that my work can be shared with others.

Unfortunately - as always - I don’t have the time.  But, I’m going to make a point to submit a post at least once a week, and furthermore, I’m going to hopefully make it my goal to submit a post once every two days over the holidays (that is, until I get married…  apparently you’re not supposed to work or do anything like that on your honeymoon.  News to me!).

If anyone would prefer for something on this list to be written on earlier rather than later, please let me know…  or I could even contact you personally to help you with any of these things:

• Various iPhone SDK tutorials - specifically, uploading data to remote servers, communicating efficiently with remote servers, using the UIImagePicker/CoreLocation/MKMapView/NavigationView features of the 3.0 SDK, using JSON, custom map icons, and more.
• FFMPEG Encoding & Decoding, Automated Scripting, Video Encoding Settings, Libraries & Preferred Optimizations, (Mobile) Device Support, Etc.
• Google Android Tutorials (which I will be soon diving head-first into, pending enough free time outside of work and all)
• PHP Framework Development (Creating New Frameworks and Working with Existing Ones) - I personally have started to LOVE Kohana (see: http://www.kohanaphp.com) - but there are several others I’d like to review and share.

Lastly - We’re launching an awesome new service through my work this coming week (pending an iPhone app approval) that could very well revolutionize how we share our videos and photos with each other.  The service is called pegshot - and I can’t wait to tell you all more.

Just a side note - to prove how poorly I keep up with things like this, I started editing this post on Oct. 27 - and I just finished it today - Nov. 9.  Sad, I know.

People get mad at me because my twitter posts directly to my facebook, and they often contain only the geekiest of status updates.  Ideas about code, questions about compiling a package on Linux, or compatibility issues between browsers with various web tricks…  They complain that my posts are overly technical and that they have no idea what they mean - even better are the comments I inevitably get on all of my status updates on Facebook that are just people trying to pretend like they know what I am talking about.  I’m so over facebook though - for the same reason I don’t “blog” like most other people do.  I don’t want to share my emotions over the internet, I much rather prefer to do so over a cup of coffee or chai tea (no milk or sugar, mind you).

I ordered the parts for a media box last week from newegg and eagerly waited all weekend for the parts to show up. So after checking the status of my tracking numbers about 50 times for each package over the course of 4 days, my parts got here! Here’s what I ordered:

• hec .7mm Steel Micro-ATX Case
• GIGABYTE GA-73PVM-S2H Micro-ATX Motherboard
• Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale
• Kingston 2GB DDR2 800 Ram

I had a spare DVD-ROM drive lying around along with some 100GB Hard drives.  While I knew that I would be buying a larger hard drive for the box later this summer or in the fall, I figured I could get by for now with a regular ATA hard drive.

Some quick things I wanted to highlight about the motherboard - one of the best features was that it supported three different video output settings (VGA, DVI, and HDMI) leaving lots of room to grow.  Another big selling point for me was that it supported Optical SPDIF audio output - which is the easiest way for me to get Dolby 5.1 into my sound system.  One problem, that you’ll read on about later, was that I don’t have a TV that supports any of those output settings.  I can handle S-VIDEO, RCA, or Component - so I figured that I could get by with something like this:

Yeah - I know - it’s a longshot… but I figured that an nVidia 7100 graphics chipset could handle the TV-Out features required for the conversion.  After all - the first high end graphics card I ever purchased was an nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX - and I found that the 7*** series was both extremely reliable and versatile.  This was definitely not the case - but that can wait for later.

— The Build —

I’ve never worked with any smaller form-factor than ATX - So I was at least a bit ready to have some hard-to-manage cables and whatnot…  But I was nonetheless excited that I would have a fully featured and expandable media box for around $225.  I’ve built plenty of computers before so this whole process went quickly with a few exceptions.  First - the motherboard didn’t come with any standoffs nor did the case exactly fit the motherboard.  There were two mounting points for the motherboard that did not have a hole to screw into, one of them being a grounding point.  Not good.  In any case, I figured that with a $60 motherboard I could always just buy a new one and not be an idiot if it did break.  Also - I’ve never had one of the LGA775 socket processors from Intel before, so I was surpised to see how the heatsink attached to the motheboard.  I was impressed, to say the least. 

I did have some issues with cable management, that being, there is absolutely no cable management.  There was simply not enough room to even fit the extra ribbon cables and whatnot.  Also - I found out the hard way that the single IDE ATA port on the motherboard wouldn’t easily (read: not in any way) attach both a DVD drive and hard drive.  So, I went out and bought my first SATA 3GB/s drive (1 TB for about $100).  Needless to say, I won’t need a new hard drive any time soon.  After all of that, everything was in and together well enough, and I booted up the machine to install Ubuntu 9.04.

— O.S. Installation & Configuration —

I love Linux.  Absolutely love it.  I firmly believe that Linux will eventually be the primary O.S. on most personal computers and servers and that it will make all of our lives easier.  Believe me, the only reason I stopped using Linux was because I bought a macbook.  At the time, for the money I spent, there was absolutely no better computer I could buy that had all of the specs that I needed in the same form factor.  Unfortunately, I had planned to use Ubuntu on my macbook - but the hardware support (specifically the mouse and IR port) would not work easily.  I resolved to use Mac OS because it is a great build of *nix with an even better GUI - I could deal with not having an apt-get (though not easily).

Put simply - Ubuntu installed flawlessly.  All of my devices were detected, including the HDMI and Optical audio outputs - something that I was certainly preparing to compile drivers for.  Furthermore - I had heard rumors that HFS+ partitions were not handled well by Linux.  Instead, I simply installed the hfs packages in the repositories and when I plugged in my external hard drive - everything mounted and opened perfectly.  I was able to easily transfer all of my files over to a separate partition on my 1TB drive for Boxee to use.

Overall - Absolutely wonderful hardware support.  Ubuntu has always been a wonderful Linux distribution, and has grown much more mature over the last year and a half.

— Video Output —

This is where my troubles began.  As I said earlier, I gambled with the crappiest and most ridiculous VGA -> S-Video converter ever created in the history of mankind.  I hardly expected it to work, but every time I used Boxee I became more and more excited to see everything work.  I sort of tricked myself into believing that there was a good chance everything would just work.  Well - it didn’t.  And after multiple xorg.conf configurations using varying options for TVOut, I decided to try the same on Windows.  That is when my faith in nVidia began to decrease.

Of course, the same converter did not work in Windows 7 nor Windows XP.  I read on the forums that most nVidia users are finding the drivers crippled of features, specifically related to TV output, for any of the more recent builds.  One user suggested that I revert to version 169 and attempt to get it working.  Still no luck.  At this point I was getting thoroughly frustrated - my DVI port didn’t seem to be working either and I was beginning to think that I should have purchased a cheaper motherboard and a separate graphics card.  At that point my one saving grace arrived - an email from someone on craigslist selling a VGA signal converter box.  For $30 I picked up an amazing signal converter that provides S-Video, RCA, RGB, and Component output.  Awesome!  I quickly threw Ubuntu back on the box, booted up and was pleasantly surprised to find the Ubuntu desktop on my roommates LCD HDTV.

I should note that during my testing of the video output, I tried a friend’s HDMI cable and was awesomely surprised to find it worked perfectly for Ubuntu!  Now I know you’re all asking, why didn’t I just purchase an HDMI cable and be done with it.  Well, my own TV only supports RCA, S-Video, and Component inputs - no HDMI.  It was in my best interest for the future to provide a more flexible solution.

— Boxee —

Boxee is amazing.  I think it will revolutionize what we understand to be television - specifically regarding television programs and internet video.  Networks are going the way of the dinosaur in terms of cable and satellite services.  I love that I can listen to my favorite Pandora channels, pick up my favorite NPR radio programs, and catalog television programs to watch on my TV, rather than my computer.  Boxee can be a bit frustrating with getting it to recognize certain television series, especially if you are seemingly matching the naming criteria spelled out in the forums, when they have passed incorrect naming conventions to their end users.  Also - the most recent alpha release tends to crash frequently when playing Pandora radio.  They’re aware of the, and I hope that they fix it for the next release.

— Last Thoughts —

Overall, I am thoroughly impressed with the software and hardware for this box. Realistically, I could have built the complete box for just under $300 if I didn’t already have drives sitting around and had a television that supported all of the output standards.  I still need to investigate purchasing a remote control, as the keyboard with a 3 foot cord is getting a bit old.  I have an idea to use a gamepad, and think I might go ahead with it after my next paycheck.  While it’s only $10, the gamepad would provide all of the features I need for boxee, as well as a great interface for me to plug ZSNES into through the media box.  Software programs and forward thinking regarding media excite me very much, and seeing Boxee come to fruition is a very telling sign of a new wave of technology regarding in-home entertainment and idea collaboration.  I’m glad that when I have kids some day, I can put them on a TED channel through my media-box rather than just having them watch cartoons all day, so that they can share and enjoy the ideas of great minds rather than just mindless babble.

I’ve been doing web development on a professional level for several years now, and I’ve been programming for much longer than that. The funny thing is, I have never once worked for a legitimate company doing anything in this field. All of the jobs I picked up were referrals from previous clients, word of mouth, web 2.0 (i.e. tweetering the facespace), and craigslist gigs. I finally got myself a real job this summer and am working for a web start up called WellcomeMat (www.wellcomemat.com). It’s definitely exciting; there are a lot of changes being made to the website and major shifts in the direction of our revenue sales. In fact, we just released what I have been working on for the past two weeks, what I’ve started called Phase 2 of their Web User Interface.

Before I came to WellcomeMat this summer, the website was setup to run themselves primarily as a content distributor, not a hub for content creators and customers. For everyone to win at this game of local video, we need clients to be hiring professional film-makers for quality short movies while providing a robust and malleable means of content delivery. WellcomeMat had all of those things together, except that it didn’t show the public anything of what it did. I would estimate that over 90% of the users on the website were using it because they were directly referred to it (or even sold on it as a free product) by WellcomeMat’s co-founders. We have since moved on.

Here are three screen-shots of the legacy website (See below).

The first two screens are of the default website. The third file shows what happened if you clicked a video. It felt closed and secluded, claustrophobic even, and certainly didn’t provide any sort of method for users to crawl the content of the website.

In comes Phase 2!

Feel more connected? More interactive? I sure hope so! We have a great designer who put some real time and effort into figuring out how to wrap all of this content together while not making the site feel too big. I was lucky enough to have someone who gave me very specific wireframes and colors so that I could simply code up exactly what I saw. I’m not an artist at all, but I certainly am a great programmer and copier!

So what do you think? Good stuff? I’m really excited for where this is going, definitely lots of room to grow and ideas to explore.

I’ve got some cool development opportunities sitting around the corner for me - great stuff going on here! However, I’ve been… busy… the past week and haven’t had a chance to get any work done, so I’m afraid that I might be falling a bit behind. Six more weeks and I’ll be ready for a summer of coding and work.

Oh, and I was turned away from a job interview to be a lawn-mower because I was wearing jeans. I nearly replied that they were “denim slacks” and that they should be considered more than business casual. Ridiculous job market.

I’ve had a lot of thoughts come and go through my head without me getting the chance to post them. Some pertaining to religion, others to geek-related activities, and still more to re-developing the under-developed developing world. (If that last sentence made sense, props to you!)

I’m hopefully going to be a research assistant for a professor of mine here at CCU. He’s currently working on his Ph.D at Colorado School of Mines in Computer Science and needs to create a proof-of-concept software package for his research. Furthermore, he wants to make it a real, sustainable project - I’m going to push to open the source code and host it on sourceforge(http://www.sf.net) or a similar site. This might be the first time that I have a legitimate reason to use launchpad (http://www.launchpad.net) - really interesting since a friend of mine (http://joey.ubuntu-rocks.org/blog/) is the lead project manager for launchpad design and development. This is becoming an exciting opportunity and is the first time that I’ve been given a chance to develop a “real” software application with a legitimate goal and means of development. I’ll post more details later on it’s development, for now it should suffice to say that it is an interactive presentation tool for connected classrooms.

Linux. Oh how I love thee. There’s something about being in a classroom, bar, or meeting room full of Linux geeks that just makes me feel at home. Nowhere else can a joke be made about cron-jobs or relabeling a bash-script as an “Overcash.” Funny stuff. I’m participating in a LPIC study group that is facilitated by David Willson (http://thegeek.nu/) to get a bunch of people (from veteran bash-script gurus to absolute novices) prepared to take the LPIC certification test. It’s a great time, and it’s a great reminder of the reasons that I do love Linux. Yes, I use a mac. I’m still not convinced that Linux is a better OS for Desktop users than OS X. However, Linux is still my preferred Server OS. I’m not sure how much I’m going to learn through this process, probably tidbits here and there and particular command parameters. The real joy is helping others learn and pursue mastery of Linux and the CLI.

Someone remind me to catch up on my posts over spring break concerning everything else I’ve been thinking about.

What would you say is the flagship product of open source software? I have no idea…

I hate summer jobs. They’re so in-between. I wish I could dedicate myself to something and not have it go away so quickly. Oh well.

In any case, I need a summer job. If any of you know of a good internship in the Denver area for this summer, I would love to be connected to that opportunity. I’ve nearly finished my double major in Mathematics (emphasis in Secondary Education) and and Computer Information Systems, pending only my student teaching next semester. My skills range from mathematical analysis and programming to being a coffee barista and resident assistant.

And believe me, I’ll take anything.