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

So… being a poor college student I am always looking for extra ways to make some money. Usually I try to find computer gigs on craigslist and whatnot, but haven’t found many lately. So, cha-ching, enter Google AdSense.

Sorry if you all hate “the man” and don’t want to click the eye-sore ads on this page… but Google is probably the best “man” I could ever give in to.

1 - Bill Gates is someone who I respect greatly.  He’s brilliant and sticks to his guns when told he’s doing something wrong.  He’s put the United States at the forefront of technology and innovation.  And now that he’s a billionaire, he’s investing all of his time in creating a better world through philanthropy and third-world development.

2 - I need inspiration on a very frequent basis.  I’m seeing a strong connection in myself between being extroverted and having great ideas.  If I’m not around people who are also dreaming for too long, I quickly lose my passion to even attempt my own ideas.

3 - I’m more than willing to completely invest myself in a cause, but it requires a strong faith that the cause will come back with it’s own effort.  For example, I wouldn’t be an RA at my school if I didn’t believe that the Student Life department wasn’t doing all that they could to grow students on campus.

4 - I sure do hope that I get the chance to do all of the things I feel made for.  Whether that be teaching in Denver-area schools, building schools in Nepal, developing a world-changing software package, or raising children who pursue their own dreams and passions, I want to make sure that I at least get a chance at all of them.

That’s really it.  Here are some links for you all to check out that I’ve enjoyed greatly in the past week (and often review every once in a while):
http://www.ted.com - Ideas Worth Spreading.
http://weblogg-ed.com/ - An inventive blog about technology and education.
http://www.roomtoread.org/ - John Wood’s Non-profit Organization to Build Libraries and Schools.

I picked up a test-server (Coppermine Pentium III - 1 Ghz && 256 MB Ram) yesterday for this project for only $25. I know, looks like I got ripped off… but the guy threw in a monitor which is worth an easy $10 so really it only cost $15. He’s got a few extra - so if you’re in the Denver area send me a message somehow and I’ll give you his contact information.

I threw Ubuntu Server 8.10 on it and it worked brilliantly. By now I’m used to smooth installs and hardware detection with Ubuntu, and allowing me to install OpenSSH by default was fantastic. I’m just going to do some basic setup to get apache and ssh running on sneaky ports to protect from brute force attempts and I should be good to go.

Anyone here need a monitor? Only $10…

What I wouldn’t give for a 22″ LCD monitor to throw my Macbook into. Developing and planning this project is going to be a real pain without some screen space.

This week has been interesting… yet anti-climactic.  I’m waiting for several large projects to start up - including a huge web-application and several possible small-scale gigs.  It’s been hard to sit here and think about all of these ideas and then realize, “Oh crap, that’s a lot of work… and I might have to do most of it.”  The scale we’re talking about?  Not some week-long code sprint… more like a 3 month coding marathon.  But we’re not talking some 70-year-old 5k walker-assisted grandma pace…  more along the lines of super-human Kenyan.  Yeah.  Awesome.  In any case, once these things all start up it’ll be very exciting - especially considering their lucrative possibilities.

In other news, I’m having some renewed interest in open source technologies.  I recently started to migrate off of Office 2008 for Mac due to a huge frustration with Spaces and multiple open documents.  More or less, my screen would shoot around to random spaces and make it virtually impossible to work.  Microsoft has refused to issue a patch - so I’ll take my software needs elsewehere.

iWork ‘09 has potential - the interface is great and I love the way it feels.  However, it’s frustrating that it saves all documents in iWork format by default (and it cannot be changed).  As much as I don’t like Microsoft standards… they are the standard at my school.  I’m tired of saving documents in some random format and then re-saving it in Microsoft format just so I can submit it to professors.

I decided to give the new version of OpenOffice (3.0) for Mac a try - and I’m really liking it.  The old OpenOffice (2.4) felt like some pet-project for an obsessive open-source geek.  This version, however, feels professional, clean, and efficient.  It actually bears a strong resemblance to iWork (though, iWork probably stole most of it’s design ideas from it’s open-source equivalent as most Apple innovations do).  I’m going to do a bit more testing of the other tools with OpenOffice (Spreadsheets & Presentations) to see what other improvements have been made - and I’m interested in the UI design differences between NeoOffice and OpenOffice.

Since I’m sure you’re all so interested I’ll keep you posted. 

Being pissed that they had the audacity to make Star Wars cooler than Star Trek by means of the Executor Class does make me one.

I finally picked a theme and got everything together to put this site up.  I’ll probably just be posting random tidbits about myself as I move information over.