Posted by Matt
on August 29, 2007
For the upcoming term I need to use a web app called the 'Dropbox' at my University. Essentially it is a very easy app that accepts a file for upload, then associates it with an assingment number, and whether or not you'd like to have it graded. It doesn't even allow downloading of any uploaded files.
What am I complaining about? I can't get the fucking thing to work. I used it last term when it was in 'beta' just fine. So I contact the help desk and they tell me to use Windows, as Apple products are not supported. I wish I could ignore 15% of my target audience off the bat. It's bullshit. The web exists on standards. When those standards are not followed, people are left in the dark. Normally, I laugh at their shitty code, but this time it's I out in the dark and I cannot submit assignments to my fucking CAPSTONE CLASS. Of note, I did try Windows Vista and IE7. With even the lowest security settings, I couldn't get the damned page to load, but did end up with seven browser windows.
A simple upload app doesn't care what browser/OS you're using at all. It's all standards based stuff. It's five lines of code and a database table. Twenty minutes from conception to production. I write stuff like this everyday, I would only assume that my University would check this stuff before putting it into production.
Frustration.
Posted by Matt
on August 29, 2007
"They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference"
- Bill Hicks
Posted by Matt
on August 27, 2007
I just returned from submitting my graduation application for my Master’s degree in Computer Science.
Now if you don’t know me in the physical world; I was never expected to finish High School. I failed four grades. I was suspended the grand majority of the time, and the other times I wasn’t really paying attention if you know what I mean. For some reason, near my 18th birthday, I realized the error of my ways. I cleaned up, hit the books, went to trade school, high school, and worked second shift full time all at the same time for two years. Of the four years I failed, I graduated only two years behind, that’s how much work I did.
To think I will have my Master’s degree is just insane. To think that the focus was on Theoretical Math as part of Computer Science is even more insane. The fact that the only time I’ve ever gotten straight A’s was in Graduate School on a graduated scale.
But do you know what the craziest part of it all is? I’m going to graduate with honors.
The smile in my mind is so big right now that it’s kind of funny.
Posted by Matt
on August 24, 2007
The large, awesome project that I’m solely developing at my office was shown today to the upper management. They liked it so much that they want to start using it in-house on all projects, as well as market the project to all clients.
Posted by Matt
on August 21, 2007
What a night! For some reason Subversion decided to take a total shit on me. Well, one thing I did awhile back may have come back to bite me in the ass, but I’m not sure why now. Basically when I ported my existing web application at work over to CakePHP, I was kind of liberal with the case of some filenames. After realizing my error, I ‘svn mv’ those files, but that isn’t the prefered method I reckon. Thank God I didn’t lose anything life-threatening (just 85 revisions), so I just created a new repository and initial imported my existing code base into that.
Posted by Matt
on August 20, 2007
Seems as though TextMate eats your blog posts if you attempt to re-publish a post. It seems to take the posting id of the previous post; each time publishing taking the id of the previous post to the current one.
Posted by Matt
on August 20, 2007
So it seems as though I can do something like this in Ruby:
def list
@objects = Hash.new
Object.find(:all).each { |r|
status = “Open”
@objects[r.id] = {
“ID” => r.id,
“Name” => r.name,
“Author” => r.user.name,
“Status” => status,
“Date Created” => r.created,
“Last Activity” => r.modified
}
}
end <br />
That kind of mimics what I’m doing in CakePHP with multidimensional arrays.
Posted by Matt
on August 19, 2007
They’re dead. It sucks, but that’s the risk of the occupation.
Move forward.
Posted by Matt
on August 19, 2007
Just got back from seeing SuperBad a while ago. I don’t normally go to movies as I generally don’t like people and am quite impatient, but I made an exception for this movie. Why? Perhaps it was due to Michael Cera being a lead character. I’m a sucker for anyone with Arrested Development on their resume.
Posted by Matt
on August 19, 2007
Whoever wrote the music for A&E’s show Intervention is amazing. Everytime I watch the intro to the show I realize that all of my muscles tense and my breathing speeds up. I’m not usually susceptable to things like that, but damn!
