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Archive for the ‘Me’ Category

A New Year…

Posted by Will on December 26, 2007

Well, it seems as if life keeps going forward faster than I can imagine. And with 2008 coming I have kinda lost track of whats going on….So here is my feeble attempt at a recap.

First off all I am still unemployed. The two companies that I applied for did not work out. So I am still in diligent pursuit of a paycheck. Other than that Meredith and I are still together, and I must say that I am in love with her. She makes me feel like no one else ever has. Plus, New York City was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

Christmas left my family with a very good spirit this year. My cousin Boomer has been given a miracle. Since he was 15 he has been in and out of the hospital with a brain tumor. He has since had it removed and grown into a mature young man. However, 2 weeks ago he went into the hospital with a serious problem. Then when no one thought he would make it, the doctor’s said that his brain was working on its own. He is the second person in history that this has happened to, so its pretty big.

Other than that. Just trying to get ready for the new year…

Posted in Me, Mere, NYC, UCF, Vacation | Leave a Comment »

On the Back Burner…

Posted by Will on November 16, 2007

Okay, so I broke my own rule. But instead of talking about why it has been two months since I have posted, I’ll just talk about whats on my mind.

Well, for starters, I no longer work with Westgate Resorts as of mid Sept. On a positive note, I am now working with www.AccessAthletics.com, which is a really cool MySpace like networking site, except for Athletes. And its a bonus to still be using ColdFusion.  In addition, classes out at UCF take up a majority of time in the day. But I have seen the Knights play football, and at 7-3, I’m lying if I say we aren’t good.

On a non-work related note, I have completed Dragon Ball Z: Budoki 3 for the second time, and have beaten Dawn of War in its entirety twice.

On a more personal note, I have begun dating a young woman (Meredith) who also goes to college (no pun intended), and its really nice to finally connect with another individual. And because this means so much to me, I am going to New York to meet her family, and friends.

Other than that, I am doing what I tell everyone else should do:

“Get Busy Livin’ Or Get Busy Dyin’”-Andy Dufresne

Posted in Code, Coldfusion, DBZ, Me, Mere, NCAA Football, Other Stuff, Programming, UCF, Vacation, Video Games | Leave a Comment »

News of The Weird

Posted by Will on September 6, 2007

[Cue News Theme...]

Today, I have started what is to be known as News of The Weird. This will be a mini-series of posts that will follow each Thursday, where news stories, publications, and events that have happened throughout the week will be re-examined and deeply investigated. If our research is conclusive enough, I might even send it over to the F.B.I.*

Hot off the press, is a story coming out of Des Moines, Iowa. Interesting enough a 22-year-old Patrick Hamman was arrested and charged with domestic abuse after throwing a bag of Cheetos at his father Michael Hamman. Police said the bag hit the edge of Hamman’s glasses, causing a small cut. Later, Patrick admitted to being under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of the argument. This happens everyday downtown… This brings dangerously cheesy to a new meaning!

 

Cheetos!

Dangerously Cheesy: New Projectile Forumla

Moving on… Last Tuesday, a Virginia Teen, Walter Smith Jr., 16, was charged with the first-degree murder and rape of his 22-year-old sister, Betsy Mary Smith, and the aggravated assault against his two-year old niece with a SLEDGEHAMMER

What the hell is wrong with someone who does this kind of thing! Of course the relatives say that he never had violence issues, but when do they ever? Is it common knowledge that people randomly go crazy and kill one another for sport?* Medication may have been a factor this time, as reports say he was suffering from depression.

Random Image of the Day: Random image Number 1

A very nice keyboard. Thats about it.

Finally, lets look at Christianity* for a minute. This is a important group in this day and age. You never know when the freedoms we enjoy will be given away to the different organizations, who all feel they are above the law, and should not have to pay taxes, because they are “enlightened” and call themselves Christians. The only reason I say this is because look at the different extremities. Its way to generalized anymore… No offense to anyone really, but where do you draw the line?*

Now, how in the hell does is that logical? It’s not, therefore you must must apply a new list of Ten Commandments to the 21st Century:

  1. One should truly believe in the spiritual or religious choice you have made, and have considered alternatives before arriving at their decision.
  2. Any idols must be of spiritual origin and no physical being may reach that status.

  3. There can be no wrongful use of the name of God and any violent retaliation to a use of God’s name should be decreed as retarded and punished

  4. Everyday is as equal as the other and should have no special rules in regard to laws.

  5. Honour your Father and Mother as long as they are Non-Abusive and Supportive with your unselfish needs.

  6. Thou should not murder in any domestic situation unless in extreme self defence, in warfare the war must be legal and just war theory must be followed.

  7. Adultery should only happen if you are suffering from physical abuse or your partner is completely non-supportive of the relationship.

  8. Thou should only steal to steal from a thief in order to return property to the original owner. With intellectual property rights if living in an extremely capitalistic environment thou should not steal if not supporting the industry in other ways.

  9. Thou shalt not bear false witness in a court of law.

  10. Thou shall only covet thy neighbour’s house or wife for unselfish means if both have been treated abusively.

[* sarcasm implied]

Posted in Me, News Of The Weird, Other Stuff, Police, Politics, Television, UCF | Leave a Comment »

29 Days…

Posted by Will on July 18, 2007

After 18 years of my life, I have gone through Elementary, Middle, and High School. I have played football, and broken through wooden boards in Tae-Kwon-Do. I have gone in and out of thousands of phases, and thousands of trends. I saw Pokemon come and die. I saw Video Games grow from the NES all the way to the Wii.

I have been through 18 years of constant change. And now I come to the next benchmark…

Time to move out.

In 29 days on August 17th 2007, I will being leaving home, to move to my new apartment over near UCF.

Wow! Kinda scary when you say it outloud. But I realized that all my life things have been changing, this time its just a bigger change. Becoming a full-time student is more than worth it, so bring it on!!!

Posted in Me, Other Stuff, UCF | Leave a Comment »

Coldfusion 8: More Inside

Posted by Will on July 12, 2007

Coldfusion is a type of application server and software development language used for the development of computer software, as well a dynamic web sites. Development is underway for the eighth version of Coldfusion, which has been codenamed:”Scorpio” and it is scheduled to be release by the second half of 2007.

As expected, Coldfusion 8 has brought to the table many new capabilities, which look to take this mature programming language to the next level. Something that stood out specifically during my research was the new <cfpdfform> and <cfdocument> tags. These new features will enable integration with Adobe PDF forms, as well as dynamic image manipulation functions.

After playing around with the tags, I have to admit that the amount of customization available for pdfs is unbelievable. I figured for now I cover a few new functions that Coldfusion 8 offers, and in the days coming, I’ll get further into the more powerful items.

First off, one of the wonderful new functions offer is the IsPDFFile function. Guess what it does? Thats right! It checks your supposed pdf file, and tells you if it really is a PDF.

<cfif isPDFFile("myPDF.pdf")<
   <cfset output1 = "Yes, this file is a PDF" />
<cfelse>
   <cfset output1 = "No, this file is not a PDF" />
</cfif>

<cfif isPDFFile("myTXT.txt")>
   <cfset output2 = "Yes, this file is a PDF" />
<cfelse>
   <cfset output2 = "No, this file is not a PDF" />
</cfif>

<cfoutput>
   #output1#
   #output2#
</cfoutput>

Above you see two different checks here. One of them is checking a .pdf file, and the other is checking a .txt file. Now when this is run, the output is:

“Yes, this file is a PDF”.
“No, this file is not a PDF”.

Thankfully, along with the many other new features, Coldfusion functions will now accept relative file paths. However, I believe that there may be instances where a relative path will not work, so you can use a full path if you want.

Taking this a step further, if you wanted contain a pdf file within a variable, Coldfusion introduces another function: isPDFObject.


<cfset fileName1 = "myPDF.pdf" />
<cfset fileName2 = "myTXT.txt" />

<cfif isPDFObject(fileName1)<
   <cfset output1 = "Yes, this file is a PDF" />
<cfelse>
   <cfset output1 = "No, this file is not a PDF" />
</cfif>

<cfif isPDFObject(fileName2)>
   <cfset output2 = "Yes, this file is a PDF" />
<cfelse>
   <cfset output2 = "No, this file is not a PDF" />
</cfif>

<cfoutput>
   #output1#
   #output2#
</cfoutput>

As last time, the output would generate the same response:
“Yes, this file is a PDF”.
“No, this file is not a PDF”.

Pretty easy when you think about. Now on to playing with the powerful <cfpdf> tag. I’ll post my research as soon as I’m done.

Posted in Code, Coldfusion, Me, Programming | Leave a Comment »

A glance at the day…

Posted by Will on July 12, 2007

Well it was just the same old regular day. I woke up as usual, drove to work, as usual.

Its weird, I always refer to my day as a monotonous cycle. Today would prove to be different.

When I was at work, everybody seemed pretty busy, it was a Wednesday, and their was a big meeting in the conference room, so I kinda was stuck in a hard situation. After attempting to resolve the issue, I gave up and moved on to another task I had waiting.

On a side note, I was looking into Coldfusion 8 some more today, which will hopefully build confidence in me to write about it in depth. So far, Abode claims applications will now require less code, and these applications are tuned for optimum performance.

Now taken directly from Adobe, Coldfusion 8 will offer:

  • Server monitoring to help identify server bottlenecks, allowing for tuning and improved performance.
  • Step through code debugging in a new Eclipse plug-in debugger.
  • Adobe Flex™ and Ajax features that let ColdFusion power personalized, multimedia-rich applications to enhance users’ experiences on the web.
  • High-quality, dynamically created on-demand multimedia presentations.
  • PDF document and form integration for a printable, portable way to intelligently capture and share information.
  • Image creation and manipulation with more than 50 new CFML tags and functions.
  • Native support for .NET objects to easily integrate ColdFusion applications with enterprise data and infrastructure services.
  • Significant application runtime and server performance improvements.

As I experience more of the technology, I’ll share my input on it. As for now, I can only say that I am rooting for its success.

Now by the time I had finished working on the second ticket of the day, I realize everyone has left. There was maybe 3-5 people on the web side of the building. It was lunch time… …which for me meant time for class.

So wrapped up what I was doing and got on the road for class, when I-4 suddenly was covered with cars, including a hearse!

Then all of sudden traffic did that whole, “EVERYBODY HIT YOUR BRAKES!” thing, and I had to swerve, (and I must point out that a pile of sandy, dirt-like granular substance made the truck drift into the lane for the East-West Express way…)

So after surviving the road trip across Orlando, I get to UCF and park my car exactly when it starts to rain. After going inside to get a classmate of mine from his dorm, we step outside to reveal the most rain I have ever seen falling at once during the afternoon. I walked through this rain, with my Laptop tucked into a pillowcase, which was in my waterproof bag, underneath my shirt.

Now at this point I must stop to explain something. You know how in movies, you see somebody standing on the sideway, and a car will drive by, splashing a wall of water on the unlucky fool…

Well you get the point by now don’t you?

So, sitting in class soaking wet, freezing from the A/C (which was better than the heat during the day…) was a difficult two hours. My laptop stayed dry though…Plus I got a 96% on my test, which is Awesome!

After class (the sun had literally dried everything.)I hung out with my classmate and his roommates for a bit, before heading home in terrible 4-17 Traffic.

So finally at home, I receive the best part about today that makes it all worth it. Last weekend I ordered Pink Floyd: The Wall (The 25th Anniversary DVD). Today it was in the mail. So I spent the evening, watching the wonderful cinematic interpretation of Pink Floyd: The Wall.

After watching that film, I took a hard long look at my day and said, “Wow, it was worth it.” And I like they way that sounds. I guess everything isn’t so monotonous after all.

Posted in Code, Coldfusion, DVD, Me, Music, Other Stuff, Programming | 1 Comment »

My first post…

Posted by Will on July 10, 2007

Well, geez what can I say? After almost two years of swearing up and down against it, I now officially have a blog.

I guess it is for the best…

Anyway, this blog is not only going to cover personal ideas, moments, happenings, etc… No, this blog is the start of my active involvement in the Programming Community as well. For a while now, I have been trying to learn as much as I can, and I now I want to learn more.

Let the Blogging begin……

Posted in Code, Coldfusion, Me, Programming | 1 Comment »