Archives ‣ 2006

  1. November 17

    1. live on (mt)

      Everything looks like it switched over smoothly, and there’s even a fresh coat of paint. Hooray!

  2. November 11

    1. moving to (mt)

      I just bought some hosting at mediatemple so that I can keep all of my hosting in one place. It looks awesome so far and I’m in the process of moving everything over.

  3. November 04

    1. …No wonder it’s number 1!

      AOL Banner Ad Goof

      Saw this great banner ad this morning. Check out the FONT tag, AOL’s new video service must be hosted in a wacky timezone where it’s still 1995.

  4. October 06

    1. Change del.icio.us links to ma.gnolia links

      change del.icio.us links to ma.gnolia links

      Today I wrote this Greasemonkey script that changes “bookmark this on del.icio.us” to post on Ma.gnolia instead. I find that the embedded posting links on a lot of blog posts have better built-in titles and descriptions than what the bookmarklets can extract from the page. I’m only running into issues with it in my Ubuntu install but should work everywhere else.

      Update: I was totally thinking about it when I wrote it but I’d like to thank Zach’s Defcon Sucks review on AB for being such a photogenic page.

      Super happy update 2: Fixed a small problem with the script not working on some pages.

  5. August 23

    1. Introducing 24Zones!

      24Zones is one of the secret projects that I’ve somewhat half-mentioned in my last post. Last week, I was looking for another reason to dive into Rails when I noticed my dad using a certain other world time site. He likes it because it was a no-fuss way of checking on times in a bunch of places.

      I thought it could use some improvement. First off, the clocks were just static text, so you always had to refresh to get a new time. It also looked like 1996 InterNet, mostly unstyled text and table layouts. I decided it would be fun to build something that was a bit more functional and sophisticated.

      I think you’ll find a lot of interesting decisions on the site: I went with a cl1p-esque non-login scheme to be able to have people using the website right away. I originally thought it would be a good idea to automatically create an account for every visitor and just hand it to them at the root index. I ended up putting up an index page with a link to a new account. This gives a nice positive action to creating an account that is more user-friendly than hoisting one at them. The thing I like about 24Zones is that, at least to me, it’s already a success. My dad now has a nicer clock application he can use for day-to-day work. The hosting and domain costs are almost negligible. I’m really proud of how it looks, and it makes a good addition to my portfolio. If the ads help it turn a profit, then that’s icing on top of all the other good things it’s already done. Let me know what you think!

      EDIT: Ah it seems like Dreamhost and Apis Networks are still fighting over who really is serving the domain. If you see a rails welcome page, then you’re still facing the old servers, please hold!

  6. August 21

    1. What I’m up to…

      There’s a lot coming up in my life in the next couple of weeks. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been doing these past weeks and months.

      • Travel: I’ve been globetrotting quite heavily since I left Olin. I’ve visited family and friends in Lima, as well as went on a 3-day cruise in the Bahamas. I think I must have spent upwards of a third of my time since graduating somewhere other than home. A lot of moving around without really stopping� is fun but also very exhausting!
      • Projects: My productive time nowadays is spent working on one of several websites I’m either running or developing. I’m teaching myself Rails and working on two “secret” projects that will be launching sometime in the next couple of weeks. In terms of what they actually do they’re kind of simple and straight foward, but they’ll form part of a portfolio of sites that I am building.
      • Fun: The thing I am having lots of fun with right now is a little thing I am doing called Million Linden Prim. It’s a very familiar idea, but it’s really helped me enjoy Second Life a little bit more and provides a focus for making cool things in the game.

      I’m really looking foward to my upcoming St.Louis trip. I’ve made it an unofficial deadline for the two unnamed projects above, so it really helps keep me motivated and productive throughout. It’s only going to be a couple of weeks, but I’m hoping to make a few important connections while I’m in town so that I can start to prepare for a longer stay.

  7. May 04

    1. Spring Cleaning Redux

      There’s been some remodeling going on here over the past few days. IE users are currently getting a borked site right now, just checking right now. I’ll have to see what I can do about that. I switched over my Ma.gnolia links feed from the official javascript include to using the inlineRSS plugin for WordPress that transforms the RSS to my sidenotes using XSLT.

      I also have my most recent places from Flagr in my sidebar, using the same stylesheet that I use to style the Ma.gnolia output. It was pretty easy to set up additional feeds. I’ll write more about incorporating Flagr in a seperate post later.

  8. April 16

    1. DeCordova Museum Visit

      This morning Sean and I visited the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA. It is quite the amazing place. Their main attraction is a sizeable sculpture garden located next to a neat pond and a very ecclectic looking main building.

      We were there to see the Software Art exhibit to get some ideas for our MAS255 final project. All of the projects in the installation were interactive, but you had to cycle through different works using an interface that I found to be usable, but extremely clunky. There were works by LeCielEstBleu, G.E.B. Reas, and others.

      Afterwards we took a look at the rest of the exhibitions. The James Surls exhibition was pretty incredible. The man has a very recognizable style and creates impressive and surreal wood sculptures. I was most impressed by his drawings. Surls displays a great confidence in his very long unbroken lines. Things like profiles and hands appear on the page in one seemingly effortless stroke. Pictures on the web don’t do this justice, these things are HUGE.

      Another highlight of the trip was a small sculpture by Steve Hollinger. Hollinger creates a number of light-reactive automata and other sorts of self contained machines. The work exhbited at DeCordova was titled Jellyfish, and was a delicate machine suspended in mineral oil. When light was shining on it, it would activate a mechanism that would make its string tendrils dance around. There is a video on the site that demonstrates this, but it’s a very inspired work.

  9. April 13
  10. April 05

    1. We found this funbox

      wefoundthisfunbox.com

      This is the funbox we found We found it in the grass

      Sean and I worked together on a seemingly innocent flash project that took on a life on its own. I have only one thing to say:

      Dear Internet, I’m sorry.

      —Love, Jesus Fernandez

  11. March 31

    1. Inset Sidebars with Negative Margins

      My favorite part of the Open website is using a negative top margin to create the illusion of a sidebar that is set into the header. It really helps break up the grid in the layout and I think it provides a very distinct look to the site. Here’s what it looks like as of this writing:

      Inset Sidebar Effect

      The effect is done using a fairly straightfoward XHTML with header, content, and sidebar areas. Use your favorite CSS technique to arrange these divs into a two column layout. The inset effect comes from giving div#sidebar a negative top margin. This will move the sidebar into the header area. The look comes from using a faux-column technique on div#page to create the illusion of two full-length columns with a matching header graphic to complete the look.

      Taking a screenshot of the layout and creating graphics in Photoshop or Fireworks will make sure all of your background graphics match up in the final layout.

    2. Now Open for Business

      It’s good that I am getting to a lot of things on the “get-done-before-graduating” list, one of which was Open’s website, which has been on the backburner for way too long. This thing has existed for a pretty long time as a Mambo/Joomla skeleton with pictures of Donald Duck on the front page.

      Open is becoming more active as of late, and having a serious web presence is now very important. One of the things that people really wanted out of the site was a place to show off pictures from a lot of the great events the club has held for the student body - especially this weekend’s charity drag show!

      The other thing that I realized at the last candidate’s weekend is that Open’s web presence can serve to communicate to people outside of the college about Olin’s open and accepting community, especially to incoming students and prospectives. It’s a message that isn’t as loud and clear during the admissions process as I think it should be.

      The WordPress platform was chosen for both of these reasons. I think it provides tools for the club to take a more proactive role in both promoting its accomplishments and communicating to people outside of Olin the kind of place it has played a part in making possible. I also chose it because its really friendly to write content for. Open will really be able to start producing content without worrying about technical details.

  12. March 13

    1. Tales from the Innermost Cabin

      Freshman year, Nicole, Grant, Kori, and I went to a natural reserve in Ipswich and spent the night in a cabin about 30 feet from the parking lot. At some point throughout the night we discovered a guestbook in the cabin, which contained true stories written by real seven-to-ten year olds. Grant posted half of the stories on this post at AlwaysBeta so take a look. These stories were performed dramatically at Olin’s semesterly variety show to a great reception. Hopefully that gets posted somewhere on the internets soon.

  13. March 10

    1. More or Less Finished

      The site is really starting to come together. I’m still trying to get wordpress to do the things that I’d like it to do but it is certainly not challenging at all to put together. I’m very impressed with how generally straightfoward it is to make a custom template.

  14. March 05

    1. The Big Screen Experience

      The repreated insistence on the “big screen experience” throughout tonight’s Oscar ceremonies was heavy-handed, and ignores the main way that films have meaning for me. I may not be most people, but it has been almost a year since I’ve watched a film in the theatre.

      I don’t miss it one bit. The experience of sharing a film with an audience - even at its best - pales in comparison to those same moments in the company of a limited set of friends. The screens may not be as big, and the sound usually comes from a dump find, but the emotional impact of film comes through loud and clear. It draws me closer to people that mean an awful lot to me. It makes film more intensely personal and significant.

      I’d like to draw the parallel to music. There’s nothing like the “live” experience at a concert hall, but recordings of music are also considered significant experience. Great albums are stories in and of themselves that stand on their own. On the other hand, the persistent attitude in the film industry that considers the DVD as an afterthought of the creative process saddens me, as a lot of opportunity that is being squandered.

      It is kind of funny that I am saying this however, while watching the ceremonies themselves on the big screen at Olin’s auditorium.