*blows the dust off this journal*
*waves away the airborne particles*
*coughs*
Excuse me.

Well, what has happened since my last update? How long ago was that? It seems like ages. LJ has been one of the things I've neglected lately.
June 11... Hmm...
I went to North Carolina for the UMVIM Connect rally, where I ran the slide decks for the plenary sessions and presented a workshop during one of the breakout times (the topic was: proper slide deck design). That went well, and it was very nice weather up there.
The next week, I went to Destin for a couple of days with my mom.
Since then, I guess I've been working mostly on driving around to visit the more than 50 churches in my town. So far, I think I've made contact at about 15 of them. But I've made a call list and prepared a call log so that I can call the rest.
Oh, and I've been working on that couch I've mentioned to some of you. Here's a picture:
( Cut because it moves )
So, I've been doing some software development lately. I had two programs that I needed that I couldn't find anywhere, so I ended up having to write my own applications. I don't want to get into Web development, but I wrote them both as CGI programs. I like CGI. I can write the programs like console programs, yet have a GUI interface through the HTML. I have a hard time wrapping my head around GUI programming, because it's all based on events, and I like to set things up in hierarchical menu structures, like the programs we used to use before we knew of such things as windows, icons, menus, and pointers. One of my favorite games in the BBS era was TradeWars2002. It had that kind of text-menu interface: Sector #486 (#) warp to sector, (p)ort (?) Help [20 turns remaining]: or something like that.
Life was simpler in computer programs back then. :)
Anyway, the status of my goals:
WIFE: I haven't found any likely prospects. I'm trying to get out more among people and make some new friends, to expand the number of people who know me and might possibly know someone who could be her.
CAREER: No bites yet. Just nibbles. I've posted a total of two church Web sites, along with my own business page, and one of those two wants to hire me to update the page. The information won't likely change often, so that won't bring a lot of money in, but it'd be something. I'm going to talk to the pastor this week about the page and see whether she hires me or not. I figure most churches I've given my card to will have to have a board/council meeting before they invite me to talk to them about possibly doing their sites, if they want Web work done, so I'm trying to be patient. I need to find more ways to get my name out there.
NOVEL: Still waiting for someone to return a proofread copy so I can post it on LuLu or Wowio.
DEGREE: Completed. Expensive piece of paper.

I'm feeling pretty good. I need to sleep more than I am.
My lips are clear.

Here's a secret: FVYLGFHDSNDROABEVDHEFGRDQPMH.
(Not really a secret)

I've been working on stuff today for my church's Web site. And I've been having a problem. In my little toolbar, I have a few frequently used programs, including my IM client. In fact, that program's icon is the closest to the "open programs" area of the taskbar, which leads to my often clicking on it by accident. When the IM client loads, it doesn't check for another instance of itself (because it allows you to have two different accounts loaded on the same machine, as I recall), and when it tries to login, it kicks my existing connections off. This is not my preferred behavior.
So I finally (after hitting it four or five times today) decided to fix it. To do this, I thought I'd write a little shell script to check a lockfile and decide whether or not to load the program. However, lockfiles are a pain, as I discovered in researching them. But eventually, I hit upon an idea that is foolproof and doesn't involve extra files. I merely check to see if the program name is in the process list. If it is, I pop up a message box giving me its process ID. If it's not, I load the IM client. No more errors!
Here's the code:

#! /bin/bash
y=`eval  ps x | grep gaim | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'`
if [ -z "$y" ]; then
  /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/gaim" &
else
  echo "Already running!" $y "is the PID." >&2
  xmessage -center -timeout 3 "Already running!" $y "is the PID."
  exit 1
fi

0 - 100 words	4
100 - 200 words	3
200 - 300 words	6
400 - 500 words	3
500 - 600 words	1
600 - 700 words	4
700 - 800 words	1
1100 - 1200 words	1
1800 - 1900 words	1
1900 - 2000 words	1

How much do you write??

Username:

Hi, everyone.
I just wanted to post, but I can't recall exactly what I meant to talk about.
I've been working on a few things.
My CGI programming is going fairly well. I'll be glad when, next week, I can devote more time to it.
I updated my resume to reflect my latest job, which ends at 11:59 Friday.
I've been working a little bit on some plotting for "The Great Movers". That's going to be an interesting project.
Well, I don't know what else there is to say, so I'll post this. Talk to you all later.

I've been very busy, lately.
Mostly with work.
Also with this.
Also with writing a coouple of computer programs that may eventually change the way we use the internet. (I'm not conceited... they may not change it, at all, but let's consider what is possible. Neh?) Any C++ programmers want to help?
Also, I posted an entry here
I've been spending a lot of time working. I like the idea that I have an income.
I haven't been getting enough sleep.
I saw A Series of Unfortunate Events, National Treasure, and Secondhand Lions. SOUE was cool. I may read the books, now. NT was a fun movie, though I was not pleased by all the "Masons are honorable men" garbage in it. If you can overlook that and just enjoy the chase, it is worth seeing. SL is a pretty good movie, after a very rough start. Some good messages there, too, but don't believe the nonsense about people being generally good at heart. Any goodness in any person comes from God's working through us.
Did I mention I've been working a lot? I'm gainfully employed, and that feels good.
I bought Myst on eBay. I was pleased with the game, but I was dissapointed that I finished it in three days. I thirst for more puzzles!
My Church had a Missions Fair yesterday. All in all, it went well, but I still want more of the congregation to get involved. Every person should have a mission outside the congregation. We all need to tell people about Christ. Of course, I think we should first live in such a way that people will come to ask us about Christ. We need to reflect Jesus in how we live, then tell people about Christ. So many people talk about Jesus and say they're Christians, but they don't live as though they are. I know I fall short, but I'm at least conscious of the fact that I do. Some people don't even think about it.
By the way, I have been thinking about something my Sunday School teacher said last week. He was talking about someone who said that Christians think we're better than everyone else because we've accepted Christ. I say it's the exact opposite, in true Christians. False Christians may think themselves better than others, but a true Christian knows that he or she accepted Christ because of being unrighteous in the sight of God, and if anything, a true Christian believes that if he or she is not equal with his or her unsaved brothers and sisters, that he or she is worse. That is how I feel. I'm not better than anyone. I'm probably a more prolific sinner than you are.
But I've accepted that I can't earn my way to heaven, and I've accepted that God saw my need and had compassion on me, and that He sent Jesus to die for my sins. Jesus is the full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, if only we'll accept the gift. I have done nothing and can do nothing to earn God's love, but He offers it, and I have accepted it. Praise be to God for saving me and all who cling to Him as our only hope of salvation.
Anyway, I just came on to say that I've been busy. I miss you, my friends. I know that many of you miss me. I've grown spoiled from my overflow of free time, but it is time for me to grow up. God help me to grow more mature while maintaining a spirit as a child. Help me, Lord.
I have to go to work in a couple of hours. There are things yet to be done. So, I'll end this entry and go to do them.
God bless you all.

Explanations: Well, I got a little wrapped up in the project, and I've been working on it half the night and all of today. I wrote plenty of lines of code, but most of today's gains were in reused code I simply debugged. Amazingly I was able to reuse one file, over 1000 lines long, almost exactly as it was.
    I finished watching the Manchurian Candidate tonight. That's a fantastic movie. The acting is without peer, and the story and cinematography are chillingly good. Did you know that Frank Sinatra liked to do only one take when he was in a movie? It frustrated a few of his directors.
    It rained today, but not nearly enough. My new azaleas need lots of water. I may have to just go out tomorrow and put the hose on them.

[Line count: 3799]
More explanations later...

Explanations: I don't guess I've gotten around to writing this entry yet, have I?
    Well, December was pretty busy, and I don['t guess January or February will be any different. I need to be spending less time on LiveJournal and more time on laundry, cleaning house, and writing.
    I haven't been writing much, lately, and I've forgotten to make posts in okaloosa this week. I have been learning a little more C and figuring out the ncurses library a little bit (Not a lot; I still can't get it to write to a user-defined window, grrrrr). Anyway, here's the current line count for the XTrader project:
[Line Count: 1071]
I don't remember what it was when I last left it.
    Anyway, the last page is this: I won't even try to post every day, or even on any regular basis. I'll update when I have something to say, and I'll try to say more about the events in my life, instead of just what my thoughts are. Thank you for your patience.
More explanations later...

Quoted: "No government ever created can protect a gullible citizen; the one that is legitimate has not the power; the one that has the power has not the inclination." -- Skreyola

Explanations: I made a major update to my website yesterday.  It involved changes to 44 files.  You should check out the Index page if you want to see the changes to the structure.  If you only want to check out the new content, you should visit the News page and visit the pages mentioned there.
        A large part of the update was a shift from a table-based layout to a CSS-P-based layout.  I thought using CSS instead of TABLEs was supposed to save bandwidth... but my site went from 3,533,530 bytes to 3,546,534 bytes, so I guess CSS may be good for many things, but not for saving bandwidth... though I will admit to not having optimized the code *shrug*.  I think it's just a fact that CSS-positioning isn't as elegant, codewise, as a simple two-cell table for the purpose of making a sidebar appear on the left side of the page.  But, anyway... I've updated my website.  Also in fairness, I did add some content to the site, which I'd forgotten in my size calculations.  I guess I could go back, delete the new content, and compare them, but I don't feel the need.  I did do a comparison with just the index page, and the CSS version was larger, so I don't think it would change the outcome, unless I optimized the code, which I don't think I will do, given the amount of "free" time I have... or rather don't.

More explanations later...

Quoted: "Whenever the press quits abusing me, I know I'm in the wrong pew." --Harry S. Truman

Explanations: From time to time, in my wanderings around the web, I come across someone touting how CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) not only give a web author complete control over the format of information, but also makes the web more accessible. In general, I agree, but the we get into the fact that CSS allows a web author to specify exactly how big the font should be, and that is where the trouble begins, in my mind. Why? Because when the author of a web page specifies the exact pixel size of the font, it ceases to be accessibly to regular users, much less those who are visually impaired.
Microsoft's browser, as well as Opera and Netscape, allows the user to do a menu command and make the text on a web page larger or smaller. Kudos to these browser manufacturers for doing so. Unfortuantely, at least with MSIE (and I've only seen this mentioned once in all the time I've been looking at CSS), these menu commands cease to have any effect on the text when a px font size has been specified. So, the 8px font the web author specified (and for some reason, it seems to always be entirely too small that the author has specified) displays on the user's screen at exactly that height, and the only way the user can change this is to load his or her own stylesheet. But I hold that the user should not have to specify a completely different set of stylesheets (or override the colors, or any other stupidity) because of the web author's carelessness. Rather, the font sizes should be left at their defaults or use relative sizing measures. There's a lot of talk about accessibility tests, but I have one that doesn't seem to be done, but it should: Skreyola's forgotten CSS accessibiliy test (SFCAT) involves loading the page in MSIE, setting the font size to largest, and seeing if the size of the font changed. If it didn't, your web page will annoy a lot of regular users and be very difficult for those with visual impairments to read. I'm never in favor of web authors taking away from users an easy way to make their web pages easier to view.
What do you know? When I looked around a little bit, I found the solution: Web authors should em units instead of px for sizing of fonts (and perhaps for images, too). Source: http://www.bigbaer.com/css_tutorials/css.scale.image.html.tutorial.htm

More explanations later...

Talk to me: What website idiocy do you think makes the information the absolute most difficult to read? Is it bad color combinations? Is it bad font sizing? Is it intrusive graphics? Is it something else? Tell me what makes reading a website most difficult for you.

Link of the Day: Spyware Bill

I've done a lot of writing work today. I rewrote more than seven pages worth of the first novel, which is no longer called TLOC:Four Weeks With Skyler (Which was a lousy title). It's now called The Land Of Crowns: Seeking What's Lost, Book 1.

I also did a little bit of updating on Book 2, and I hope to be finished with it shortly. I just need to put one more thing into it, and it'll be ready for proofreading. If anyone is interested...

I also did a little bit of coding this afternoon. I didn't spend more than an hour or two on that, and I got one major problem sorted out. The sad thing is, I was probably having the problem because I was using the wrong test. Well, I'll blame it on my sinus infection. I've been feeling foggy-headed for the past two days... I'm not sure if that's when I originally coded the function that had the problem, but... anyway... I still can't think straight, but I did get that problem fixed. I forgot to mention this last time, but to give you an idea of how many lines I pruned from the older code, I had written over 1000 lines of new code between the last two line counts. I wish I were getting paid for this... :)
Well, I hope to sell the game, so maybe...

Anyhow, it's time for me to go eat. Have a great day, everyone!

Well, I've gotten a LOT of coding done lately. I know it won't look it by the line count, but keep in mind that I'm on a pretty steep learning curve, and some of the coding I've been doing is exchanging old (heh... 6 month old) code for more efficient code that I've learned to do in the mean time. I'm going to try to slim down the display code even more.

I haven't been doing any writing for over a week, now. This must change. I need to put the game on hold for a while and get finished with the rewrite of my first novel. I found that I can export the novel into a PDF file, so that may open up an option for selling the book online.

Now to the reason this entry is friends-only (until Sunday)...
My mother is going to Poland. She'll be filling the position I vacated, and she'll be over there from January to June. I have mixed feelings about this. I'm glad the position is being filled, and I'm happy that she's going to do this, but I'm going to miss her terribly.
She's going to tell our church on Sunday, and she wants it to be a surprise, though she says most people probably won't be surprised by it.

Lines: [6,465]

I met a new friend today face to face. darlacia lives in this area, and we had an evening of cards. I had a good time.

---

Some Oswald Chambers for you all:
Theology Alive
What's the Good of Prayer?
Sublime Intimacy
Am I Convinced By Christ?
Do It Yourself (1)
Do It Yourself (2)

Please read them. I think you'll find them useful.

---

In other news, I've been doing some coding, but I've only today hauled out SCS to find out how much coding I've done. It would have been more impressive earlier today, before I deleted bookoos lines by doing a simple optimization on a number of pieces of static data. Anyway, I ran it tonight, and the line count follows, in case anyone is interested.

[Lines: 6,076]

Today was an interesting day.
( My Day... )Having fixed this problem, I should now be able to move forward with work on the first version of the game. I'm afraid of the second version, because I have a feeling I'll need to rewrite most of the game to make it work on a multi-user scale. If anyone knows anything about multi-user engines in C++, I'd appreciate any good resources on the topic.

( Info on today )

By the way, I've been giving some more thought to doing a webcomic. I'd need to find some place to host it, and I'd probably do well to learn to draw, but I'm thinking about it. What do you all think?

"If you expect people to be perfect, you will be disappointed always;
If you expect people to change, you will be disappointed most of the time;
If you expect people to do what they say, you will be disappointed frequently;
If you expect people to behave according to their beliefs, you will be disappointed rarely;
If you expect God to be faithful, you will be disappointed never."


I did a little coding today. I wrote roughly 250 lines of code without compiling it. When I did compile it, I got 1314 errors. Four of those were rememdied by changing the initializer of the data structure I'd changed while coding. I'm rather ashamed of many of the other errors. Most of them were either cut/paste errors (e.g. not declaring a variable mentioned in code I grabbed from another file of the project, or not changing a variable to the new variable), forgetting to put a type before a variable, forgetting a semicoloc or brace somewhere, etc. But I only had to recompile about 8 times to get the error count down to a gross (exactly). And five or six more times to get rid of all the errors. It's amazing how one mistake can throw the rest of the file off... like pulling a line one inch too far, it throws the whole line off by an inch, only in a program, each time one thing is off, it throws everything else behind it off by one more, so that by the time one thing has thrown another off, which threw a third off, which threw a fourth off, it's off by four or more.
Now, if fairness, I should mention that my compiler lists each "undeclared function" as three errors, because of line wrapping.
I'm pleased, however, that I've learned C++ to the point that I don't make errors that cause me to sit and wonder how in the world to fix them, except when I have a hair-puller... but that's not the same thing. In those cases, something has gotten so messed up that the problem is to find the actual source of the error. But I guess that isn't my wondering how to fix the error but wondering where the error is.

I now have the task of coming up with fifty more names. I came up with 255 names for the first phase, and now I must come up with fifty more. I will probably have done this already by the time I post this. I have come up with the fifty new names. They may be stupid names, but they're done. :)

And then there's this gem I just did while playtesting:
(assorted stuff going on here)
Moving to 1.2.2
> 1.2.2
--[1.2.2]--[13/40]--[Your Command?]: t
-=: Smack the programmer :=-
*smacks self in head*
--[1.2.2]--[13/40]--[Your Command?]: q
Shutting Down......


Incidentally, I wasn't shutting down to fix it. That's too big a job for today. I'll fix it later. Maybe tomorrow; maybe not.

[Number of lines: 5,402]

By the way, all the source files, all the binaries, and all the data files (currently maxed out except for the player file, which only has one entry (this version)) for this project will still fit on a floppy disk, which for some reason surprised me.

I spent the evening coding. I ended up restructuring a data type, which allowed forced me to remove probably 50 lines? of code. Anyway, I had decided I must do it now rather than later, when the job would have been a lot harder. Going from V1 to V2 (when I plan to make the major jump to multiplayer) will be a real pain. But okay.

Anyway, I just looked at my clock and decided I'm insane, because I haven't eaten anything in the last eight hours (except maybe a few chips). I've missed lunch and supper. I need to go eat them both.

[Number of lines: 5,120]

I rolled the version number today. According to that, I'm about 3% finished with the first version of the game. I should get my first Alpha tester tomorrow. Here's hoping. :)
Because of that, I sat down today and wrote the online help for the game, so that when my tester(s) enter(s) '?', the appropriate commands will be displayed. It worked out very nicely, though the help file is over 136 lines long. I may post the statistics on that file.

Well, I'm off to go shopping... and then to lunch... and then to class... and I'll probably get this online late tonight, so there's not much reason to talk about what I'm doing now, is that? Oh, well.

[Number of lines: 4,684]

The statistics for the help functions:

Number of lines: 204 [4.36% of the total lines in all files]
Number of significant lines: 197 [4.32%]

I downloaded a new program today. It'll save me the trouble of having to go through each file and add up the lines. I wrote about 100 lines I later had to clip and rewrite. I'm having fun, though. I spent a lot of time playing the game today.

I also spent a lot of time today playing Chess, which was also fun. :)

[Number of lines: 4,421]

Well, I'm back on the game. It's coming along nicely, though I had another hair-puller today. I finally just rearranged the PRNG, and I'm very very pleased with it now. And it doesn't binke anymore. I added a few things, and I'll probably have a few more things tomorrow. hehe. I still have a long way to go, but I might be able to increment the version in a few days (not that I'm anywhere close to being ready for a release. I can't really play it yet, but part of that is my getting new ideas and incorporating them, so if I can put that off for a while and just polish it, I might get closer more quickly).

Still no ideas in my head about what these four characters need to be doing.

I had 14 new emails in my inbox this evening. Most of them were from the same person. :)

[Lines: 4074]

I was thinking yesterday that "Be Thou My Vision" is a song with three beats, and it has a good tempo, so I think it would make an excellent song for a waltz.

I got up this morning at 8:45 and booted the computer, saying to myself that I would fix one small problem I hadn't had time to finish last night. I fixed that small problem, but noticed another problem, which wound up becoming a massive debugging session. That solution revealed a third problem, which was terribly important. So, I worked on that and only finished it at 13:30, when I had a learning lesson (I wasn't teaching). After my lessons, I went back to it and cranked out some more code, made some adjustments, redesigned one variable set, added another, and so on. I have been playing chess for the past hour or two, but other than that, I've been coding most of the day. I enjoy coding, but I wish I knew more about the language. Between that and a few other things (I even read a chapter in David Copperfield), I didn't get online at all today until now (19:32). I had intended to spend today working on one of my novels. Oh well. If I can manage to stay out of the code editor tomorrow, I'll probably go a few days without writing any. I think this needs to percolate, anyway. There is so much to do, but I think it needs to set and become firm in my head, now that I've tasted what is required to get it into the processor. We'll see how it goes.

[Lines: 3845]

*collapses*

Hehe... it's been a hard day of coding. But I've gotten to the point where I'm having fun just playing the game... and have a hard time leaving it to fix things I went in to play-test. This is probably a good thing. I have a long way yet to go, but I'm getting there. :)

Thought for the day (or something like that): If you ask the wrong questions, you'll usually get the wrong answers.

[Lines: 2997]

In case you're wondering about that bug, it was a pretty nasty one. I was overwriting all kinds of variables, because I forgot to set a little limit. Fixing it (once I found it) only took changing a variable reference. It's the little things that get you in programming.

"You cannot go on 'seeing through' things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see." -C.S. Lewis

...

http://www.buttafly.com/originals/havingitall.htm - Check out this essay on the idea of balancing work and family. I think it makes a great point.

http://www.buttafly.com/originals/advice_0903.htm - Okay, I found the other one yesterday, but I went back to the site today and found this one. And it gave me something to think about. I'm still thinking about it, but I thought it was worth a look, so here it is.

...

I will probably get some coding done today.