Well, it’s officially the first day back to college. Though I don’t have actual on-campus classes until tommorow, it’s a great moment to reflect that it’s one foot back on the right path. As they say, today is the first day of the rest of our lives, and it marks the first stretch down a long path of academia, and with any luck a big step towards independence and a great career beneficial to humanity.
Back to college
19
Aug
Only 3 more free days, then it’s back to the college grind.
It’s been several years, but with a new epiphany of going into the biotech field the excitement has definitely sunk in. There is a world of opportunity for invention and improvement in the field, as we’ve only really scratched the surface of what science can offer humanity. I hope to one day truly make a difference in the field, and make the lives better for many.
The build is complete
19
Jul
40-50 hours of research
days and days of waiting for UPS shipments
10-12 hours building and placing components
30-35 hours of web design
Priceless.
New Far Cry 2 multiplayer map – A Castle Gigantico –
10
Jun
Spanning the entire allowable area, this massive multiplayer map for Far Cry 2 features a huge castle serving as the APR’s front (It’s namesake) with a small but defendable village opposing as the UFLL. Engage the castle by Sea, or storm right through the front via the main entrance bridge. Supports all game modes, and is best suited for groups of 12 or more.
This duzy took me around 30-40 hours to create, in total. The castle has blast-mitigating firing ports, a raised walkway, numerous gun placements, and a great labyrinth for ground battles inside castle walls.
You can download this map by searching for “A Castle Gigantico” – only available on the PC multiplayer servers (no XBOX port , sorry).
A minor rant on Party Politics
08
Jun
We have, as a nation, seemingly become a two-party game, where you either take sides or get left voting for an independent with (generally) a tiny chance of winning. We have divided, and are being conquered as a seething mass of political confusion, where the candidate that gets the best press coverage wins. This is wrong, fundamentally and in respect with the constitutional framework this country was founded on.
When you stop voting for the candidates at least somewhat based on what they stand for, you get terrible candidates that mess up things for everybody, regardless of party lines. We see good, well-qualified candidates get sidelined in favor of the candidate with the best hair. We get terrible politicians who got where they got by cut-throat betrayals and schmoozing. And yet, we keep voting them in.
It’s time to stop playing the political game by what color their party is, by whether they lean left or right, or who gave the most for favorable coverage. Actually look at their records, and vote for who will lead our cities, states, and nation for better.
Tips for creating incredibly secure passwords
31
May
Since the dawn of encryption and user accounts, password security has been of the utmost importance. However, It’s an often-neglected measure for keeping things secure, with users still using default passwords, easily guessable personal details, or otherwise insecure passwords. Here are a few quick tips to help new and old users alike keep their secrets safe.
- Do not use whole words
- Use a good mix of letters, numbers, and special characters as allowed (Like “$”, “&”, “%”, “!” and so on). A great mix is 40% letters, 40% numbers, and 20% special characters (may not be applicable in some circumstances)
- Don’t use family names, pet names, birthdays, or any other easily-guessed items as these can generally be cracked using only a little observation and investigative skills.
- Using characters to replace letters in words may seem like a clever idea, but in reality, password crackers have adapted to that technique long-ago. If you insist on using a word, consider using one that’s made-up, so it’s less vulnerable to being guessed.
- The more characters, the better. Always use as many letters as allowed, as each digit or character makes it that much harder for a hacker.
- If you find you can’t remember passwords very well, use a text file on a USB card, or write the passwords on a piece of paper. Make sure to guard either. On USB or SmartCards, you can encrypt the text file (At least 256-bit encryption is recommended)
EXAMPLES
Bad Examples: MomsName194, MYPetsName, Password, Guest, Default, Admin, 1234, ASDFGHJKL,
Good Examples : u!0Y9z!Lt$93E83P!4V, L05!a91MRnv8F2$3, jLAz091Rr$RM19cn2!RA
Anaglyph 3D Images
26
May
They’re a hallmark of horror movies, sci-fi, the 1950s, and the 1980s. 3D Glasses are a familiar site for anyone that’s ever seen a drive-in, a late-night horror movie marathon, or a b-grade sci-fi movie. The distictive red and blue (or red and teal, realistically) lenses serve to allow you to perceive the depth of an image, by separating it into two color layers that your left eye and right eye see individually.
To create a 3D Image, you simply need two images with the same basic viewpoint, spaced apart at roughly the same distance your left eye and your right eye are apart. The angle you see depends on the orientation of those two pictures. For instance, for a normal viewpoint you’ll want to keep the eye viewpoints level horizontally. Past that, it’s just tweaking the depth of the 3d image by moving the layers right and left and working with the transparency levels to get an appropriate image. I’ll leave the instructions to the pros, but those are just a couple of helpful tips.
New freelance web design portfolio launched!
25
May
In an effort to kick my freelance design work into overdrive, I’ve released a new version of my portfolio separating my business and personal life. It’s a simpler, less-cluttered portfolio site designed to showcase my past work, along with serving as a demonstration ground for new design techniques. Let me know what you think!
It’s currently up at http://www.lostinthetext.com/portfolio/
Google’s pacman fiasco
22
May
Google users were treated to an interesting twist on the now-deeply-ingrained google homepage logo yesterday, as google replaced the normal logo with a playable version of 80s video game hit PacMan featuring the google logo within the level.
Reactions were mixed, however. For most, the game was either met with brief amusement and a few games played, or a resounding ‘meh’. But for some unlucky souls browsing at work, their regularly-scheduled on-the-clock google browsing turned into a dead giveaway as the sound from the java applet alerted everyone within a 5 meter radius, but only if they had both sound and the third-party plugin ‘coolpreview’ enabled on their computer. Within minutes, a hoarde of angry office workers and soundophobes was busy at work, registering their disapproval of the pacman stunt to anyone who would listen. However, in a great display of integrity, google kept up the pacman app, and as of the time of this writing the game is still up. Note – you have to double-click the logo to start the game (another fine moment for the eolas suit.)
The game featured the traditional “waka-waka” sound scheme of the timeless classic, bringing to mind memories of a simpler time in gaming’s history (and this coming from a child of the 80s).
Optimizing your Wordpress Site – A few simple tips
22
May
In my experience working with Wordpress and content management system (CMS) sites, I’ve come across several helpful tips and techniques for optimizing and designing your wordpress site. A few simple adjustments can make a world of difference for marketing, promotion, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and the overall design.
1. For SEO, use one of the freely available plugins designed to let you customize the meta tags and titles for each page. I would personally recommend the “All-In-One SEO” Plugin, which offers an addition to the individual page settings where you can specify a number of meta tags and a unique title for the page.
2. Set a custom format for your page URLs. The default URLs for wordpress posts are, well, a little lackluster. Just a day and a month. Not a whole lot of context for Search Engines, which generally rely on the content and page URL to get an idea of what’s on the page, so they can index it. While generating a sitemap takes care of a lot of the bigger details, giving your posts a better URL can drive more traffic to the site through organic searches. You can set the custom page URLs via “administration menu > settings > permalinks”. Set the “common settings” radio box to ‘day and name’ or ‘month and name’ to add the page name to the post’s URL. You can also create a custom naming structure for your URLs, which will automatically be configured on previous posts as well.
3. Use the ‘AddToAny share button’ plugin as a quick way for users to send your blog posts or pages to a friend. Not only does it make it easier for the end user to send their favorite blog post or a funny joke to a friend, you also make word of mouth advertising much easier. You can set where it will appear, and it offers automated syndication to a large number of social networking and social media services, like Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, Etc..
4. You can hide pages from wordpress’ navigation menu (wp_list_pages, for coders) without having to hardcode anything. The “Exclude Pages from Navigation” Plugin, and several similar plugins, offer easy ways to remove a page from the menu. In the case of the “exclude pages from navigation” plugin, it’s as simple as changing a dropdown box in the right-hand column of the article or page’s settings page.