The Realm of Jinan

Hello from the DroidFiled Under: Fun Stuff

I am just testing out the WordPress app for the Motorola Droid.

Tags: droid

Fireworks at the River – Summer 2009Filed Under: Fun Stuff

Here are the videos of the fireworks we shot at Leesburg, AL at my grandparents house on July 4th, 2009. Enjoy!

Edit: Guess it would help to post all 5 videos, not 4 with 1 duplicate.

Tags: Alabama, Fireworks, Grandparents, Leesburg, River, Summer 2009

Gadsden Wifi, Part 2Filed Under: Fun Stuff, Programming, Projects

For an update, I have posted a screenshot of the program I wrote (few hours of sitting down and punching the good ol’ keyboard).   The program takes a Wifi Scan text document and converts it into a Google Earth KML file.  If you click the image below, you can see the full screen shot of what my program looks like, the tree structure listed in google earth and the information that pops up when you click on said point.

By doing this little project, i’ve learned about writing XML documents and how easy it can be and how big of a pain it could be.  Also this project stresses the way I used to code.  For example, a 750 KB file with 6,000 data points works flawlessly.  Toss in a 10 meg file with 54,000 data points and  you will see real quick that handling data is alot different.

Things I’ve Learned:

• Redim Preserve statement is a bad bad bad idea if called once per loop.  It basically creates an array thats bigger (or smaller), copies the old array to the new array (2x memeory consumption), then destroys the old array.
• Better to Add items all at once vs one at a time on List View Boxes (still learning to program this one).
• Google Earth is picky when it comes to <document> and <Document> …

This program for the most part is complete, once I fine tune it and get everything running smoothly, I will see about the website side of this project. 

 

Tags: Gadsden, Google Earth, Programming, Projects, Wifi

Unveil playing Higher by CreedFiled Under: Fun Stuff, Music, Lyrics

Went and saw Unveil play at Dr. Feelgoodz on Friday.  Here is a sample of what they play.  Sorry for poor audio quality, my camera is not ment to be a video camera nor does it have a filter over the microphone to make the sound quality better.

Tags: Creed, Dr. Feelgoodz, Higher, Unveil

Gadsden WifiFiled Under: Fun Stuff, Projects

Below is what I picked up for just the gadsden area. The data was thrown into Google Earth, and needs to be cleaned up as there are probably 5-10 Access Point data per spot and it gets confusing.

A red X is a secure Access Point, a green check is an open wifi hot spot.

Tags: Gadsden, Google Earth, Wifi

36 Songs, 4 ChordsFiled Under: Fun Stuff, Music, Lyrics

Tags: 36 songs, 4 chords, Music, Video

Google vs MicrosoftFiled Under: Fun Stuff

This picture is awsome.

Tags: Browser, Chrome, Google, Microsoft

Video Games Live B’hamFiled Under: Fun Stuff, Music, Lyrics

I went to video games live in Birmingham and it was pretty sweet hearing some old and new games played through an orchestra. It was the Alabama Symphony Orchestra playing, with the UAB Singers (I don’t remember the name) doing vocals. There was also an awsome pianist there as well. It may sound pretty wierd listening to video game music but once you hear them play it will change your perspective. We were not allowed to bring cameras however, everyone brought them anyways… except me . At one point in the show the crowd was clapping to the beat however, way out of sync and the conductor turned to the crowd and started conducting for the croud. It was awsome.

Anyways, here is a couple of youtube videos to see for your self.
VGL – Classic Theme Games
VGL Pianist playing Final Fantasy. You should really see her play Mario, its awsome.
VGL Pianist playing Super Mario Brothers (very short)
VGL from Birmingham – Metal Gear Solid
VGL from Birmingham – Zelda

Tags: Alabama, Birmingham, Games, Live, Symphony, Video

Photo Gallery OnlineFiled Under: Fun Stuff, Projects, Web Development

I finally have a photo gallery started you can view it by clicking the link above that says ‘Gallery’ or click here for the lazy people.

Check it out, let me know how it looks. I am still adding pictures to it, going to polish it up some more.

Tags: Gallery, Photos, PHP, Pictures

Dragon*Con 2008Filed Under: Fun Stuff, General

I went to Dragon*Con this year and it was an interesting and entertaining experience. If you do not know what dragon con is, it is the largest multi-media pop culture convention in Atlanta, GA. It mainly focuses on sci-fi, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and films in the United States. It is usually held every labor day weekend. You can visit the Dragon*Con website here.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn near turner field and took their free shuttle service to the convention which was being held in 4 hotels (Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton, and Sheraton). Here is a hint: Do NOT book the hotel 2 weeks before convention… If you do, good luck finding a hotel thats cheap.

Friday mainly consisted of driving up to Atlanta, getting into the hotel, going to convention and getting registered. Once we got registered we visited the hotels to get used to the layout as the weekend, we probably wouldn’t have a chance with all of the people. We went back to the Marriott and took some pictures before we went to some of the Panels (DMCA and Game Hacking) Friday night.

Saturday the Dragon*Con parade was at 10 AM, got their around 9:30 to find a good place to take pictures… that did not happen, it was already packed with more people coming in. After the parade was over we went to Sheraton to the Stargate Worlds Beta panel, since it was still in NDA that was a big waste of time. We also went to the Warhammer Online Beta panel shortly after. This panel was in a room that had a capacity of about 300 people and they were turning about another 100 people away since the room was full. We decided to go back to the hotel to dump pictures from our cameras and waited on the Holiday Inn Free Shuttle service to pick us up… That didn’t happen, we called and they were on the way. However, each time they came to pick us up, the shuttle was already full and had to drive past us. The guy I was with deleted some of his pictures since he took pictures of the parade in burst mode. After that we took more pictures in the Marriott until we went to Hacking 101 panel. Some very interesting stories were told here. One mentioned playing video games on a side of a hotel which turned into playing adult themed movies on a 3 story wall… next to an airport.

Sunday was an easy going day. Wasn’t much going on that I wanted to see so I got to sleep in. We mostly went to the dealer halls where they sell board games, weaponry, clothing and all sorts of fantasy stuff. That night we went to the Dawn look-a-like contest then after that the Cruxshadows concert.

Monday we packed up and came home.

As I said, it was a interesting and entertaining experience to go down there.

Striga’s Dragon*Con 2008 Pictures. These are not my pictures, as I am still working on a gallery to show my pictures (I am using this link with permission of my friend I went to Dragon*Con with).
Jinan’s Dragon*Con 2008 Pictures – These are my pictures I have taken with my Canon Power Shot camera.
Chilling Effects was talked about during the DMCA panel. It mainly shows what Take down and Put back notices are.
The Daily WTF website was mentioned in the Hacking 101 panel. A website that shows coding mistakes. Like bash.org for programming.

Tags: Atlanta, DragonCon, Dragons, Nerds