I managed to upgrade my computer to Windows 7. It was nightmarish and HP told me they wouldn’t support it even though they have upgrade instructions on their website. It was the drivers that were giving me such issue. It took me a couple of days but I downloaded updated drivers and did a few other fixes so now the CPU is not at 90% and I’m connected to the Internet. Heh, hardware and drivers and all that aren’t my strength.

A friend of mine is going to school to become a programmer and it made me envious. Design isn’t my strength but I love working with code. Prior to upgrading to Windows 7 I tweaked a script and got single-sign on working for my IPB forum and Drupal install on a website of mine. I’d waited for months for the script that would do this to be released but I figured I could do it on my own since the developer stopped working on the project. So, maybe, just maybe, I should do the same as my friend. I guess like tons of other people I really don’t know what I want to do. I know I don’t want to be a pharmacy tech for the rest of my life. I know I love working with code. I know I want to learn more about programming.

My license still has not come in and my teacher is MIA. The money for the school was a gift but I still find it upsetting. I know I don’t want to be a pharmacy tech forever but I still want to work part time using my license for a while.

Soft Shock (acoustic) by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs – This song is so delicate, quite unlike a lot of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs older music. I like the acoustic version a fair bit more than the main version. When I first heard Zero on the radio I thought I’d be disappointed with the new album but then I heard this song and some of the other acoustic versions.

Book of the Moment

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve been a fan of Holmes since childhood but I finally got my hands on this two volume anthology for about $2 and in near mint condition. I found tha t I’d not scraped the surface with the two books I’d owned previously. I still have to say my favorite is “A Study in Scarlet” for old times sake. Holmes continues to surprise me and I was pretty amused that there were cases he was unable to solve or in which he was tricked (Irene Adler). I’m sort of apprehensive about the new movie I hear is coming out. Robert Downey Jr. looks nothing like my idea of Holmes. However, I’m certain he can act the part.

Script of the Moment

I’ve been working with IPB 3.0 a fair bit. Created an application for multi-avatars for the forum in which members can upload a set amount of avatars and choose different ones for each post. Also, created a few hooks such as the ability to post your status to Twitter via the forum and added the ability to show statuses in posts if the member so chooses. It’s been fun working with the apps and hooks feature, challenging and fun.

I’ve also been steadily working on myFanlisting. I’d abandoned the project ages ago and had removed the script from my site. However, I’ve started rewriting it completely. It uses some of my last work on phpFan but has a number more features and goes beyond a collective script.

Different sections underway so far:

affiliates (also with the ability to request affiliation with the collective or fanlisting and add a button)

codes (also with the ability to donate codes)

collective (self-explanatory, a formatted list of owned fanlistings displayed under their categories and/or all fanlistings)

joined fanlistings (a formatted list of joined fanlistings displayed under their categories and/or all joined)

pages (ability to add different pages such as the rules or about section for the collective or a specific fanlisting)

wishlist (top fanlistings, other wishlisters, fulfilled wishes)

main (statistics for each fanlisting)

Different from phpFan features planned or done:

custom permalinks

file templates (instead of phpFans mySQL based templates)

cleaner code

breadcrumb navigation

complete pagination with back/forwards and first/last links, as well as showing only five page links before and after the current page (First < … 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 (the current page) 12 13 14 15 16 > Last

gravatars for the members list

ajax for forms but will work without

Planned Sections:

members

update form

join form

keep-in-mind

conversion script

statistics (for collective)

If you have any suggestions for the script I’d be more than happy to hear them.

Went to Disneyland recently, both Disneyland and California Adventure. The food is just as terrible as I remember (seriously “taco sauce” AKA ketchup for Mexican food?) but it was awesome to be able to get on Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean. California Adventure has a little tortilla factory that gives you one just made tortilla for every visit. The parks are still very kiddie but being a kid isn’t so bad at Disneyland, no? I hadn’t been back in years, last time I got a yearly pass I got burned out. My father used to take us multiple times a week so that we could get various collectibles they were passing out. Can barely remember what though I remember them passing out pogs and slammers (remember those? you should if you’re a child of the nineties) for about a week. I saw so much Disneyland that year I loathed the thought of going for over seven or eight years, it just made me ill. Oh well, now I have a pass and going in small doses is the best way.

I recently found out that php scripts should not have ‘PHP’ in the title (e.g. phpMyAdmin, phpFan, phpWhatever), wonder how that works for phpFan. :/ I’ve read two blog posts on the topic and some people were saying it was all right if it was a PHP script but I somehow doubt it. There are so many scripts with PHP in the title, some very popular like phpMyAdmin or phpBB, and nothing has ever happened. However, I’m thinking of renaming phpFan but not sure to what.

What I want to accomplish over the next twelve months

1. Go today or tomorrow to talk about delaying commencement until May.
2. Go back to school for something related to IT, looking into programming. I’ve been self-taught so far but I think I’m in desperate need of some sort of formal training. I want to be back in school by Fall semester.
3. Finish the revamp/complete rewrite of backend scripts on my non-personal website.
4. Rewrite myFanlisting CMS and move fanlistings over to sleepwalking.nu.
5. Buy a new computer. The one I have is over two years old and moves at a crawl. Using MSN Messenger can cause it to freeze up. I was thinking of a Mac but decided it was too expensive. I don’t have that sort of money lying around!
6. Lose weight healthily. I need to start walking/jogging again, that helped me lose nearly ten pounds over the summer. I gained it back after I stopped.

I’ve been thinking about regrets and I have few, I feel wasting time regretting things holds people back. I do have one related to losing a friend I’d had since high school. Now we’re nearly strangers. It’s something I think about from time to time, I can’t quite let go of it like I’ve let go of everything else.