So - I’ve finally migrated over to an actual server that is not located in my own home. Don’t get me wrong - I still have the old server at my home, but I’m hosting on an external server now, in hopes that it’ll free up more time. Time will tell - if I actually do free up some time, I suppose that means I might have time to blog some more - which is something I’d like to do… cross your fingers :)
I originally created a website / alumni tracking tool for my 10 year high school reunion (see http://www.mayfield95.org/) about two years back. My wife, who also graduated in 1995, saw the site - and figured, hey - why not re-use this for my 10 year reunion? Thus… I ported the code over for her 10 year reunion (see http://www.goddard95.org/).
One of my brothers is getting ready to help put on his 20 year reunion, and asked if he might be able to take advantage of what I did for our reunion to track alumni, get tickets purchased, etc… and so I figured I’d take the opportunity to make my code more generalized so that the next time I’m asked to port it for another high school - it will *cross your fingers* hopefully require only copying some files, copying a database structure, and then modifying a single configuration file.
Anyhow - so taht is what I did… the site looks awfully similar - but the code behind it is much more general pupose now (see http://www.mayfield88.org/ for my brother’s site). Yup… leave it to me to spend more time just make the behind the scenes stuff look better w/no change to the front end :)
I’ve taken on another project - the making of the Sandia District website here in Albuquerque. Take a look:
It’s a fun project, and I believe a much needed one as well. Feedback is much appreciated ;)
I’ve been using ImageMagick (a great image library / toolset by the way) for some time now. Recently, I ran across a bug in the library when trying to draw straight dashed lines. You can get the details on the ImageMagick forum itself.
As that forum doesn’t allow posting of images (as far as I can tell) - I’m posting the error condition and the output of it here in hopes to aid developers more quickly find a fix for it :) The problem is Read more
Yes, it is finals week once again. I have 3 finals this week - one in about 45 minutes - a 2 hour comprehensive final for my Digital Image Processing course (it is going to be a doozy)… then I have two take home finals, one which has already been handed out, the other I get on Thursday morning. These are in Digital Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition. I do enjoy learning, but I will be glad when Friday night comes, and all my finals are finished … it is a great feeling, one that I’m looking forward to. Of course, it all starts up again in the fall :)
Well… sorry hackers, but I’m getting fed up with your little games. I’ve found what appears to be a great module that works with apache to help monitor/block your hacking attempts. I’m impressed by what I’ve seen so far.
I’ve gone ahead and implemented a mod_security service to logwatch as well, to aid in parsing through the audit_log that mod_security spits out as it does its work. I couldn’t find a decent one out there already written, so decided to write my own. It’s nothing fancy, but gets the job done. I figured I’d post it here in case someone else might find it useful.
Just place each file in the appropriate place… for my fedora core install, that happens to be in /etc/logwatch/* — exact locations for each file are then (click to download):
/etc/logwatch/conf/logfiles/audit_log.conf
Use at your own risk… :)
Wow — school is eating me up… I’m back in school after having graduated with my Bachelor’s back in 2001, and then working for a good 5 years. I’m still working (1/2 time), but have just begun work on my Masters degree in Electrical Engineering (emphasis in Signal Processing).
I imagine I’ll get back into the swing of things soon enough, the sooner the better. I’m taking three classes this semester - Advanced Optics I (fun class); Linear Systems (not too bad); and Random Signal Processing (the class that is taking all my time).
We just had our first test in Random Signal Processing yesterday. I think I did ok - but it took hours and hours and hours of preparation. I have literally been spending 3-6 hours 4-5 days a week on this single class, but - I feel like I’m finally getting it. Hopefully the amount of time I’m having to spend will decrease as time continues, so I can start putting some other priorities back into their rightful places (i.e. Family, Church, Work).
Well — time to veg a bit, its been awhile since I have been able to just sit and do nothing. Unfortunately, it is already 10pm, but hey - gotta take what you can :) I’ll try and get back here more often. Time will tell …
We are now a family of six… It has been a fun week, as we begin to adjust to life with four children all five and under. Jill tells me she’ll be able to survive my returning to work on Monday - I hope she’s right ;)
Click here for some pictures from the first week… (NOTE — it requires a password to view the images, email me for access…)
I got a good laugh out of an email I received *before* the NCAA championship was played out. The subject of the email was “[placeholder for winning team] Wins the NCAA Tournament!” And the body of it contained the following words:
UCLA Wins!
Congratulations, [placeholder for winning team]! As someone who has purchased sports products from Amazon.com, we thought you should be the first to see our selection of NCAA championship products.
I received the above email at 7:43 AM on April 3rd… Nice snafu for Amazon ;)
Also just found the following article on ABC news about it:
Our fourth child, third boy, arrived at 2:27 in the afternoon yesterday. Everything went well - and mother and baby boy are both doing great. Spencer seems to have taken after his parents — taller than all our others (21″), and also weighing in at the lowest of the four (7lbs 6oz). He is sure cute, and has the longest little feet and toes.
We are very excited, as are our kids. When I called home to report to Michael (our oldest at 5 years of age) he started jumping up and down cheering when I told him we had named him Spencer! He has a friend in pre-school named Spencer, and had been the strongest advocate for the name. He also told me how he got to announce to his preschool that morning that his “mommy was going to have a baby today” and that it was going to be named Spencer.
I’d better head back to the hospital ;) Time to pick up Spencer and Jill and bring them home. I guess we’re going to find out what life is like with four children. Should be fun!
