blog.emerick.org

Well this week is spring break…

This past weekend I went down to Knoxville to visit Rachel. I went down late Friday and left late Sunday. We just hung out and watched TV and movies and talked. Talking in person is much better than talking over the phone all the time.

After sadly leaving Rachel in Knoxville, I drove back to Blacksburg where I took a little nap and picked up the rest of my stuff to take home. After running a few errands, I headed home to Newport News.

Haven’t really done much since being back. My mom cleaned my car, inside and out along with the van while I raked and cleaned up the front yard.

I need to get started on OS project 2 which is due in a week and little progress has been made due to other things such as midterms and being sick for a week.

Might go to the admiral’s game this Friday night as well as the Capitals/Penguins game on Sunday before heading back to Blacksburg. That is about it for plans for spring break this year…

J!

J!

Since they are tearing down our hockey rink starting over spring break, I joined a soccer league with some friends.

Should be fun, especially since I haven’t played since like junior year of high school…

Need to find my cleats and shin guards again..

J!

(our current logo)

I have received my RIM API code signing keys a few weeks ago and have already released an initial alpha release which just allows viewing of your tasks through an interface similar to that of the iPhone/iTouch minus smart lists due to an API bug that I have encountered and reported.

There have been a few bugs that have cropped up, mostly dealing with the HTTP connections as some users do not have direct access to direct TCP.

The next step will allow for better viewing of your tasks as well as completing, deleting, postponing, and snoozing. I need to make the HTTP connection a separate thread to allow for better responsiveness from the GUI and make sure I don’t block in the event thread. I have an idea on this just need the time to implement it. I have been busy with school projects, mainly OS and a couple homeworks here and there for other classes…

I have established a couple websites and a group for the project.

Discussion on the project is taking place at this google group:
http://groups.google.com/group/rtm-on-the-blackberry

The code is hosted here at this Google code site along with some screen shots:
http://code.google.com/p/rtm4bb/

And I also bought the domain http://bbrtm.org which hosts the OTA install for the application. Eventually I may migrate everything over to this server and use trac and subversion to manage the project, but for now Google code is site is working great.

J!

(Click for full size image)
This image pretty much describes how my home would look.

• External Hard Drives – great for backups as well as archiving. I would probably have a large network attached storage server somewhere which would hold terabytes of data that any of my computers could access.
• Digital Camera – already have a point and shoot camera. Eventually I would like to get a nice DSLR with assorted lenses for taking more professional pictures.
• Scanners – Don’t have one now, and I don’t really have much of a need for one as I don’t take in much paper. I try and do as much as possible online. But I guess may need one someday.
• Paper Shredder – Already have one and is used for lots of junk mail credit card offers…
• Under counter laptop – Definitely would have something like this. Maybe a touch screen system which could be used to look up recipes or other cooking related information. It could be used to manage the grocery list and other general web browsing. Maybe have some kind of portal which would display time, weather, traffic, etc so while getting ready for work I could easily view this information… Hmm, maybe another project?
• Smart Refrigerator – This would be cool, but not a priority as the under counter laptop would take care of most of its functionality. But this could be used to keep track of what is in the fridge, maybe via RFID tags or something similar… There are possibilities here…
• Home Theater System – Its a must. I will most likely have a home theater PC attached which will take care of recording TV and also storing movies and other digital media such as video podcasts, music, and pictures. In addition to the HTPC, there will most likely be some gaming systems as well as a DVD player of an HD variety.
• E-Book reader – Haven’t tried one of these yet, but it would be interesting to see how well it works considering I prefer to read stuff in the paper form. Amazon’s Kindle looks promising.
• LCD Digital Frame – Would like some of these. One that would have wireless networking capabilities that would allow for it to update itself from either an RSS feed or from the NAS or something…
• iPod stereo – I wouldn’t really need this since I don’t have an iPod and the HTPC would take care of this.

Hosting for emerick.org has been moved to slicehost from godaddy.

The main reason for the move was to consolidate hosting resources. I have decided to continue using slicehost as my hosting as I like their setup. They give me way more control over the server.

The site should also be a bit faster.

Let me know if you discover any problems with the new hosting setup…

J!

Just got back to Blacksburg yesterday afternoon. Dave and I just barely fit into the car with all of our hockey equipment. It was a good thing we left before 3pm as we did. Matt, who left about an hour or so, got stuck in traffic on I-81 and had to take some back roads to get back at a decent time. When we got back I hung out at Dave’s place watched some hockey and had some Gumby’s pokey stix. Haven’t had those in a while. Then came home, unpacked, and passed out…

School officially starts tomorrow. However, I don’t have class on Mondays (or Fridays) so I don’t really start school till Tuesday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have 3 classes starting at 8 am with comparative languages. Then I don’t have any classes till the afternoon, starting at 2pm with Operating Systems and then at 4pm with Wireless Networks. And then on Wednesdays I don’t have class till 7pm which is Computer and Network Security. Should be a good semester… Should have more time than last semester to work out and play hockey…

Just finished unpacking and cleaning up my room getting ready for the last semester… need to go to walmart tomorrow and restock the fridge/cupboards…

Goodnight!

J!

While hacking around with my BlackBerry today, I got Hello World! going fairly easily following a couple quick tutorials.

After that I wanted to test some integration with the Remember the Milk API so I followed the tutorial for HTTP connections. Got that working…

Next I was going to get the API login working which requires going to a specific URL to authorize the application. Here is where I hit a snag. the Browser API has this nice little note:

Signed: This element is only accessible by signed clients. If you intend to use this element, please contact RIM to establish the necessary agreements that will allow you to have your COD files signed.

Unfortunately, that necessary agreement to sign your applications is $100… Yes, $100…

So this has put a slight snag on me writing applications for the BlackBerry… I was going to try and hack up a quick Remember the Milk application this weekend as there seems to a fairly high demand for it…

Fortunately, I can still develop the application though using the BlackBerry Simulators, which are quite nice. So I think what I am going to do is try and develop the application using the simulators and show that around for now… I have some ideas for funding the $100 that I will get to if I can get some decent software up and running that people would like…

Probably going to spend the rest of tonight hacking away on the BlackBerry…

J!

not a big fan of Kukicha either…

J!

Sort of my new hobby if you will. I have been interested in tea on and off for a while and after talking to Katherine about some tea she got, I decided to take the plunge and get a green tea starter set from Adagio Teas.

So far I have tried Green Pekoe and Citron Green. Both taste good. So far nothing has stood out too much but there are tons of teas to try so I am going to keep sampling till I find some that I really like. I think I might try some of the flavored teas next.

If you have any suggestions, let me know and I will give them a try…

J!