JRCharney.com

September 8, 2011

A Relatively Neverending Process

If you've stuck around this far, you may have noticed that this blog doesn't use Wordpress, Drupal, Joombla, or any other Content Management Software (CMS). There are no Faebook or Twitter widgets, no theme created by some guy at Tumblr. Things look very minimalistic and drabat the moment. Green on top of Black never was my original plan for a color scheme for this website.

This page, and the pages that are associated with it are ongoing developments. A work in progress. Or for the potential employer who wants to see a finished product, a relatively neverending process.

What irks many Facebook users (or users of any website to be more accurate) is when the sites creators constantly change around stuff. They add new features. They don't give the user a chance to beta test the newest version. They change the security settings without telling everyone at least two weeks ahead of time. Or they do something that breaks all of the user's candy-coated widgets which are more than likely being used to scrape user information. (In the mind of anyone at Facebook, if anyone is going to be scraping for user information, it's going to be Facebook, not some weird third party website.)

In order to avoid anger and bitterness by the users, the adminstrator must make chages that are subtile or at very least tacturn.

For instance, this site until just a few hours ago was using HTML5. It's still using HTML5, but now the page has been split into smaller parts using PHP. I really wanted to use Python, but I really have no experience using Python for web development...yet.

In the coming days, I hope to set up this site to be in classic two-column format. It seems to work out very well for just about the majority of websites, and it will allow me to be more discipline in using HTML elements. (See yesterday's post with the use of table and list elements.)

As I have stated, this site will use HTML5. That means, anyone who is still using Internet Explorer will find this website to be about as plesant as a basic cable TV package. (You get nothing but the local channels, the religious networks, and all the home shopping and paid programming channels. Even HDTV users have better options than this since they can access the side channels.) Come to think of it, why the hell does anyone use Internet Explorer or even Windows for that matter any more? Mac OSX is pretty popular among personal computer use. And Linux has found interest among businesses and developers looking to cut costs and not sell their IT deparment's soul through endless vendor contracts with companies like Microsoft, Oracle, or IBM. If the company is not happy with what they have, they can switch to something else and not be punished for it. (If only phone companies worked like that.)

But the most important reason to use HTML5-compatible browsers is the <canvas> element.

For more than a decade, I've really wanted to find a way to integrate interactive graphics within webpages. I'm sure there are some folks in the computer science industry that have been trying to do this for much longer than I have. As a teenager, I learned about VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language). While it really was something to jump on board with the mid-1990s fad of Virtual Reality, my use of it was much more for creating simple models and to show off what I've learned from reading the parts of my high-school math books which included a bit of three dimensional vector calculus that even my college professors wouldn't even teach. Eventually, I found better books on the subject of vector calculus. Most of them at the local book fair being sold for about $3. By that time, VRML had been forgotten.

It should be noted that while I was looking up more information about the subject of VRML, I took at Computer Aided Drafting class in high school where we used AutoCAD 14. One of my favorite features of AC14 was something that all versions of AutoCAD still use (hopefully): The Command Line.

While graphical user interfaces (GUIs) have wiped from the majority of the public's memories of the strength of a classic command line interface (CLI), I fell in love with the fact that by typing in a few words, the computer could draw and edit these line on the screen. It is what motivated me to use my mathematical interest toward computer science. A simple hand written line of code was like witchcraft or spellcasting. I wanted to tell people that they can do it too and that it is easy.

However, some books, academics, and business leaders would rather tap the already existing skills for their profit value rather than learning new skills and developing new things that could improve the lives of others. Where I can understand and present things through the display of formulas, sketches, visual representations, the world is filled with the clutter and obsfucation of verbose text that minds of those whose brains have been hotwired with short attention spans with the poison of television and pop culture has usurped the need for a scientific industrial society that creates new things developed from new ideas. In fact, why do I need to explain my reason for doing what I'd like to do with this technology? HAVE A TASTE OF THIS!

Isn't this cool? Now, PHP can do this, but if JavaScript can do it and with animation and interactivity, that's way better!

I'll likely move this demonstration to another page in the near future.

I'd like to add some interactivity and some animation to this demostration (a simple rotation of the roses for the moment), but that should be added shortly. You'll notice it soon.

Meanwhile, here's a short shell script that makes the computer calculate π. I was using a modified version of this to correct my math in the above demonstration. I feel it is important enough to share. I'll fool around with this in future posts.

#!/bin/bash
# pi = 4 * arctan(1)
pi=$(echo "4*a(1)" | bc -l)
echo "$pi"

Let's see that formula in MathML (another feature of HTML5) $$\pi =\arctan \frac{\pi }{2}$$

September 7, 2011

HIRE ME!...or at least ask me to help you.

OK, maybe you're not going to hire me for long term jobs. I've been in limbo since 2007. (Thanks, President Bush...you jerk.) For the past year or so the well has run dry.

The least I can ask is for someone (locally within the St. Louis, Missouri area) to ask me to come to them to take a peak at their computer to figure out what is wrong.

Now, I suppose you want to know my credentials? Well, for starters I have a Bachlors of Science in Computer Science. I've been writing webpages by hand for well over a decade. I've been using Linux for over seven years. I built my own computer and tore appart several others before that either to see what makes them tick or to fix something that some poser at Best Buy's Geek Squad would tell you for $75 just so that they can ship it off to some "one-size-fits-all-repair" shop half way across the country where they zap your harddrive just so that you get it back two weeks later with the same defects.

To be honest, you are better off going to like a smaller computer repair shop. There's a place in Hazelwood, Missouri, called ITS Computers that does a fairly good job. But I would imagine most of the folks reading this have never been to North St. Louis County. For all of those who don't live here, use Yellow Pages and find yourself a good computer mechanic.

I could be that guy. I might not have CompTIA A+ Certification, but then again, your problem likely doesn't need a guy with those credentials. Rather you just need a guy who has a screwdriver, a can of compressed air, and some knowledge of what wire plugs into what slot on the motherboard if things are that bad.

That is where I come in.

Starting today, I want to offer my services to North St. Louis County (for a fee, of course). While you are more than welcome to let an A+ Certified techie handle your computer problems, chances are if you're a victim of the recession, you can't afford to do it. Thus, throughout the month of September 2011, I am offering my services to take a look at what is wrong with your computer and possibly fix it starting at $25. If I determine that your problem should be fixed by someone with more experience than myself, then my visit and inspection will be free.

I should note that I don't really have than much experience dealing with malware or viruses (probably because I don't use Windows), so don't expect any guarantees that I can fix that. I can try, but I hate working on those cases because they take so freaking long for the "anti-virus" software to do one of those scans.

Perhaps this table will explain my abilities to fix your problem.

Eventually, if I raise enough capital from my services, I'd be open to payments via installments. For now, this is unavailable.

I would imagine I'll need some sort of business attorney to write up some legal formalities, especially if I have a customer who like instigating frivious lawsuits. I guess the best way to prevent that is to state the following items.

• There are no refunds for my services. Caveat Emptor.
• I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Though I probably won't need to.
• To reiterate, if I determine that the repair you need is beyond my ability to fix, then my inspection is free and you are free to spend your money with someone who can likely fix it. However, if I state that I can fix it, and it does get fixed, you must pay for any parts and labor. If I say that I can fix it but I to buy a part to make it work, you will need to pay me upfront so I can get the part after I find out how much it may cost to fix it. (There is no sense in going to the store without knowing how much the part will cost before I get it for you.) Even if you change your mind about that, you'll still own me $25 for not letting me fix somthing that I may have been able to fix but you declined. (I'll draw a flow chart later.)

As you can see, this is a rather complex plan I have. But if I can make just a little bit of money and gain much more experience that I can tack on my resume, then it's a good plan.

I'm probably going to set up a Google Voice account this week. The money raised will definitely help me get back on my feet.

For the time being, I will serve the following communities:

• Hazelwood
• Florissant
• Black Jack
• Berkeley
• Ferguson
• Unincorporated St. Louis County near the above communities.

My coverage area will expand in the future. For now, as the old computer saying goes: K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid.)

That's all for now. My e-mail address is at the bottom of this webpage.

September 3, 2011

Hello, World!

Hello, visitor. If you are here because you saw my message on the concrete on Delmar Boulevard in the Delmar Loop, I have good news and bad news.

The bad news was my chalk drawing was washed away in the derecho/microburst that hit the city on the afternoon of September 3, 2011.

The good news is that I have photos of it.

It was a great experience being an artist for a day. It was sad to see my work was away, but the experience was wonderful. Even the microburst and soaking rains that we much needed after it being terribly hot today.

Watching my drawing wash away so quickly should be a reminder as to how short life can be. The concrete may last longer than the pastels used to draw my drawing. It might not matter how perfect the drawing is, but rather how colorful you can make it.

And just like that drawing, a few days from now, this page will be replaced with something else, which I really had indented.

This site was actually established to demonstrate my computer skills to potential hires. Everything on this page was written by hand using the Vim editor. I'd make it more fancy, but it's 10:00 PM at night and I really don't feel much like doing a whole lot with this simple page aside from adding a little bit of Cascading Style Sheets at the moment. I'd play around with the HTML5 <canvas> element, but it's been a wild day. I'll make it better tomorrow.

So if you're in the St. Louis Area (preferably in St. Louis City or County where there is a Mass Transit system) and are looking for a geek to whip up a few simple pages (maybe a bit of PHP or MySQL in it) feel free to shoot me an e-mail to see my resume at jasonrcharneyATgmailDOTcom (replace AT and DOT with the appropriate symbols. SERIOUS LOCAL OFFERS ONLY!)

Computer help is also available. My fees are quite reasonable. If I get a software suite set up on this site, I might be able to publish some of the advice/help/repairs that I do. But first I need to make some money. My resume lacks experience because of this recession. I'm either "too smart" to do all the easy stuff or "lack experience" with the more complicated stuff. This "damned if you do, damned if you don't" has created a lot of discouraged unemployed workers, which are not factored into the US Department of Labor's unemployment statistics. (Because saving the face of your elected officials is so much more important than saving your house from forclosure, especially if your representatives are Tea Party Republicans.)

I hope this page helps me find a job or brings in the traffic of the folks who didn't get to see my art.

Check me out on LinkedIn.

Thanks for stopping by.