moved it all to http://professionaldilettante.com/

The entire empire my friends. It’s all here now: http://professionaldilettante.com/

Eastbound and Down soundtrack

*Note the password required is mentiond in the post at http://drunkondreams.blogspot.com/2009/03/eastbound-down-soundtrack.html

& direct link to download is: http://sharebee.com/5b528584

enjoying ruby without rails

Still very new with all this, but I’m very much enjoying playing with Ruby, more so than with Rails.  In the past two weeks, as my current job winds down, I’ve been using Ruby’s built-in classes, modules and methods to write small but useful scripts.  These scripts have solved some problems for me in my current work, which is sorting and filtering a lot of data, typcially using MS Excel functions.  So I bought a great book called “Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts”, by Steve Pugh.  Some examples of the scripts in the book,

-  check the validity of links on a web pages,

- resize pictures en masse, using ImageMagick and RMagick.

I’m also finishing up David Black’s Ruby for Rails which, in conjunction with a lot of online tutorials and examples, has accounted for most of my Ruby reading/studying over past few months. For anyone looking to start learning Ruby,  I recommend “Ruby for Rails”.  Once you understand Ruby basics, “Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts” serves as an example of the fun stuff you can do.  David Black has a new book coming out soon, called “The Well-Grounded Rubyist”, that I’ll be sure to look into once I’m finished with all the books I’ve ordered.

Man I’ve become a huge nerd.

using wordpress as a site and blog

Good post here http://www.expand2web.com/blog/2008/11/23/how-to-make-wordpress-look-like-a-website/ detailing how to use wordpress as a site and blog.

New blog, 1st rails app

I deployed my first rails application to http://zhannes.webfactional.com. The app allows for the creation of blog posts, as well as named pages.

Reviews on 5 mixtape sites

After reading some reviews on mixtape hosting sites http://www.nonvivant.com/2008/12/13/five-ways-to-fill-that-muxtape-shaped-hole/, starting to use http://8tracks.com.

seer – bjm

like this brian jonestown massacre song a lot, Seer. They used to have a website, but now it just redirects to some label or something. Also used to be able to download from the website all albums, no charge. Found this page w/ links to some albums still available. The 1st link appears to work at least… downloading 1st album now.

more updates to dcbiased

at http://dcbiased.nfshost.com. Added drop down navigation. Thanks again to Eric Meyer. I did not find Eric Meyer’s book on CSS all that helpful for learning. It’s become a good reference though, as has his mark-up that’s all over the web. I found the drop down nav mark-up at http://css.maxdesign.com.au/ and then modified for my own use. Weak: unfortunately I’m seeing the drop down work in every browser except IE. That’s chrome, safari, firefox, opera. I knew IE did not support using pseudo classes on elements other than anchors, but just had not gotten around to looking at it. So I’ll have to write a conditional statement for that, someday.

Also added background images for the main and right column with a drop shadow. Those were very easy to do using Gimp’s script fu.

When there is more time or when I hit a snag, i will improve the color scheme and design. But I wanted to get this update in to feel like I am making progress somehow. Lord (whose existence i question, crazy how this stuff creeps into your vocab. e.g. Oh god. GOD! Godd@#n!) knows I am not making any at work. So yeah I’m following along in the book “Ruby for rails”, doing the exercises.

raised by wolves

I like this bit from Voxtrot’s “Raised by wolves”. It satisifies my need for false nostalgic retrospective, over-romanticization of the past. And determinism, the sense that one is helpless against fate. I like, but don’t necessarily agree with, such lyrics. I suppose you have to hear it. I’m lame.

And oh, don’t you wanna love?
And don’t you wanna feel?
I remember, you were reckless, you were hungry
You were real, you were so uptight
Listen, I don’t mind
I feel like I’m watching a car crash.

And oh, this is how it ends
You will watch your friends
Take a moment, take a nothing
Then they’ll put it in again.
This is how we are
This is how we are
We are young and stupid
And raised by wolves

Back from Mexico

Cancun specifically.  Trip was a blast and included lots of sun and fun.  Chichen itza was particularly impressive.  Pictures coming soon.  On flight back was reading “Great Political Theories” by Rutgers prof. Michael Curtis.  Was reading the section on medieval life.  Turns out my mother’s maiden name is latin for “leader”.  Found that interesting.  As i picked up the book, I asked myself why I brought it.  I joked to myself, “This is for when I really can’t sleep.”  Glad I picked it up though, was good to dust off that part of the brain.