News History

This will, in all honesty, be the last post of this year (Like I had to tell you that.) Few things. I got a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. It has 4 wheel drive (all time) and a V8, also just about any other thing a person could dream of in a 4x4/Luxury vehicle. Bender is doing good. Took him to the vet. The doc there gave us an A+++ with gold stars for the amount of care we are giving to him. so thats all nice.
Ramen Noodles with Cajun flavor are awesome when eaten as a snack (prepared without water or heat).
On to site news! I have been learning how to use some XML parsing modules for perl and am getting pretty good at it; about 3 lines to extract a desired value from a given file. Soon I will implement it on the site here. I'll use it for simple things at first and get more complex as I get better. First will be stuff like Theme storage and maybe WebCam information, since those are both hard coded into CGIs right now. The news will never be stored as XML because its already stored in a superior way with SQL; same with U.D. and S.S. I may convert the menu to XML vs its current HTML with an include statement, but that would add milliseconds to the load time. Theoretically, my overall idea for the site is to have everything working in the most efficient fastest loading/processing time possible while still maintaining complete and extreme dynamics. Sort of a balance between speed and usability.
About the webcams being black sometimes. This is not for privacy, believe it or not. The software I'm using (which is sort of the only choice if you have 2 or more cameras) doesn't properly initialize the video digitizer for each of the cameras when it is launched. After launch, if you modify something, all comes to life as normal. The application is NOT scriptable, so I cannot automate this task. So, if its black, just drop me a note so I know to fix it.
Thats all for now. More cool stuff to come.

The fiance and I were looking for a little bundle of joy that didn't cause so much disruption/stress/responsibility/pain/time/effort/energy/money as a real baby so we got a reptilian one. Our baby is a 1-2 year old Fischers Chameleon. He is about 5 inches long, not counting tail, and he is adorable. We named him Bender, because Bender is great (as the so named character on Futurama so often proclaims). He is also quite bendable. I'll add some pics of him as soon as I collect them from our various digital cameras. He is really smart too. Very often when you are holding him and he wants to go somewhere, you'll see him plotting his path in his head, and once he has it setup, he goes right there with no distractions. He likes warm water and when he's really content he'll coil his tail up. He will also change the color of his throat from green to blue when he is pleased/happy. Chameleons apparently change color based on mood not surrounding, which is very important to know if you are looking to raise one yourself. He really seems to like crickets the most, with meal worms next and butter worms in 3rd. He really has no appetite for wax worms, but maybe thats just because we think they are all dead on account of no movement on their part (actually dead or survival technique, you tell me).
In the site's main menu, at the bottom, you'll notice there is a BenderCam. This is a camera pointing in his cage and if you catch it when his light is on, you'll most likely actually SEE him walking around or sitting about. He is fairly active and really quite friendly. This is odd because everything we've read says chameleons are quite the contrary. I much prefer him this way.
His cage is very elaborate, with vines and live plants and even a cool fogger that helps raise the humidity of the cage. There is also a drip watering system and a 0.03 watt night light that i rigged up to keep him from being lonely at night. He has two light sources, one a cool florescent 20 watt bulb that gives the same result as a 75 watt filament bulb, and a regular 50 watt heat lamp for basking. They are both on remote control, and are very good quality. Thats about it, If you'd like to see him in person, just come over. :)

Last few weeks has been interesting. The site has had quite a few hits from (lets just say) an unwanted guest, to jeep things simple. I have tracked this person's every move. I know what they've seen and it is clear that their intentions are so obviously NOT what they claim them to be. Ok, I just had to get that off my chest because honestly, its why I haven't posted here in such a long time.
Down to what's new. Quaker Theme seems to be widely accepted amongst the Mac world and based on what I've seen on the poll (to your right) the next theme will be a .... Starcraft (maybe halo if I can break into the GFX files) theme. Don't worry Quaker fans (all 3 of you) I'll polish up Quaker by lightening the pushbuttons, or just replace them completely, before I start working on the next theme.
In other TRFSoft news, its high time psDoom gets an update. I'm just toiling with what to alter the code to do! :D Most likely case will be setting it up so that instead of running the binaries ps, kill, and nice; it will run scripts so that the game is infinitely customizable. Like, shooting a monster writes a line to a record file, or deletes an item in the trash can, or kicks a user from a server, what ever you want it to do. This will all be customizable by the user with a little amount of perl parsing knowledge, in the next version; 1.1.
Also my sweetie Mandy got me "King of the Hill" Season 2 and "Planet of the Apes" Series on DVD. She's so sweet.

A few months ago I started a new division of TheResourceFork.com. This division is devoted to creating intuitive new creative software to be used (for now) with Mac OS X. This started with the writing and subsequent release of an application called LanguageStripper. The purpose of this app was to remove non-english localization files from Mac OS X programs, therefore dramatically decreasing their size. After that TRF.com Software released its first OS X Theme called Quaker. This full graphic replacement completely abandoned Apple's Default aqua and replaced it with a texture intense colorful mechanical Quake style interface; which was accomplished by using Quake 3's actual textures.
The past 2 to 3 weeks have been exciting ones. TRF.com Software released a new variety of administration software called psDoom. Basically psDoom is the game doom with a really creative twist, for each processes that is running on the host computer, a monster is spawned in the game that represents that process. If you shoot the monster and only wound it, psDoom re-nices the process, therefore giving it less processor time. If you outright kill the monster, the process is in-turn killed as well. It is a surprisingly fun way to seek revenge on an application that is stuck in a loop, or needs to be terminated.
Soon after the release of psDoom, TRF.com Software got another notch on it's proverbial belt, and Quaker 1.3 was released just one week after Apple's release of OS X 10.3 Panther. Needless to say, Quaker 1.3 is to be used with Panther. The feature and added list is so large with 1.3 because Quaker for Panther had secretly been in development for months. To commemorate three successful software releases, I am proud to report that a new sub-domain has been setup to make it even easier to find this software cache. You can visit the software cache at <A HREF="http://software.theresourcefork.com">Software.TheResourceFork.com</A>. Go download something!

Yesterday I received my monthly mailing of the Apple Developer Connection CD and DVD I usually just look at it for a few min, browse through the files, etc. But I got the idea that I'm actually going to COMPILE some of the things on it. So I copy off all the 3D graphics sources, and start compiling them one at a time trying them out as I go playing with things that are neat. I get to this one really cool Carbon OpenGL testing app. I start selecting different shapes to render and i get to a cool one. I started playing with the help options, enabling FSAA 4x, 32 bit etc. then i found the button to increase the number of vertices. I start hitting it a bunch of times. It kept up over 500 FPS till about 75,000 vertices, then when i did another it slowed to about 250 FPS at 150,000. Ran fine. I hit it again and the computer stopped. I figure it is just thinking and working on how to display it. After a little while still nothing. So I shutdown the puter via the button the front. Turn it back on and verbose mode shows that there are some problems with the scsi card and its connectivity. repeat this booting process for a while with no changes. after about 4 repeats, it shows a new line in verbose boot. Thermo something. I got the idea that it was an over heating issue, so I open it up, reposition some of the cards etc, and wait. Boy it was held to wait. I boot up after it was cool and everything started working just fine. Immediately after it booted I launched a temp-monitor app and watched the temp climb. I did some research and found that Apple in the replacement program sent everyone a new power-supply and a main fan that was quieter that the one it shipped with. My research concluded that this replacement main fan could push 37 CFM at 45dB. Those of you into cooling know that ratio SUCKS. The original fan had these specs: 158 CFM at 52dB. Now you tell me which is better. Needless to say I almost INSTANTLY shutdown my computer and installed the old 31337 fan. Its about the same volume now, but if there is an emergency over heating issue the fan can kick up to "jet engine" mode to blow that hot air right out its a$$. It is nice now.

To The Unnamed:

I learned so much from you. How to love. How to kiss. How to devote everything and completely share my heart with someone. How to be more intimate than I had ever been. And how to hate, truly hate. I loved you so much. I loved you so much more than I thought I was capable. Deciding to leave was the most difficult and regretful thing I ever did. Anything before you paled in comparison. I was crushed. I couldn't keep down any food for months. I was literally dyeing of a shattered heart. Whenever I would see you on campus, with you knowing or not, I would have to go sit down somewhere put my head in my hands and just cry until the pain subsided. I loved you so much. You hurt me so badly, and scarred me for life; but now it is time to remedy that. I am finally satisfied with my place in life since that day I left two and a half years ago. I have a glorious future awaiting. There is no need for me to think about you every day any more. You scorned my heart to its blackest possible cinders and it has finally healed over with the ever present love for my future wife. She is everything you were and everything you were not. She is my soul mate. She has healed every part of me that was damaged by your cruelty. Since the day I met her she has been honest and more caring than I thought any person could be. I am free to say what I truly feel to her and she is able to confide in me. Our love goes so deep that it has, at last, pushed you completely out of me; and I cannot ever thank her enough for that. You were beautiful, you loved me and you were evil. You taught me a new definition of wicked. How could you do something like that to the person you love? You tortured me. Now and finally, you are dead to me. Goodbye forever. You will not be missed.
-Blake

ok, I once again totally reprogrammed the TRF menu. Once again adding more flexibility and cool things to the existing stuff, while in the same step removed tons of redundant code. BUT, on the windows theme I added Start Menu icons to it (just like real Windows) the only thing is that... lol... Safari doesn't support the icons HAH! Thats not all of it. What I neglected to say was Safari 1.0 doesn't support it. Safari 1.1 DOES and nobody outside the 10.3 builds has 1.1; so its a feature that only about 1000 people on the planet can appreciate (so far), but the menu looks just as good in 1.0 as 1.1 (sans-icons). OH, and the Mac OS X theme got updated to 10.3, as well as the Windows theme that got updated from 98 to 2000 Pro. Hopefully you've noticed the bullets on TRF are now LARGER too. This is because they are not '?' bullet chars, but in fact real bulleted lists, which lets me do even more stuff with less CSS and HTML code. buahahahaha

This morning I had to get up at the unholy hour of 5am so that some very highly skilled meat cutters could fix my cronic knee pain. First thing I did upon waking was call the love of my life, Blake. :-) Even though he wasn't feeling good at all, he got up to meet me at the operation place. I'm more than willing to admit that I was really scared about it. I've never had an operation before. Just knowing my love was there made it a lot better. He's such a wonderful, caring, protective, amazing, and sweet love that I knew I'd be totally safe with him around. After being wheeled into the operating room, I don't remember anything till I woke up in recovery about an hour later. But before they started, they let my love back to talk to me and seems I carried on conversations which I don't remember. It's a rather weird feeling knowing that you did something that no matter how hard you try, you can't remember a thing about it. Anyway, they found the problem (a bit of tissue that had gotten caught in the joint. At least that's all I know), fixed it and sewed me up. Amazingly I'm allowed to walk around today with the help of crutches. And the best thing to happen from this is that I love Blake even more than before. I didn't think it was possible to love him anymore, but I do. There aren't words to express how much it ment to me having him there and taking care of me afterwards. I'm the luckest woman in the world to love and be loved by this amazing man. I love you so much Blake!!!!!!!!!

spent the past few days and nights debugging an issue Ive been having with my server. Everything should be good now. It kept looping back to itself causing an, for lack of a better word, infinite loop of requests to itself. Should be cool now tho. also found some nifty server controls so `I'll be messin with those too.

Boy, A lot has happened in the past 2 weeks. First off after we got back from the great vacation, I had but a mere two days before I was going to move out of my parents house and into my very own apartment; sharing with Adam and Nick (or as those close to him call him, Sir Nickolai.) Soon after I called on EVERYONE whom I'd previously moved things for in the past, they were all here and ALL of my stuff (well %40 of it) was here. Now I have already setup the webcams in the new place, and If i get a USB camera, I'm gonna setup a "hoodlum" cam pointing outside my 3rd story window. It will display all the wonderful, lets just say: "oppressed minorities" that live around me in beautiful 16-bit color.
Also on friday (2 days ago) I got zonked out and a nice lady stole my wisdom teeth. She must have really wanted them because she and her friend worked on them for a really long time. I woke up in the middle and said "um hi... I'm awake." They looked busy, then fed me some more happy sleepy pills. Manda said I was pretty much a zombie for the next quarter of the day. She said though I was only mumbling in the dentists office (as any respectable zombie/mummy should), on the way home I was giving perfect directions on how to get home (in between the times that I spent bleeding on myself). So it was pretty eventful. I slept, or tried to, for the rest of the day and now i just have a sore jaw muscle, a large slice on my tongue, and 2 gaping craters where the 2 teeth used to be. The bottom teeth haven't come through the skin yet and are apparently SIDEWAYS, which is needless to say, the wrong way for teeth to be pointing. Especially big bulldozer teeth like those.
Lest see, I also turned 21 on the 13th and have yet to get wasted thus far.I will eventually, don't worry. I'm not in a big hurry. I can already wake up with a headache, puke, and also not remember things and I don't even need alcohol to do it! WOW! But I'm sure it won't be much new.
On a side note, my parents got me an iPod for my birthday, its a spiffy new 30GB with a dock and electrostatic buttons. only moving part is it's really really small hard drive. No physical buttons or anything. I'm really my parents care for me so much. They come by every now and then and bring some plates, silverware, food, or even beds! My dad and our friend Jeppe (pronounced yepa) carried my whankin huge 32 inch TV up to the third floor for me. That was really great guys. Thanks again. It is now setup with the gaming systems in the living room.
In my room I finally have the stereo, DVD, 5.1 sound and TV setup. That sounds impressive but its a 12 inch TV and its only technically 4.5.0 audio, because I have no subwoofer and the rear speaker outputs are wired together and only outputting on the 1 speaker, so its only 4 and a half with 0 sub ;)
We still need to get a dining table, a place to set the TV, a night stand for me, shelve-like-things, and rescue my fridge and sodas from my parents house. My roomies seem pretty cool. Adam and his girlfriend Joy look like they will be cool to do stuff with, as well as Nick and Kerry (when she's calm), so it should be a nice experience. School will start on monday (tomorrow) and I dave no predictions about that whatsoever.

Well, we are in beautiful... uh... flat... hot, dry Kansas again. Its prolly gonna be 102 tomorrow (I'm so glad cause it was so cold today at only 98 degrees). Some history: After spending a few days with Amanda's grandmother we drove on up to yellowstone in just one day from Kansas, through colorado and every last inch of Wyoming. We got to see all the stuff in our first National Park, staying in all the best hotels, Old Faithful Inn, Mammoth Hot-springs Hotel, Canyon Lodge Cabins. I took around 500 pictures, then we went off to colorado to meet up with some friends of the Manda-fam to hike and dig up dinos. then yesterday we headed back to lil old Kingman Kansas where we FINALLY get a somewhat decent internet connection (42667 bps). I'll have all my pics from the trip an here when I get back. It is just too painful to count the uploaded bytes increment up one at a time. I'm trying to keep a handle on the servers and schtuff. See you peops when I get back on the 11th. PS when NotYou pops on AIM, thats me on the road...

Well, at long last I get to go on a vacation. I'll be heading up north with my fiance to meet her whole entire family. They live in Kansas willingly! Anyways, I'll be sorta incognito for about 3 weeks. I'll be able to connect occasionally via my cell phone and a wired modem. You can contact me directly via my Cellphone's email address (Tim has it) and I'll have free nationwide calling on weekends. The server and other stuff will be up while I'm out unless something goes horribly wrong; similar to how it went when I was on the cruise. lol I will try and check back in when ever I can and <I>possibly</I> upload a few digital picts. See you on the trip.

Ok, for about the past year this server has been running Mac OS X Server. Ever since that time the mail server has been "broken" so sendmail could not work PERIOD, at all, whatsoever. It would just give the kind of error that is more confusing than your dog were to read a chinese computer manual. Through some very ingenuitive and clever thinking on the hand of myself and problem speculation curing ideas provided by Jason, I was able to completely fix the server and actually get a mail server working. You can now submit useless dribble, silly sayings and anything else. I may actually and eventually setup @theresourcefork.com email addresses, but thats if I care and enough people bug me.

Yes, the rumors are true. I have been busily at work on my first theme. Its the farthest I'v ever gotten on a theme. Previous attempts of themeing and scheming have failed long before this one. They died just about the time I realized it was actual work to get one made, not just fun. The theme I am working on now is based on Quake 3: Team Arena. All the textures used in it are from that very game. It will work for Mac OS X versions above 10.2.4 and prolly until just before 10.3 comes out at which time I'll have to remake or at least paste the artwork into the new resource files. Luckily that won't happen till September, so I've got some time. The only thing holding me back from releasing the newest version of the theme is one of the main parts (that the system and all applications use) is not installing properly. Fairly serious, because when its improperly installed, nothing can launch. The odd part is that if I manually install it using one command in the terminal, everything goes great. The theme by the way looks really freekin nice. If you wanna look at the theme or even try it out (I only post the safe versions, so you don't have to worry), you can wet your whistle by heading over to the "TRF Software" section of the site. Should be right there in the menu on the left. Then click Quaker (yeah thats what i called it). That is where you'll be able to grab any new versions of the theme, and you won't have to wait at all because the readme page there is actually the real directory listing, so the moment the file is on the server, it is visibly ready to be downloaded; you won't have to wait for me to code the HTML. There is also a screenshot of the most recent posted version, just for you non Macies who are curious.

Lately I've been playing games more than usual. This is due to the Clean-Room-Exam phenomenon. This can be explained easiest by going over what happens during finals week and the weeks before that. During that time your room is cleaner than it has ever been. This is because you will do nearly anything to keep from studying or doing work. The slightest most mundane boring task will enthrall you for hours, and you are thinking 'well, at least 'I'm not working!' So Lately I've been playing a lot of games. Specifically Warcraft 3, Medal of Honor: Spearhead, and Payback (which I FINALLY got). Payback in itself is gonna take a long time to complete, but it seems to have multiplayer (via one computer, no network). OMG I almost forgot! I bought an HDTV Component Video to VGA converter. It will run any XBOX or GameCube game (or DVD signal for that matter) in up to 1920x1024 on a standard computer monitor. THAT IS FREAKING GREAT! I LOVE TECHNOLOGY!