Author: Pat Skinner

I make apps.
I love empowering people with tech, saving time, and delivering delight.
Piano player and German speaker.

One more …

Just finished my OS Scripting final exam. It’s been a pretty fun course, emphasizing bash and awk. Scripting is usually easier to write than C++ or Java because even though the language has quirks (like mandatory whitespace) it takes care of semantics like string to int typecasting for you. I’ve been writing scripts to monitor my server hardware, such as getting drive temperatures, network usage, and CPU load.

Anyway. I got my Star Wars Episode III ticket for Wednesday at midnight, because I’m hardcore like that. I’m going to see it with at least Cheston and Juice, and probably 1,000 Vader-costumed, lightsaber wielding RIT nerds.

After that it’s one more exam at 8:00 AM on Friday (yay!), then my parents are coming to take me back home on Saturday. Can’t wait to get out of here, even though I’ll miss everyone. Seeing all the storage boxes and huge dumpsters full of old chairs and miscellany reminds you of how fast the year really goes by.

Site changes

I was sitting here working on my Internetworking and OS Scripting assignments but got bored and decided to mess around with the blog.

Upgraded to the WordPress 1.5.1 two days ago…have yet to notice any changes, but everything still works and a security bug is apparently fixed. Yay.
I also added the XMLHttpRequest calendar in the sidebar; I think that sidebar is getting cluttered but not having to page refresh between months is, admittedly, pretty cool.
Lastly, you should write a comment and see what happens. It’s cool too.

Classes are finished for the year. I wish I felt some sense of relief…but thats not happening until finals are over.

Co-op RIT

Almost finished…

Last week of spring quarter…and just like last year, the nicest days of the entire year are flying by in the final days.
Tried to get away from finals briefly by going to the gym for the first time in far too long. I tried to not overdo things, but (unsurprisingly) didn’t have much luck. I really want to use the swimming pool more before the year is over, I’ve hardly been to it. The gym is so much fun once you get into it. “Runner’s high” is totally cool, very relaxing.

I was on the way to German III in 75 degree weather, and remembering just how amazing summer vacation is hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s one of those few memories left for me that has that empowering, “whole summer at your command” appeal to it.
View from NRH down quad during Winter 2004
The same walk every morning can really get to you…

I’m still in the running for co-op applications for this summer…RITs deadline for credit is June 27th. Hopefully the hunt will improve once I have more time. I’d really like to (finally) learn Perl or work on some open source programs like WordPress, but co-ops come first.

Technical

Format C:\ Now?

Now that the inevitable Windows reformat was, shall we say, hastened, I find myself perusing Firefox’s extensions list all over again. Fortunately, it’s much easier having already tried many of them. This guide I keep mentioning will be up before the end of the week. In the meantime, browser junkies should check this out.

So anyway.

Format C:/

Hard drives, being a myriad of high precision bits of electronics working perfectly together, are inevitably prone to failure. I find the prevalence of finger pointing from victims of such failure at least a little humorous, because so many extrapolate their individual anecdotal experience into a justification to condemn an entire company’s line up.

Everyone has a particularly bad horror story, so I’m going to be all high road-like and avoid the blame game. These two Western Digital drives I’ve got have both been running nearly 24/7 since October 2003. Props to them for making drives that last as long as they did.

Here’s to hoping Western Digital RMAs the kaputtness.

A few days ago Windows kept randomly erroring, claiming I should format C:\. “That’s pretty cool!” I said to myself. “I heart hard drives!” A restart only revealed massive filesystem errors, and Western Digital’s own diagnostic software simply threw up its virtual hands, claiming the drive was too broken to even read from. The SMART threshold for read errors was pretty extreme.

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By the way, when did you notice that this post was written sdrawkcab?

General

New Precedent

I wrote about Google Maps a while ago, but this guy got creative. Any other gems that slipped through the “gray area” net? I’m sure at least a few people in the government are less than amused that Joe Googler can look at everything in the country with a click (at pretty decent resolution too).
Fun experiments include finding:

The most boring and repetitive suburb?

Who owns the biggest mansion in America? A celebrity? Bill Gates? Al Gore?

Other ideas?

Firefox just broke the 50,000,000 downloads mark. It’s definitely no longer relegated to underdog status. I’m glad its catching on so well. My guide to cool extensions is almost done, because it seriously makes an already great browser get even better.