Master the Mainframe

This is my second year in a row that I have "Mastered the Mainframe". It is a contest with IBM for college students. Not too difficult for 10 year plus developers and techies. I am in it for the swag! A free t-shirt to show off my nerd-dom.

iPhone Development

As nobody knows (because no one reads what I write) I thought Objective-C was rather odd and seemed difficult to pick up at first. Well since I have been developing for the iPhone/iPod touch it has helped me learn the language and come to enjoy its simplicity.

My iPod Touch game released

I started using the SDK towards the end of April and was getting use to Objective-C and the SDK and found it quite nice. An app that I have used to get to know different technologies was BlackJack, due to it's simplicity. So, I started building a blackjack game for the iPod/iPhone and towards the end of June I started to really work on getting the app ready for distribution. It is ready now and I will make improvements as needed.

• Uses up to 4 decks of cards shuffled together (reshuffles when there is about 22 cards left)
• Dealer hits until 17 or higher
• Preferences to turn on dealer wins on push
• Preference to disable gestures (a work in progress and the first version of it is in version 1.11)
• Of course, awesome looking cards and graphics.
• The player can split when dealt identical face cards.
• Version 1.11 fixed a bug/error that when you split your split hand wouldn't only win if the dealer busted.
  

Schools out for summer

Or is it :(
Just finished the semester and the plan is to finish my last regular semester in the Fall. 1 boring class, 1 cool class (cryptography) and the masters project. I am moving away from the idea of doing a thesis and pursuing the project idea. I want to do something that can help others or creates a starting point for other projects. If you do something academic, then there is a much greater chance of getting published.

I know of at least 1 student that would like to get published as part of her masters project. That's nice and all, but will make a difference?

Mac OS Ken

One of the daily podcasts that I like to listen too is Mac OS Ken and apparently so does my 3.5 year old.

Okay so you probable heard the windows shutdown in the background. I use both windows and mac all the time.

Software Engineering Part 1

I am currently working on obtaining my Master's degree in Software Engineering and at the point that have to pick a topic for a thesis or come up with a project. Writing a thesis is much less common for this major (at least at my school) and that kinda makes me want to do the thesis. On the other hand, if I work on a project it could potentially be used by others and that's cool thought.

Software Engineering is a relatively new profession, which means there is an opportunity to contribute something important. Until I make my decision I think I will post my ideas in the blog.

First idea (Thesis): Educating computer science students for an engineering career. Why? Computer science students today have a curriculum that does not include enough of the engineering discipline that we see in other engineering fields like electrical and mechanical engineering. Engineers benefit from those professionals that came before them. Years of improvement on process and standardization's. The software field has seen vast improvements in standards, but still has problems in process and "best practices". While best practices don't work in some areas they do work in software design in the form of design patterns.

Nerd manifesto...

/* Something i wrote back in 2002, my other online name is Joeisanerd */

Why is Joe a nerd? First lets start with the definition of NERD.

nerd n: an unstylish or socially inept person; esp : one slavishly devoted to intellectual pursuits.

Ok so the first part of that definition is a little harsh but the second is close enough. I do not have a pocket protector, nor do I wear glasses, but I do have a bachelors degree in computer science and that to some makes me a nerd if they ever saw one.

Are nerds really unstylish? Unstylish to some is stylish to others so how could a nerd be unstylish if he or she sees themself as stylish? The word nerd is left for interpretation.

Do nerds really go home and study constantly? or do they just so happen to be smarter than most people? Slavishly devoted would imply such things, but have you ever meet a person who was completely and utterly engulfed in the pursuit of knowledge and truth (aside from Fox Mulder)? Again this limits that number of real nerds out there.

I claim to be a nerd because I have been called a nerd, not because of my attire but because I have intelligence that just so happen to surpass those that referred to me as a nerd.

/* Update */

Since this writing it has come to my attention that geek has a much nicer definition. Go ahead and google "define: geek" and you will get something like "A term similar to nerd, but slightly less pejorative in tone." and "Geek is a common term for someone who is obsessed by their computer, and has achieved a high level of expertise in their chosen area. ...". The second is by far the most fitting to me :)

Dealing with Cocoa Objective-C

Let me start by saying that I love programming on Windows with Visual Studio 2005 using the C# 2.0 version. I purchased a MAC on the last day of the year in 2006 and thought I would start learning how to program on the MAC. Well, it is not easy to learn a new language and IDE when you don't play with this stuff everyday. There are plenty of languages and tools to choose from including Java, AppleScript, REALBasic, and know Adobe's flex. The "real" MAC development is done with Objective-C, so I think.

Okay, the Objective-C language is interesting and has some nice things about it. What I find is that there is nothing available for easily learning the language and XCODE for the current version of MAC. Since I have an iPod touch and the SDK should be out some time this month I feel I should learn this stuff so I can make my own apps for the device. Maybe even make a couple bucks...

iPhone & iPod touch Web App game

I had a day off of work the other day and decided to write a little web game for the iPod touch and iPhone interface
http://www.joeisanerd.com/nerdapp Click on BlackJack and off you go. Perhaps I will submit it to apples webapp directory...

iPod touch...not the best iPod ever

I got the iPod touch (16GB) this last Christmas and although I enjoy it better than my iPod nano 2nd generation and iPod with video (5th generation) it does have some problems. I listen to alot of podcasts and video podcast (vidcasts).

* On the older iPod's with a screen you could see show notes, or lyrics for music, if you click the button a couple times. Well the iPod touch doesn't have this feature, or I can't find it.

* Another thing missing is the ability to listen to podcasts at an audiobook speed when the podcast is in the .M4B format.

* Lastly, when viewing a list of shows they no longer scroll the title to show the full podcats title, kinda-of a pain.

Those are simple things that could be fixed and I hope I am not alone on this one. You might be wondering why I have 3 perfectly good iPod's, well I didn't actually pay for the other two, but that's not important. The iPod with video was my second iPod (started with a mini) because I wanted to watch videos on it. I used it for about a year at the gym and running, which I think caused it to slow down some due to jarring of the harddrive. I got the nano because of the nike+ pack and will still use that for that purpose. I wanted the iPod touch for the internet access and the video playback without the harddrive.

As a side note I also have a Dell Axim x51v, which is pretty sweet. The problem is that there are no good media player/podcast catchers and the battery life is not so good. I used it as my pda at work, but now I am using the iPod touch as a PDA. I sync with my Macbook and my windows pc. You can easily sync music, videos, photos, podcasts, calendar and contacts with the mac and then only sync the calendar and contacts on the pc. Once you do that you can merge the to and a regular basis. The mac will create a new calendar called Outlook and put the outlook stuff in there. Pretty cool

Tips & Tricks

* While playing music or a podcast and you are on another screen just push the button twice real quick and a windows pops up with volume, play/pause next/previous.

* While playing any media hold the forward button down for a short period of time to have it play faster and finally it will skim through the media.

* If you pause the content and then hold the forward button down you get slow-mo sounds.


Okay that's it for now.