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Archive for August, 2009

Mac makes me sad.

August 31st, 2009 - Be the First Comment!

So I setup a USB key to support multibooting on a single partition using the multipass methods describe in hak5 episode 524 and episode 602. Unfortunately I discovered my fancy semi-new MacBook (now called a Macbook Pro after the renaming) doesn’t boot from a USB key like a normal computer. What kind of crap is this? How am I suppose to get my multipass on without the ability to boot from USB! I’m honestly contemplating ways to get a different laptop. So not only does it not keep my default opening settings, it doesn’t let me use multipass. For those of you who have a real laptop this is a sticky with a few guides to setup the multipass and here is a sticky with a bunch of different menu.lst entries. Let me mention really quick that it seems you can only install BT4 or Ubuntu, not both. They both need a casper folder with OS specific info in there. It might be possible to change it but I haven’t found out how yet! Also if you’re on a non Mac computer you can use VMware player and an image for that to test your USB boot stick, the information about it is here.

Testing my new syntaxhighliter

August 29th, 2009 - Be the First Comment!

This post is to test a Syntax Highlighter. I just got it working on my main site. Now i’m trying to get it ready for the world of blogging.

/*
 * functionsExample.cpp
 * Example for DIC
 */

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

// Notice the names do not need to be the same
int findMax(int arraySize, int passedArray[])
{
	int max = passedArray[0];
	for (int i = 1;i < arraySize-1; i++ )
	{
		if (max < passedArray[i])
		{
			max = passedArray[i];
		}
	}
	return max;
}

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
	int size = 6;
	int array[] = {1, 3, 5, 10, 234234, -1};
	int max = findMax(size, array);
	cout << "max: " << max << endl;
}

Returning to work.

August 24th, 2009 - 1 Comment

First day of class and back to work. Oh the excitement! Really, not sarcastically. I had a few things to fix / rework on the MSU Google Map I made before the summer started so I popped open Visual Studio and began editing. Unfortunately every time I tried to type if to create some logic to test for a null image, visual studio crashed. After four attempts of doing the same thing I decided it was time to bust out dreamweaver. It might have been the large amounts of javascript involved and tele-sense killing it, but it was rather annoying. Good thing dreamweaver doesn’t have that problem. After that I was checking out a problem involving an issue that wouldn’t allow IE8 users (with compatibility mode off) to click in the map to access information about a building. After looking around to see what might be causing it I couldn’t find anything in the code. It was also odd because it worked fine in compatibility mode and in firefox. I searched in the google group for the issue and low and behold its IE8. IE8 incorrectly calculates the x y click offset. How wonderful. The best part is Microsoft has known about the issue since IE8 RC1 and it still hasn’t been fixed! Their solution? Use a meta tag to force IE7 interpretation in IE8. Wow. Two losses for MS today.

Delayed posting time

August 20th, 2009 - Be the First Comment!

I haven’t posted in a pretty long time. Summer is responsible for my absence. This summer I enjoyed myself in California doing all kinds of entertaining things. Due the multitude of things I’ve been busy with, I never got around to skinning my WordPress blog to look like my website until today. I still need to do some more things to this page, but at least it looks uniform now!

To help me learn more about WordPress I watched some of the CSS Tricks webcasts on skinning WordPress which helped me out a little. I already knew most of the information that was contained within them, however they would be quite useful for someone just starting with WordPress. There are three separate parts if you want to check them out.

I also wanted to discuss another topic in this blog that has to do with work. I enjoy working on websites and doing almost anything computer related. I also enjoy doing something new that stretches my skills or makes me learn something new. Fortunately at my job I get this opportunity often. Before the summer began I finished a Google Maps project where I work. It was an awesome experience. I researched and learned how to integrate layers into a Google Map which allowed me to add a layer of buildings over the map. I also made a side bar to add/remove other layers dynamically ,like bike paths and shuttle routes. The buildings are clickable to allow you to see more information about them as well. Finally I added a search in the sidebar to search for buildings. Figuring it all out took about a month while I also worked on some other projects. To make it easier for others I wrote a guide on working with Google Maps for work. With their permission, I have added a copy of the documentation to my website. It is under theĀ tutorial section of this site. It has explanations and code examples to make it easy for you to learn what I learned. It also includes a resource section for further advancement or research. The map I made can be found at http://search.missouristate.edu/map/, feel free to check it out! I feel lucky to have such a fun job.

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