WORK

ToDo:

- Find out what the hell this is:
<o:p _moz-userdefined="" />

It keeps appearing in source code viewed from Firefox. I can tell that its something Mozilla generates, BUT WHAT DOES IT DO?!

I don't know what...wow...just, I don't know where to begin. After studying for a few hours, I get back online to check my e-mail when lo! I get an e-mail from an individual interested in my talents as a web developer!

This individual, I'll call him "Ilya" because thats his name, contacted me saying he'd heard of Unleashed creativity from a post I made on the XKCD forums, and that he was interested in me based on the fact that I had the initiative to create a blogging system from scratch during my free time. I'm more than a bit flattered that someone outside of my group of friends approved of my work, as I never really expected anyone outside of the usual visitors to really think anything about this site if they came across it...after all, its not like I live an engaging life that everyone would be interested in!

At this moment, I don't know any more than you now know about this project, as its in internal alpha and is surrounded by a heavy layer of mystery and suspense. I sent a response to get the ball rolling, and as things develop between myself and Ilya, I'll keep you guys in the loop!

On a completely unrelated note, and without going into too much detail about how I found this out, Windows Mobile has a strange way of calculating coordinates when the stylus is moved across the screen. For reasons unknown to me, WM only reports coordinates in increments of two (2). Am I not making any sense? Let me elaborate:

1. When I tap down and hold on the screen, my stylus is reported to be at the coordinates (34,34)
2. If I move the stylus up so that the coordinates change once, the new location of my stylus is (32,34)
3. If I then move the stylus to the right so the coordinates change values once, the new coordinates are (32,36)

Weird, huh? I'll reveal why this is a bad thing in a later post, but for now, just know that I've got my work cut out for me!

Wish me luck, too! I've got two finals this week, Japanese tomorrow and Business on Thursday, and I've got my work cut out for me if I want to get good grades on both of them. Now, back to studying!

After a month of development and input from several respected associates, my new company website is finally online! Its been a few months since I upgraded my hosting package, and in that time I neglected to put up my old site layout because, frankly, I didn't like it anymore.

There were some ugly Javascript elements that were out of place on a professional website, and I had too many links that went nowhere. Now, I have a webpage that validates to XHTML 1.1 and FINALLY demonstrates I know the difference between classes and IDs when it comes to writing out CSS! I'd say this is my finest site to date, simply because the site adheres to the strictest set of standards for XHTML to date. I've learned a lot about my coding techniques and a few tricks that will surely come in handy in the future.

Check out www.KNWD.us, with its comprehensive list of services and a consolidated portfolio consisting of some of my better work, and let me know what you think. I'm always open to constructive criticism and suggestions!

Now that I'm back online, its time to get some business cards and strike up some more work!

Welcome to the third version of UnleashedCreativity.net. After yesterday's post, I started working on the new graphics for this site, eager to see where I would take my ideas, and as you can see its quite a difference from the blue-and-black of the former color scheme.

Well, what do you think? I wanted to go with a lighter set of colors, and I knew that red would be the focus this time around, so I've met both of my criterion. I'm not too sure, though, if the red is too far into the "pink" color area; finding a red color that doesn't tear out your eyeballs has always been hard because the ligther I go, the closer I get to picking a color that matches the hue of bubblegum.

And along with the new color scheme comes some new layout code. To be honest, this isn't anything you need to worry about. Basically, I went back through some of my code and changes markup around to better clarify where the page structure ends and the content begins. When I first started working on the backend, I had finally figured out <div>'s and decided that instead of using <p> or <span> tags to logically denote blocks of content, I had gone crazy with the <div>s and used them for just about EVERYTHING. In my quest to profit from my work, I'll continue to go through, making minor tweaks to the code and getting it that much closer to validating 100% with the W3C standards for XHTML and becoming a respectable blogging software.

Anyway, let me know what you think about the new look, good, bad, or otherwise; I enjoy constructive criticism as it helps me UNLEASH MY CREATIVITY!

I still have no idea why I update this thing. Maybe its compulsory, maybe its because I still hold a glimmer of hope that things will pick up and more people will come on-board.

In any case, I really don't have a whole lot to report on. Umm, I went to the gym yesterday for the first time since I got out of school. I have about a month before I start college, so I figured I might as well try to get into shape instead of wasting the days away.

Oh! And today I completed a reservation request system for the Torrey Pines State Reserve. That was a lot of fun, actually, as it was the first time I'd ever done work with someone. Quite to my good fortune, I met a fellow web designer at my hometown's chocolate festival (of all places...) back in late June. Once he heard that I was proficient in PHP, he was immediately interested, as he possessed the artistic aspects of web design, but was looking for someone to handle back-end datbasing and to get him going on learning PHP, too. To make a long story short, Goodkin Design and KaleNet Web Design are partnered up for the time being, and now I can say I've done work for the state of California!

I will say this for partnering with someone; the money is a bit easier to get a hold of, especially if they have an understanding of the work that goes into something like a form reservation system.

And other than that, due to my tie-ins with the city's Traffic Commission, tomorrow I get to go to the ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new road! Yay for politics! I also get to bike about 6 miles to get there. Its the perfect opportunity to break in my new helmet and gloves :D

I went ahead and registered http://www.GuajomeGrads.com and re-registered http://www.KaleNetWebDesign.com through http://1and1.com, so there's now two domains under my control.

The Guajome Grads site is coming along nicely, and now that it has an online presence with a remember-able URL, I can plow ahead and get it done. Basically, the front end for registration is done, I just need to:

1. Finish the code that gathers requests into the queue
2. Create a page that will display the queue and allow for approvals by admins (me, for now)
3. Create the profile display page (I already have the MySQL table setup with all the information I'll allow to be displayed)
4. Figure out how I'll allow for member communication.

I already have a forum planned for the GuajomeGrads site, but outside of that, I'm a bit stuck. I don't want another MySpace site, but I do want people to openly communicate with each other. Perhaps an internal e-mail system? Or perhaps allowing everyone to supply contact information is enough to get external communication going...maybe Guajome Grads will become one giant phonebook...

At this point, there's a lot to be worked out, and I can always adjust as people request new features or removal of existing ones.

And my primary site, KaleNet Web Design, is on the verge of expiring (scheduled to expire tomorrow, June 29th, 2006), but I still don't have full control over it. The story behind that is a bit strange: I had originally registered my domain with 1and1 two years ago, when I was working on http://www.SlowFoodSanDiego.org, and for the last two years, my domain was still registered with Schlund+Partner AG (1and1.com's registrar); as such, even though I switched KaleNetWebDesign.com's nameserver to my current host's name servers (thereby allowing for my domain to reside within my hosting package), my site was still registered with 1and1 as a part of the original 1and1.com package from two years ago, which has since been discontinued.

Luckily, I had reset the owner information of KaleNetWebDesign.com to match my current information. I called into 1and1 about my domain being switched from package 1 to package 2 (package 2 being my current domain package). Apparently, even though it doesn't appear so, KaleNetWebDesign.com is safe from domain-parkers (people who gobble up expired domains and then offer them to anyone interested for the low low price of $2500) and I might be able to get some sleep. Tomorrow, I'll hope and pray that second-level management pulled through and my domain is in fact re-registered for the next year.

So yeah, the adventures of a web developer continue, and once again I find myself at the mercy of another unknown individual!

P.S. I really need to redesign my primary site...maybe I should make it a permanent portfolio with some contact info...ideas, ideas, ideas!

Towards the end of my senior year of high school, I began looking for another large-scale webdesign project that I could do to keep me busy over the long 2.5 months before college started.

Enter Guajome Grads. A quick brainstorm session with some friends and my business teacher generated a demand for some way for organize future class reunions. I figured, the internet is a good way for people to stay in contact, and I'm good at web design, so why not create a website that will 1) allow people to stay in contact with each other after high school, and 2) give members the ability to easily notify other graduates of upcoming class reunions?

I've been working on this site for about a week now, and I've gotten a majority of the front-end done during my vacation in Colorado. Take a look at http://www.kalenetwebdesign.com/guajomegrads/.

There's still a lot of work to be done, but so far I've created both MySQL tables I'll use to store members, as well as planned out the registration procedure potential members will have to go through to gain access to Guajome Grads; new members will have to be approved by the administrator (me) before they can login. I can't think of any other way to keep non-graduates out of the system, so for now that'll be the way I'll screen members.

I'm flying back to San Diego tomorrow, where I'll enjoy the sun and continue working on the Guajome Grads site. My friend, Strange_Will (owner of the Wolfram-Studios Forum and whose blog is here)posts on his blog daily about his web work, so to stay competitive and not fall behind, I'll do the same thing :D

Oh! Highland Games are in town on Sunday! So fucking sweet, I can't wait ^_^

Before I go on, whatever thoughts you had about what this article might be about, AWAY WITH THEM!

I made a LOT of progress on the Volo Designs site this last Friday and Saturday. Here's a comparison pic of what the site looked like before I got my hands on it. I'll give you a moment to admire the progress...

*waits*

The new layout was completed over the course of about 11-12 hours. Here's the breakdown of how I spent my time Friday after school, when I made the most progress:

Friday
• 3:05pm - Get out of school
• 3:25pm - Pick up my computer from my house
• 3:45pm - Arrive at friend's house (god, what a drive that was)
• 4:00pm - Start work on the new site
• Redesign page structure to accomodate new layout
• Code expandable navigation that matches look of Photoshop document (always fun!)
• Code picture galleries with rollover affects (I learned some JavaScript, which I've been wanting to do but have been putting off)
• Set up a Paypal shopping cart to work with the shirts
• Integrate a Terms of Agreement page into the purchasing process (it actually works really well, you'll be able to see it in action once the site starts taking orders)
• 11:15pm - Call it a night, left for my house
• 11:45pm - Back at home

And that was just on Friday! Saturday wasn't as exciting, but I worked on the site for an additional 4.5 hours straight. There's plenty more work to be done, and more functionality will be enabled once they get everything squared away on their end.

In the next article, I'll show you guys how I made an image-less link map, so stay tuned!

I've been busy recently, working on a friend's website. This particular friend of mine decided recently to go into the T-Shirt business, and she came to me seeking some web design work. I agreed to help out, and over the course of about the last 3 days, the framework of Volo Designs made its debut! You can see the site here, at http://www.VoloDesigns.net.

Bear in mind, there's a lot more work to be done, but the foundation is there. The front end is of my friend's design; I simply put it to HTML. There's a bit of PHP I threw in that was able to work only because my friend had (thank god) learned sometime earlier how to name similar or related pictures with the same prefix and different suffixes based on the image's use. Let me know what you think of it!

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On my end, I did a little bit of remodelling on the main site. You'll notice there's a login box on the right side of the page, THAT'S NOT FOR YOU ^_^. I threw in the ability to log in because I wanted to be able to use the kick-ass admin page I made for this blog. The admin page had, until now, been used solely with the version of this blog system I keep for personal use on my localhost server. But because it granted access to adding and editing news posts without the need to login, anyone who found that page could have messed with the news posts. Now that I've thrown in a login system, I can utilize the admin page for the purposes of keeping this blog up to date. Hooray for me!

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Lets see, personally, I've been accepted to 3 colleges so far. Texas Christian University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and University of California, Riverside have sent me notices of even, strangely enough, a flash video, saying I've been accepted to their school. Now, all that's left to hear from is Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UC Irvine and UC San Diego. I should hear from the last of the colleges I applied to by March.

Already, I've received hefty sums of money from TCU and IIT. TCU offered me a $38,000 scholarship over 4 years, which takes about a fourth of the total cost of college off my shoulders. IIT went one better and is giving me the opportunity to receive a full ride. I have to interview for this one, though, so that means a flight out to Chicago sometime next month.

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Well, that about wraps it up for today. Until next time, folks!
-Matt