Bobbis.net

For those with gmail invites you want to get rid of or those looking for a gmail account check this out. I got rid of all of mine this way.

Ok, so I found a bug that if you use a cookie to login (Checking "Remember login") you will not be logged in unless you go somewhere else on the blog. I can't track down where the problem is, but it's easy enough to work around.

Today, I figured out how to get Mac OS X to login users authenticated by our Windows 2003 domain. Though, I have a problem that Kerberos is used to authenticate. I need to find a way so the AD Kerberos configuration will live peacefully with the Iowa State Kerberos configuration for authenticating email and other campus services while logged into the domain. Some more work needs to be done.

The mug meeting had really poor attendance. Those who showed up were me, Colin, Brandon, and Sheng. The only non-officer was Colin. It was pretty cool to play around with the AirPort Express, playing out iTunes music to the room speakers while not plugged into anything. We discussed some ways to run a programming contest this fall and what to do about getting a club logo that Sheng was supposed to be doing for the past year or so.

Tomorrow, I have no plans as of yet. I really want to go out and do something. Adrienne seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. She hasn't been to church.

The weekend after next I will be going up to Okoboji. Gaila will probably be coming down at that time to hang out. Sunday I will be heading back, most likely via Meri to check out her new digs and hang out for a bit.

Right now Mel is learning how fun it is to put in interesting nuggets of wisdom and humor into my quotes section. Perhaps you will see some of them up there. If you want to add your own quote, you may. I will get an e-mail and I have to approve the quote before it actually gets into the rotation, for obvious reasons.

Well, that's about all I have now.

Well, as you can see, I've done a little updating to my web site. This is about a week's worth of work. The site's layout is done using CSS, and I have tested the index page at w3c.org's web site so that the basic included layout is valid HTML 4.01 transitional and valid CSS. Though, that doesn't mean anything for IE. I also found that some things work just better with tables. For example, the header for the blog stuff is in a table instead of divs. Even when I did it as a table IE on Windows messed up. I couldn't get the table as a width of 100%, so the solution was to make it 99%. Close enough.

Please let me know if you encounter any problems.

Sunday, after church, Fritz and I talked a little bit. I had a few fairly though questions for him, and some of the answers sort of surprised me. Having that discussion made me understand things a lot better, but I still have a lot more to understand.

Today I had my Psych test. I didn't realize, or expect, (perhaps I missed it) that there would be some short answer questions on the exam. I probably would have studied a little harder on some definitions. I guess I learned. After psych, I met up with Colin and the FUG meeting. We got emacs and cowsay to run as init. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, emacs is a command line text editor (sort of has a cult following to some of the hard core users), and cowsay is dumb little program that draws a picture of a cow with letters and symbols that has a dialog bubble that contains specified text.

cowsay "I'm a cow"
 ___________ 
< I'm a cow >
 ----------- 
           ^__^
           (oo)_______
           (__)       )/
              ||----w |
              ||     ||

Then, to run it as init means that is the only program that can run. So, basically, when you trun on the computer get get a cow that says whatever. Here are some screen shots of it in action. emacs, cowsay 1, cowsay 2.

Right now I'm with Colin at the UDCC finishing transferring over to the new site and writing this blog entry.

Oh wow, what a week.

Before I tell you all about my week, I need to let you know what happened Monday night just after I submitted my entry. I was ready to start working on my homework when my aunt and uncle show up with their new convertible. So we had to BS around, and I, of course, had to drive it a bit. They got the car just in time for it to start getting cool out and for them to leave it in storage for when they go down to Texas for the winter. I didn't get around to starting my homework until 12:00.

I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but my 'rents have bought me a plane ticket to New York in order to visit my brother for a few days over Christmas. I will be around for a few days after finals and I will be around for New Year's eve. I will, however, be spending my Christmas day away from home with my brother. I don't know what his work schedule is, but it would be cool to visit some relatives on the east cost. Possibly Jody and Lief in Connecticut or Elisa and Will in Pennsylvania.

Anyway, the highlights of the week. Wednesday was a good day. During the FUG meeting I decided to start working on a new version of my web site that uses CSS. Church was fun. Fritz talked to Colin a little bit about setting up the new ULC web site. After he talked with Colin, he hit me again asking for a meeting with me. He wants to know what I'm thinking about church, and what my "path" is.

Over the summer, I have lost a lot of my curiosity and church became something that I just went to in order to hang out with friends. I still listened a little bit to the messages if they were good, but lately I haven't been as attentive. I have thought about attending bible study in order to re-spark my curiosity. Perhaps a meeting with Fritz may put things into perspective for me.

Today, I guess, was pretty productive. I helped a few people at work and got help with my CSS from Chris and Nick, but they couldn't help get a footer going. I ended up posting on SA for some advice, and after a few replies and more fiddling, I finally got something that I was satisfied with. I'm really starting to like the concept of CSS as opposed to designing with tables. There are a few disadvantages, but sometimes a good challenge can make things interesting.

While I was messing around with my new site, I got an IM from someone I know needing help turning in homework for Com S 227. I had to remember back to when I took that class and how I had to turn in homework. We eventually figured it out, and while doing so, I discovered that I still have access to the Com S server. I have print quotas and everything, but I'm not going take advantage of such freebies. I like getting the Com S emails about Com S club, or other coding lectures or demonstrations around campus.

Colin and I went to see Resident Evil. It was better than I expected, but I still don't really like those types of movies. I give a C+.

Anyway, it's really late. I plan on sleeping in fairly late. Later.

This was a nice weekend. I really enjoyed it.

Friday, Adrienne and I went to see Michael Ian Black at Stephens Auditorium. The house was packed. I was sort of expecting more, but I suppose he is not much of the stand-up comedian type guy. The show was also, only about and hour long. Hey, it was free, and worth my time :-D

Saturday, I just lazed around and ended up watching StarWars IV V and VI

Sunday, I went to church again. Though this time, some friends from out of town were in, and there were not that many other people there because of the holiday weekend. After chruch, a bunch of us went to Village Inn for breakfast / lunch. After that some of us went to Sam's Club courtesy of Adrienne's parent's membership so I could get some candy for ClubFest and so Ben could pick-up some things for himself. Later that evening a bunch of us hung at at Adrienne's for game night. I believe the attendance was: Me, Colin, Nicki, Erik, Ben R, Katie, Ben J, Dave C, Lindsey, Gaila, and of corse, Adrienne. We ordered Great Plains and had a good time. The weather was pretty nice as well during the time as well.

Today, I lazed around watching the West Wing marathon on Bravo, and after I submit this I'll be working on the homework I should have been doing earlier this weekend.

While hitting some of the blogs today, I kind of thought that I need to re-organize my web site. Most of the time the stuff people are looking for is my blog. I suppose when I have time and am not working on anything else, I may just totally overhaul my site so that my blog will be on the main page and redo the layout. While doing this, I hope to learn CSS, and I will actually attempt to make my code valid HTML/CSS instead of just winging it like I usually do. I'm sure that many of my pages don't really validate properly.

Time to hit the homework. I hope everyone had a nice weekend.

Ok, I hooked my brother up with a gmail account. Colin and I both have invites, if nobody comes forward in the next day or so, I will put them up on SA.

Sunday, I actually went to church. I still like the more informal Wednesday services. On Sunday, they have us flipping between two programs and a large book of hymns. It's a little cumbersome. Also, I don't think the message gets through as well on Sunday as it does with the smaller groups on Wednesday. There is also a lot of other announcements and stuff going on. I prefer the smaller groups. I may do the occasional Sunday thing, but I don't think I'll be doing it regularly. I should take the time to catch a dinner though, perhaps some bible study might re-spark my interest and curiosity I have lost over the summer, but that takes time from relaxing and napping. Sunday afternoon/evening I took a nap, finished West Wing (all done!) and did a little studying.

I'm in the swing of all my classes now, but I still need to order myself for study. I know I'm not going to study in the morning before school/work. I really like getting as much sleep as possible in the mornings, and I should have known that.

Today was the highlight of the week so far. I can't even remember what I actually did on Monday or Tuesday. At work I finally got around to showing the administrator the scholarship system I set up for her. She was delighted and amazed about what I did. The stuff I did will save her so much time, and it will keep her from bugging me all the time about little changes to the scholarship wording and presentation. It will also take me out of the loop when applicants email or call her about making changes to their applications as she will now have the power to take care of it herself. I still need to get undergraduate and the other scholarships done, but I have a template that will allow me to work though those much quicker.

Colin picked me up after class so we could grab something to eat before going to the FUG meeting. The meeting was about the distributed computing on campus. A copy of the presentation can be found here. After his presentation we had a quick tour of the "server room" that houses pretty much all the computing resources for campus.

Church was nice. Somehow some people just had to talk during the distribution of communion. I love how informal things can be sometimes. Afterwards pizza and hanging out. I like the couch there, it is very comfy.

Tomorrow is the first MUG meeting. 1220 Howe 7:00, presentation about WWDC if anyone is interested in going. Friday, Adrienne and I have been talking about seeing Michael Ian Black. If anyone else is interested on joining us, let us know. Admission is free.

Also, do a Google search for "hotlesbiansheepaction"

Good night.

Ok, I now have 6 invites for gmail. Contact me if you are interested in the next few days, otherwise I will get rid of them though the channel I got mine.

While I'm here I'll talk about last night. Yesterday I watched at ton of West Wing, then Meri called and got cut off. I finished a few more episodes and IMed Adrienne to see if she wanted to do something. We had a game night with Me, Adrienne, Colin, Katherine, Ben, and Jen. Ben and Jen joined us after dinner at Battles where we ate with Meri as she was stopping by in town. Before that we watched Cael Sanderson win his gold medal. We then played Scategories, and Apples to Apples until 12:20. Right now, I'm getting ready to go to church. I meant to go last week, but my alarm died overnight and I didn't get up in time. This time I had Adrienne give me a wake-up call.

Later!

As you may have noticed I added a search function to my blog. I decided to do this when I didn't want to actually take the time to click though to find what my summer goals were. The function is very quick and dirty, but it gets the basic job done, and works for most things. I may improve on it later.

Anyway. Today, I actually ate breakfast before going to school. Work was really boring with not much to do, so the last 20 minutes of work I worked on uploading administration system to the ag server so I can have the administrator add the scholarships. That way, she can review the wording and everything for each. She knows these scholarships better than anyone. After work Colin and I went to Wendy's. I had tried to call Gaila to see if she was going to join us, but she wasn't home and I didn't leave a message. While Colin and I were waiting in line to order, Gaila walks into the restaurant to our amazement that she somehow knew we were there. Aparently, though, her sister was selling sweet corn at the gas station near by and she just dropped in to grab a quick sandwich for her.

After dinner, Colin and I continued on to watch Hero. I really liked the movie. It was subtitled, but you had to read the dialog to understand it. The special effects where pretty cool, and the story was really good. I give it a B+. I might have to see it again to fully understand the story.

As, I mentioned before, I need to review the summer goals I stated here.

• Get good grade in Stat 226 - Got a C+ (not quite good enough)
• Learn basic Cocoa programming - nope :-(
• Improve on my blog program you are using now - Yeah, a lot
• Catch up with Stargate series - that and West Wing
• Create a budget for the next year that includes getting an apartment near campus - I have an excel scenario sheet and resources for managing my money. Need to use it.

Fall Goals

• Keep a GPA > 2.5 and get B or better in Econ 101
• Meet some new friends (a female companion would be cool, but please don't assist me in this, unless it's non-embarrassing encouragement, I am human you know)
• Apartment, need I say more?
• Learn an objective programming language

These seem like attainable goals.

I'm going to watch some more West Wing. I've only got the last half of the last season left.

Later!

Storms are cool. Though they do have a tendency to cause problems with electronics. The cable is flashing static every second, and the cable modem is out. I'm typing this on dial-up.

Don't let me forget to review my summer goals. I should create some semester goals as well.

Yeah, so school started. I'm a lot busier now with school, work, and MUG now. This week seems so long though. I hope to get used to it pretty soon. I have finally gotten a little enthusiasm for the start of classes, but only for a few classes.

Tuesday, class at 8:00. I could tell the TA who was teaching the session was not really comfortable with public speaking. The room, IMO, was fairly well cooled, but he was sweating and had to leave the room abruptly in mid topic. He did a good job at getting points across though, and the group is rather small, perhaps 20 people. I'm sure he will learn to become comfortable in his environment after a few weeks. I forget what I did at work, there must have not been much going on. Then Acct 285, Managerial Accounting, we just went over the syllabus in 10 minutes and got out early :-).

The officer's meeting was Tuesday night as well. We got things started and in motion for the year. For people on campus, you might want to start working on Film Festival ideas. ClubFest is Wednesday, September 8th between 11 and 4 in the MU. I have to find some candy to give away.

Wednesdays are going to be long days for me. Granted, I don't start the day until 10:00, I probably won't get up until 9:00 anyway. I have Hist, Econ, and Psych all in a row again leaving me to have lunch at 1:00. I think I'm going to learn how to eat breakfast on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and perhaps get up earlier to study (I doubt that's going to happen, but it's worth a try). My TrLog class, I learned actually goes from 5 to 6:25 instead of 6:00. This leaves me with 35 minutes to get something to eat and end up at the FUG meeting. Colin and I didn't get organized to do this, so I ended up eating at the MU at subway again.

After FUG there was church. Pretty much the usual gang was there for the semester. It was nice to see a lot of familiar faces, but I ended up forgetting names again, but some were considerate enough to remind me :-). I can't believe some remembered my name.

After church, Colin and I headed over the Adrienne's place to install the FireWire card I order to get her iPod working. We also had to update iTunes and stuff. Her computer is really slow, but it gave us some time to BS. It's nice that the wireless network in her building is open to everyone, but it's also a little scary.

I'm really going to like Thursdays. I don't have to be anywhere until 12:00 and I only have one class. I should schedule myself for studying in the morning though, but today I slept in 'til 11:00.

At the FUG meeting yesterday I learned about hotLesbianSheepAction.com. Go ahead, click the link. You won't believe what you see (or maybe you already do).

Also, a shot out to Meridith. Some of us haven't heard from her in a while. I heard she started teaching Wednesday, but that's about it since her blog posting. Perhaps a bunch of us can stop up on a weekend sometime when she is ready.

Tomorrow, Gaila, Colin, and perhaps some other people are probably going to see a movie so that Colin can take care of his camping debt to her and do one more thing before she leaves for school.

I hope this school year is turning out well for everyone.