This semester was fun and challenging.  I took the hardest math class offered for undergrads and passed (I won’t say with what though).  My GPA for the semester was a 3.5.  I made a ton of new friends, did some fun new and exciting things, and had a blast all along the way.

Some of my highlights from this semester:

• Did the Spring play, “While the Lights Were Out”
• Participated in “Humans vs. Zombies” which is a massive game of tag
• Made a tons of new friends
• Got a Nikon FG SLR (which takes awesome photos)

And yeah…

Enough about the good stuff though, the semester was great overall, but this summer was supposed to be more productive, but it won’t be due to some people who lack communication skills.

I originally wanted to dual major in Computer Science and Mathematical Sciences.  So I filled out the form and turned it in.  At the end of the semester, I was told they lost the form.  I was also told that courses they said I was exempt from, I wasn’t exempt from.  So I signed up to take summer courses.  I called the school I was going to take summer courses at and asked if they offered the courses I needed to take for the summer.  They said they did, I went online to register, but the courses weren’t listed.  So I called back, and this is how the conversation went down

Me: Hello, I called earlier and was told you offered Biology and History for the summer?
Them: Yes, we do offer Biology and History for the summer.
Me: Well, I checked online and they aren’t available for me to register for.
Them: Oh!  That’s because we aren’t offering them this summer.

If someone calls to ask about courses for the summer, which summer would they refer to?  I guess they technically weren’t lying, but in the first conversation it was something like “Do you offer History and Biology for the summer?”, “Yes”, “Is it too late to register for summer courses”, “No, please fill out the form online”, “Alright, thanks.”  They didn’t say the courses weren’t being offered this summer then…

So next semester, I need to argue to get exempt from a few courses, and then I need to convince some people that I can handle 21 credits a semester if I still want to dual major.  I might just switch it to a minor and see if that works out.

So how did your guys’ schooling go this year?

I do love finding a program that I say, “Oh, I can do all of my needs in this one application.”  It’s awesome because I feel less bloated in a way.  Take for instance, VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop 5.  They both do the same thing, but VMWare Fusion has (in my opinion) a better Unity mode than Parallels’ Coherence.  But Parallels has better support for OpenGL and 3D Graphics on their virtual machines, but VMWare feels more stable with the features it provides.  So, what do I do?  I have both (and use the both evenly just to let you know).

Anyways, back on topic.

Word processing has always been an issue for me on a Mac.  Windows keeps it simpler, somewhat.

Word Processing on Windows

In terms of user interface and design, I think that there are 3 main holders of power in Word Processing on Windows.  There’s Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, and IBM Lotus Symphony.  Sure that are some more out there, like OpenOffice.org and AbiWord, but they follow the trend, and don’t try to set trends.  You may argue that IBM Lotus Symphony itself is based upon OpenOffice.org, but the user interface of Symphony sets it apart.  Symphony has it’s own look and feel, not something like “Hey, use us, we look just like the expensive stuff.”  I think OpenOffice.org and AbiWord are great projects and very useful, but they don’t really try to stand out among the crowd.

All of them pretty much have the features I need, it’s just the interface or pricing.

I love the interface of IBM Lotus Symphony.  The only problem right now is how bulky it is.  I can’t use it because of how slow and clunky it feels.  If it were snappier, it’d be my word processor of choice, but right now, I just keep my eye on it hoping for speed improvements.

Corel WordPerfect is a great tool.  I know people who refuse to use anything else.  I could never really get into it.  I’m looking at it now, and I like what I see, but now I’m on Mac, so I don’t see a point in buying it.

Microsoft Word is pretty much the standard.  I personally don’t like the “ribbon.”

On Windows, I currently use AbiWord or OpenOffice.org (the build from Go-Oo).  Sure I bash them for following, but they’re reliable and useful.  I also don’t use Windows very much, so I just need something cheap to open up documents when I am on Windows.

Word Processing on a Mac

On a Mac, you get the same basic choices that Windows has, MS Word, OpenOffice.org (or NeoOffice), and IBM Lotus Symphony.  You also get a load of other choices like Nisus Writer, Mellel, Bean, Mariner Write, iWork’s Pages, Pagehand, and much more (not to mention things like Scrivener or WriteRoom).

MS Word is still the standard for most people.

OpenOffice, NeoOffice, and all the other derivatives still aim to provide the same feature set of MS Word.  I really hate the user interface on the Mac because it doesn’t flow.  Even though it no longer requires X11, it still looks like a Windows MS Word 97 clone.

IBM Lotus Symphony looks the same as it does on Windows.  I still love the user interface, but it’s still bulky and slow to run.

PageHand is a relatively new player in the Mac OS X Word Processing game.  I really like what it has so far, but it still has a long way to go.  I really need footnotes, headers, footers, and some other things that PageHand currently doesn’t provide.  I want to buy it, but I’m reluctant (although buying it would probably aid in development and get me the features I need).  Another one of my concerns, yet also my likes is it saves to the PDF format.  The actual markup is a comment in the PDF (I believe), which makes me concerned about necessary file size when sharing the document (but I can always Print->PDF I guess).

Mariner Write feels really old.  It’s still updated, but there’s times when I believe, that a meeting should be called, and an update to the modern age should happen.  Sure it’s friendly, but it feels like it’s designed for old people.  Not sure how to describe it, but I feel like I lose control in the wrong direction with it.

iWork’s Pages, on the other hand, makes me feel like I lose control in the right direction.  I really like Pages, but I don’t see me using it in my day to day writing.  I enjoy the interface, I enjoy the features, but when it comes down to some of the parts of the document I need to edit for classes, Pages needs a few more steps than what I want to take.  Mainly for custom footers and headers on every page, easy foot notes, and some other things (although I’m probably doing things wrong because I’ve been told it’s actually easy to do in Pages).

Mellel is a word processor that I keep looking at, trying, and finding myself hating for tampering with.  It’s a great tool, but the learning curve is too steep for me to make the jump.  I’d like to learn to use it, but I can’t find the time nor patience to do so.

Bean is a free minimal word processor.  It has the basic features most people need.  I think it’s okay for basic word processing, and it’s fast as can be, but it lacks the power I need.

Nisus Writer Pro is what I currently use.  I love the interface and the features, but it’s still a bit rough around the edges in comparison to some of the other things out there.  I rarely use images in my documents, but when I do, I always question why I’m trying to do it in Nisus.  Other than that, foot notes, headers, footers, and a lot of other things are easily.

I really like Nisus Writer, PageHand, and Symphony because the most common things I need to do are easily and readily accessible.  MS Word, OpenOffice, and some others have floating windows and a bunch of other things to customize regularly accessed or regularly changed  parts of a document creating too much clutter (in my opinion).  The person working on PageHand probably read my mind or something because they way it handles typography is simply beautiful to me.  I love the way it works.  I wouldn’t have bought Nisus Writer Pro if Symphony worked well enough for daily use on my computer (sorry Nisus).  Symphony is great project, but I think they need to work on making it more usable (or tolerable?).

My main issue with word processing on the Mac is that there are so many choices, and each choice handles things in its own way, which is both a blessing and a curse.  On Windows, it’s more of choose the one that opens the right file formats, or which one works nicely with your wallet.  On Mac, the concern is how do you, as the user, want your word processor to work with you (or how do you want to work with the word processor).

I think there are many great things coming out in the future.  OpenOffice is working on a new user interface (at least for Impress?), MS Office 2010 is supposed to come out soon, and PageHand is still relatively young and growing.  I haven’t heard that many rumors about an iWork ’10 (other than there probably won’t be one).

Anyways, what do you use for word processing and why?

I start taking courses for my Master’s next year, and I finish my Bachelor’s at the same time.  I got into an elective I think will be interesting (World Folklore).  All of my classes fit in, and I can sleep in next semester (YAY!).

In other news, school has been draining the life out of me.

The Play was a success, and now that it’s over, there’s a lot of work to catch up on.

The play was awesome.  I played “Pierre Pourri,” the “International Playboy,” which doesn’t fit my image at all.  It was odd having to play the roll.  I’m not one to touch, let alone touch other people.  So it was awkward, but people seemed to like it none the less.

In terms of work.  I have two programming assignments to catch up on, an essay or two, and a lot of studying that needs to be done.

The good news is there’s only 5 weeks left in the semester.  The bad news is there’s only 5 weeks left in the semester.

Hopefully I can pull through with flying colors…

I’m all for learning something new like Git, Hg, or Bzr.  When looking, I sortof eliminated Bzr from the list.  There’s only one main host for it, and I’ve just heard bad things about it (yup, I listen to the rumors).

So here’s basically what I was looking for.

• Public and Private Repositories
• Have collaborators on projects
• Reasonable priced
• Eye candy (sadly)…

So I’ve been looking around and saw GitHub, BitBucket, Codaset, and Codebase.  I won’t really go into a feature by feature comparison, just point out what I like and don’t like.

GitHub

This is probably the most popular at the moment.  It’s known for it’s awesome Git hosting, being fast, reliable, and feature rich.

My favorite part of GitHub is the interface.  It’s nice on the eyes, easy to navigate, and makes it fun.  The downside is the features of the plans.  Public repo’s allow you to have as many collaborators as you want.  For Private Repositories, it’s based on your plan.

I usually only have 2-3 private repositories at a time, but the number of people I work with fluctuate.  The smallest plan (which provides much more space than I need), only provides 1 private collaborator.  Normally, it’s me and 2-3 other people (per project).  I don’t really want to pay that much more just to have more people collaborating on a project.

So GitHub is great, but needs to be more flexible in the number of collaborators.

BitBucket

BitBucket is pretty awesome.  It does Hg hosting.

It’s not as pretty as GitHub, in my opinion, but it does provide a great set of features.  What I really wish for is that the Source tab would display the readme file.  Other than that, it’s okay.  Could use a few minor changes to make it friendly and lovable, but good as it is.

My main nit-to-pick is how the project pages look.  Not that big of a nit-to-pick, but I like my eye candy .  Other than that, it has a lot of the features I want.  I can have my private repositories, and have as many collaborators as I want.

I’ve heard rumors about uptime issues they previously had, but nothing recent.  I do wish the blog were updated more because (like I said earlier) it needs a more welcoming feel to it.

Codebase

Codebase supposedly hosts Git, Hg, and Svn.

I like what features it has listed.  My main issue is that the site isn’t well documented.  It has good instructions for using Git and setting stuff up, but there’s nothing much about the other features.  In terms of cost, it’s reasonably priced.  Good number of people you can have collaborating and everything, but it’s too costly for what I’ll be doing.

Codebase seems more like something for a small group or company.  So it’s really cool, but it aims to be in an area that’s not aligned with mine…

Codaset

Codaset is another Git host.  I think it’s kindof new…

It’s kindof like GitHub, but I think Codaset is more social.  Codaset provides a lot of what I want, but right now it doesn’t have a price setup.  The developer is still debating and setting up how to pay for it.

I love the features of Codaset, but my main nit-to-pick is how they’re setting up pricing.  It’s a great idea (don’t get me wrong), but I prefer a flat fee.  They haven’t implemented it yet, so I’ll see if I like it later on, but it’s sortof leaving me with my current setup of host personal stuff on GitHub and group projects on BitBucket.

Pay as you go is good, but I’m concerned about the implementation.

In Conclusion…

What do you currently use for your projects and why?  Do you work with people?

As I stated, I currently use both GitHub and BitBucket.  I might move it all to Codaset once I see it up and running with payments and all.  So yeah…  Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

The was mostly a discussion of purchasing music online, but we also talked about applications and programs.  Most of the people I talked to felt it was fine to download music illegally.  Most said you should purchase applications, with a few saying alternative methods should be used.

I personally believe you should buy the music, movies, or applications.  I know that some of the stuff is expensive (and I’ll agree that some applications are over priced), but most of the time, the pricing is reasonable.

The main argument about music was a bit odd.  You can have 7,000 to 40,000 songs depending on your iPod (not including the suffle).  Songs normally cost anywhere from $0.69 to $1.29.  So assuming you’re luck enough to buy all of you music at $0.69, then you spend at least $4,000 (all prices in USD).  Larger iPods could go up to ~$30,000 to fill.  If you’re caught downloading music illegally, apparently most of the time, it’s a $3,000 – $10,000 fine.  So they were arguing that if you do get caught, it can be cheaper than filling up your iPod (but some get charged millions).

Some other arguments were that there are other crimes that are much worse that have a lower fine (don’t know how that’s an argument).  Apparently if you’re caught shoplifting a CD, it’s a lot cheaper.  I argued you don’t get as good quality when you rip the CD…  That was a joke… Anyways, I found this blog post analyzing some different crimes in Illinois that are cheaper than illegal downloading.  Instead of struggling to make ends meet though, you’ll be given a free room and meals in prison.  I’m not sure about you, but free food has me sold.

Some of the more sound arguments were that if it’s not made available to a person, then illegal downloading could be fine.  I still disagreed, but I do understand.  If a dead band you liked isn’t signed anymore and published an album on a vinyl record independently (and the songs weren’t sold on CD or anything else), there’s no way you’d find that in a store or an online store (you might, but chances are slim).  I wouldn’t say “Go and download it.”  I’d first say check eBay or check some pawn shops or something.  I’d advise not to download it illegally, but I wouldn’t be calling the music police if they did.

Anyways, in looking at some previous cases, it’s really odd.  One woman downloads 24 songs and pays $1.9 million (although she was just being tried for 24 songs when there were over 1,000?).  Another guy downloads 30 songs and pays $640,000.  I’m guessing it varies by song?  I’m wondering if the RIAA would take it easy on you if you logged all the people you shared music with or downloaded music from and gave that to them (not that people should try to find out).

So yeah, I do know this post is late on the whole “OMG RIAA is suing people!”  But the conversation just came up recently.  So what are your thoughts or feelings on the debate?  Apparently a lot of my friends disapprove of Obama now because he supports the whole RIAA fining up to $150,000 per song.  I didn’t vote (so I don’t think I can argue so-and-so would have been better because I didn’t voice my opinion at the election), but I do think the punishment is a bit high.  A song is usually at most $1.29, so I think the fine shouldn’t be 116279 times that.  $150 for downloading a song is punishment enough (I think), but then I agree that people distributing the music should pay more (but it should be proven that they distributed to # number of people, so they pay $150 * # of people or something like that up to a certain amount).

I know it’s not technically “healthy” for you, but they’re still delicious.  There are no healthy alternatives for them.  Sure you can make do with a healthy snack, but peanut better and celery do not have the luscious flavor of a Lay’s Stax chip.

I’m pretty sure Tom Colicchio has a craving for some Pringles every once in a while.

My mom is pretty much anti-deep fried junk food.  The only friend things we’re allowed to eat are fried fish and seafood (it’s not as bad for you as french fries or potato chips).  So, even if you get a large group together and have an expedition to search for junk food in our house, you wouldn’t find that much.  Maybe a few chocolate bars, but that’s about it.  Chocolate is healthy for you by the way.

Anyways, I’m going to go and cook some Spiderman Macaroni and Cheese.  I hope it gives me super powers.

This post is is random…  I forgot what my original intentions were.  “Over and out.“

One of the major delays was due to some financial panicking.  I filled out the FAFSA wrong somehow, and that was one of my major priorities (I don’t have enough money for school on my own you know).

So that’s sortof been sorted out.  By “sortof” I mean, I got back some of the money, but not as much as I was hoping for.

In other news, I probably won’t be getting my iMac until late June.  It’s putting a delay on a few things…  It’s hard to work on a 13″ screen.  So I’m being a bit over drammatic, but still, I visit the iMac page putting in what I wish I could buy, but it’ll probably be one of the low end 20″ ones.

But yeah, felt like posting an update.  Hopefully I get everything situated soon.

I start finals today.  I only have 4 to take, and 1 per day.  So I’m not as stressed out as last semester, but still just a bit (the classes are harder).

Anyways, I wound up buying a video game yesterday.  I didn’t mean to, I just sortof did (I was going to buy it over summer, but it was on sale yesterday, so I bought it “Persona 3 FES” ).

I was going to study, but I decided I’d play the game for only an hour.  The hour slowly grew into several (I haven’t played video games all year, so I guess the withdrawal made it seem shorter than it really was).  The game was fun, realizing that I’m not ready for today’s test, not so much fun.

Anyways, wish me luck.  It’s Applied Statistics for today.

In Other News,

I decided to install a “related posts” plug-in.  Everyone else was doing it, so I decided to add one too.  I found a bug with the current theme, I’ll fix it after I finish homework, studying, and today’s test.

If you’re wondering about my awesome Applied stats skills, My current test average is a 98%, and my homework average is a 86%.  In order to pass the class, I need a 60% or better on the final.

The code name is “Spider.”  Someone already pointed out the obvious Spider -> Web, Web Features like save for web and slicing (Save for Web has been said to be in planning for 1.5 since 1.3).

So let’s start a rumor.

Spiders have 8 legs, so clearly, Pixelmator 1.5 is going to add 8 new features.  If you have the ability to look into the future at the updates page for June 7th, 2009, you’d see all of the updates that came out for 1.5.  Since I clearly do not have the ability to look into the future, let’s hypothesize at what those 8 new features would be.

• 16-Bit Editing.  Color ranges won’t just be from 0-255, it’s 0-65536.  ImageMagick already supports it.  CoreImage apparently does floating point arithmetic for the filters and color handling, so hypothetically it can support any color depth.
• Save for Web.  A lot of people are longing for a Save for Web feature.  It’s been said on the forums that 1.5 will include it.  I use Pixelmator for photo editing, so I’m not really going gaga for this feature.
• Slicing.  A lot of people tie in slicing with save for web.  Guessing that’ll be somewhere in Pixelmator soon.  I personally don’t like sites that slice their images.  But hey, in the world where some people still only get a 13.3 kbs Internet connection, slicing might help in some way.
• Layer Styles.  It’s probably been requested quite a bit on the forums recently.  I’m guessing that Pixelmator 1.5 might have it.  The quickest work around for them would probably to have Layer Styles be non-destructive core image filters applied to a layer (sortof like how DrawIt and some other programs handle the filters).
• Layer Groups.  Layers don’t like feeling alone.  Layer Groups have been requested a lot on the forums as well.  I wouldn’t be too shocked if this was included in the next update.  I’d like it (since I also use Pixelmator to draw once in a while), but yeah…
• Resizeable Brushes and Swatches Pallet.  Or brush folders or something.  Since Pixelmator 1.4 included support for Photoshop brushes, a lot of people have been complaining about how the brush pallet grew too large.  I say load the brushes when you need them and delete them when you’re done.  I think those people need to learn to deal with what you’ve got.  You don’t need 1000 brushes for a single project.  But the developers of Pixelmator are awesome, so I can see them pleasing those snobs.
• Improved PSD Support.  One of the major complaints I (and others) have with Pixelmator is the lack of PSD support.  It can save and read PSDs, but saving it a bit poor right now.  Text doesn’t stay as text, and the file size is ginormous.  I can see improved PSD support coming, but if not, PXM is the native Pixelmator format.  Why on earth would people save in a foreign format?  I can’t speak Spanish, but I can speak a little.  Don’t expect me to be able to dub a Spanish soap opera.  I don’t expect Pixelmator to have perfect support for PSDs either.
• An Info Pallet.  This feature has been requested who know how many times.  “It’s so easy to add,” remarked several of the members of the Pixelmator forums.  I don’t see a real need for it…  People are probably expecting Pixelmator to do all of their image editing, creation, manipulation, web design, graphics design, logo design, magazine cover design, and etc….  So I’m guessing an info pallet would help those people.
• Child Safe Filtering.  Pixelmator is a fun and easy program to use.  But what about for those people who have those cough cough images and children.  Child Safe Filtering would allow the children to edit those images and quick look those images, while all the cough cough content is blocked out.  Using the Pixelmator Team’s revolutionary new cough cough detection algorithm, Pixelmator makes image editing safe on the Mac.

So those are the 8 new features I see coming.  Slicing and Save for Web were combined into 1, but I have them separated on the list above to prevent possible questions from arising.

This is just speculation and the start of a rumor.  In no way should you expect to see any of these features in the upcoming Pixelmator 1.5 “Spider” release.  I’m not affiliated with the Pixelmator Team in any way, heck, I don’t even have access to beta’s to tell you what’s coming.  In no way should you take what was stated above as true.  By reading this page, you have agreed that I am completely awesome.  This small print isn’t as massive as MacroHard’s legal small print stuff.

I haven’t blogged about life or personal issues for a while, so here one is!

I’m finding it frustrating that people are avoiding me now.  It’s not that I want them to avoid me, but I guess it’s kindof my fault.

If you really know me, I’ve overly judgmental and critical of myself.  I dwell on my flaws and sometimes tend to over dramatize them.  Which I think is okay to an extent, but I’m guessing I’ve crossed the line.

The other day, we took a test.  I missed one of the “gimmie” questions (the one where the answer is so obvious a 3-yr old could do it), so I doubted my skill on the other problems.  I was really down about it saying, “I probably got a low C,” all because I was dwelling on the one problem.  This was last week.

This week, I had a presentation.  I wasn’t really prepared for it, so I was really nervous.  When people asked me if I was ready, I told them I wasn’t.  So we get the test back.  The teacher, the kind person that he is, only took 5 out of 6 questions for the grade.  I did well on the other problems, so the one problem I butchered didn’t count on my grade.  Happy about the grade, I go to the presentation with confidence, and it goes well.  Everyone liked it and was interested.

I was happy, until I realized that me being happy about my success was hurting some of my friends.  Math comes easy to me (that was the test).  My friends have to study a lot in order to do well.  Some math isn’t easy for people to grasp.  My dad was a math teacher; we were expected to do well in math.  My mom raised us to do the best we can in everything we do.  We were expected to be able to present ourselves well.  She always used to say, “If your a janitor, be the best janitor you can be.  You should work as hard as you can and be proud of everything you do.”  So I do my best to make myself stand out and to make my project stand out.  I’m always judgmental and critical of myself until I see the final result.

I think people get upset at me because of my lack of self-confidence.  I think they see it as a way of me insulting them or something.  Like one of those people who are humble or modest, even though they know they are successful in a semi-snottish way.  I don’t try to be like that.  When people ask, “How do you think you did?”  I dwell on the my flaws and let effect my judgment.  Same with when people ask how do I think I’m going to do.  There’s a lot of uncertainty of what’s to come, and that affects my answer as well.

I was kindof brought down the other day because of what people told me.  It brought up some memories of the past that I didn’t like.  I’ve just been a bit depressed lately.

People were saying:
- “I was kind of happy when you said you thought you did bad, but you aced the test which upsets me”
- “You don’t always have to be successful”
- “Stop bragging”  -  I didn’t brag.  The teacher and students around me made a big deal of it.

It reminded me of some of the things I was told in the past:
- “I don’t think I can be your friend.  I feel worthless around you”
- “You set the bar too high.”
- “I hate having to chase after you.”
- “I hate being compared to you.”
- “Why don’t you fail for once?  You don’t always have to stand out.”

Other people stand out as well.  I think it’s just that some people focus on certain people and they feel like it has to be a competition.  I’ll admit, I was raised to believe that you are always competing with yourself, to become better at everything you do.  I don’t try to compete with others.  I don’t share my grades unless someone asks.  I do my best not to brag.  I’ve experienced failure before, but I know that I need to get back up and try harder.  I never mention my failures, and people probably assume that I don’t fail.

I just find it frustrating that people are avoiding me now.  I hate losing friends because of stupid things.  I’m hoping that it’s just a thing of the moment and we’ll be fine soon, but yeah…

Thanks for reading.  I just had to vent somewhere.