glibberish.

I recently took a job to customize a couple of WordPress sites (here and here). It was a great learning experience: I got to know the WordPress architecture a lot better, appreciate the excellent new features of the latest WP 2.5.1 version, acquire a little more PHP coding skillz, and – most important of all – integrate two unrelated applications together.

Let me dwell on that last part a bit. The site makieduardo.net called for a modern-looking portfolio for showcasing the site owner’s photographs. As can be seen, images dynamically load when thumbnails stored under a “rolling” container are clicked. Seems simple enough, but it was HELL to implement with Javascript (Flash would have been cleaner and easier – if I knew Flash, which I don’t at all). The original plan was to simply copy over an already existing WordPress template and make custom changes from there.

Turns out, the javascript part was not trivial at all to change. This has more to do with my absolutely zero experience with javascript. So days passed without any progress with the code. Out of frustration, I decided to scrap the existing javascript, start over using something else, while still keeping the same template at the WP engine-side. I found the E2 Photo Gallery which does almost exactly what I needed. It also operates under javascript, but I found the app’s code somewhat easier to follow (remember, I am a javascript idiot). The problem is that E2 is a standalone app – there is no port or whatsoever relating to WordPress.

I decided to go ahead and integrate the E2 code with WordPress – probably a stupid thing to do, not knowing whether the entire thing would work at all! Fortunately, it did, and in doing so I was able to save a few hours figuring out site navigation logic at the WP engine side. So, with the E2 at the front end, the backend was drastically simplified, with the added bonus of improved aesthetics.

So I am particularly proud of this accomplishment. This is the first manifestation of my postgrad studies applied in practice! If this project were given to me a year ago, I am pretty sure I could not have pulled off the integration.

That one was loads of fun (but also at times utterly frustrating/depressing). Now that I am done with it, I need to move on with the real challenge: a HUGE project for my last ever postgrad course. I finish this one, and I graduate.

More about said project at a later time. And a note to self: try to chronicle your developments regularly! It will help you write your final paper. Don’t be lazy – do it!

This is a montage of some of the important video games since the technology’s inception*, from Pong (1972) to Wii Sports (2006) and beyond. I found that I could identify almost all of the games presented (especially the earlier ones), having played them at some point. That made me feel nostalgic and teary-eyed… sort of.

Ahh, how nice it is to remember childhood and growing up through the video games you played…

Made myself a subversion repository, where my first coding “project” is, er, my current computer graphics assignment. This project’s URL is

https://svn.glibberish.org/csit540/optimize

but to be precise, the files I am working on are actually in the src directory. (The rest is just Linux build stuff generated by my IDE, for easier compiling.)

Haha, what a poser. Make me look cool though. 8-}

(Click on stuff to see more detail.)

This is from last semester, my attempts in figuring out how to translate some image processing problems into code, and its solutions. Too much thinking involved… but it worked. All’s well that ends well.

Fast forward this semester, now doing a program for computer graphics class. At this point I am getting the hang of coding in object-oriented fashion, so while still a challenge and even harder than the last, this felt more fun to do. Note also that I used the EEE PC for this project.

Bender! Although not quite complete, that’s him. This is my latest project for computer graphics, and is actually a 3D model with lighting, texture maps, etc. The cool thing with it is: no GUI! No 3D Studio Max or anything of the sort. All done in code using OpenGL (native and GLUT primitives), and compiled, at first, using Visual C++. I needed to use Windows because the project will be checked using said compiler. With some code adjustments, I was able to port the progam to Linux, this time using GCC (or rather, g++ as the extension for C++). The screencast shown here is already on Linux, and using the KDevelop IDE for easy editing and building.

If I could help it I would have built the entire thing on Linux. Although I would have to admit, the Visual Studio IDE is nifty for development work. (And KDevelop’s not bad, either.)

Whut the hey, I am doing some programmer-speak! That’s because I really am starting to love computer science. I’m now seriously contemplating on forking out into this field of IT. Master of Science in Computer Science? Very tempting.

Finally, just a show of my mini-library collection in my HK home (the massive rest is in Manila, of course). From left to right:

The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
The Hobbit (70th Anniversary Edition) (J.R.R. Tolkien)
One Human Minute (Stanislaw Lem)
The Futurological Congress (Stanislaw Lem)
Star Diaries (Stanislaw Lem)
Peace on Earth (Stanislaw Lem)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling)
Solaris (Criterion Collection DVD) (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Who’s That Knocking at My Door? (DVD) (Martin Scorsese)
Unreal Tournament III (PC Game)
Smartbomb (Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby)
The Lonely Planet Hong Kong & Macau
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition (wow, never used!)

and the two books up front are borrowed from the uni library:

The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction
Microworlds (Stanislaw Lem)

This marks the beginning of a most-probably-epic-proportioned attempt at migrating this site to the latest 2.3.x version of WordPress. It may take days, or weeks, or even months. Who knows? For sure it will be a fun ride.

Oh PHP, funny how we part ways only to reunite once more… I believe we shall be like this until death do us part. (Or at least I switch to another non-PHP CMS, heh.)