Wisdom

The Wacom Jitter - Addendum

2008-08-30T23:15:00.001-04:00

This is an addendum to an older post about a jitter wacom tablet: (http://poonheads.blogspot.com/2007/12/wacom-jitter.html)

To sum up the old article: I had recently purchased a new PC case made of PVC. The PVC did not shield anything from the RF coming off of the fans and pc parts. My Intuos3 Wacom tablet was jittery because of the RF interference coming from the plastic case. The solution was to get a new PC case.

I just started Grad school at Indiana University in Bloomington. Because I can no longer leech off of my parents, I decided to move into a small apartment in Bloomington while I go to school. This is all relevant, I promise.

Because the apartment is relatively small, space is at a premium. Instead of a nice computer desk, I'm using a 2foot by 4foot wooden folding table. It has no keyboard drawer. This small table must hold my two very large monitors, my keyboard, my speed pad, miscellaneous desk accesories, and my Wacom Tablet. Everything is very close together.

When I first set up my computer in this new place, I noticed that the Wacom Jitter had returned. I was almost certain that this was caused by my tablet being too close to the monitors. Turns out I was only half right.

The RF interference was coming off of the monitor, but it was not hitting the tablet directly. It was seeping in through the USB cable that connects the tablet to the computer. I had the cable running under the monitor and behind the desk. Since the cable is not well shielded, the RF had no trouble getting in through the cable.

I discovered this on a hunch. Instead of running the cable behind the monitor and behind the desk, I ran the cable around the front and taped it to the bottom of the desk so that it no longer runs near the monitor. My hunch was correct. The tablet is still as close to the monitor as it ever was, but since the cable is farther away, the jitter has disappeared.

Bottom line: The cable is more important than the tablet itself to shield from the RF.

On a related note: For months, I've noticed that my Wacom mouse (that I use as my primary input method) has been randomly double clicking or not clicking at all. I've always thought it was a driver problem, or caused by the same RF interference as the jitter. As there is no jitter, I'm fairly certain it's not the interference. After doing a little testing, I've decided that it's probably just that my mouse has gone bad. The issues occur at different frequencies depending on where I physically press the mouse button. It seems that the move probably exacerbated the problem, as it's been happening more often since I've moved here. My solution: Buy a new mouse. It should be coming in on Tuesday and we'll see if that's actually the problem. If not, I'm out 50 bucks and have no idea what's wrong with my tablet.

On an unrelated note: Now that I've started grad school, I'll probably not be able to update as often as I'd like. I'll do my best, but make no guarantees. In addition, it may be some time before I'll be able to finish the Ants comic - at least until my new mouse comes in.

Later,

~Ben

Update - 9/2/08: I got my new mouse in the mail. It was just as I suspected. I must have worn out the buttons on my old mouse. This new one works like a charm. The middle click mouse-wheel button even works (it never worked well on my old mouse). So that's awesome. ~Ben

I Love Music: 5 Years Time

2008-08-07T23:35:00.002-04:00

I initially heard this song on Virgin a while back. Didn't think much of it. Then I heard a clip of it on a Saturn commercial and it got stuck in my head.

5 Years Time is a catchy little diddy by Noah and the Whale. It starts out a little slow, but quickly heats up with a variety of interesting instruments. It's well paced and just when you think it's getting a little repetitive and a little boring, they change it up a bit. It keeps this up for 4-ish minutes and instead of fading out (which the repetition would lead one to expect), it ends abruptly on a high note. In general I like my songs short and sweet, but these guys are pretty interesting and I wouldn't have minded a minute or two more.

I'm unable to embed the Youtube video as I normally would, because they've disabled that feature. I've linked the above image to the video, though. Also, you can get to it straight from here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8YCSJpF4g4)

You know... I've always fancied myself an Alternative/Classic/Punk rock kind of guy. According to my imaginary genre score sheet, however, this newly discovered "Folk Rock" has overtaken my previous genres of choice. What's up with that?

Until next time

~~Ben

Resources:
Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_and_the_Whale)
Youtube Channel: (http://www.youtube.com/user/realnoahandthewhale)

Comic: Ben versus The Ants

2008-07-26T22:10:00.000-04:00

Holy Crap! New Comic!

I haven't done this in a while now (more than 9 months) so I'm a little rusty. I have the whole thing penciled out. The first 3 panels are scanned, inked and colored. Unfortunately, I only have the first panel finished, with text and everything.

But that's okay. A long time ago, I set up the site to accept comics one panel at a time. So that's how we're going to do this one. When I finish a new panel, I'll post it. When it's posted I'll throw up a new wisdom post to let you know it's been posted. This will go on until it's done.

So, check out the first panel of the newest Poonheads comic titled "Ben versus The Ants". It's in the comics section, or you can just follow this link: (http://poonheads.com/comics/Default.aspx?id=ants)

It should be exciting, so stay tuned.

XOXO

~Ben

Update:
6:30PM 5/25/2008: Panel 2 is up.

Update:
7:30PM 5/25/2008: Panel 3 is up.

Update:
1:36AM 5/31/2008: Panel 4 is up.

Update:
8:04PM 6/01/2008: Panel 5 is up.

Update:
9:14PM 6/05/2008: Panel 6 is up.

Update:
10:23PM 6/30/2008: Panel 7 is up.

Update:
11:18PM 7/02/2008: Panel 8 is up.

Update:
9:10PM 7/26/2008: Several panels added... Arby's contest is over, so I decided to update the comic... I find out the results next Friday.

Ben Montana

2008-07-09T22:29:00.003-04:00

Hey, everyone.

I made a video for this Arby's contest. If I win, I become famous and get free Arby's. Which would make me very happy. So... If you don't mind, please sign up and cast a vote. You can view my awesome video and vote here:

(http://www.rescuebrigadeaudition.com/video/view/12)

If you really want to help, vote every day!

If you have problems signing in... Try using your email address and password (instead of your username) because Arby's authentication system sucks balls.

Also, I promise to finish the ants comic as soon as possible.

~~Ben

The Run Down

2008-06-30T00:45:00.000-04:00

I've been relatively busy lately. I plan to finish that Ants comic pretty soon. In the mean time, I've got a quick run down of what I've been up to.

E-bay: Addictive
Snake Eater Figure: Oh man
Metal Gear Solid 4: Okay
Metal Gear Online: Awesome
Playstation 3: Not bad
Blu-Ray: Fucking sweet
Get Smart: Hilarious
Wall-E: Pretty good
Izzo's: Tastey
Arby's: Tastier
Pepto-Bismol: Thank god
Migraines: Not awesome
Stress: Also, not awesome
Work: Super not awesome
Programming: Ugh
Grad School: Fuck yes
Mustaches: Dapper

That is all.

~Ben

Metal Gear Solid 4

2008-06-16T02:37:00.000-04:00

Ever since my friend, Thomas, got me involved with Metal Gear Solid all those years ago, I've been a huge fan. My interest in MGS borders on obsession. With that in mind, I think it's an understatement to say that I've been excited about the release of Metal Gear Solid 4. I took two days off of work in anticipation of its release. I bought the $600 limited edition PS3 bundle straight from Konami. And I've been playing the game, more or less, nonstop since I first plugged the machine into my TV on Thursday afternoon.

I don't plan on talking about the plot much, but there will probably be some spoilers that come in the following paragraphs. You've been warned.

My official opinion: It's pretty okay.

The first time I played through it, my final time was around 21 hours. Less than about half of that was spent actually playing the game. That means that over half of the game was cut-scenes. Beautiful cut-scenes, they may be, but there gets to a point that enough is enough. I like to play my games.

When you do get to play, though... The gameplay is interesting. The button layout is altered drastically in favor of a more standard FPS layout... Should buttons = triggers... Left stick = move... Right stick = move camera. Once you get used to it, it works out pretty well. I also enjoy additions to Snake's moves. He can now jump sideways, crawl super slowly like an inch worm, roll onto his back, couch-walk, and preform a plethora of CQC moves. They introduced CQC in MGS3, so good old Solid Snake never had that kind of physical prowess. It's pretty fun.

The Octocamo is pretty neat. You can just blend in with the environment. You still have a camo index (ala MGS3), but they don't really talk much about how the radar was improved (which they really should have... when I found out that it showed the radius that Snake is visible from... It blew my mind). You don't get any special powers from the camo, though. And you can only collect a few of the patterns for later use. Supposedly you'll be able to download new patterns, but I can't see it making much of a difference. It seems that instead of collecting camo patterns, there's more a focus on collecting weapons. Which brings me to my next point.

One aspect of the game that seemed to be a double edged sword is Drebin and his shop. You get points for collecting duplicate guns from your enemies. You can then use these points to purchase new weapons and ammo. This is kind of cool because there are a few really fun weapons (my favorite: the shotgun). Also, you never run out of ammo. This is important because you do a lot of battling.

Unfortunately, there's too much battling. MGS has always been about stealth and cunning. MGS4 downplays the stealth in favor of giving you big guns that you can use to tear up the battlefield. And when I say "battlefield" I mean "battlefield". You're not really on a sneaking mission. You're on a battlefield trying to get from point A to point B while avoiding and/or killing the two opposing factions. The play areas are huge and difficult to sneak across. It's almost too sweeping.

Another thing that bothered me was the codec. There were only 2 codec stations. One of my favorite parts of MGS3 was the ridiculous radio chatter. It's a shame that with all those returning characters, they couldn't squeeze in more codec chats. They could have cut back on the cut scenes and increased the number of optional codec chats. I guess it was just easier to advance the story this way.

Speaking of which... the story was pretty good. It tied up all the loose ends and explained everything that needed explaining. It was a fantastic conclusion to a fantastic series. That being said... I did find some of the plot a little far fetched. Even for MGS. It seems to me that it suffered from the same thing that X3 suffered from: They tried to press too much story into to small a space. Even with 12 hours of cut scenes, it felt rushed.

Also, I'm not a fan of the whole nanomachine thing. That's their explanation for everything these days. Nanomachines did this. Nanomachines did that. It just gets old for me. In MGS4, everyone is a clone or part clone or a science experiement or enhanced by nanomachines. All the bosses were child soldiers with nanomachines and robot suits (or something... just go with it).

I think the main reason I liked MGS3 better is because Naked Snake / Big Boss is just a man. A super awesome man, but a man non-the-less. The same goes for all the other characters. They're all just men (except for The Boss, who is a woman, and Volgin, who was part lightning bolt).

Anyway... With all that said, I still really enjoyed the game. It was fun. So fun, I played it twice (and just started on a 3rd go). As said before, however, the cut-scene-to-play-time ratio is just really poor. That's where Metal Gear Online comes in.

I'm willing to excuse the lack of game play because the story needed to be told. Thankfully, Metal Gear Online was included in the pack. Metal Gear Online is essentially the MGS4 game mechanics (typically minus the octo camo) in an online multiplayer environment.

When you sign up, initially, you get to create your own character. You can customize your face, clothing, voice, and special skills. You can then take your character into deathmatches and team battles and capture the flag. Instead of the immortal Solid Snake, you get to play as a regular guy ( Naked Snake? ) put in a battle field situation with no story and no cutscenes. Just game play.

It's really a lot like a combination of Halo and Counter-Strike as far as match making goes. But when you get into the match, you've go all of Snake's bad-ass moves and MGS4-style gameplay. Other than the lack of interesting codec conversations about shit-tanks, it's my perfect game.

So, to sum up:

Metal Gear Solid 4 is pretty okay. It's a fantastic conclusion and wraps up all the loose ends. Personally, I prefer Metal Gear Solid 3, mainly because it's got a more human feel to it. In no way do I regret my purchase because even though MGS4 may not have a ton of replay value... MGO will keep me occupied for quite some time.

At least... It'll keep me occupied until I get fed up with douchebags with no lives who use cheap moves to destroy casual gamers like myself. (When I typed "man, I really suck lol!", some asshat actually told me all I needed was practice. This game hasn't been out for a week yet and this tool thinks he's the shit because he's been doing nothing all weekend but learning all the cheap tricks required to pwn noobs who played through the single player game first. Fuck you, asshole.)

Until next time,

~Ben

PS: Snake's mustache is fireproof. I like to think it's the awesomeness and not the nanomachiens that make it so.

I Love Music: Hey Driver

2008-06-07T04:26:00.002-04:00

Okay... I'm in the middle of the first new Poonheads strip in forever and what do I do? I take a break from updating to bring you this latest earworm.

I've never heard of these guys before and actually didn't even know their name until this evening. I heard this song on Pandora today (on my Andrew WK station... what's up with that?) and it's been stuck in my head all day. It's really catchy with a nice hardcore aesthetic and a poppy hook that, together, create something rather pleasing to my ears.

I present to you, Hey Driver by Lucky Boys Confusion.

BTW: I'm still working on the comic. Just in case you were wondering. Though it may get put off for some time if I don't finish it before MGS4 comes out.

~~Ben

Resources:
LBC on Amazon:
(http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=blended&link%5Fcode=qs&field-keywords=Lucky%20Boys%20Confusion&sourceid=Mozilla-search)
LBC on Wikipedia:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Boys_Confusion)

Design modification

2008-05-18T04:52:00.002-04:00

For those of you who frequent Poonheads.com... You may notice a slight modification of the layout. Nothing too major. I just decided to spruce things up a tad, utilizing stuff I've learned from work recently. I've been working on it for the past couple of weeks, and I think it's good to go, now. Hopefully, the new layout will be beneficial to everyone. More functional and professional looking. I rather like it, but only time will tell whether or not it was worth it.

In other news, I'm working on a new Poonheads comic. It should be awesome. Hopefully I'll get most of it done by early this week. Cross your fingers.

Until Next Time,
~Ben

I Love Music: Punk Rock Girl

2008-05-06T20:30:00.003-04:00

There was a time in Poonheads history when The Dead Milkmen made up a large part of our daily soundtrack. You might say that those guys were just as important to our musical development as was Danzig. Or you might not. Depends on your point of view, I guess.

I still fuck up every time I try to quote Bitchin' Camaro.

Anyway, for some strange reason, "Punk Rock Girl" popped into my head today. And I'll be damned if it's not stuck there now. While we didn't listen to this song much in the old days, it's become pretty much my favorite Dead Milkmen song ever. There's a reason that it's there most well known song... Because it's awesome.

I present to you, now, Punk Rock Girl by The Dead Milkmen. The video quality is so-so, but the audio is what's important. Also: Best guitar solo in punk history.

Also, if you're in the mood, here's a relatively humorous video for Stuart (a Poonheads staple): (http://youtube.com/watch?v=VHFr6DgrF0w)

~Ben

Resources:
Dead Milkmen Website: (http://www.deadmilkmen.com/)
at Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Milkmen)
at Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/s?field-keywords=dead%20milkmen)

Classic Wisdom: Demon PC from Hell

2008-05-03T21:01:00.003-04:00

Oh dear.. I'm slacking again. But there's TV to watch again! Also, Anarchy Online! And I've been working on Numbskull! No excuses, though.

This classic wisdom references this comic: (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/Default.aspx?id=9)

This is the first appearance of my demon PC. It was evil. So I replaced it. It's long gone, but I'm sure it's still up to deviant behavior in a land fill or something. Good riddance.

Demon PC from HELL

This story is entirely true. The Demon PC from Hell totally eats CD burners. It ate at least 5 different burners before it got passed down to me. I decided it was wise to not feed it a 6th. That didn't stop the Demon's reign, however. Because I didn't feed it, it decided to take over the mouse. When I would move the mouse left, the cursor would move right. When I would move it right, the cursor moved right. Up moved the cursor down and down moved it left! I couldn't figure the damned thing out!

And then it grew teeth.

So when I got my new computer, Brick, I gave the Demon to my little sister. Let her figure it out. Perhaps call an exorsist?

Anyways... Yeah... this comic is kinda lame, but I think it's funny. So this is what you guys get stuck with this week. The Poonheads slogan is "Sex Geeks and Rock n' Roll" after all... This is where the geekdom comes in, I suppose.

As far as the actual comic goes... Hmm... what can I say? The art's not too bad. At 8 panels, it's a bit longer than my average strip size, but I felt that it definately needed the length.

In other news, I finally got a decent camera, so we'll begin filming the movie fairly soon. Also, don't foget to vote if you have a few minutes. The voting button should be located along side the right side of the comic on the comic page. And give me some damn feed back! I've got an e-mail address that gets 0 e-mails and a forum that has a grand total of 3 messages that aren't me. I want to hear from people!

Okay, that's it! Later!

~~Benabus

I Love Playing Music: When nobody's looking

2008-04-26T00:54:00.003-04:00

I like playing my guitar. I play it nearly every day. I find it very relaxing and cathartic. I pretty much taught myself via internet tabs, but have picked up a few things on my own, as well. Over the years, I've gotten pretty not too bad.

Something I'm not too good at, however, is singing. But that doesn't mean I don't like to do it. It's just that, because I'm so bad, I don't practice when other people can hear me.

Every now and then, I get a few hours alone at the house. So I rock out. Because no one can hear me and I can turn up my amp.

Depending on the amount of time I have, sometimes I even record a little bit. That's what I did tonight. I was really lazy, so I didn't bother to plug in. Also, it's just one take, recorded in sound recorder with a cheap microphone. You might need to turn the volume up some.

Enjoy. Or not. You're call.

Johnny B Goode by Me: (http://www.poonheads.com/mUpload/images/200804252205212.mp3)

~Ben

Undershirts

2008-04-18T22:30:00.000-04:00

For a while now, depending on who you talk to, I've been known for wearing plain white t-shirts. In the hot, muggy, South Louisiana weather, keeping cool is vary important. That's where the simple white shirts come in handy

My plain white t-shirts aren't just plain white t-shirts, however. They are undershirts. Size large, hanes, crew neck, undershirts. And I never leave home without one.

Undershirts are not like regular t-shirts. Typically, they're made of a lighter weave, rather than the thick weave of a 'heavyweight'. This makes them ideal for wearing in hot weather. Nice and cool and breezy.

Something to keep in mind is that they are designed to be worn under other shirts. Undershirts... Get it? They come in two main styles: crew neck and V-neck. V-necks are, just as they sound, shaped like a V at the neck. They're designed to be worn under dress shirts when you don't want the collar to show and would rather your chest hair peak out at the top. I prefer the crew neck, myself, because they're more acceptable when worn without an overshirt.

Another thing is that the sleeves are a lot shorter than normal t-shirts. You don't want the sleeves of the undershirts sticking out from under the overshirt. You want them to be unseen as much as possible. Unfortunately, the sleeves are so short that when I'm not wearing an overshirt, my armpit hair sticks out when I lift my arms up. Not that I do that much. And even then, I get a nice breeze in my pits. Very refreshing.

Of course, I only wear an undershirt with no overshirt when it's really hot. Just the undershirt alone is typically inappropriate for a night on the town or work. Plus, since it's such a thin material, it's semi-transparent. Which means you can see my nipples. Which is not something I like to show off. My manly chest hair, however, is a different story.

From a practical standpoint, the utility of wearing an undershirt as an undershirt cannot be overlooked. It provides an extra layer to separate your body from your outer garment. Even though I wear antiperspirant deodorant, I, like most people, still sweat at the pits (and back and chest) when overheating. The undershirt will absorb a lot of the sweat, preventing it from soaking through to the outerwear, possibly ruining your good shirts and causing much embarrassment. Also, as a larger (read: chubby) guy, I'm a bit self conscious about certain unnatural folds and creases. An undershirt provides extra padding that equalizes the fatty bits, preventing jiggling and causing a more stream lined appearance.

Keep in mind that no amount of protection can completely prevent these problems. A little sweat may show through. A pot belly may still be apparent. The idea is that it subdues it. Disguises it. Makes it not so obvious. Nothing can help more than a healthy diet and a bit of excercise (or prescription strength antiperspirant if that sort of thing is a problem).

A lot of people wear A-shirts, or Muscle shirts, or wife-beaters as undershirts. This may be useful for the equalizer factor, but does nothing for the pit stains. Also, you look like redneck trailer trash when wearing them alone. I don't really see a point in that. Another variation is the long-sleeved variety. In the south, where temperatures rarely get below 50°F, long sleeves are impractical when a hoodie or light jacket would suffice. For these reasons, I will stick to my tees for the time being.

In conclusion, undershirts are an essential part of any man's wardrobe. It provides enough coverage so as not to be arrested for indecent exposure on a hot day and acts as a second layer of protection in between your outfit and your bare skin. I highly recommend Hanes 100% cotton crewneck, but it's really a matter of personal preference.

Until next time,

~Ben

I Love Music: From Across The Pond

2008-04-10T00:38:00.003-04:00

As I've said many times before, I listen to Virgin Radio (a UK based radio station) at work, pretty much all day. This exposes me to a lot of music that many of my American compatriots are unaware of. And also, it makes me look cool cuz I can say, "I only like obscure British bands". That means a lot.

Anyway. In an effort to enlighten my fellow Americans, I present to you a small selection of artists currently airing on Virgin.

In no particular order:

Amy Macdonald - the first Virgin artist I really took a liking to. Soon after hearing her for the first time I was compelled to import her debut album, "This is the life". She's got a few singles out, but what follows is the song that really made me fall for this Scottish beauty.

Duffy - the non-crack addict's Amy Winehouse. Since Ms. Winehouse broke this style into the modern charts, there's been an influx of soulful British babes, singing their hearts out. Duffy has a rich voice backed by an upbeat poppy arrangement.

One Night Only - these guys are pretty new to my musical lexicon. They manage to use the same kitsch indie/britpop formula that has become bland and muddled in recent years and turn it into something above average and appealing to my ears.

The Kooks - are my current all-time favorite band. It's a good mix of that classic British-Invasion rock and modern sensibilities. But mostly that classic British-Invasion rock. I bought the first album and it was super bad-ass. I eagerly look forward to their next release.

And there you have it. Four of my favorite musical acts from across the pond. I hope you've enjoyed them as much as I have. I'll try to keep you posted on any new findings.

Until next time,

~Ben

Resources
Virgin Radio online: (http://www.virginradio.co.uk/)
Amy Macdonald on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Macdonald_%28singer%29)
Amy Macdonald on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?rs=5174&page=1&rh=n%3A5174%2Cp_32%3AAmy+MacDonald%2Cp_n_binding_browse-bin%3A387645011&sort=-releasedate)
Duffy on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffy_%28singer%29)
Duffy on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=music&field-artist=Duffy)
One Night Only on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Night_Only_%28band%29)
One Night Only on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=music&field-artist=One%20Night%20Only)
The Kooks on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kooks)
The Kooks on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=music&field-artist=Kooks)

Classic Wisdom: Lament of a Batsplosion

2008-04-03T00:45:00.002-04:00

I've been slacking off again. Bad Ben! And what happens when I slack? I post a classic wisdom.

Man, we haven't successfully exploded anything in years. We tried to explode a chicken on new years. But that failed hard due to my inexperience. "Next time!" I say, "Next Time!".

Back in the day, we weren't so ambitious and our attempts were more fruitful. This Wisdom references this comic: (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/?id=8)

Lament of a Batsplosion

This is based on a true story.

One evening, the Poonheads got together and were hanging out, looking for stuff to do. We had a failed art project (a paper mache bat) and we had some fireworks, both complements of Pillboy... So we went outside and blew up the bat. Well... we tried to. It didn't blow up. Because we didn't secure the explosives well enough inside the bat, it actually flew towards us. So afterwards, we used the Batsplosion as a Batarang, and it got stuck in a tree.

The rest of the night was filled with many interesting memories including a suicidal squid, torturing Mark with Mello Yello and Donovan, and sliding down the stair case on a sleeping bag. Good times were had by all.

Anyways... I was quite happy with the way this comic turned out. Good art. Good punch line. And hey... Who can't love the Batsplosion? Ain't he cute?

In other news... I've been slacking off... I've gotten hooked on Anarchy Online, so my time has been consumed by that lately and not been where it should be -- Poonheads.com. I'm sorry. But, you'll be glad to know, I've cancelled my subscription and will be atteption to devote more of my time to Poonheads. ... When I'm not devoting it to more important things like sleeping and playing Halo. And who's idea was it to make Halo NOT x-box live compatible? I'm going to have to wait until NOVEMBER for Halo 2 to play with other people, huh... until then I'm going to get sniped to death by Drew... Damn you Drew... Damn you to a Sniper Rifle-less Hell!

Weekly Wisdom: Please Sweep your Patio!

~~Benabus

Ironically, I later got re-addicted to Anarchy Online and un-addicted to Halo. Recently, my AO account expired and I forgot to re-subscribe because I've been busy. That's okay, though. By the end of the year, they're supposed to switch to the Age of Conan graphics engine. I'll probably resubscribe then. So that I can become more unsocial than I am now.

~Ben

Resources:
Anarchy Online: (http://www.anarchy-online.com)

Coding for Complete Noobs: Chapter 2 part 2

2008-03-26T23:11:00.001-04:00

Introduction to OO and the DOM

Modern programming techniques utilize what is called Object Oriented Programming. Objects are basically self contained things that contain other things. They're Objects.

Before you create an object, you have to write a class. A class is simply the piece of code that defines what an object is and what kind of stuff you can do with it. Writing classes are a bit beyond the scope of this section. We'll just go over what an object is and how to use them.

Lets use an analogy. What's an object that everyone can relate to? How about balls? Okay, so a "ball" is an object in real life, and we'll use a "ball" as our object in programming.

Objects are made up of two types of parts: Methods and Properties. Typically, you can access an object's parts using "dot notation". Object.Method() or Object.Property ... not too hard.

A method is just a function that is owned by an object. It can either be something that the object does, or it can be something that can be done to the object.

For our example: You can kick a ball. So if kick() is a method of our ball object, and you wanted to kick the ball, you'd do ball.kick(). Balls can also explode. So, if you wanted to make the ball explode, do ball.explode().

A property is something that describes the object. Or another object that the main object owns. It's important to note that properties are not functions, so you don't put () at the end.

Back to our example: Balls might have a size. So, maybe ball.size might return "big" or "small". Also, balls might have hair. ball.hair would return a hair object.

Hair is another object, so it'd be like a 'sub-object'. Hair would probably have some methods and properties of its own. You might want to pluck one of the hairs off the ball: ball.hair.pluck(); or maybe you want to find out what color the ball's hair is: ball.hair.color might return "blonde" or "black".

So, there's your crash course in object oriented programming. We'll probably go into more details later.

Now, because we're still in the "Output" chapter, you might be wondering what these objects have to do with outputting anything. That's where we get to the DOM or Document Object Model.

Web pages are like one giant object with sub-objects and methods that can be used to manipulate the page and the objects within the page.

The top level, root object is the window. The alert() function we used earlier, is actually a method of the window object. You could, if you wanted to do window.alert("vrimples"); and get the same effect. Window is an exception, however, in that you don't have to write it everytime. It's kind of assumed.

Probably the most important property of the window is the document. Document is everything that is displayed in the window. This is where most of the good stuff goes down.

Document has a method called write(). It writes stuff to the document. Example:


<html>
  <head>
    <title>My First Webpage</title>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      document.write("VRIMPLES");
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    Balls!
  </body>
</html>

Instead of using alert() to output "VRIMPLES", we use document.write() ... Which simply writes out "VRIMPLES" when that line is parsed.

Now, that's a good way to output stuff into a web page using javaScript, but there's another way that I prefer. It's a little more involved, but you can do a lot more with it. The following code is a modified version of our original code, but knowing what you know about objects, I think you can handle it.


<html>
  <head>
    <title>My First Webpage</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    Balls!
    <div id="output"></div>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = "VRIMPLES";
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Here, we're introducing a few new elements. An important thing to remember is that each element is essentially a property or sub-object of document.

The first new thing is the <div> tag. <div> creates a new block element. It stands for "division". Div's are mainly used to create sections of HTML and divide it from other parts. Block elements are separated from the rest of the rendered html, placing a new line above and below that section.

This particular div has two properties that we play with. The first is the "id" property. Here, we're defining it inside the tag itself and, thus, is set as soon as the div is rendered. id makes it much easier to access via javascript.

The <div> is followed by the javascript. Note that we've moved the javascript down, below the <div>. This is because the <div> must be created before we can access it with the javascript. The browser parses the code from top to bottom. If we kept the javascript in the header, the browser would try to access the output <div> before it is created and would return an error. Having the javascript at the end allows it to access the div, now that it's created.

Now, the new line of javascript: document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = "VRIMPLES";

What this says is "use the getElementById method to grab the output div, then set the output div's innerHTML property to "VRIMPLES".

getElementById() is a method of document. For the most part, the pre-defined methods do exactly what the name implies. getElementById() gives you access to the element with the id specified in the parameter list. That's why we needed to specify the id in the tag itself--so that we know what element we're trying to access.

In my opinion, this is the easiest way to access elements. There are other ways to do this, utilizing different functions which "walk the object tree". I like this way, though. It's nice and simple.

So, getElementById() gives you access to the element. Basically, the code is substituting "document.getElementById("output")" with "the output div". The javascript now thinks that it's doing 'outputdiv.innerHTML = "VRIMPLES";' Of course, you can't access the 'outputdiv' directly, so this is the next best way.

The output div element has its own set of methods and properties. One of its properties is innerHTML. As you've probably guessed, it contains all the HTML that is inside the element. With this property, you can 'get' and 'set' the inner HTML.

You can set the value of a property by using the '=' operator. It's important to realize that this is really an "equals" operator, it's a "set" operator. Instead of "innerHTML equals VRIMPLES", it's more accurate to say "innerHTML is VRIPMLES" or "innerHTML becomes VRIMPLES".

What we're doing is putting the value of "VRIMPLES" into the innerHTML property of the output div. We'll be using the = operator a lot from now on.

To summarize: Create an empty <div> element with an id of "output". Using the getElementById() method, grab the div with an id of "output" and cram "VRIMPLES" into its innerHTML.

Not so hard, right?

Next time: Variables.

PhotoDon: Anti-Glare Extrodonaire

2008-03-25T01:08:00.001-04:00

I used to have a thing for gadgets. Small, portable electronic devices that can make my life better. I'm not as much a technophile as I once was, but I still keep quite a few.

One common theme for most gadgets is that they all have a display of some sort. Just about every gadget I own has some form of screen to display content. Some screens are big, some screens are small. All screens glare. And glare annoys me.

When I first realized that it was the glare, and not the game, that was frustrating me, I was playing Tetris on my Game Boy Color. Game Boys have notoriously poor screens. Until very recently they were not back-lit, so you can't play them in the dark. You can barely play them in the sun, either, because you have to get it at just the right angle to avoid the glare but have enough light to see the game.

Something must be done. After thinking about how to backlight the thing myself, it occurred to me that other people have probably shared my pain and perhaps a more technically apt modder had already solved the problem. So I went googling.

My search turned up several options for 3rd party Game Boy Advanced front-light kits. These were hard to find, too expensive, or obsolete with the advent of the Game Boy Advanced SP. I researched further until one element of the kit caught my attention.

These kits contained a transparent film that was used to diffuse the light to prevent the front-lights from glaring the screen. This told me two things: 1) Front lighting would cause glare, which is what I'm trying to get rid of and 2) I can get a film that would diffuse the glare.

The googling quickly shifted from "Back-Lighting Game Boy Mods" to "Light Diffusing Film". This turned up lots of results, all giving me exactly what I was looking for. For one reason or another, the site I chose to go with was PhotoDon (http://www.photodon.com). The site itself is a bit amateurish, but these guys are monitor accessory suppliers, not web designers.

Photodon has a large selection of Anti-Glare protective films. There are several different grades of anti-glare-ness and a plethora of pre-cut sizes ranging from $6.50 to about $35. Most of the sizes are for various computer monitors, but they do have several PDA sizes. Of course, there were no "GameBoy Color" pre-cuts, so I would either have to have them cut a custom piece (which they are more than happy to do for an extra cost) or, like most of my other products, just do it myself.

The gameboy screen is very small, so even the smallest of sizes would have to be cut down. I elected to go with the smallest size of the highest anti-glare-ness that I could find. I think it ended up being about $10. I placed the order, paid via Pay-Pal and received my film in a week or so.

They shipped it in a stiff cardboard envelope which kept the film free of creases. They also included a really nice micro-fiber cleaning cloth. These are awesome for removing smudges and fingerprints from just about everything. I use them mainly for cleaning my eye-glasses, but they work good on monitors.

After a few measurings and markings with a sharpie, I clipped out a piece perfect for my GBC. I peeled off the backer and stuck it on. Unfortunately, some dust got trapped between the film and the screen, resulting in bubbles and more aggravation. That's okay, though... I had enough for a second try (and third and fourth if need be). On my second try, I made sure to wipe clean the screen with the provided cloth before applying the film.

With the film applied, I turned on my lamp, reclined my chair and turned on the GameBoy. With the light shining straight on the screen, there was still some glare. A slight tilt to the left and the glare was gone. The light was adequately diffused and the only aggravation was the music as my stack of Tetrominoes grew.

I was elated by this success.

A little while later, I noticed a similar glare problem with my Creative Zen Sleek. So, I whipped out what was left of my initial PhotoDon sheet and applied a piect to the screen of my MP3 player. Success.

So much a success, that I decided to replace the screen of my homemade, duct-tape, Zen Sleek case. I had originally used a zip-lock bag for this purpose, but I had enough PhotoDon left to replace the zip-lock, resulting in a sturdier, more protective, and glare-free case.

Since then, I ordered a second sheet. This second sheet was larger, of a lesser anti-glare-ness, and about $20. I decided that the super-anti-glare-ness of the first sheet was a bit overkill, and I felt that this option would give me the biggest bang for my buck.

I've used this second sheet in a number of applications. I re-built my Zen case around a fresh piece of photodon film. I added some to the outer and inner displays of my cellphone -- no more having to squint to see the caller-id in sunlight. And, more recently, I added a piece to my newly acquired PSP.

Let me tell you: This produced is ESSENTIAL to a PSP. PSPs feature a mirror-piano-black finish. The case itself smudges terribly and creates a glare of its own, so you can imagine how the screen would be. The photodon film eliminates the glare, cuts finger-print-cling in half, and protects the screen from scratches. The new Slim PSP 2000 that I have does not have a cover, so the protection is important. My only regret is that I waited a week to add the film -- It's already got a couple of scratches. Not a big deal, though, because I mainly play it using a video link to my TV.

Bottom line: This product is absolutely essential if you have any number of gadgets. In fact, it would be good for any application that requires a reduction in reflective glare, including monitors, tv's, auxiliary displays, watches, and car-radios. You should definitely look into it.

Until next time,

~Ben

Resources:
PhotoDon Glare Reduction and Privacy Protectors: (http://www.photodon.com/)
GameBoy Color on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameBoy_Color)
Tetris on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_DX#Tetris_DX)
PSP Slim on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSP_Slim)

I Love Music: New Wave

2008-03-16T15:10:00.002-04:00

I first heard Against Me! on Mitch Clem's compilation, Liquid Paper Vol. 4. In truth, that compilation really introduced me to a world of new music that would have otherwise gone missed. That was a few years ago. Lots of things transpired between then and now. My record collection has grown significantly, I've graduated college, and I've gotten a real job.

Also, Against Me! signed to a major record label.

Now, I know what you're thinking... "Ben, you're not punx enough to rip on these guys for selling out." That may be true. But I'm not going to rip on them for selling out. I'm going to praise them.

I don't own any other Against Me! albums besides their newest, New Wave. I also would not even own this one had it not been for their selling out. I listen to the radio on my way to work and that's where I heard Thrash Unreal for the first time.

As previously stated, I don't listen to these guys very much at all. When I first heard Thrash Unreal, I mistook the vocals Twisted Sister's Dee Snider. I thought, "Hmmm... This can't be Twisted Sister... Maybe Dee Snider has solo project or something... I had better check this out." I googled the lyrics and was stunned at what I found. Against Me!, the raunchy punk band I heard years before in passing on Liquid Paper vol 4, was getting air play.

So, I ended up getting the album on the strength of that one single alone. I must say, it's pretty bad ass. I think one of the things that confused me initially was the slow tempo. When I think "punk" I think "fast, up tempo". In that respect, it's hard for me to think of New Wave as punk. It's really slow. Really heavy. Which is awesome. It reminds of just some real, old-fashioned hard rock.

As I'm writing this, I'm listening through the album for the first time. I tend to subconsciously try to pull apart songs, singling out tracks, picking out the different instruments. A lot of music I hear, there's a lot of extra backing tracks stuck in there. It's very prominent in solo artist's work (because a single artist can't rightly play all the instruments himself...). On the other hand, I hear a lot of bands that sound kind of hollow because it's not mixed well. From what I can hear in New Wave, it's mixed perfectly. There's two guitars, vocals, a bass and a drum. I'm no expert, but in my opinion, the instruments have been mixed together very well, producing a full bodied sound without sounding over done.

The stand out track, for me, is track 6, Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart. Simply because there's an extra female vocal track. It mixes things up pretty well. And I like that it's right there in the middle. Nice breath of fresh air. I'm not saying that the album gets monotonous, though. There's a wide variety on there, while not straying far from that root punk sound. The songs are all different enough to not be boring, but are all the same enough to remain a cohesive album. It's something that I would not mind listening to on repeat, unshuffled.

If you're a fan of rock, give this album a listen to. If you're protesting it because it's Against Me's debut album on a major label, you're an idiot. The major labels (despite being money hungry carnivores) provide bands with resources and publicity. They may have sold out, but I'm reaping the benefits.

All in all, three thumbs up. But that's just my opinion.

~Ben

Resources:

New Wave at Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/New-Wave-Against-Me/dp/B000QFCD0Y/)
Against Me! at Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Me%21)

Big News!

2008-03-11T00:45:00.000-04:00

Today, I got accepted to the Indiana University School of Infomatics where I can pursue a master's degree in Human Computer Interaction Design. Sounds like a long string of rather impressive words? That's because it is! I've very excited about this. I've been waiting for the past two months to hear back, and it's finally happened.

That means, I should be hearing from Carnegie Mellon in the very near future. Even though Carnegie Mellon is a more prestigious university, I honestly think I would prefer to go to Indiana. What it really comes down to, however, is the almighty dollar. It really depends on which option would be more economically feasible. So I'm holding out to see what CM is going to offer me before I commit.

So, I'm really excited about that.

Also, I've been trying to work on Captain Numbskull lately. Last semester, I spent a great deal of time working on sketches and mock-up layouts. I lost that notebook. So, I've been redrawing all my sketches. I need to do this to see where it is that I'm going. Honestly, this is the hard part. It goes hand-in-hand with the writing. Then I need to transfer those sketches/notes into real pencils. Then the inking and coloring is a cinch. It's coming along...

However, if you have seen my original notebook (I think it was a black UL notebook), please let me know.

So, that's all for now.

~~Ben

Classic Wisdom: DO IT!

2008-03-09T03:30:00.000-04:00

A couple of months into the initial run of Poonheads, I had just moved into my own apartment (and by 'my own', I mean 'with roomates') and things were just kicking into full gear. Maybe a week after that, we took a trip to A-kon in Dallas. I had pretty much gone every year since I was a sophomore in highschool, but this would be the first one the poonheads rocked together. So, when I got back, I drew this up based on our adventure. Ah, what it was to be young and naive!

References this comic: (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/?id=akon)

DO IT!

Boy... let me tell you... A-kon was a blast and this strip here pretty much sums it up fairly well. An alternate title would have been "Poonheads do Dallas" but it's too late now, to change it... Oh well.

A lot of things happened on our trip to Dallas, but when the strip began reached 12 panels, I thought I might have over done it. So I added a 13th panel just for kicks. Some things that I didn't mention in the strip are as follows:

We basically had two rooms: One room was chick type people and the other for non chick type people. In the end, we all ended up staying in the chick room cuz hey... who wants to stay in a room with all guys? That'd be gay... Pillboy crashed under the table in a giant Pillboy burrito. Also it was Seth, who you people don't know, that created our now infamous slogan of "DO IT" in the notorious Brooklyn accent. Whilest giving credit where credit is due... lets not forget to credit Aly for the Whale spooge incident.

At one point in time, I got pissed off because I had to climb 12 flights of stairs only to be greated with a "We don't like you" when I got to my friend's door... so I hung out in the stair well for a while where I met some dude from Antarctic Press.

What else? What else? Sterling cosplayed as Faust from Guilty Gear and did a damn good job of it! Hell yeah! Couldn't see for shit, but he rocked hardcore!

Also, on the way back, one of the cars suffered a blowout and did crazy things on the highway. I wasnt' there because I was in a different car. Pillboy tells me that because the spare tire was flat, they had to go to 6 different gas stations to find a working air pump before they could fix it. Crazy!

Now on to a play by play of the comic:

This would be the first comic that I've drawn in quite some time, so that art, as a whole isn't quite up to par, but there are some panels that I'm actually very happy with.

The first panel is just kind of a set up for the chaos to come.

Second Panel: On thursday, while I waited for everyone else to arrive, I rode the escalators up and down over and over, and eventually got KICKED OFF THE ESCALTORS.... After that... we repeatedly got scolded by A-kon security to "not clump in front of the escalators". So we would yell at everyone who was standing around: "NO CLUMPING". We can be such asses...

Third panel: This totally happened, and we are so hardcore.

Fourth panel: Yeah... We met Fred Gallagher who said we could use our flyer. It shows Danzig beating up Piro from Megatokyo. First of all. I LIKE Megatokyo... so quit bitching. It was a joke... Even FRED got that... but all you damned whinny MT people are all like, "This is a flyer of my favorite webcomic character getting his ass kicked... it's so not cool... I think I'm gonna go cry..." IT'S A FUCKING JOKE! COME ON PEOPLE! Christ! Fred was okay with it! You fuckers should be okay with it, too! We tried to hand out the flyers in the Megatokyo line and all the MT fans are WAY too touchy... Anyways. When we met up with Fred, we were in costume, so it's a bit not real... but you know.. that's pretty much how it happened...

Fifth Panel: We had a LONG conversation about whale spooge in a hotel room one evening. So the ocean is salty. Because of whale spooge. And if you drink it, you get whale dick, which causes your dick to swell up to the size of a VW beatle. Also, you ejaculate enough semen to fill a swimming pool. And when I let loose my Whale mating call, Pillboy thought he heard a whale cream its panties... So if ever you see me out in a boat... I'm probably trying to score with a whale...

Sixth Panel: Pillboy Cosplayed as Pyramid head and rocked hardcore. He kept talking about doing the thing that is described in the comic here... And then we met the leaf chick... The leaf chick is a chick that was wearing leafs... that's it. She was hot. Unfortunately, she was probably under age. But since we didnt' score with her, there's no problems there, right? Anyways, we gave here and here friend, the towel chick, a poonheads flyer. Pyramid Head never actually went bananas... but it's a funny story for a comic strip. And Leaf chick... if you're reading this, and you happen to be over 18... Drop me a line ;D

Seventh Panel: Using Seth's brilliant slogan... Pillboy, Joey and my brother, set out with our flyers and harassed everyone in sight. In a false New Yorkian accent, these three brave men met new people and annoyed them to death, driving my web hits up at least 3 fold. Anyone who actually came to this site because of this campaign must be crazy, and I would like to talk to them in person. Anyways... Along with the help of all the chicks in our party, they soon gave out all of our original 500 flyers, so we were forced to make an additional 160 flyers in the business center of the hotel. The chick there was really nice and helpful and not a bad looker, either. She, also, should feel free to drop me a line if she reads this ;D

Eighth Panel: We have furries... and we have people with signs... I hate them both... Then we have me with this pomade crap in my hair... so then chicks attack my hair and say I should fro it up... which I do. Then they say that it looks like I just got laid... The security gaurds already think my Poon (which is only tang and water) is alcoholic... Man... the implications of this strip are just... there are so many, and all of them would be accurate.

Nineth Panel:Someone had this brilliant idea to play Twister in the middle of the hallway... so after we got booted from the lobby, we went and played in the hallway in front of the room... Well, after a while, someone filed a complaint, and Mr. Security gaurd came up to see what was the matter. Everyone ran into the room and left Tatum to fend for herself. Of course dipshit (Joey) was still yelling "DO IT" at the security gaurd who was fairly cool about the whole thing who just told us to quite down instead of kicking us out and "STOP CLUMPING" like the kon staff would have.

Tenth Panel: Fairly self explainatory... except that the ONE piece of hentai that Sterling actually bought didn't actually contain any actual naughty pictures once he got into the shrink wrap... Irony? I think so. I just thought it made for a funny panel. We were all talking about what we would do when we finally found the Hentai booth, whilest we were on our "quest for porn".

Eleventh Panel: At one point in time, we thought about staging a publicity stunt near the Rocky Horror line in which Pillboy's pants would get stolen and flyers would fly out... but then we though he might get kicked out... So instead we went back up to the room and something similar to this happened.

Twelveth Panel: One guy doubted my ability to deliver explosions... HA!

Thirteenth Panel: Zabak... Well... he's Zabak... Zabak was all over the place. He tried to sell us, he passed out flyers, he danced, he even got strangled by that chick from Kill Bill... I have a feeling you'll be seeing more of Zabak in the future...

Now... Other stuff:

A couple of people wanted me to post links to their sites... Now if these guys don't link back to me, I'm gonna be severely pissed...
mtekbeta.com
www.starcrossd.net

There... you can't say I'm a bad guy... for a minute there I was seriously thinking about just saying Fuck it and forgetting about them... But that would be be something only a complete ass monger would do.

And in other news... I'm tired and 2 out of 3 Poonheads agree that card games suck donkey dicks*.

* The third Poonhead was not polled on this topic.

~Ben

BTW: This year will probably be the first time we don't go to a-kon. I guess a little part of me is disappointed, but it hasn't been quite as fun the past couple of years as the Poonheads have grown, matured, and acquired diversified tastes. We've just got better things to do, I supposed.

I Love Music: Hold on Tight

2008-03-03T20:50:00.001-05:00

It's that time again. I've got another song stuck in my head, and you get to reap the benefits (if you can call it that).

Today's earworm comes courtesy of The Electric Light Orchestra. ELO is probably best known for singles such as "Don't Bring Me Down", "Do Ya", and a cover of "Roll Over Beethoven". I'd heard the name before, but only recently got into them after hearing "Twilight" used as the opening for the cult Japanese Drama, Densha Otoko.

I purchased "Strange Magic: The Best of Electric Light Orchestra" to appease my craving. The problem is that ELO's music is very diverse. What I wanted was more "Twilight". And after learning that Twilight was part of larger entity that was the concept album titled "Time", I just had to own it.

"Time" is a great album. While no two songs on the album sound much alike, they are similar enough to form a cohesive being. And also, it's got a bunch of really catchy songs. Like "Hold On Tight".

So, without further adieu, "Hold on Tight" by Electric Light Orchestra.

~Ben

Resources:
ELO on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO)
Time at Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/Time-Electric-Light-Orchestra/dp/B00005KHEV)

Everyday Wisdom: Ingrown Toenails

2008-03-01T02:30:00.004-05:00

Let me preface this bit of wisdom with this: I have problems. Mental and physical problems. Just like every human being on Earth. But that's okay. You just have to trudge through it. It's part of life. You deal with it and roll with the punches. After a while you get used to the pain and don't even notice it anymore.

Unless you're talking about ingrown toenails.

I've suffered from ingrown toenails sporadically through out my life. As anyone who has every had said affliction will tell you, this probably has the highest pain-to-severity ratio that there is. Also chewing on tin-foil. But that is neither here nor there.

For as long as I can remember, I've always dealt with my toes in the same manor. During normal foot and toe maintenance (clipping of toenails), I would inevitably cut a toenail too short. Instead of growing out, away from the foot, the toenail would grow back out towards the sides. This would cause the toenail to cut into the edge of my toe.

To deal with this problem, I would use a pair of forceps, a pocket knife, and pair of nail clippers to dig out the portion of nail that was cutting into my toe. This was painful. It would relieve the pressure for a time, but would always get infected, leading to a month or so of this "dig and wait" routine.

One day, it got so bad that I went to the doctor. I was hoping that she would anesthetize the area, and use somewhat sterilized instruments to remove the portion of the nail and perhaps cauterize the cuticle so that the nail doesn't grow back on the edges. Of course, that's not what she did.

She told me, "I can just remove the nail, but it will grow back and probably keep getting ingrown. The only long term solution is to cut a notch in your toenail to relieve the pressure until the corners have a chance to grow out."

In my infinite wisdom I thought this sounded like a load of crap, but I'll try just about anything once. And I did. And it worked.

The notch immediately relieved the pressure. I was able to walk home without the excruciating pain shooting from my toes. It was bliss.

Below, is a crudely drawn diagram made in MSPaint. The blue lines represent the direction of force/pressure. The "BAD" side shows that the pressure goes out and around, causing the nail to dig into the edges. The right or "GOOD" side, show that with the notch, the pressure is directed towards the notch and away from the edges, relieving the discomfort.

To this day, I keep my toenails notched. Just in case. I figure it can't do any harm. Except occasionally I'll scratch up my leg when I'm asleep at night if I don't smooth it out. And sometimes it'll snag my sock. But both are small prices to pay to relieve one physical ailment that literally cripples me from time to time.

I hope this was helpful. Had I known of this remedy 10 years ago, those ten years would have been a lot less painful.

~~Ben

Resources:
Anatomy of a Toe Nail: (http://thefootblog.org/2006/10/20/anatomy-of-a-toe-nail/)
Ingrown Toenails on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrown_toenail)
Regular Toenails: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toenail)

News: Can you digg it?

2008-02-28T23:25:00.002-05:00

Quick news post! As you may (or may not) have noticed, I installed some Digg submit buttons around the blog. If you click on one of these buttons you can register and then submit the given Wisdom to Digg. If enough people Digg the article, it will become popular. If the article gets popular more people will flood in. If I get more readers, I will be more motivated to increase the number, frequency, and quality of Wisdom posts. And we all win.

It'll probably take a while to build up any kind sizable following, so I'm really not expecting much. I just thought I should hop on this bandwagon and at least give my readers the option to digg it if they want.

Just thought I would let you know.

Also, please forgive the obscenely cliche title. I couldn't help it.

~~Ben

Coding for Complete Noobs: Chapter 2 part 1

2008-02-26T23:38:00.003-05:00

Chapter 2: Output

Part 1

Output is the data that is put out from the program. Go figure. The program runs and spits out the results. That's your output. It's pretty much the only way to tell if your program is doing anything. Sure, you could make a program that that counts to one thousand, but what's the point if you can't watch it count?

It's true that the plain html that we made last time is a form of output. The only problem is that it's static. You save the file and open it in the browser and it doesn't do anything except print out the contents of the file. Nothing happens.

To make the page "do stuff" we need to add in some javascript. Javascript enhances webpages with interactivity. When the user does something to the page, the javascript will do something in response. In order to let the user know that something just happened, you'll need to be able to output a message.

On with the code... We'll start with the page we created last time, but with modifications to add the javascript:


<html>
  <head>
    <title>My First Webpage</title>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      alert("Vrimples");
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    Balls!
  </body>
</html>

You'll notice the <script> tags in the header. That's where your javascript goes. The <script> element can actually go anywhere in a page, but it's generally preferred that you keep most of the code in the header. As with all rules, however, there is a time and a place for breaking it. Sometimes it's necessary to throw a bit of javascript right in the middle of a paragraph. Just try to keep it to a minimum.

The <b>type="text/javascript"</b> part of the script tag is called an 'attribute'. It's just an extra bit of info about the element that, in this case, tells the browser that the following code is of type "text/javascript". Depending on various factors, the script may or may not work without the type attribute, so you must remember to add it in there.

Inside the script element is where the real fun begins. Instead of just marking up text, as with HTML, we'll be writing actual real code that will do stuff. This simple example simply pops up an alert box with the word "Vrimples". That's what the alert() function does. There are several other ways to output messages to the user, but we'll start with alert() because it's simple, easy to use, and will allow me to introduce a few important programming concepts.

alert() is an example of a function or method. Functions and methods are pretty much the same thing. Later on, when we get to more advanced topics, I'll explain the difference, but for the time being, just think of it as two words for the same thing.

Functions are like actions. When you call a function, the script preforms that action. I like to think of functions as the 'verbs' of programming.

Each function has several parts. In our example, "alert" would be the function name. That's simple enough, right? The name is always followed by a pair of parentheses (). That's how the program knows that it's a function. If you don't put the parentheses, the browser will not treat it as a function and may return an error.

Inside the parentheses is the parameter list. Parameters are bits of information that you pass to the function. The function will take this information and manipulate it or use it for calculations or for whatever it is that the function does.

In this case, alert() only takes one parameter. "Vrimples". "Vrimples" is a <b>string</b>. A string is a group of individual characters that are lumped together with quotation marks. In javascript, you can use either single quotes (') or double quotes ("). You just have to make sure that you use the same type of quote at the beginning and end of the string. The first quote tells the browser to start making a string and the ending one tells the browser to end the string. Other programming languages require you to only use single quotes or to only use double quotes. But since we're not worried about other languages at this point, we'll just forget about it. Just remember to remain consistent.

Something to think about: Supposed you wanted to print out a string with a quotation mark in it... for example: She said "Vrimples". You might try putting alert("She said "Vrimples""). This won't work. Why? Because the browser treats the second quotation mark as the ending mark and starts a new string at the third quotation mark. So what do you do?

You have to use the escape character. In javascript, the escape character is a backslash (\). It tells the browser "The next character after this escape character should be treated differently than it normally would be." So, you would end up with <b>alert("She said \"Vrimples\"")</b>. That way, the browser interprets only the first and last quotation marks as starting and ending the string. It simply prints out the quotes around Vrimples.

But back to our sample code... So you have the alert() function that takes one single string parameter (which, in our example, is the string "Vrimples"). The browser reads that and pops up an alert box with the text "Vrimples" in it.

This is all followed by a semicolon (;). The semicolon tells the browser that it's at the end of a command. It's kind of like a period (.) when you're writing in English. In javascript, the semicolon are optional. You could just have every line of code on a separate line and the browser would treat the line-breaks as semicolon. However, almost every other programming language I know requires you to put a semi colon at the end. Since it won't hurt anything, end every line with a semi colon. It will eventually become a habit that will transfer to other languages, should you decide to learn one.

That right there is the basic syntax of javascript. Just about everything builds on that. Of course, you'll need to do some stuff other than just popping up alert boxes. I would imagine that most tutorials and manuals and books would start talking about variables, loops, functions, and a whole lot of other important fundamentals. We'll get to that later.

My philosophy is 'learn how to do the hard stuff, then go back and learn the basics so you can make the hard stuff more awesome'. That's why in the next chapter, we're going to talk about Object Oriented Programming and The Document Object Model.

Having come this far, hopefully you're enjoying yourself and learning something. If I'm going to fast or throwing too much at you at once, I can pretty much guarantee it's only going to get worse. This here is where things start getting crazy, so hold on to your hat as we jump right in to the thick of it.

~Ben

Classic Wisdom: The Danzig Show

2008-02-22T00:53:00.003-05:00

Before the "poonheads freakout face", the main running gag was having Pillboy getting his ass kicked in every comic. Also, guest stars. And any combination there of.

This particular classic wisdom goes with this comic: (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/Default.aspx?id=7). It combines both guest stars and Pillboy-ass-kicking for the first time and sets a standard for what was to come.

The Danzig Show

One day, Pillboy introduced me to Danzig and forever changed my tastes in music.

Danzig is ultra hardcore and we were talking about what it would be like if Danzig got his own TV show... thus the title... So we decided that it would be a sitcom, in which Danzig was the crazy neighbor and beat the living hell out of a random family in every show.

Well... in this particular comic... Danzig makes a guest appearance and beats the hell out of Pillboy. In fact... Danzig gives Pillboy the longest and most severe beating so far in the comic. And Pillboy thanks him for it, because Danzig is just that cool.

If you would notice... Danzig is listed as a cast member on the cast page... What does this mean? Could it mean that Danzig will return to lay the smack down on Pillboy again? Well... we'll just have to wait and see, now won't we?

In a more artistic note, this was the first and not the last, comic in which I drew every frame by hand. I was so pleased with the results, that I decided that I would no longer copy and paste... At least not when I don't have to. I think the art came out VERY good. The only thing that is a little off... Danzig isn't that big in real life. He's only about 5'4". But he's so hardcore, I made him really huge to enhance his harcoreness.

I think that about does it for this one. I think it came out really well.

Until next time,
~Ben

I Love Music: Birdhouse in your Soul

2008-02-17T21:14:00.006-05:00

I heard this the other day on Virgin. Birdhouse in your Soul by They Might Be Giants. They're kind of old news now, but I never really listened to them much. Just those two songs that were on Tiny Tunes that one time. Anyway, I heard this and it's been stuck in my head for a while now. And you know what happens when I get a song stuck in my head... I post the youtube video so that you guys can hear it and get it stuck in your head.

And there you have it... I don't know why I find it so appealing or why it's stuck in my head, but it's opened a whole new world for me. I bought A Users Guide To They Might Be Giants... it's their "best of" album. I found it at Best Buy and I really really like what I hear. I only got though about half of it so far, but I really look forward to the rest of it.

Until next time,
~Ben

Resources:
YouTube link: (http://youtube.com/watch?v=6kJD2N2gvqw)
"A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants" on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/Users-Guide-They-Might-Giants/dp/B0007XT8DA/)

Coding for Complete Noobs: Chapter 1

2008-02-14T00:22:00.003-05:00

Kids today take computers for granted. They play on the YouTube and their MySpaces and really have no idea what it takes to create such fantastic pieces of software. I do. Because I'm a programmer.

When I explain to people what it is that I do for a living, I get one of two responses. "Oh, that's nice." or "I could never do that." Sometimes both. The later of the two is not entirely true. You just need instruction from someone who can speak your language.

That's what I'm attempting to do here.

--

Before we get started, there are a few things that you should know. This first part is very long and might be kind of boring, but it's vital if you hope to understand anything further down the road.

Programming, or "coding", as we call it, is the process of writing words and numbers and symbols (or "code"). That code is run through a compiler or an interpreter which transforms the code into a program. It's just that simple.

All websites are created in such a fashion. A programmer will write code (sometimes utilizing other programs to assist in the code writing) and your web browser acts as an interpreter which translates the code into a web page. You can readily view the source code of any given page by right-clicking the page and selecting "View Source".

Technically, however, websites are not generally considered programs. Programs are created by running the source code through a compiler which produces a separate application that can be run completely independent of the compiler. Websites are interpreted, which means that the code has to be re-interpreted every time you view the page, and thus are completely dependent on the interpreter. "Programs" written in interpreted languages are typically called "scripts". I think (now, don't quote me on this) that they are called scripts, because it's like an actor reading a script and acting it out. Whatever the case, I almost always refer to web pages as simply "Web pages" or "Web sites".

So... Web pages are actually just source code that is run through a web browser which interprets the code and displays all the pretty colors and pictures and stuff. Enough of with the theory.

To create a web page, you need 3 things. A text editor (to edit the code), a web browser (to interpret the code), and a language in which to write the code.

For the text editor, you can use MS Notepad (start->programs->accessories>notepad) and for the browser/interpreter, just use whatever browser you're using to view this page.

Modern webpages utilize a series of interconnected languages to provide the rich user experience we have today. The browser itself usually only interprets 3 of them: HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Which brings me to an interesting aside.

In web programming, there are two different types of languages: Server-side and Client-side. The server is the big computer that the company will host the site on. You're computer, or the client, will contact the server and download the webpage which is then interpreted by your browser. Server-side scripts are run on the server, before your computer ever gets them. The Server-side script (written in Perl, or PHP, or C#, or Java ) will usually do some complex calculation or database interaction that your browser is unable to do. It creates a page with only Client-side code (javaScript, HTML, CSS) and sends THAT to your browser. Your browser interprets that code and displays the page. Because you only have access to the client (your computer and your web browser) we'll be focusing on Client-side languages.

A run down of the languages that we'll be covering:

HTML: HyperText Markup Language. This is the bread and butter of web sites. If you know nothing else, you can still make a decent web site that only uses HTML. It was originally designed to mark-up text in order to link pages together. Since then, it's been expanded to include formatting tools (bold, italic, tables, etc). HTML simply tells the browser how to render the page and does not provide much interactivity besides linking to other documents and pages. The current incarnation is called XHTML. It's more strict on syntax and adds more features but is, for the most part, still static.

CSS: Cascading Style Sheets. This language is used to make pages pretty. While it is possible to change colors and fonts and stuff using HTML, CSS allows us more options and freedom in regards to formatting and styling our pages.

javaScript: Or simply "JS". Not to be confused with Java (which is a compiled language that has absolutely nothing to do with javaScript). This language provides more interactivity with web pages. Plain HTML is very static. Adding javascript can make a page very dynamic. While it's pretty easy once you know the basics, it can be VERY powerful if you use it right.

--

That was clear as mud, right? I promise, it's easier than it sounds. Rather than putting you through a lot of computer science theory and trying to explain keywords and constructs and a lot of nonsense that I don't even know... I'm just going to drop it on you. You'll need to know a little HTML first, then we'll jump right into the javascript and all the fun stuff. We'll start simple and work our way up.

Now, open up notepad. First things first... Select File->Save As... from the menu bar. Change the "Save as Type:" to "All Files". This prevents notepad from adding ".txt" to the end of the filename. Name the file "index.html" (without the quotes) and save it to a place on your computer where you'll remember it (I usually save it on the desktop).

A long long time ago, someone decided that the default page of a website should be called "index.html". No one really knows why, but it's the standard. Sometimes, depending on where you host or what language you're programming in, the default name could be something like index.htm, index.php, default.html, default.aspx, or some other variation. You can name all the other pages of your site whatever you want, but the main landing page that the user first sees should always be one of those variations.

Enter the following code:


<html>
  <head>
    <title>My First Webpage</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    Balls!
  </body>
</html>

Save the file. Open a new window in your browser (File->New->Window or Ctrl+N). Open the file you just created in the browser (File->Open->Browse).

Now, what you should see is a page with the word "Balls!" displayed in the top left-hand corner and the words "My First Webpage" in the title bar.

Congratulations. You've created your first webpage.

Now for an explanation of what this code means. HTML is a "markup language" which means that you're basically putting tags around bits of text. The tags tell the browser what a piece of text is supposed to do or what it's supposed to look like. Bits of HTML can be nested in other bits of HTML. For example, the "head" chunk is nested in the "html" tags and the "title" bit is nested in the "head" tags.

The <html> tags must begin and end the web page. This tells the browser that the page is, indeed, an HTML page and should be interpreted as such.

The <head> section defines meta-data (data about the data) relating to the page. This section is not rendered (displayed) in the actual page. It tells the browser, and some other programs, interesting information about your page. This is where we will later add in the Style Sheets and the javaScript.

The <title> tags tell the browser what should be displayed in the title bar. Makes sense, right? Because this is not information that is to be displayed in the browser window, it belongs in the header section.

The <body> tags define the content (or body) of the page. This is the section that will actually be rendered in the browser. Right now, we've only got a small bit of text (Balls!) in there, but later on, we'll be adding all kinds of fun things like tables and lists and images.

There you have it. A simple page that demonstrates the (very) basics of web programming. The vast majority of HTML tags are named according to what they do in plain English. The <head> tags hold header information. The <body> tags hold the body of your page. And so forth.

Keep in mind that HTML tags must be closed. When you open a block of code with an opening tag (<body>), you have to end that block with the matching end tag (</body>). End tags are almost exactly the same as the beginning tag, except the tag name begins with a forward slash (/). Also, keep in mind that all tags must be properly nested. When a tag is nested within another tag, the inner tag must be closed before the outer tag. For example:


  <head>
    <title>My First Webpage
    </head>
  </title>

The above bit of code is incorrect. The title tag must be closed before the head tag. Incorrectly nested tags may cause errors and your page may not render properly.

Another thing to make note of is that HTML (as well as most other programming languages) ignores most white-space characters. White-space is the space between words including spaces, tabs, and line-breaks. For example:


<html>
  <head>
                    <title>My       First

                     Webpage</title>
   </head>
            <body>
                 Balls!


  </body>


        </html>


<html>
<head>
<title>
My First Webpage
</title>
</head>
<body>
Balls!
</body>
</html>

The above two pieces code will render EXACTLY the same as your original code. The indention of the original example is simply there to make the code more readable by humans. Computers really don't care. Anything after the first space after a word is completely ignored. The only thing to be careful about is that a space at the beginning of a tag will break the code. Example:


<html>
  < head>
    < title>My First Webpage< / title>
  </head>
  <body>
    Balls!
  < / body>
</ html>

The above code WILL NOT work correctly.

There are ways to reposition elements and add extra spaces and line breaks, but we'll get to that next time. If you're feeling ambitious, you can google HTML and learn about other tags to play around with. If you're not feeling so ambitious, I'll explain new tags as I get to them.

--

Well, that's it for now. I know this hasn't been very exciting, but the information presented in this article has hopefully provided you with the very basics of web programming. Next time, I'll introduce javascript which, I promise, will be a bit more exciting.

Until next time,

~~Ben

I Love Music: Scouting for Girls

2008-02-06T21:00:00.001-05:00

I previously wrote about my affinity for British Radio and one of my new favorite songs, Elvis Ain't Dead by Scouting for Girls. I really like that song. I also like the other two singles that they play on Virgin. So much, in fact, that I went out and got their debut, self-titled album, Scouting for Girls. And since it's not out in the States yet, I had to import it. It's like $35 to import a CD from the UK.

I'll be honest, here. I probably should have just gotten the single (http://www.amazon.com/Elvis-Aint-Dead-Scouting-Girls/dp/B000WTND8U/). It's not that it's a bad album. It's just a bit boring after a while.

Don't get me wrong, though. I still love that song, and I think these guys are great musicians. For a three piece piece that focuses on the piano and percussion, they're not too bad. The album's got a lot of guitars and other instruments mixed in there, but it's mostly the drums, piano, and vocals that stick out. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's put together really well.

I really dig the poppy, bouncy sound that they've got. I'm subconsciously forced to pop my head to it. Combined with the simplistic, repetitive vocals, it's really easy to get one of these songs stuck in your head.

Unfortunately, I dislike it for the same reasons I like it. While it's fun to hum and sing along to, there's really very little variety. Plenty of hooks, but little substance. For what they are, the songs are way too long. It's like they just keep dragging out. You hear everything they've got in the first half and it just repeats two or three times afterwards. If the songs were cut down to around 2 minutes, it'd be great, but 3.5 minutes is just too much for me. I guess that comes from being spoiled to short fast punk songs, and noisy AWK epics.

But as I've said, they're really great musicians. It's a personal preference thing. They're really big in the UK. For the past couple of weeks, the album's been at number 1. If it were five or six years ago, I could see these guys easily topping the US pop charts. Unfortunately, these days, most music buying Americans have bad taste. But what can I do, really? Other than write this blog and tell all my friends... Not much.

So. Summary. Scouting For Girls is a really great band and their single Elvis Ain't Dead is currently one of my favorite songs ever. Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, their debut album lacks variety and drags on. Not the best, but definitely not the worst. The album's not for me, but I highly recommend looking these guys up and judging for yourself. Or at least wait (and hope) for it to get released in the States.

Until next time,

~Ben

Resources:
My previous Scouting For Girls Post: (http://poonheads.blogspot.com/2007/11/scouting-for-girls-elvis-aint-dead.html)
Scouting For Girls by Scouting For Girls on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/Scouting-Girls/dp/B000UDQRKO/)
Elvis Ain't Dead single on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/Elvis-Aint-Dead-Scouting-Girls/dp/B000WTND8U/)
Scouting For Girls on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouting_for_Girls)

I Love Music will be a regular feature of Poonheads Wisdom regarding a general love for music.

Update Update Update

2008-01-15T00:10:00.000-05:00

Hey. I'll make this short. Just updating with some updates. My applications are in and I've got some spare time again. What does this mean? It means I can slack off more.

It also means that I'll be pumping out some more content.

I've still got a day job, so my evenings are mostly spent not doing that. As always, I've got a lot of projects going on. I plan to start working on Numbskull again. I've got a Poonheads project in the works. I'm working on a custom CMS for my buddy Chris over at Carzorthade (http://www.carzorthade.com). Also, there will hopefully be more Wisdom content.

I plan to have some kind of schedule in the near future as far as Wisdom updates. For instance... Music on Tuesday, Computers on Wednesday, Balls on Friday. You get the idea. Also, David will writing a 'column' with drinking tips. It'll be awesome. Maybe I'll be able to talk one of the other guys into contributing.

That is all forthe time being. Thanks for your attention. And also, balls.

~Ben

Classic Wisdom: Crassmas

2007-12-23T01:36:00.000-05:00

I finally got my new computer up and running. It's super awesome. I decided not to use it as a media center PC like I had initially intended. I can't get it all to work right with my new TV. So I'm just going to have my TV hooked up to my DVD player and my computer (in all it's blue cathode light glory) will remain a separate entity.

Now that I've got that done, I can concentrate on more important issues. No... Not the comics or the blog. Graduate School! Admissions deadlines are in mid January, so I'm going to try get all that done by then.

After that, however, I'll start updating the blog regularly again. I have a couple of good ideas for some poonheads comics, too. But mostly I'm going to try to finish Captain Numbskull. Maybe work on my other web-based projects if I get a chance, too.

All-in-all, I'm excited about the upcoming year. This year treated us all pretty well and I hope that next year will be just as fruitful.

In the mean time, I'm going to skip around a little with the Classic Wisdoms. Instead of posting The Danzig Show (which would be the next Comic/Wisdom if I was posting in order), I will treat you to Santa Crass. It goes with this comic: (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/Default.aspx?id=crassmas).

Have a Merry Crassmas!

Oh man... I am lazy and I didn't even realize that I am almost out of time this week. Christmas came and went so I had better throw up some commentary about this strip huh?

First of all, Santa Crass came along because a while back we found a Santa cap randomly at Seth's house. Who decided to wear it? Pillboy. What else was he wearing? His Crass shirt. And thus came Santa Crass.

I decided to go with a candy cane striped background not only because candy canes and christmas go hand in hand, but because the night before I colored this, Pillboy was harassing me with a candy cane. I refused to eat one, so he decided to put one in the bottom of my glass of egg nog. Bastard.

The only other thing that you may be wondering about is the Very Danzig Christmas song. I wrote that specially for this comic in about an hour. It's sung to the tune of "Deck the Halls". If you would like the entire lyrics... Well... here they are:

Deck the halls with bowels of children,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season FOR DESTRUCTION,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Don we now our Killing armor,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Troll the ancient Spell of demons,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
See the blazing Fires before us,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Strike our foes and join the legions,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Follow me in Blood and chaos,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
While I tell of pain and suffering,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Death awaits all who pass here,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Hail the beast, ye lads and lasses,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
NOW LETS DEFILE ALL TOGETHER,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Heathen winds and devil weather,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

It sorta sounds like it could be about the armys of Hell rising to the earth. But take it for what you will. Anyways. I like it better than the orginal.

No weekly Wisdom because I'm a lazy bastard and need to finish next week's comic.

The Wacom Jitter

2007-12-17T00:19:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try and make this short because I'm tired and more than a bit aggravated. Now that I'm a college graduate with a steady job, I'll have more time to post new and relevantly irrelevant articles about all sorts of nonsense. Unfortunately, in order to post articles to a blog, you need a computer.

Herein lies the problem. I have a computer. It's alright. But as a geek and computer enthusiast, I always want the fastest and coolest. As me, however, I never get the fastest or the coolest. In all my life, I have never once had a brand new computer. Only hand-me-downs and discarded medical equipment.

Now that I've got a job and have a larger disposable income, I was hoping to remedy this. I've begun assembling a collection of pieces that would hopefully combine to form a being of fantastic computational power. Not that I need it... Just cuz I want it. I want fast and I want cool. And the pieces I've been collecting are both.

One recent addition to this pile of components that I call my room, is a brand new case that was thoughtfully donated to me by my parents. It's really nice. It came with three case fans that will assist in the cooling of my super fast Pentium D. More importantly, however, is that it's made of transparent PVC. Which is super awesome because I put in these blue neon lights and the whole thing lights up. It's super cool.

Now, I've been having trouble with the assembling of these components from the very beginning. The original fan couldn't cool the processor enough. The video card wouldn't fit in the expansion slot. The power supply was too weak to power all the awesome stuff in there. All sorts of problems. All, of which, were eventually overcome. I figured I was almost home free. I was wrong.

One of my first, and definitely one of my favorite peripherals is my Wacom Intuos 3 digital graphics tablet. It's been with me for quite some time and I love it dearly. It has come to my attention that the power of the pen is completely incompatible with the coolness of the case.

Wacom tablets use a radio frequency (RF) to communicate between the pen/mouse and the actual tablet. Computer components, such as monitors, motherboards, hard drives, and powersupplies all produce excess RF. By itself, one component would not produce enough RF to interfere with a tablet's communication. Collecting a large number of components in a single place (such as a complete computer system) will create enough RF to cause interference. Typically, the metal computer case that surrounds the computer's innards would shield the outside world (and tablets) from the RF emitted by the components inside.

But guess who's computer case is not made of metal and does not shield anything from anything. That's right. My super leet transparent plastic case with all the lights offers my tablet no protection from the machine's RF.

And since my tablet (with its mouse) is my primary input device, this is a problem. The tremendous amount of jitter caused by my super leet case makes the tablet completely unusable.

So, I have to sacrifice something. I'll tell you what I won't sacrifice: My tablet. We've been through thick and thin and I love it dearly. What this means, unfortunately, is that I need to find another case which can shield the RF and still allow enough airflow to cool the chips. Which also means that, when I find such a case, I'll have to take my computer completely apart and put it back together again from scratch.

Rebuilding a computer is easy enough, but it takes time. And anything that takes time also requires patients. I'd like to think I'm a patient guy, but at this point in time my patients has been worn thin.

My computer is my life. It's sad but true. I spend a great deal of time on my computer and I just want it to be the best it can be. But that will probably never come to pass.

I've been working on this new computer for about 2 months now. I'm really getting fed up with it. I should have known from the beginning, when I had bought the wrong kind of graphics card, that it would be a fruitless endeavor resulting in nothing but stress and aggravation.

When I had thought that I was close to completion, I dismantled my old computer so that I could hook up all my good peripherals to my new, faster computer. This was two weeks ago. I've yet to re-set-up my old machine. With each new part comes new false hope.

"Eventually", I think, "I'll get this bastard up and running. There's no point in reassembling my old computer if I'll only have to disassemble it again when I'm finished with my new one."

Because of this, my old machine is sitting on my floor, haphazardly running with an old dell keyboard, an old 3 button balled mouse, and an old 1080 x 768 display. This is what I'm writing from. To some, this may seem more than enough, but when you've got expensive, new, powerful equipment sitting feet away but turned off because you can't get it to work right... It's more than just a little distressing.

I don't want much out of life. Materialistically, anyway. One of the few things is a nice, new computer. It's the one possession that I use more than any other. All I want is for it to be as awesome as possible. Shit. Awesome is optional. I just want one that's not a hand-me-down. I just want something I can call my own.

An artist deserves a good pencil. A carpenter deserves a good hammer. A cyclist deserves a good bike. A musician deserves a good instrument. Does a webmaster not deserve a good computer?

Apparently not.

So much for making this short... Oh well. I'm done with my ranting for the time being.

For anyone who came here in search of a solution to the wacom cursor jitter problem, I'll try to sum up: The jitter is caused by RF interference. RF can come from any piece of electrical equipment. The RF that interferes with a wacom most commonly comes from a CRT that is too close to the tablet. In my case, the jitter was caused by the RF coming from my unshielded computer case. The best solution is to get a new, metal, RF shielded case.

Until next time,

~Ben

Classic Wisdom: Crabs

2007-12-06T00:38:00.000-05:00

Finals have come to a close. Graduation is still a week and a half away. I've still got to turn in my damned 480 project and I spent all evening playing with my new computer. Looks like it's time for another Classic Wisdom.

Despite the horrendous dialog, the comic that goes with this one (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/?id=6) is still one of my favorites. My step-dad is actually the one who told me about the ice pick thing. Oh, that guy!

~Ben

Crabs

This is one of my favorite comics to date.

There are many things that make this one special... This is the first comic in which we see Ben without a hat. This is also the first comic in which Pillboy does not get hurt. Ben, however, does get hurt... This should be a lesson to everyone: DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE. And yes... We Poonheads have been known to play with fire on the occasion :D

So this comic has a history...

I wanted to write a comic that developed the characters a bit more, so I figured okay... what happened after that last comic? Well... It's been a week, a lot could have happened. Since Pillboy is obviously pretty lucky with the ladies, but gets beat up all the time, I wanted to portray Ben as the character who has no luck with women... But of course all of these characters have pretty stupid luck... So Lets say Ben actually hooked up with that blonde chick. There's no way things went off well... Lets give him crabs! But that's not that funny... Let's give him crabs IN HIS CHIN PUBES... This works on many levels because many people make fun of my beard by calling it chin pubes (when in, fact it, DOES actually look like a tuft of pubic hair on my chin...).

So I was originally just going to have Sterling jump out of no wheres and punch Pillboy, but that was kind of lame... So I figured maybe I'll just have Pillboy laugh and not get punched and it will be funny because it isn't Ben's job to punch Pillboy... But that isn't enough to make a comic about...

That's when an assossiate of mine related to me the correct way to get rid of crabs... You light your pubes on fire and stab them with an ice pick. So I figured I would make my comic about that... BUT... Then I get this image in my head of my head getting lit on fire in a giant fire ball... and THAT is how this comic came to be.

Oddly enough, the thing that people tend to find most humorous about this particular comic is the tuft of hair on my chest... What can I say? I'm not a very hairy guy...

Daily bit of wisdom: Yeah... I'm lazy... no wisdom today..

Classic Wisdom: The Good Book

2007-11-28T03:11:00.000-05:00

Dude... It's so close I can taste it. Two and a half weeks.

In the mean time, have some classic wisdom. It's a Two-for-Wednesday because this particular comic was originally split into two parts (and thus, two wisdoms).

They're about this comic: (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/?id=4)

XOXO
~Ben

Part One:

The Good Book

TO BE CONTINUED!!! How can this be, you ask!? Well... That's simple! I felt like it. Actually, had I done the whole thing in one strip, it would have been too long, so I chopped it up. Make sense? Good. Most of this and next weeks's stip are cut and paste. I drew about 2 and a half pages or so and copied and pasted and edited and copied and pasted and edited, etc. It worked out pretty nicely. You may notice that the print on Ben's shirt is different in EVERY panel. It's funny.

Also, I get asked this a lot. The blonde chick is just some chick. I made her up. She's my standard hottie. She doesn't have a name. She's just blonde. Maybe I'll call her Blondie. Or not. Anyways.

Other important notes about this strip: We are more thoroughly introduced to Pillboy's girlfriend, even though she doesn't show up until the next strip. We learn that she is Bipolar We also learn that Ben has been recording PB's sexual excapades in the "Book of Poon" and that Ben, and presumably Sterling, don't care much for Pillboy's Girlfriend.

I'm not sure if you're noticing this yet, but there seems to be a running gag of Pillboy getting punched in every strip. Wait a second... Am I explaining the jokes? Damn... I forgot I wasn't supposed to do that. Oh well. I'd better stop.

Anyways, this particular comic is more or less a set up for next week's installment. Sorry if you're disappointed. Deal with it.

If this wasn't enough fun for you, this week's wisdom is brough to you by the letter W. I created a super Photoshop tutorial about how I color David Willis's comic strip, It's Walky, in my spare time. No, I don't have his permission... But I figure he won't mind TOO much as long as I tell you to visit his website and give him money. Anyways, if you want to view my tutorial, it's in the Wisdom archives, right below this one.

~~Benabus

P.S. Don't forget to vote for me on Buzz Comics, via the button on the comics page!

Part Two:

We're Single

Well... I'm still single anyways... This comic shows just how violent Pillboy's Girlfriend gets.

More copy and pasting... I've been told that PB's G/F is lookin' pretty hot. Meh...

I like the slow motion part there when Pill boy gets punched. I like how that came out. Joey said it couldn't be done. It could have been done better, but it still was done. Ha!

I really don't have a whole lot to say about this one.

In other news... I'm writing a book. I used to write short stories and stuff. This is a novel. It's kind of cyberpunkish, but not really? It's definately sci/fi. I might post some of it here later, perhaps. It's VERY loosely based on the the song White Room by cream... it's more or less my interpretation of the song. You take White Room, throw in a bunch of other cool songs and you get my story. I like it. A bunch of my friends like it. Anyways. If every I slack off on the comic... I assure you it's because I'm writing... It's not because I'm worried about school or I got a job or a life or anything. Anyways. Later!

~Benabus

Classic Wisdom: Poon-a-vision!

2007-11-22T01:29:00.000-05:00

Been busy, but it's almost over. Thank god.

The following classic wisdom references this comic: (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/?id=3)

Poon-a-vision

Yes! Sterling speaks! So this is also the first appearance of Pillboy's Girlfriend. No, she doesn't have a name, just in case you're wondering. Her character is based off of several people I know, but she's not really real, like the guys.

Commentary for those of you who actually read this crap: That last panel is pretty much all cut and paste from the first one. The premise of this comic, in case you didn't get the big joke about it, is that since, Ben and Sterling were bored, they peep into Pillboy's bedroom window and watch all the exciting action instead of watching TV. Because of PB's Girlfriend's mental disorder, they can never really tell what's going to happen next, so it's always great fun for them.

Fun Fact #1: You've got to love the plaid!

Fun Fact #2: Starting with this strip, the print on Ben's shirt changes in every panel.

Fun Fact #3: Popcorn is good.

Daily wisdom: Forums are open and I encourage everyone (all two of you) to start up some discussion!

AJAX redeux (now, with 20% less profanity and 100% less code)

2007-11-17T02:00:00.000-05:00

What is AJAX?
AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript And XML. It’s really just a big complicated word that doesn’t really tell you anything about what it really is.

AJAX is a technique that allows a web page to communicate with a server without reloading the page. The key thing to remember is that it’s a TECHNIQUE. It’s a combination of existing technologies that work together to create a new and exciting result. There is nothing new to install on the server. There is nothing that the user needs to install, other than a web browser that supports javaScript.

To use AJAX you’ll need a few basic ingredients:
A web browser that supports javaScript
JavaScript
A web server
A server-side language of your choice (perl, php, c#, etc.)

JavaScript allows you to dynamically alter the layout and information of a page that is being displayed in the browser. “Dynamically” means that the changes happen in real time without having to reload the page. Everything happens on the client (in the browser). The problem is that the dynamicness is limited to the data that is already on the page, or the simple calculations that can be done in javaScript.

On the other hand, server-side languages allow powerful calculations and make it very easy to read and write data in databases and on the filesystem. Unfortunately, every call to the server requires you to reload and run the script. A typical server-side access happens as follows:
You click a button on the front end page. The browser redirects to the processing page as it submits the data to the server. The server sends the information back to the browser. The browser reloads with the new information. See figure A.

The trick with AJAX is to combine the best of both worlds through the use of a magical AJAX object. There are a couple of different kinds of magical AJAX objects. Some people use the javascript httpRequest object (in combination with an ActiveX control for Internet Explorer). Other people use standard HTML iFrames. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Which is better really depends on whom you’re talking to, but they all do the same thing.

AJAX requests happen as follows:
You click a button on the front-end page. The browser submits the request through the magic AJAX object. The server processes the back-end page inside the magic AJAX object. When the processing is done, the front-end page uses javaScript to grab the data from the magic AJAX object. The javaScript takes the data and adds it to the front-end page without ever having to reload. See figure B.

In conclusion, AJAX is a technique that utilizes the strengths of both dynamic client-side scripting (javaScript) and powerful server-side processing. Web applications that utilize AJAX are generally a great deal faster and increase the user experience tremendously. A user does something and the page responds accordingly, in real time. AJAX is an important part of any web developer’s toolbox. So stay armed with AJAX. It’s stronger than dirt.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Scouting For Girls: Elvis Ain't Dead

2007-11-15T00:20:00.000-05:00

Some of you may know that I listen to Virgin Radio (http://www.virginradio.co.uk/) at work. On Virgin, I hear a lot of new, British music. A lot of it is quite catchy. At the moment I have the song "Elvis Ain't Dead", by Scouting For Girls, stuck in my head.

It's only right that I share with you this lovely little tune.

You can see the video here: (http://youtube.com/watch?v=gFzREgP3RiU) or you can view it below.

Until next time,

~~Ben

When All Else Fails... Do It the Hard Way

2007-11-11T01:49:00.000-05:00

I'm working on this project for school. My part is to design the user manager. It's all in ASP.NET 2.0 and C#. Nothing I can't handle.

At work, I've been using PHP for the past 8 months or so, and it's really difficult to switch back and forth between PHP and C#. The techniques are totally completely different. Typically, Visual Studio makes things a lot easier. It's mostly just drag and drop. Except when you need to do something complex and detailed. PHP lets you right out all of the HTML by hand, so you know exactly what's going to happen and when. All of ASP's built in objects really just complicates things unless you're intimately familiar with every property and method of every function and event. I would imagine that if you were an expert in this language and knew exactly what you were doing, .Net would be a wonderfully powerful beast that would let you do all kinds of awesome things. Unfortunately, I can't unleash its full potential at my current state of expertise.

I've been fighting with the Membership provider for the past couple of weeks. The membership provider in .Net 2.0 is amazing. It lets you do all kinds of things. The API is so very nice and relatively easy to use. Except that all of .Net's asp objects are all dataset driven. And I don't know how to cram the membership data into a data set to have it display all nice.

I've been trying to shoe horn the membership data into a gridview object for the past week or so. It hasn't been working. If only I could control every little detail of ever html element like I can with PHP. Then we'd be rocking. After a ton of research I realized that the Repeater would be the way to go.

See, I can bind an ArrayList to a Repeater with no problem. The Repeater will let me have full control over what gets outputted for each element in the ArrayList. A gridview can only bind to a dataset or datasourceobject. But it's just a table. I could easily reconstruct a table using the Repeater and a bit of hand crafted HTML just as I would with a loop in PHP. Only problem is that I wouldn't have all the built in things that a gridview has (like paging and sorting).

So, I crammed all the membership data into an ArrayList and bound it to a repeater. I used the Repeater to construct a table (aka 'gridview'). I wrote about 20 billion comparison functions to sort my ArrayList. I used lots of javascript to hack in lots of conditional stuff. It's all very messy. But the important thing is that it works.

Bottom line: Instead of spending the next two months trying to figure out all the nice and easy ASP.NET objects, I just rewrote everything myself using my usual PHP techniques modified to fit into the .NET framework.

I now present to you select portions of my sourcecode:

UserList.aspx:


      <br />
    
    <table width="100%" id="userListTable">
        <tr>
            <th><a href="userList.aspx?sortBy=username<% if(Request.QueryString["sortBy"]== "username"){Response.Write("Rev");} %>">Email</a></th>
            <th><a href="userList.aspx?sortBy=created<% if(Request.QueryString["sortBy"]== "created"){Response.Write("Rev");} %>">Created</a></th>
            <th><a href="userList.aspx?sortBy=approved<% if(Request.QueryString["sortBy"]== "approved"){Response.Write("Rev");} %>">Approved</a></th>
            <th><a href="userList.aspx?sortBy=student<% if(Request.QueryString["sortBy"]== "student"){Response.Write("Rev");} %>">Student</a></th>
            <th><a href="userList.aspx?sortBy=faculty<% if(Request.QueryString["sortBy"]== "faculty"){Response.Write("Rev");} %>">Faculty</a></th>
            <th><a href="userList.aspx?sortBy=admin<% if(Request.QueryString["sortBy"]== "admin"){Response.Write("Rev");} %>">Admin</a></th>
            <th></th>
        </tr>
    
    <asp:Repeater  ID="Repeater1" EnableViewState="false" runat="server">
    <ItemTemplate>
        <tr>
            <td><%# Eval("UserName") %></td>
            <td><%# Eval("CreationDate") %></td>
            <td>
                        <input disabled id="APPROVED_<%#Eval("UserName") %>" type="checkbox" onchange="changeApproved('<%# Eval("UserName").ToString() %>')"  />   
                        <script type="text/javascript">
                        if("<%# System.Web.Security.Membership.GetUser(Eval("UserName").ToString()).IsApproved %>" == "True" )
                            document.getElementById("APPROVED_<%# Eval("UserName") %>").checked=true; 
                        if("<%# System.Web.Security.Membership.GetUser().UserName.ToString() %>" != "<%# Eval("UserName") %>" )
                            document.getElementById("APPROVED_<%# Eval("UserName") %>").disabled=false; 
                         
                         </script>
            </td>
            <td>
                        <input id="STUDENT_<%#Eval("UserName") %>" type="checkbox" onchange="changeRole('<%# Eval("UserName").ToString() %>', 'Student')"  />
                        
                        <script type="text/Javascript">if("<%# System.Web.Security.Roles.IsUserInRole(Eval("UserName").ToString(), "Student") %>" == "True" ) document.write('<a href="EditStudent.aspx?userID=<%# Eval("ProviderUserKey") %>">Edit</a>')</script>
                        <script type="text/javascript">if("<%# System.Web.Security.Roles.IsUserInRole(Eval("UserName").ToString(), "Student") %>" == "True" ) document.getElementById("STUDENT_<%# Eval("UserName") %>").checked=true; </script>
             </td>
            <td>
                        <input id="FACULTY_<%#Eval("UserName") %>" type="checkbox" onchange="changeRole('<%# Eval("UserName").ToString() %>', 'Faculty')"  />   
                        <script type="text/Javascript">if("<%# System.Web.Security.Roles.IsUserInRole(Eval("UserName").ToString(), "Faculty") %>" == "True" ) document.write('<a href="EditFaculty.aspx?userID=<%# Eval("ProviderUserKey") %>">Edit</a>')</script>
                        <script type="text/javascript">if("<%# System.Web.Security.Roles.IsUserInRole(Eval("UserName").ToString(), "Faculty") %>" == "True" ) document.getElementById("FACULTY_<%# Eval("UserName") %>").checked=true; </script>
            </td>
            <td>
                        <input disabled id="ADMIN_<%#Eval("UserName") %>" type="checkbox" onchange="changeRole('<%# Eval("UserName").ToString() %>', 'Admin')"  />
                           <script type="text/javascript">
                            if("<%# System.Web.Security.Roles.IsUserInRole(Eval("UserName").ToString(), "Admin") %>" == "True" )
                                 document.getElementById("ADMIN_<%# Eval("UserName") %>").checked=true; 
                            if("<%# System.Web.Security.Membership.GetUser().UserName.ToString() %>" != "<%# Eval("UserName") %>" )
                            document.getElementById("ADMIN_<%# Eval("UserName") %>").disabled=false; 
                            </script>
            </td>
            <td>
                        <asp:LinkButton  OnClientClick="return confirm('Are you sure that you want to delete this user?')" ID="LinkButton1" runat="server" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("UserName").ToString() %>' OnClick="LinkButton1_Click"  Visible='<%# Membership.GetUser().UserName.ToString() != Eval("UserName").ToString() %>' >Delete</asp:LinkButton>
            </td>
        </tr>
    </ItemTemplate>
    </asp:Repeater>
        <tr>
            <td colspan="7">
                <table style="border: 0;" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
                    <tr>
                        <td style="border: 0"width="20%" align="left"><script type="text/Javascript">if(<% Response.Write( Request.QueryString["start"]);%> > 0 ) document.write('<a href="userList.aspx?sortBy=<% Response.Write( Request.QueryString["sortBy"]); %>&start=<% Response.Write( ((Request.QueryString["start"] == null)?0:Int32.Parse(Request.QueryString["start"])) - 20); %>">Previous 20</a>')</script></td>
                        <td style="border: 0"align="center">Page: 
                            <script type="text/javascript">
                                var totalPages = <% Response.Write(Membership.GetAllUsers().Count); %> / 20;
                                for( var k = 0; k <= totalPages; k++)
                                {
                                    document.write('<a href="userList.aspx?sortBy=<% Response.Write(Request.QueryString["sortBy"]); %>&start=' + (k*20) + '" ');
                                    if( "<%Response.Write(Request.QueryString["start"]); %>" == ""+(k*20) || ("<%Response.Write(Request.QueryString["start"]); %>" == "" && k == 0) )
                                        document.write(' style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline"');
                                    else
                                        document.write(' style="font-weight: normal"');
                                        
                                    document.write('>'+ (k+1) + '</a>   ');
                                 }
                            </script>
                        </td>
                        <td width="20%" style="border: 0" align="right"><script type="text/Javascript">if(<%Response.Write( Membership.GetAllUsers().Count - ((Request.QueryString["start"] == null)?0:Int32.Parse(Request.QueryString["start"]))); %> > 20 ) document.write('<a href="userList.aspx?sortBy=<% Response.Write(Request.QueryString["sortBy"]); %>&start=<%Response.Write( ((Request.QueryString["start"] == null)?0:Int32.Parse(Request.QueryString["start"])) + 20); %>">Next 20</a>')</script></td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
            </td>
        </tr>
    </table>

UserList.aspx.cs

 protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
      
        Int16 StartItem = 0;
        Int16 ItemsPerPage = 20;
        String SortBy = "";

        if (Request.QueryString["sortBy"] != "")
            SortBy = Request.QueryString["sortBy"];
        if (Request.QueryString["start"] != null)
            StartItem = Int16.Parse(Request.QueryString["start"]);


        ArrayList allUsers = new ArrayList(Membership.GetAllUsers()); //create an ArrayList out of the membership users collection
        
        ArrayList pageUsers = new ArrayList();
        allUsers.Reverse();
        switch (SortBy) //sort the list by the desired sort method
        {
            case "created": allUsers.Sort(new byCreated()); break;
            case "createdRev": allUsers.Sort(new byCreatedRev()); break;
            case "approved": allUsers.Sort(new byApproved()); break;
            case "approvedRev": allUsers.Sort(new byApprovedRev()); break;
            case "student": allUsers.Sort(new byStudent()); break;
            case "studentRev": allUsers.Sort(new byStudentRev()); break;
            case "faculty": allUsers.Sort(new byFaculty()); break;
            case "facultyRev": allUsers.Sort(new byFacultyRev()); break;
            case "admin": allUsers.Sort(new byAdmin()); break;
            case "adminRev": allUsers.Sort(new byAdminRev()); break;
            case "usernameRev": allUsers.Sort(new byUserNameRev()); break;
            case "username": allUsers.Sort(new byUserName()); break;
            default:  break;

        }

        

        for (int k = 0; k < ItemsPerPage; k++)
        {
            if(k+StartItem < allUsers.Count)
                pageUsers.Add(allUsers[k + StartItem]);
        }

        Repeater1.DataSource = pageUsers;
        Repeater1.DataBind();


    }

    protected void MembershipUserListDataSource_Deleting(object sender, ObjectDataSourceMethodEventArgs e)
    {
         
    }
    protected void LinkButton1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        LinkButton deleteButton = (LinkButton)sender;  //typecast the sender as a link button
        String Username = deleteButton.CommandArgument.ToString();

        String[] usersRoles = Roles.GetRolesForUser(Username);
        if(usersRoles.Length > 0)
            Roles.RemoveUserFromRoles(Username, Roles.GetRolesForUser(Username));
        Membership.DeleteUser(Username, true);  //delete user & all related data based on deleteButton.CommandArgument


        Page_Load(this, e);
        
    }

One day, I'll learn to just do things the hard way the first time around, instead of trying to find an easier solution and wasting days more than I should.

Until next time,

~~Ben

BenJAX (a.k.a. Really Fucked Up Pretend AJAX)

2007-11-08T01:05:00.001-05:00

So, you've heard about this thing called AJAX and want to know more about it, eh? Well, I'm sure your first question is something like

"What the hell is AJAX, exactly?"

AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript And Xml. It’s a big, fancy, confusing word that really doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’s not a new programming language and there’s nothing new to install. All you need is javaScript, CSS and the server-side language of your choice.
The whole point of AJAX is to do server side stuff without having to reload the page you’re on.

Example:

Problem:
You have a list of users. Each user has a set of three checkboxes (permissions) for each user. You want to check or uncheck the boxes to set permissions. You need the permission to save as soon as you check/uncheck the box. You do not want to have to wait for the page to reload after every box click and then have to scroll down to where you were.

Solution:
You set an “onchange” event for each checkbox. When you change a checkbox, it calls the Save page in a separate process (asynchronously). The save page goes off and does its own thing, while you’re free to keep using the userlist page, not having to worry about it reloading on you.

Most AJAX tutorials suggest using some crazy ActiveX control or the new fangled httpRequest object. I’ve tried using all that and it never really works like I want it to. Recently, I’ve discovered that you can achieve the same effect using our good friend the iFrame.
In the past, iFrames were given lackluster support by browsers, so I always kind of avoided them. That was years ago, however. IE6+ and Firefox handle them just fine so I say use them.
IFrames act just like regular frames, except that they can be placed anywhere on a web page. And they can be styled using CSS. So, you can make them invisible. It’s a lot like magic.
I would imagine that this technique is not new, but since I just discovered its awesomeness, I’m going to refer to this as BenJAX, even though it should probably be called something along the lines of “iFrames that have been hacked to shit to emulate AJAX”.

The above example is very simple and only requires one-way communication. Up until today, I figured that would just be a (serious) limitation for BenJAX. This is definitely not the case.

Better Example:

Problem:
You have a text box that is going to be linked to a list journal names. You want to allow users to enter new names, but you also would like to guide them in order to avoid duplicates. It would be really nice if you could have them start typing something and a list pops up of all the journal names that start with what they were typing. (e.g. if they started typing “bal”, the list would pop up with “balls, balloons, balance, etc”). When they click on one of the items in the list, the text box should be populated with their selection.

Solution:
Add an “onKeyUp” event to the text box. Every time a user presses a key, a javascript function takes what’s in the text box and passes it a “ProcessTextbox” page through an invisible iFrame. The ProcessTextbox page returns a list of items for the user to select. Another Javascript function takes that information and sticks it into a list that the user can see and select from. Each item in that list has an “onClick” event that takes the item and puts it in the text box.

It’s a lot like magic. Unlike magic, I’m going to try to explain how I would do all that. Because I suck with .NET and you guys don’t know PHP, I’m just going to show you the javaScript. It’s going to be relatively simplified, but with any luck, it will get the point across.

You will need 2 different pages: a FormPage.aspx that will have your form with the text box and a ProcessTextbox.aspx page that will process the text box. The user is only going to see FormPage, but the meat of the processing will be done in ProcessTexbox. FormPage will utilize primarily client side scripting (javascript) while ProcessTextbox will be mostly server-side.

Here’s the code:

FormPage.aspx


 <html>
 <head>
 <script type="text/javascript">
  /*this function is called when a user presses a key in the textbox.
   It calls ProcessTextbox.aspx with the query string search=searchText, 
   where searchText is the text in the textbox.
   ProcessTextbox is processed on the server side and loads in the iFrame
   named "magicFrame" where the user will never see it. 
  */
  callProcessTextbox = function (searchText)
  {
   frames["magicFrame"].location.href= "ProcessTextbox.aspx?search = "+searchText;
  }
  
  /* This function is called whenever the ProcessTextbox if finished loading in the magicFrame.
   It takes the content of the "results" div from the ProcessTextbox and puts it in "resultList" div 
   in FormPage (this page).  
   The parameter frameContents is actually a reference to the window object of the magicFrame and can
   pretty much be utilized the same way as the regular window object.
  */
  magicFrameLoaded = function(frameContents)
  {
   document.getElementById("resultList").innerHTML = frameContents.document.getElementById("resultList").innerHTML;
  }
  
  /* This is called when user clicks on one of the items in the list.  It takes that text and puts it into 
   the textbox.
  */
  itemClick = function(itemText)
  {
   document.getElementById("journalTextBox").value = itemText;
  }
   
 </script>
 </head>
 <body>
  ...
  <iFrame name="magicFrame" src="" style="display: none" ></iFrame>
  <input type="text" onkeyup="callProcessTextbox(this.value)" id="journalTextBox" />
  <div id="resultList"></div>
  ...
  </body>
  </html>

ProcessTextbox.aspx
The actual aspx/c# code could vary. It would be where you put the SQL Query and SQLServer call and process all the data. Example SQL Query might be: String Query = "SELECT * FROM [journal] WHERE [journalName] LIKE '%" + Response.QueryString["search"] + "%' "; In the end... assuming that the phrase "bal" was entered in the text box, the resulting html needs to look something like this:


 <html>
 <head>
 
 <script type="text/javascript">
  /* Called when this page is completely loaded.  It simply passes the entire frame to 
   FormPage.aspx's magicFrameLoaded function
  */
  window.onload= function()
  {
   parent.magicFrameLoaded(window);
  }
 </script>
 
 </head>
 <body>
  <div id="resultList">
   <ul>
    <li onClick="itemClick(this.innerHTML)">balls</li>
    <li onClick="itemClick(this.innerHTML)">balloons</li>
    <li onClick="itemClick(this.innerHTML)">balance</li>
    ...
   </ul>
  </div>
 </body>
 </html>

Now, I have not tested this code. It's just an example. You'll need to tailor it to your specific needs. The processing page MUST have something like the window.onload function, or the FormPage won't know when it's loaded and won't know to get the resulting data.

IN THEORY, using AJAX, the process page is supposed to return some kind of XML structure. Then you use the javaScript to parse that XML and do stuff with it. That's why it's called Asynchronous Javascript and XML. Parsing an XML file isn't much more difficult than walking the DOM Tree, but I don't think it's essential for the kind of stuff we're doing. All we need to do is have the main page grab stuff from the iFrame with the processed page in it. I think it makes things easier to just use regular HTML in the processed page, letting the server-side script format all that good stuff.

I hope that made sense enough to help someone. I'm getting tired.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Virtual Dimension

2007-11-05T01:46:00.000-05:00

Having eighteen and a half monitors is nice. It lets you spread out. Have 87 apps open at the same time without having to switch windows. Unfortunately, not everyone has 18.5 monitors at their disposal.

Right now, I've only got my main UXGA monitor up and running, so I've only got 1600x1200 pixels of desktop real estate. It's a lot, but not always enough. I tend to have a lot of projects going on at the same time and with a lot of projects, comes a lot of windows. Sometimes, I'll have upwards of 20 windows open at the same time. Even with 18.5 monitors, it might still be difficult to manage all those windows.

At work, everybody's got several monitors up and running. It's pretty much required for the kind of work I'm in. I've only got one, though. And, just like at home, at work I've usually got several projects open at once. It's really difficult to manage all those projects on just one screen. So, I went in search of a solution.

I came upon something termed "virtual desktops". It sort of emulates a multiple screen setup, allowing you to have multiple windows spread across several screens. Though, because you've only got one physical screen, you can really only display one desktop at a time. That's alright in many cases, however. It really helps declutter a desktop. Instead of having 53 windows occupying a single screen, you can keep each project on a different screen. It's kind of like grouping all your windows into boxes and being able to swap boxes out as needed without messing up any of the windows. For example, if you're working on a powerpoint presentation (that requires you to have several Explorer windows open, so that you can see all of your pictures that you're going to add), a term paper (which will need Word open, as well as 7 browser windows with all your sources), and a website project (which needs photoshop, dreamweaver, and a preview browser). You could have a separate virtual desktop for each project. That way, you could switch between projects without having to open and close all of the related windows. Just switch to a different desktop and have all your windows open right where you left them. It's a great way to increase productivity.

I was first exposed to this concept when I was playing around with Linux some years ago. Linux (as well as BSD, Unix, and Solaris) all have this kind of thing built in. I'm sure that Mac OS has some similar system, but I'll never know. Windows, does, actually have a Microsoft approved add on that allows virtual desktop functionality (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx). As with most Microsoft add ons of this caliber, it just doesn't quite cut the mustard, though.

So, what I needed was a nice, free virtual desktop manager that would do everything I needed and nothing more. Googling "virtual desktop" will lead you to some top quality, third party apps that look really nifty and have tons of great reviews. They all cost money, though. And they usually do a lot more than I need. All I want is to be able to quickly and easily switch between desktops.

That's when I came across Virtual Dimension (http://virt-dimension.sourceforge.net/). It's a little old (last version came out in 2005), but it's open-source (read: free) and works just fine. No frills, just functionality.

Some of the things I like about Virtual Dimension:

It's got a little preview window which you can put in the corner. It shows all the icons for all the windows/apps open in each desktop, with tool tips that show you the name of the window.

You can move windows from desktop to desktop by dragging the icons from one desktop to another in the preview window, or by using the contextual menu that gets added to the right-click taskbar menu.

Only windows open in a particular desktop appear in the taskbar. If you've got 50 total windows open, only the 4 that are open in the active desktop will appear in the taskbar. This severely declutters the taskbar (which I've still got set at 3 bars high due to the excessive windows I have open at any given time).

Uses only ~5K of memory.

You can give each desktop its own name, so that you can easily identify which desktop you want to go to.

And, of course, there's plenty of non-obtrusive features that I don't use, but might be useful to others. It's got customizable hot-key support and dozens of available keyboard shortcuts. You can have a different wallpaper on each desktop. You can change the transparency of windows. And much much more.

I use this bad-boy every day. It's super useful, especially if you're like me and have multiple projects open at all times. Or if you've got computer OCD and have to have all your windows and icons and files all organized for easy access. I'm not sure how well it will work with multi-monitors, though. I certainly hope it will still work. Only one way to find out, though. And that would require having multiple monitors. Which I don't have at the moment.

Until next time,

~~Ben

All the Cool Kids Use Iframes

2007-11-03T00:48:00.000-04:00

This is the 50th blog post here at the New Wisdom. Which is awesome. I'm actually sticking to my guns this time. I could use this post to rant about the future of the Wisdom, or vent about my day, but you're too good for that. Instead, I'll tell you about some awesome javascript stuff I learned at work.

A few days ago, I posted about some iframe hijinx. I used to loath iframes because of the major browsers' lackluster support of them. But that was a long time ago. I took a break from webmastering for a while in high school, and when I came back, everything was different. And iframes are awesome.

I had to make a windowed interface for this thing at work. Imagine a web based version of the Windows Explorer. I had to think for a while about how to implement this sucker. At first, I thought about using div layers and pure ajax. But that would be too hard and take too much time to figure out because I'm no pro with the ajax. Using layers without ajax would mean that everything would have to reload everything something changed. Lame. I could use a frame set. That would be ideal, except that it would be clunky and wouldn't fit into the templating thing I made.

Then I decided to harness the power of iframes. It was kind of a pain to get everything laid out right, but when I got that down, it was awesome. Now, if only I could do some javaScript in one iFrame and make the results show up in another. Turns out, javaScript's magical DOM support structure makes that fairly easy. The trick is, though, that you've got to name the iFrames. Take a look at this code here:

mainpage.html


<iframe name="topFrame" src="topFrame.html" />
<iframe name="bottomFrame" src="bottomFrame.html" />

<div id="output" ></div>

topFrame.html


<div id="topFrameOutput"></div>

bottomFrame.html


<script>
 function changeOutput()
 {
  parent.document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = "NEW OUTPUT"; //this changes the output div of mainpage.html
  parent.frames["topFrame"].document.getElementById("topFrameOutput").innerHTML = "NEW FRAME OUTPUT"; //this changes the output div of topframe.html
 }
</script>
<a href="#" onclick="changeOutput()"> CLICK ME </a>

You've got a main page with two iframes and a div called "output". The top frame has a page with a div called "topFrameOutput". The page in the bottom frame defines a function called "changeOutput()" and a link that calls it. When you click the link, divs on both the main page and in the top frame will change. This makes cross frame scripting amazingly easy. But... lets say you want to call that "changeOutput" function from topFrame. Sure, you could redefine it. Or stick it in an external .js file. But that's no fun. Consider the following:

topFrame.html


<a href="#" onclick="parent.frames["bottomFrame"].document.changeOutput()"> CLICK ME </a>
<div id="topFrameOutput"></div>

bottomFrame.html


<script>
 document.changeOutput = function()
 {
  parent.document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = "NEW OUTPUT"; //this changes the output div of mainpage.html
  parent.frames["topFrame"].document.getElementById("topFrameOutput").innerHTML = "NEW FRAME OUTPUT"; //this changes the output div of topframe.html
 }
</script>
<a href="#" onclick="changeOutput()"> CLICK ME </a>

What this does is add "changeOutput" as a method to bottomFrame's document. So, you can call it from topFrame as parent.frames["bottomFrame"].document.changeOutput(). I just kind of stumbled upon this today. I'm sure there's better ways to do it, but this works fine for me.

The more I play with it, the more I like it. Javascript is a really super powerful tool that every web programmer should have in his arsenal. The only problem is that not everything is 100% cross-browser, but as long as you hit the big 3 (IE6, FF, Safari) you should be fine. Have fun.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Classic Wisdom: Computer Fucking Belt

2007-11-01T23:43:00.000-04:00

Today I had to go to some crazy business thing where lots of people mingled and drank cheap liquor. It was pretty lame. Super lame, even. I got home at about 7:30. And also I have a lot of work for school and I'm really tired.

In place of something witty and well written, I give to you a bit of classic wisdom. It references this comic: (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/?id=2).

Computer Fucking Belt

Yes. I do own a belt that allows me to fuck computers. I wear it every day. It is not only a fashionable, yet functional piece of cyber-wear, but it keeps my pants up, too! The belt it self is made mainly of Industrial strength adhesive Velcro. One side has loops and the other has the hooks. There is no buckle, per say, as it simply Velcros together. In the front, to give the appearance of a buckle, I have two Zip-Linq USB cables, which I have attached via velcro to for easy detachment. Around the belt, I have several accessories, also attacted with velcro. For the time being, I have two 128 MB thumb drives and a small portable MP3 player. The MP3 player used to double as a thumbdrive, but my old one broke, and the new one does not have thumbdrive capabilities... how sad... Anyways. When I am near a USB ready computer, I can simply Zip out one of my Zip-Linq cables, attach one end to a thumbdrive, and the other to the computer. I'm all set to go! I can do anything with this sucker! I've stored files and even small programs, like WSFTP and Putty... Plus I've always got my tunes at my hip. I'm thinking of adding some other little gadgets to the belt in the near futures... anyways...

Since these cables are velcroed to my waist, just above my crotch, when in use, it gives the appearance that I am fucking the computer, which is where the belt got its name. It was originally called the GUBER belt (combined form of UBER GEEK), but Computer Fucking Belt just caught on...

But on to the Comic! I basically drew 3 drawings: Me walking up to the computer. Me fucking the computer, with Sterling and Pillboy walking up to me, and then that last panel. Then I did a lot of copy and pasting and editing to get everything nifty. Not a whole lot to say about this strip, really.

Other News: Demon, my computer, has once again become possessed. I don't know what the hell is wrong with it. It gets like this sometimes, so I've been forced to load up a copy of Knoppix and that is what I'm updating this from. If not for my Sidekick and Knoppix, I think I would die. After this post, I shall lay Demon to rest for I have aquired a new PC: BRICK. I have named it Brick because its sturdy German engineering allows it to be used as a brick when it is powered off. It's not quite as heavy as its big brother, TANK, though. It's slightly used, so I need to do some repair work on it, and hopefully it won't have the same problems Demon had.

Also if you vote for me on Buzz Comix, you can view an exclusive pre-Poonheads.com Poonheads #1 comic. It includes the elusive Taco. in a few months, perhaps I shall swap out the bonus comic for Poonheads #2... Great stuff that was!

Daily wisdom: "To obtain the silence of the Chi, you must act as the grasshopper, jumping from blade of grass, to blade of grass to accomplish your goals" --David

~~Benabus

Peelander Z

2007-10-31T22:36:00.000-04:00

Thomas is always saying that I need to get out more because I’m a loser and a hermit and will probably never get laid because you can’t meet chicks on the internet. He’s right, of course. Which is why I agreed to go on a random Poonventure to New Orleans on a Tuesday night. I mean, it wasn’t totally random… We did have a goal. And that goal was Peelander Z (http://www.peelander-z.com/).

Apparently, Peelander Z played here in Lafayette over the weekend. Thomas was so amazed by the show that he had to go see them again in New Orleans and decided to take Sterling, Chris, and I with him. Long story short: We left about 6:45, got there around 10, saw the show and came home.

But what a show it was! I had no idea what to expect. The last rock concert I went to was probably in high school. I don’t really like loud places because I get headaches real bad, but Thomas spoke highly of these guys, so I figured I’d give it a shot. And I’m glad I did.

We got there a little early. While we waited for the venue to fill, we noticed the band hovering around the merch table. The guitarist (Peelander Yellow) and the drummer (Peelander Blue) were wearing normal clothes (jeans and hoodies) and those knit hats that Rastafarians wear. In the balcony, Peelander Red (the bassist) sat brooding. He had dreadlocks and sat knitting a hat similar to what the others were wearing. I figured they (including Peelander Pink – the girl selling the merch) were a bunch of dirty hippies.

You can imagine my surprise when the curtains raised the band came out in brightly colored costumes, throwing confetti and running around through the crowd.

They’ve been described to me as a Japanese punk band, and true to form, there were plenty of punks in the crowd. Mohawks, plaid, chains. Lots of posers dressed in tight black pants. In fact, the only ones not in punk garb were the bartenders, two guys in Peelander cosplay and the band itself. Even so, it was far from what I would call a punk show.

In my mind, there should be a nonstop barrage of drunken guitar riffs and rapid, blasting drum beats combined with politically charged lyrics and a mosh pit in the front row. Indeed, there was a wall of ear bleeding, fast paced sound and a mosh pit in the front row. My visions never once involved costumed musicians adopting the personas of aliens from the planet Peelander.

The show, itself, consisted of no more than three or four songs. In between, instead of a bear break for the musicians, was a constant aural assault behind the heavily accented ramblings of Peelander Yellow, skits involving human bowling pins, acrobatics, Mexican wrestling and audience participation. At one point, the entire band had been replaced, on stage, by members of the audience while the Peelanders ran around jumping off furniture.

I’ve seen some amazing things in my day, but Peelander Z takes the cake. And the pudding. And ice cream. And cookies. And any other desert. It was definitely worth the price of admission. Perhaps the best 10 bucks I’ve ever spent.

Conclusion: MEDIUM RARE!

Until Next Time,

~~Ben

Classic Wisdom: Poon?

2007-10-29T01:51:00.000-04:00

I'm totally lazy, and have been working on projects pretty much all day. I've got stuff to write about, but don't have the time to do it justice. Instead of half-assing what could be an entertaining read, I've decided to post a classic wisdom. I'll probably do this a lot in the near future as the semester draws to a close.

This particular classic wisdom is the second wisdom to ever be posted at Poonheads.com. It references this comic: (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/?id=1).

It's interesting to see how far we've come, both artistically and literarily. Enjoy.

The first thing you must know about this particular comic strip is that if you don't get it... you probably never will.

Because this is the very first comic strip that I did for this website, it is, unfortunately, the worst, at least as far as art goes. The thing I don't like about it the most is that I didn't make the panels line up. Ah well... Things get better. Characters get more defined. Art gets cleaner. Jokes only get stupider.

You'll start noticing the significant Top-Down format of the strip. I find that it gives it a certain... something... Sort of like a dramatic effect. If you have a monitor that will display the whole comic at one time, your monitor is too big... This way you can't see the whole thing at once and you really aren't expecting the punch line. I find it helps, anyways.

In the original sketch, Sterling had bangs and a longer pony tail. The adam's apple wasn't added until later, also... I asked Pillboy, "Hey... how can I make Sterling look like a man, opposed to a woman..." and that's what he told me to do... and it helped, I think.

I've gotten two reactions to this strip when I previewed it to my friends: 1) Man... that is the best punch line ever! or 2) ... I don't get it... It doesn't make any sense. I like to use this as a sort of IQ test... if they answer anything like 1, they're okay... if they answer anything like 2... They need to be kicked in the balls... but I'm a putz, so I just walk away frustrated.

Lets see... What else have I got to say before I fall asleep at my computer chair? Oh! I finally got my domain to work at home... yeah I was having some issues with it working on my home computers, but I fixed it by simply reseting the router... wierd shit...

I'll leave you with this:

Potatoes are only good when french fried or chipped and should not be mentioned in ever single conversation ever. You know who you are.

~~Ben

AJAX ... Sorta

2007-10-27T02:05:00.000-04:00

Today's mission, at work, was to implement some AJAX. I had this huge form that needed to be saved but not reload the page. AJAX should have handled that. Unfortunately, I don't know how to POST data with AJAX. After a while of browsing Google, I realized that AJAX POSTs were almost the same as AJAX GETs. You send the info via a string. Worse, however, is that PHP won't handle the the POSTed with $_POST or $_GET or anything like that.

I guess this wouldn't be bad if there wasn't so much data to be posting. Unfortunately, I would be posting this huge dynamically generated form. There was way too much data and way too little time to waste trying to code some AJAX. I was getting frustrated and asked Google what I should do. After a while, I came upon a few forum discussion somewhere that were really helpful.

Usually, when you submit a form, it will call the script and load it into the current browser window. Which is something I'm trying to avoid. Something I didn't know was that forms accept the target attribute. It works like a regular link, so if you wanted to have the submitted form load in a new window, you could do:


<form method="POST" action="script.php" target="_blank"></form>

As you may or may not know, the target tag can be used to target a frame when dealing with frame sets. Or iFrames. And iFrames can be manipulated by CSS. In fact, you can make them invisible. So, basically you're submitting a form to an invisible iFrame which reloads the iFrame and not the whole page. It's like magic:


<iframe name="submitFrame" src="" style="display: none"></iframe>
<form method="POST action="script.php" target="submitFrame"></form>

The only downfall is that you can't really any info back from the script. You can't have the script return an XML file or anything like that. So, it's pretty much only good for saving or deleting or something like that. Which is great for what I needed it to do.

I was dealing with a huge form, though. It might take a while to process, looping over quite a few records. Updating, Selecting, Manipulating. That sort of thing. It might be nice if I could update the user on the progress or at least tell them when it finished.

The best way I could think of was to not make the iFrame completely invisible. Just make it small enough. Or at least hide it until I needed to call it. The form processing script could echo "I'm finished" at the end and that would be visible to the user. In the end I had something like the following:

form.html:


<iframe name="submitframe" src="" style="width: 5em; height: 1em;">
<form name="someForm" method="POST" action="script.php" target="submitframe">
   <input /> <input /> <input type="submit" />
</form>

script.php


<?php
  
  $arrayOfStuff = $_POST["stuff"];
  ?>
   <span id="status"></span>
   <script type="text/javascript">
  <?
  for($k = 0; $k < count($arrayOfStuff);  $k++)
  {
     DoSomeStuff();
     ?>
       document.getElementById("status").innerHTML="<?= $k/count($arrayOfStuff) ?>%";
     <?
   }
   ?>
     document.getElementById("status").innerHTML = "Done";
   </script>

The form.html file contains the form and the iframe. No big surprise if you've been reading this. The iframe isn't not displayed. It's just sized so that it's not huge.

The script.php file gets an array that was posted to it. It spits out an empty span tag called "status" and starts a javascript. You put the script after the span so that it'll run as the php script runs. The span is already defined, so the javascript can use it as it goes. No need to define a function at the top and call it and all kinds of nonsense.

Then it loops over the array, doing whatever it is that you need to do. Wat each iteration, you spit out a line of javascript that changes the span to reflect the percentage that's been completed (the element you're at, divided by the total). When the loop is over, you spit out a final line that changes the span to say, "done" and close the script.

The user will see the script running in the iFrame, but the form.html page will not reload. Nice, easy and clean.

Of course, this is all super simplified so that it's easy for me to explain here. My actual code has lots of extras like alert boxes on errors: if there's an error in any iteration of the script, you could print out an 'alert("errormessage")' which will display a popup.

It's not a new idea, but I just discovered it and got super excited. It worked great. Did just what I wanted. Saved me a lot of time and code. I love it.

Until next time,

~~Ben

PCI-Xpress

2007-10-26T00:56:00.000-04:00

So, apparently, there are more than 3 types of expansion buses. Up until tonight, I was aware of only AGP, PCI, and PCI express. I am now aware of many others. You see, I've been trying to shoe horn a PVR into my main desktop and I have not been very successful as of yet.

The other day, I scored a Pinnacle HDTV card (http://www.amazon.com/Pinnacle-Systems-8230-10023-51-PCTV-Card/dp/B000X27YQI) from WOOT. At 50 bucks, it looked like a good deal. I've been wanting to make up my own PVR Media Center PC thing for a while, but never had the funds or the drive to do so. I still don't really have the funds to build a new one from scratch, so I decided to stick the HDTV card into my desktop. It fits and works great.

The problem is that I've got a TV and stereo system that would just be wasted if I started watching TV on my PC. Plus, I like using my computer while watching TV, and having an extra window sitting on top of everything gets old really quick. And also, people watch movies and stuff with me in my room, and it would be a pain for them to have to watch it on my monitor. This problem is easily remedied with a couple of cables coming off my PC and sticking into my Stereo setup.

My machine is kind of old. It came from a hospital or something where it probably operated some kind of crazy expensive piece of equipment, so it's still pretty powerful. When I got it, it had a 3GHz Xeon processor, 512MB of ram, and a sweet-ass video card with a Nvidia Quadro4 chipset. I've upgraded the ram to 2 gigs and through in a few old SCSI hard drives. It's a pretty more than decent machine for what I do. Unfortunately, it's got an integrated sound card and no TV out.

Not a problem. I hit up newegg (http://www.newegg.com/) to snag a new sound card and maybe a cheap video card with just a TV out. Before I buy anything, I check the MoBo to see what kind of expansion options I've got. It has an AGP slot that's inhabited by the sweet nvidia card. It's got two PCI slots, one of which was holding an extra ethernet card. Below those, it's got three PCI-X slots, one of which was filled with my PCHD card.

Okay, I thought. I'll get a video card that's PCI-eXpress and a soundcard that's PCI. More than enough room. So I order a cheap PCI 7.1 sound card. And I order a cheap PCI-Express video card with Nvidia chip set and a TV out. Totaled to about 60 bucks. I'm in business.

They came in today. I removed the extra ethernet card and replaced it with the sound card. Awesome. I still can't hook it to my stereo yet because of a weird grounding problem that causes a buzzing noise. That's okay, though. I'll go to radio shack and get a magical box that will eliminate the buzz.

I pull out the new video card and try to cram it in one of the PCI-X slots. It doesn't fit. I cram harder. It still doesn't fit. I took it out and look at the pins. It's obvious that the pins won't fit the slot. Weird. It says PCI-Express on the box... Maybe they mis labeled it? It looks like an AGP card. So I tried replacing my good video card with the new one. Nope. Not an AGP card. So if it's not a PCI Express card, and it's not an AGP card... and it's definitely not a PCI card... what the heck is it?

A quick googling reveals that it is indeed a PCI-Express (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express) card. Just like I had ordered. However, PCI-Express and PCI-X are not the same thing. PCI-X (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCIX) is more like PCI 2.0 or something. This kind of makes sense. It's a really old mobo, so it was probably made before PCI Express (PCIe) got popular. PCI-X and PCIe are not compatible.

A check of the box that my PCHD card came in reveals that it is not a PCIe card. Just a regular PCI card that can also fit in PCI-X slots. Cuz they're compatible sometimes. Or something. I don't really understand it.

The bottom line is that PCIexpress and PCI-X are not the same thing. And I've got a $30 video card that I can't use. I guess I'll try to sell it to some guys at school or try to swap it out with something else I've got around the house. If all else fails, I'll just send it back. In the end, it's just kind of a bummer.

Anyways. Until next time,

~~Ben

Captain Numbskull Lives

2007-10-25T01:14:00.001-04:00

Today I started another page of Captain Numbskull (http://numbskull.poonheads.com/), which is a bad idea because I've got a lot of other stuff that I should be doing right now.

The good news is that page 11 (the page I'm now working on) is the start of a crazy gun fight. It's fast paced and is going to be super fun to draw, and hopefully to read.

In case you're interested, I have some sketches and concept art at my dA account (http://benabus.deviantart.com/). Don't look if you don't want anything spoiled for when I get this thing finished. Though, I'm not going to ink or color any of the pages until I've got all the pencils done. So it will probably be a while.

Until next time,

~~Ben

A Million Ukeleles

2007-10-23T00:40:00.000-04:00

I had a relatively lame day today. I forgot my umbrella and the bottom fell out as soon as I got off the bus on campus. So, I had to take my BLAW test while completely soaking wet. Work was alright. Then I got home.

I didn't expect much except some dry trousers, but lo and behold, what did I find in the post? A small package from London. Its contents included a small pin-on button and a CD from my dear friend, M.J. Hibbett.

I had ordered Hibbett's new CD a week or so ago from his website (http://mjhibbett.tripod.com/releases/amillionukeleles.htm) and it had finally arrived. I make sure to get all of his stuff, cuz I really like it, but this one was special. It was his first proper solo album (as his previous work had been with his group, the Validators).

The first thing I noticed, even before I popped in the CD was the unique paper case that held the disc. It was hand colored with good old fashion crayons and made up like origami so that when opened, the disc popped straight up at you like a pop-up book. This amused me greatly.

With a title like "A Million Ukeleles", I was really expecting acoustic covers of Validators songs by Mark with a ukelele. This is not the case, however. It's true that the ukelele is a prominent instrument, but none of the tracks are acoustic and most are original. The one that did stand out was "Programming is the Poetry of our Time", but that had never actually been released on an album (only in the interactive bonus tracks and demos).

In general, I'd have to say that this album is a lot more laid back than his earlier Validators works. The earlier albums were an eclectic mix of hard rock, cheery folky indie, and old fashioned fun. A Million Ukeleles, is very different in tone. Probably because it does focus on the ukelele, which is reminiscent of Hawaii and other Pacific islands. While many of the songs contain electric guitar riffs and what sounds like a backing drum machine, the wispy carefree attitude permeates through out.

I can't say it's my favorite of his albums, but it's definitely a fun listen. I've only listened to it a couple of times so far and perhaps I'll change my mind after a few more. I'm a sucker for an outstanding heavy, distorted guitar riff, which this album is lacking. We'll see, though.

And I'm not saying it's bad. Far from it. I do really like it. All I'm saying is that it's not something I'd keep in my glove box to listen to when the radio sucks. If you're into softer, lighter indie sounds, however, then "A Million Ukeleles" is for you.

Cheers,

~~Ben

Benana

2007-10-21T22:10:00.000-04:00

The Benana is an elusive, nocturnal creature. It stands about six feet tall and is identifiable by its distinctive yellow coloring and soft brown fur. Its diet consists mainly of dust bunnies and leeks, but some Benanas have been known to eat cheeseburger drippings when food is in short supply. Generally, Benanas are not aggressive, but when provoked, they will emit a high pitched shriek and expel a highly potent nerve gas from glands behind the ears.

Up until now, there has been no evidence that these creatures even exist. This evening, however, David was able to capture a few photographs of an adult Benana in its natural environment.

Beware the Benana, for they are vicious.

Until next time,

~~Ben

The Axe-Knife-Hammer

2007-10-21T02:10:00.000-04:00

When I hear "multi-tool" I automatically think of my Leatherman. In actuality, however, a multi-tool is just about any multi-function tool. Like a Swiss-Army knife. Or a spork.

The other day, David shows me the day's deal at Tanga (http://tanga.com/). Tanga is kind of like Woot with its one-day-one-deal business model, except that it has fewer electronics and more weird stuff. On this particular day was the mother of all mult-tools.

I saw this and immediately had to own it. From the photo on Tanga all we could tell was that it had pliers, a hammer, an ax, and some swiss-army type knives. With all that, it must have been huge. Google quickly told us that similar tools were about 10 inches long. When it finally came in, we were surprised at its size.

I don't have huge hands and this thing was definitely not huge. It's a little too big to carry in one's pocket like my Leatherman, but it would fit nicely in a backpack, or a purse, or a glove box. It also came with a cheap nylon pouch that would fit on your belt if you went hiking or something. And the wooden handle inlay adds a touch of class and ruggedness to your hiking.

The most striking feature is obviously the axe-hammer on top. It's not a huge ax, but could definitely take out a small tree. The hammer would be good to hammer a tent-pole, or hang a picture, or break a window if your car is sinking in a flash flood. What might not be apparent at first glance is the pliers.

It's a pretty decent pair of lineman's pliers, complete with wire cutters. What really makes it stand out, to me, is the spring loaded handle. It's basically just a piece of metal that pushes the handle out, but it does its job well. And, it's got a really solid latch that holds it closed, so there's no worry of it coming open and pinching your balls off if you've got it in your pocket. It one-ups my leatherman in the pliers department. Of course, it doesn't JUST have an ax, a hammer, and some pliers. Like any good multi-tool, it's a got a slue other fold out tools.

I'll start at the top: A plain old straight blade. Nothing fancy, but required. Bottle Opener. Hex wrench (note the stepping... so it fits multiple sizes). Some kind of chisel, pry bar, screw driver thing. Phillips screw-driver. Saw. Serrated knife. Nail file. Flat-head screwdriver.

None of the blades lock, but it's a relatively small sacrifice, considering the the rest of the package. My favorite part is still the axe, though. There are many tools that have axes, such as survival type hatches and military entrenching tools, but how many people can say they've got an axe on their pocket knife? This is definitely the most unique knife in my collection.

I would highly recommend this tool to anybody. Even my mother was amazed by its functions. She said she uses her swiss-army knife all the time, but wishes it had a hammer. Which this sucker has. The only problem is that we got this one off of Tanga. It's kind of hard to find elsewhere. I've seen similar tools all over the internet, but nothing quite like it. Some have the axe and hammer, but not the pliers. Some have the pliers and hammer, but no axe. Others are just too expensive (we got this one at $25). So, if you can find a good deal on something like this, I'd nab it. It's just too cool.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Murder Party

2007-10-20T03:15:00.000-04:00

This evening, I saw the best movie I've ever seen in my entire life. It's called Murder Party. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0878695/)

We rented it on a whim for our weekly movie night. It was either this or Idiocracy. The coin told us to pick Murder Party. It was one of the best overall decisions we've ever made to date. I laugh a lot at a lot of things, but this movie, by far, has made me laugh more and harder than ever before.

It's an independent film by a group called The Lab of Madness. The cover of the DVD bares a chainsaw-wielding nerd dressed in a cardboard knight costume. The back describes it as a mix between Napoleon Dynamite and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I'm hear to tell you that it's far better than both.

The story follows a loser named Chris who finds an open invitation to a "Murder Party" on Halloween. He's bored and has no friends, so he decides to make a knight costume from cardboard and duct tape. Upon arriving at the old warehouse, he is assaulted and held captive by a small group of art school students who plan to murder him in the name of art.

I immediately identified with the lead character. He's lonely. He has an alarm on his watch that tells him to take his medication. And he makes stuff out of duct tape and cardboard. This is me in 5 years.

The other characters were beautifully personified. In this group of artfags, I saw the people I got to know in the college of arts, and the people I used to hang out with in high school, and the people who hang out in the honors lounge. If there was an archetype for art students, these characters would fit that perfectly.

The first half of the movie does well to set the morbidly funny tone of the film, introduce the characters and establish the plot. It also openly satirizes the pretentious, self-absorbed fakeness of the artfag community. Everything I hate about art students is openly mocked and shown in a light that I can only describe as "It's funny because it's true."

In the second half, the pace quickens and the focus switches from humor to gore. Most of the cast gets killed off in a fantastic bloodbath. Because there are fewer characters who are able to speak, the film makers are free to showcase their outstanding special effects work. The physical comedy, combined with the amazing blood and guts make-up, causes the movie to remain obscenely funny despite the waning dialog.

I wouldn't call it a horror flick, but it's not strictly a comedy. Maybe a dark comedy? Whatever it is, it blends the two genres seamlessly. The inane plot, colorful characters and fantastic gory special effects make this something special. I'll definitely be picking up a copy for my personal library. I recommend that you do the same.

Until next time,

~~Ben

P.S.: Lexi's pussy screamed at me. VAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!

99 Poonanas

2007-10-19T00:33:00.001-04:00

Lately, I've been drinking a lot of Coke Zero. It's all the Coke Taste, with none of the Coke Calories. Why? Because I've recently gained a lot of weight, and the 150ish calories I get from a can of Coke can better be used Arby's. And also because I love Coke. When I was living in my apartment, I was relatively fit and pretty much subsisted purely on Coke. And also Poon.

That's when I realized that, lately, my lack of motivation, inspiration, and energy can probably attributed to my recent lack of Poon intake. In order to remedy this, I decided to mix up a batch of my favored orange liquid. Apparently, they've reduced the amount of sugar in Tang. While this is good for my 'weight problem', it changes the Poon recipe considerably.

For those trying at home, the new Recipoon is as follows:
Get a can of Tang
Change the name on the can to "POONTang" with a Sharpie
Using a funnel, put 2 level scoops of POONTang into a 2.2 Liter PoonJug
Fill the PoonJug with tap water until almost full
Add ice until the water comes right up to the bottom of the neck of the PoonJug
Screw on the cap and shake vigorously until all the powder at the bottom of the jug has been dissolved
Enjoy

It's the first time in months that I've had some good Poon. I was happy. And then, the mostly empty bottom of 99 Bananas (http://www.bartonbrands.com/99bananas.html) that we had left over from Thomas's birthday caught my eye.

I had already taken a few long draws from my PoonJug, so I topped it off with a 2 or 3 shots of the 99 proof banana flavored schnapps. To my delight, the mixture's taste and aroma were very pleasing. The artificial banana flavoring canceled some of the tangy citrus sting and created a smooth tropical beverage. And it doesn't hurt that it's got a spike of alcohol to calm the nerves.

While 99 Poonanas will never take the place of traditional Poon, it is an excellent addition to our library of poontastic recipes. I'd like to try it with other blends (99 Apples?), but for the time being, I'll make sure to keep a bottle of 99 Bananas handy.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Cookie Duster

2007-10-17T13:20:00.000-04:00

I'd like to say that my colloquial lexicon is larger than most but every now and then I hear something that I have honestly never heard before.

Recently, several of my coworkers discovered my Facebook profile. Generally, someone finding my Facebook is not a big deal. Unfortunately, when someone you work with finds it... things can get crazy fast. Especially when that coworker is Stephen.

The other day, I ran into him in the kitchen at work. The first thing he did was complement me on my glorious mustache. This is odd because I don't wear my mustache at work.

"What?" I asked. "Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about" he replied. That's when I learned that he had discovered my Facebook. No big deal. Then he used a phrase that was altogether new to me. You see, Stephen comes from some crazy foreign land where they use terms that no one anywhere else on the planet uses.

Cookie Duster.

This caught me by surprise. Sure, it could mean simply that my mustache was so awesome that it dusted the tops of cookies when I ate them. But I have a dirty mind. And in my experience, Stephen also has a dirty mind. In general, everyone I work with has a dirty mind, so I guess I fit in pretty good there.

So, I got to thinking. What could "Cookie Duster" mean? Well... I have heard, on multiple occasions, the word "cookie" used to describe a vagina, not dissimilar from "cooter", "cooch", or "twat". With that in mind, "dusting a cookie" must mean something like "dusting a vagina". ... In order to dust a vagina with a mustache, one's mustache must be close to the vagina. Usually, the only time a mustache is near a vagina would be during a "mustache ride", which we all know is a euphemism for cunnilingus. It all started fitting together. Taking into account the source of the new phrase, this was the only logical explanation.

My suspicions were further qualified by a later conversation in which the size of my mustache was called into question. It was, indeed, a fine mustache. Large enough for dusting the largest of cookies. In context, it sounded a lot dirtier. Especially when followed by a description of Scott licking his eyebrows.

Of course, I could be wrong. Unlikely, though. Having such a fantastic soup strainer makes it hard to be wrong.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Dual Monitors for the Masses

2007-10-17T02:16:00.000-04:00

Lets not beat around the bush. I'm a nerd. There's no denying it. I'm a nerd of many interests, however. Comic books, video games, TV, toys, anime, sci-fi, Star Trek, computers. Wide variety. I try to pretend I'm not, but I am. I geek out about things that most people would find excessive or boring or stupid.

One of the things I geek out about is my home computer. I want the fastest and the biggest. I don't do any read computing on my home PC but that doesn't stop me from bragging about my 3Ghz Xeon or the 2gigs of memory. I know that compared to some, that's nothing, but it makes me smile.

In the web-design industry, one of the things that people most frequently geek out about is the monitor. At work, they got me a new monitor to replace the tiny old one that I was using before. It was the biggest among the programmers and everyone ooooed and aaaahed. In the grand scheme of things, my single huge WSXGA+ was canceled out by the other guys' multi-monitor setups. Having a huge one is great, but having several is better. Scott Adams wrote a Dilbert strip about it today (http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20071016.html).

At home, I used to have a 21-inch Dell Trinitron CRT. That sucker was great. It let me pull off 1600x1200 (UXGA) at 85Hz. A high refresh rate is important to me because if it's set too low, the flicker gives me migraines. Unfortunately, Dell Trinitrons had a defect where one of the resistors goes out and the pictures goes way too bright. Glenn and I managed to patch it with a little solder, but it eventually gave out. I had to down grade to a 19inch we had lying around. Luckily, it also let me have UXGA at 85Hz. Unluckily, it suffered the same defect and eventually crapped out.

Needless to say, I needed to get a new monitor. By this time I had grown accustomed to the obscenely large resolution. You see, a high resolution lets you have multiple windows open and lets you spread out some. This increases productivity greatly. I'm not too productive at home, but I was still compelled to use a high resolution, as smaller ones feel cramped and uncomfortable (like downgrading from a Buick to a Civic). I finally settled on a 22 inch ViewSonic. It natively supports UXGA (which means there's actually 1,920,000 pixels on the screen) and since it's an LCD, I don't have to worry about the refresh rate (I'm not going to go into this, but suffice to say that LCD's don't work the same as CRT's). I was happy.

Last weekend, my mom brought home a ViewSonic CRT that they were throwing away at work. Of course, with an extra monitor in the house, I couldn't help but try to set up a multi-monitor setup in my room. I managed to acquire an NVIDIA Quadro4 750 graphics card which allowed me to plug my LCD into its DVI-D port while at the same time plugging the new CRT into its VGA port. Cake. So, now I've got my main LCD at 1600x1200 and my CRT at 1024x768 (the highest resolution it could pull off at 85Hz) which brings my total pixel width to 2624. That's pretty awesome, though we'll have to see what happens when I get my PCHDTV tuner card in and have to rig up some way to get my computer to hook up to my TV.

Now, this isn't my first foray into the multi-monitor world. About this time last year, I was able to nab an old generic laptop for $200 off of e-bay. I also had this extra PC set up (with its own monitor and keyboard) off to the side where I could play with SQL Server. A while back, I stumbled over an amazing piece of software while googling mult-monitor setups. It is called MaxiVista (http://www.maxivista.com/). It allows you to use the monitors of networked PCs as extensions of your main PC's monitor, essentially emulating a PC with a dual-monitor video card. In addition, if you wanted, you could use it to remotely control the networked PC instead of using it to extend the desktop (like an awesome KVM [KeyboardVideoMouse] switch, without the monitor part). This let me use the laptop to run e-mail and AIM on its processor while I used my main PC to run Photoshop on its processor, both using the same keyboard and mouse, and at the same time I could let my SQL Server run in the background doing its own thing while I used its monitor the extend my main PC's desktop.

It was a super awesome setup. I have a stereo pic of it (http://www.poonheads.com/mUpload/images/200710162234124.jpg) but I won't post it here because it's kind of big. In the end, however, I was left with only my Dell because my laptop died and I had to return the server, as it was on loan. It was fun while it lasted.

So, this morning, I got to campus at 9:30AM where I realized that Maples had canceled class. I had forgotten because I am a dumbass. Since I had another class later that day, I decided to stay on class and fool around in the computer lab while my classmates studied for their 470 exam. The room was relatively empty and I was the only person seated at a row of 4 PCs. With 4 monitors (one for each PC) lined up nicely on the desk.

That's when it struck me. I was bored and had a room full of computers at my disposal, specifically, a row of 4 unused computers with nice monitors. I knew for a fact that this particular lab was all networked together and behind a firewall because I had assisted in its networking last semester. With this setup, it would be VERY easy to set up MaxiVista in this room.

I installed the server software for the main machine on the second machine from the aisle. That way, I could have the main monitor and one on each side. I didn't want to be too greedy and use the 4th, mainly because it would be too much trouble (MaxiVista DOES support up to 4 monitors on a single server). I set everything up and it worked like a charm. I didn't think it would hurt anything because this particular lab was utilized almost exclusively for MIS classes, meaning that it would mostly be people learning Visio and Project, SQL Server and Visual Studio.

Visual Studio is what I planned on using the most here. The one thing that always aggravated me was not being able to spread out when using Visual Studio in this lab. It was filled with monitors that sported either SXGA or, because of some misinstalled drivers, XGA resolutions. Now that I had installed MaxiVista, however, I would be free to spread out as much as I wanted. A total of 3328 pixels across. I could use one screen for the main design/code window, the left screen for the properties, tools, solution and server explorer windows, and the right screen for the browser.

I was in desktop real-estate paradise. Even though few of my colleagues were impressed, in my mind I had racked up some serious geek points. I think I'll go in early on Thursday to install the 4th client on the teacher's machine which is connected to the overhead projector. Sure, it's only SVGA (800x600), but how cool would it be to have a 4th monitor that's 6 feet across to act as a heads up display?

In short, having an obscene amount of desktop real estate will change your life. Once you try it, you won't be able to go back. Whether you us one huge single monitor or multiple smaller monitors (or multiple huge monitors, which can get really pricey), it doesn't matter. With more room to spread out, you'll instantly be more productive because you won't have to switch between windows. It's essential if you're a designer or coder or other serious computer user, but it's still really fun if you're just a web surfer.

I'll leave you with this tip: If you do end up using a setup with a higher resolution, DO NOT maximize your windows. They put things in separate windows so that you can open many of them at the same time. Try putting them side-by-side. It lets you view many things at once and makes switching between browser windows, word documents, and other applications, a lot faster than having to navigate to the task bar every ten seconds. You have all this extra room... USE IT. It's kind of like a Buffet line. You don't want to cover your whole plate in just Seseme chicken. You'll want to have some low mein and egg rolls and maybe some fried rice as well. If it's a really small plate, try using two or three. Same effect, just harder to carry. And then the old Chinese lady will yell at you when you drop one of them on the floor and she has to clean it up.

Until next time,

~~Ben

P.S. I use Windows XP in a custom box. I don't know if MaxiVista works in Linux or MacOS, nor do I care. I'm 100% positive that you can have multi-monitor support in both, but I don't know how, and again: I don't care.

Facebook Graffiti

2007-10-16T00:54:00.000-04:00

I like Facebook. I like it a lot because it lets me keep in touch with my friends. Some people would argue that MySpace does the same sort of thing. But I hate MySpace with a passion. Mostly because of the customization it allows.

While MySpace allows you to customize your profile to the point that it is completely unreadable, Facebook does not allow such nonsense. It keeps the appealing light blue layouts consistent between all the profiles. This makes sure that everyone can easily access the information held within its pages. In order to socially network, you need to be able to actually read the information that your friends provide.

When I learned that Facebook would begin allowing customizations in the form of 'apps', I was completely against them on principle. I was not and am not unfounded in my criticism. I'm already seeing profiles cluttered beyond recognition with useless and stupid apps, some of which do nothing more than randomly generate a quote that no one bothers to read or captures innocent victim in pyramid-scheme-like games. It saddens me that such a great thing could fall so hard.

I'll be honest. I have installed a couple of applications. The ones I have are simple and unobtrusive. They enhance, not hinder. One is the Top Friends app which I use to quickly access my small group of friends whose profiles I frequent. The other is the Graffit-Wall. It lets me draw pictures.

This Graffiti App (http://apps.facebook.com/graffitiwall/) is more useful and more fun than some of the built-in features (read: Poke). WIth Graffiti, I can draw horrifying pictures on my friends profiles. Pictures of fruitcocks, zombies and balls. Things that plain text just can't convey. It's fun. There's nothing better than running into someone whose first words are "Wow. That Cactus with testicles you drew on my Facebook... Just amazing."

Graffiti gets a thumbs up from me. Everyone needs to install it. And then draw pictures of inanimate objects with genitalia on my wall.

Until next time,

~~Ben

RSS News Reader

2007-10-15T01:33:00.000-04:00

A long time ago, there was a TV network called Tech TV. It had cool shows about technology type stuff. It was probably my favorite television network ever.

Then it got bought out by G4, the gaming network. Now owned by G4, all the tech shows started getting replaced by gamer oriented shows. All the great tech show hosts got laid off in favor of hip, stylish gamer hosts. Lame.

Kevin Rose, one of the younger, hipper tech show hosts got sick of the G4 and, with the help of his partner in crime, Dan Huard, started his own Internet TV station thing (http://www.revision3.com/). They have all kinds of awesome tech related shows, just like they had on Tech TV, except I dont' have to get extended cable to watch them.

I hadn't kept up with any of these shows since The Broken went on hiatus. Today, I decided to look it up and realized that I don't have the time to watch all the back episodes like I wanted. I figured instead of trying to watch all the ones that were already up, I'd do better to just watch the new ones as they come out. To do this, I would need a feed and a reader.

RSS feeds make it easy to keep up to date on news and site updates. I've got one for this blog (the orange icon in the menu bar). Revision3 has one for each of its shows. In order to take advantage of an RSS feed, however, you really need a feed Reader to aggregate all your feeds and keep you updated on them.

Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/), the email client that I use, has a built in News reader, so I figured I would just use that one. I went in and subscribed to all the feeds and everything looked peachy. Thunderbird, unfortunately, was built to be an email client first and foremost. It's news reading capabilities are kind of iffy. I'm all a fan of simple, but there comes a point when something just doesn't do what I need it to do. Thunderbird did not do what I needed it to do.

The main problem was that after subscribing to all of the feeds for all of the Revision3 shows, I found that there were almost 300 new articles in all those subscriptions. Not that bad, I thought, because I had just subscribed to them. They were all new to me. What I didn't know was that Thunderbird would pull down ALL the articles EVERY time it updated. So, after clicking the Get Mail button two or three time, I ended up with something like 800 new articles, most of which were duplicates. This would not do.

A quick Googling led me to Sharp Reader (http://www.sharpreader.net/). I've only used it for about an hour, but already I like it. It's everything I wanted. Simple, only pulls down updates and opens articles in an external browser. What more could I want? Perhaps more awesome news feeds to read in my new news reader? Probably.

While Thunderbird is a great email client, I would not suggest it as a news reader. Sharp Reader, however, I would throughly recommend for a News Reader. If you do a lot of newsing, I mean.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Codename: Gung Ho

2007-10-14T04:30:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid I played with action figures. I had a lot of them. As I got older, I stopped playing and took to collecting them. During high school, I almost exclusively collected anime characters and things with chainsaws. When I started college, I pretty much gave it up because I had better things to do and no good place to display my collection.

Last Christmas, I got a glass display case where I was able to display all the figures I had boxed up for the past few years. I hadn't really bought anything new, save a couple of Final Fantasy figures when Advent Children had come out.

Lately, though... There's been something wrong with me. I find myself heading to the toy aisle every time I go to Wal-mart or Target. I blame David Willis (http://www.shortpacked.com/). But say la vee, as they say.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I thought it might be a good idea to give a little background before I start telling you about my latest purchase: G.I. Joe's Gung Ho.

In the past there were two kind of GI Joes... The 3.5 inch ones and the 12 inch ones. Over the past couple of years, starting with the Sigma 6 line, they've started making 8 inch scale figures. This is awesome because it's like a middle ground. They're not super tiny, but they're not super big. They're a little cartoony looking, but I think that's one of the reasons I like them.

I've been wanting to get one for a while, but never could bring myself to do it for one reason or the other. Then they came out with Gung Ho, who, as we all know, is super awesome. He's a marine, and he doesn't wear a shirt, and he has a sweet mustache. This particular version doesn't go shirtless, but he's still awesome. Just look at that mustache:

Tell me that's a not mug to fall in love with.

As a toy, this is a pretty great figure. He's jointed in all the right areas, so he can assume tons of poses. He's got big huge feet that are jointed at the ankle which allow him to stand easily and remain very stable, even while he's carrying his huge-ass gun.

He came equipped with a machine gun, a removable helmet, a knife and sheath, a belt, body armor, and a hugely useless 'multi-tool'. It's this huge thing as big as the figure with foldable tools including an axe, a knife, a shovel and an awl. They could have given him a machete, or a backpack or something, but instead they give him a stupid multi-tool. It's not much of a gimmick. The machine gun's gimmick isn't much better. You pull the ammo strip through the gun and the barrel moves back and forth. Laa-aame. I have to say, though... His Kung-Fu grip makes up for it.

People always talk about G.I. Joes and the Kung-Fu grip. I've never seen one with any kind of kung-fu grip. Upon wikipedia-ing it, I learned that, originally, Kung-Fu grip was just a rubber hand which made it easier to hold his guns and stuff. Now, it's a hand with spring loaded fingers which makes it easier to crush your opponents into diamonds, like Superman. It makes me happy. I can now say that I've got the G.I. Joe with The Kung Fu Grip.

The only thing I don't like about my Gung-Ho is that he's got hair. Under his detachable helmet he has a dark brown buzz cut. Gung Ho is supposed to be super bald, which added to his characters. But, as long as I keep his helmet on, I can pretend.

In the end, it was a satisfying purchase and, at $10, I feel no buyer's remorse. Sure, in my day, a GI Joe should have costed 3 or 4 dollars, but with inflation, I figure 10 bucks is a pretty good buy these days. I'll probably buy another if I see one that strikes my fancy. Or if they make one of Scarlett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlett_%28G.I._Joe%29).

Until next time...

~~Ben

The Poonheads Short Film

2007-10-11T00:46:00.000-04:00

David is an English major. He writes stuff. He used to write plays. Now he just writes creatively. This semester he's in a Screen Writing class.

His latest assignment was to eves drop on a conversation and using that bit of dialog, write a short film that is completely unrelated to it. This is relevant because he eves dropped on me and Thomas and used that dialog to create a Poonheads Short Film.

As you may or may not know, Poonheads came into being because of an idea we had for a movie. That idea has long since been scrapped, but it's interesting to see another movie version take shape.

The plot revolves around our three comic heroes Ben, Pillboy, and Sterling. After a short conversation on the Ugly Pink Couch, we discover that Sterling has a big date tonight. The film cuts to tonight where Sterling and his date are trying to have dinner. Attached to Sterling's forehead is a camera and in his ear, a radio transceiver. Both are transmitting to a van parked down the street. In the van, Ben and Pillboy attempt to coach their friend through his date. Hilarity ensues.

Sure, the whole Cyrano de Bergerac shtick has been done to death, but David manages to breathe new life into in true Poonheads fashion. I nearly lost my shit when I read it.

Unfortunately, there is no actual movie yet. It's just an 8 page screen play draft. David says that his instructor will choose one screenplay from his class to produce next semester in a Production class. I would love to see this be made into a movie. I would especially love to see it be acted by actors other than ourselves. It would be really funny.

And if it doesn't get made, I would have no objection to taking on the task myself. it's short and seems like it would be fairly easy to produce, given that we can find a pretty girl to play Sterling's date.

Also, it's tentatively titled "The Poonheads Get Some". The title alone should make you want to see it. And if it doesn't, it's probably because you suck.

Until next time,

~~Ben

P.S. Kitten: (http://gigglesugar.com/682002)

Guitar for the Soul

2007-10-10T00:59:00.000-04:00

It may come as a surprise to some that I play guitar. I would think, anyways. I guess when I look at myself in the mirror I just don't see a guitar player.

I'm not super good. But I'm not super bad, either. I just play for fun. For myself. It's the one thing that I doubt will ever have a chance of becoming a chore.

Unlike comicking, guitar playing doesn't take any set up. When drawing, I have to take out my paper and pencils and erasers and stuff. With my guitar I just reach over, grab the sucker and start playing. I'm able to be creative. I create something that will not have to be cleaned up or stored away.

It's not like coding in that I don't have to think about it. Coding requires analytical thinking. Guitar playing is mostly muscle memory. Yet, it's not passive like watching TV or listening to music. When I'm sitting there, I'm actually moving my fingers. I'm an active participant. I find guitar playing to be very satisfying.

It's kind of like meditating. I can just sit back and relax, sometimes not think about anything, sometimes think about everything. But I'm able to focus because my hands are busy with the strumming and the fretting. I find it difficult to talk while I'm playing, but I think about all kinds of things.

Music making is good for the soul. When I come home, no matter how hard of a day I've had, or how tired I may be, there's always enough left in me to pick up my Strat and finger a tune. It clears my head and revitalizes me, if only for a moment.

I would highly recommend taking up a musical instrument. Something that's easy to start, but complex enough to keep you from getting bored. Portability is another consideration. A guitar isn't that portable, but I stay in my room a lot. I've been known to take a harmonica with my on trips, though. So, maybe something like that.

Start off slow and don't get frustrated. Remember, you're doing it for fun. If you get angry with it, it won't help soothe anything, especially not the soul. Just screw around with it, making sounds that appeal to you. Doesn't matter if it makes a song or not. Eventually, if you like the instrument, you'll get bored with just making noise and try to learn a song or two. Don't get frustrated if you can't get them right away. Just set it down and come back later. Remember that you're playing for fun. I've been playing for around 7 years now, and I don't know more than 10 songs total. But it's still fun.

One other thing to consider is the people you live with. Don't play so loudly that you bother everyone around you. They'll just come in and bitch you out and that's no fun. So, keep it respectable. That's why I don't use an amp (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZovZ6phyXSo).

And if it turns out that music's just not your thing... well, I'm sure there's something else out there that could help you relax. Maybe yoga. Or a bonsai tree. All I know is that my guitar is important to my own mental well-being, so it might be of some help to yours.

Until next time,

~~Ben

It's Timex to Party

2007-10-09T00:56:00.000-04:00

I'm a nerd for gear. I like being prepared. Like a boyscout without the gay part. The chances of finding myself in a true survival situation is slim to none, but I still get a kick out of it.

Up until recently, I've been known for carrying way more gear than I need at all times. I blame Sean Kennedy (http://patrolling.rantmedia.ca/). He changed my life, but I'm not sure if it's for the better. For a while I was carrying obscene amounts of gear including, but not limited to, a knife, a lighter, a multi-tool, a flashlight, USB thumbdrives, keys, a P-38 can opener (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_can_opener), copious amounts of 550 paracord, carabiners, another knife on my keychain, my cellphone, my wallet, a small notepad, and a small pencil.

I got a lot of strange looks. So I decided to stream line. I still carry tons of stuff, but most of it is integrated with my bag (which is a surplus rucksack that's been modified beyond recognition). Nowadays, when I'm not with my bag, I typically keep just the necessities with me: My tan hat, my Leatherman Wave (http://leatherman.com/products/tools/wave/default.asp), my phone, keychain, wallet, paracord and carabiners (with which I tether my phone, keys, and wallet to my belt), business cards, and notpad.

There are only two items, however, that I only take off when I shower: My watch and my dog tags.

Today, I'm going to talk about my watch. It's a Timex Expedition T478719J (http://www.timex.com/gp/product/B0000TIJ40). It's been a really great watch. So much so that I've actually owned two of them. I had the first one for years until I cracked the glass and couldn't read it anymore. I forget where I got it originally, but I got the new one at Wal-mart for about 25 bucks.

I always thought it was black, but I've recently learned it's blue. Apparently, I'm colorblind.

This watch does everything I could ever want and more. I use most of the functions (other than the chronograph/stop watch) very regularly. In addition to telling the time, it's equipped with a timer, 3 alarms (which can all be set to either weekends, weekdays, or daily), a date function (with day of the week, month and day), two time zones, and 24-hour time. My favorite feature is the way you set the clock (or alarms). It's got two buttons, one for going forward and one for going back. So, if you're setting the alarm and you accidentally skip past the minute you wanted, you don't have go all the way around again; just go back one. And the AM/PM is set separately from the hour, which makes it so easy to set.

And the face has Indiglo (a light). I find this very useful. Just hit the button and the face lights up for a couple of seconds. It's very easy for me to bash the button against my forehead and turn it on with just one hand. And it's really bright, so I can use it to find the keyhole when I'm coming in late at night. It's also got a night setting for when you're on night missions and need to set the timer or alarms or use the stopwatch at night. Hold down the indiglo button for a few seconds to turn it on. Then, pushing any of the buttons will keep the light on.

The band isn't super great, but it does the job. On my first watch I had to replace the band a couple of times. I don't really like the leather/suade/cloth combination. When I had to replace it, I switched to a plain old black nylon strap. I prefer function over form and like for things to stand out as little as possible. For a while I was using one of those velcro straps, but it was way loud, got caught on stuff and started to smell funky after a while. I much prefer the nylon one that I switched it out with. I'll probably get that kind when the OEM band wears out.

I recently scuffed the face, which makes me sad. One of these days when I get some time, I'll have to buff it out. I can't imagine it being too difficult.

In summary, it's a really sweet watch that lives up to it's brand. I'll happily replace this one with another of the same model when the time comes. I would recommend this watch to anyone who needs to know exactly when it's time to party.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Keyboard

2007-10-07T23:04:00.000-04:00

After a while of using the same keyboard in an area where you do other stuff like eating and drinking and carpentry, you'll find that the keys become a little sticky because of the crust that forms in the tray under all the keys. And, even thought you might dust and keep clean your desk, you'll notice that dust builds up (along with missing pens and rubber bands) underneath the keyboard. This happened to me a while back.

I decided that my keyboard needed a make-over. The first thing I tried to do was clean up the key-crust. To start this operation, I first had to pop off all the keys. This was easily taken care of with the aid of a pocket knife. I was able to use a toothbrush and some compressed air to clean the tray and all the keys.

While I was at it, I created a skirt with duct tape. The skirt would drape around the edges of the keyboard, touching the desk so that dust and pens and crap could not get under the keyboard and leave a disgusting surprise for me the next time I tried to clean my desk.

It wasn't until I had turned my computer on and reattached all the keys that I had realized what I had done. The space bar didn't work.

Actually, it did, just not correctly. See, all the keys are attached to the board via one little post in the center of the key. All the normal keys are so small that the one post is sufficient. Larger keys, like the Enter, Shift, and Space bar, require assistance. Without the aid of a metal bent-paperclip-looking thing, if you push down one side, the other side comes up, like a see-saw pivoting on the center post. Because of this pivoting action, the post is never depressed and the keystroke does not register.

My space bar's paper-clip thing had broken during the cleaning. Over the next few months I would try to repair it with hot glue, paper clips, duct tape and all sorts of other things, never to any success. It was really getting on my nerves because sometimes it just wouldn't register, and other times it would stick and I'd have to pry it back up.

Today, after a couple of hours of work with some cardstock and hot glue, I managed to fix the issue. My space bar is now wonderfully responsive and makes typing a pleasure.

Yeah, I could have gotten another keyboard. In fact, I have a lot of other keyboards. I just like this one. It's got a row of hotkeys which are super useful for volume control and Hibernation. I picked up a replacement keyboard at Office Depot, but it didn't feature the Sleep key, which I use at least once ever day. So I returned it, getting back my 14 dollars (which was a rip-off to begin with... the one I've got costed $10.) I figured after enough time, I'd figure out a way to adequately repair the afflicted key.

Which I did. And now I'm happy.

Until next time...

~~Ben

Beer + Mustaches

2007-10-07T04:07:00.000-04:00

Today was a rather eventful day. More eventful than most days. I woke up around 2PM because it's Saturday and I like to get a lot of sleep on Saturdays. I ate a bit of food, drank a coke and worked on a paper.

After the paper was done, David and I decided to go get some food. We called up Tombo to see if he wanted to come with us. By 7, David, Thomas, James and I were at Buffet City eating way too much. Let me tell you something. Mongolian Grill is the shit. It's like low mein, except you get to pick what you want in it. And it's super awesome. So that's what I ate. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Back at Thomas's place, we looked at some of his sweet comic strips. They're top secret, but with any luck, will be published in the school paper next semester. At which time, everyone will explode due to their sheer awesomeness.

A little later, we rented Beerfest. It's by Broken Lizard, the same guys who made Super Troopers. It was super funny. It wouldn't have been quite as funny had we not stopped by Albertson's for a couple of six packs.

I don't drink much. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been drunk. Recently, however, we've decided that a good time can be had of a good movie and a few brewskies. We don't drink heavily and it's not to get drunk, so we always make it a point to try different brands and styles of beer. Tonight's selection featured some Portuguese beer and six pack of Dixie Beer.

Again, I don't drink much. I don't know much about beer. I do know what I like. I like Dixie Beer. It's definitely one of my all time favorites. I don't even really know at all where to begin describing a beer, so suffice to say that it is really good, and I'd probably buy it again.

After the movie, we decided to take a drive. "Don't drink and Drive, Ben!" Yeah, yeah.. I know. But I wasn't even buzzing. I'm a big guy and it was on a full stomach. I know when I'm not fit to drive because I'm usually not fit to drive, but do it anyway. Tonight I was definitely okay to drive.

Looking for something interesting to do, we stopped at the Park. I've heard stories that gay, sex-crazed zombies live in the park and like to rape innocent pedestrians at night, but David assured me that this was false. We took a lap around the pond and, sure enough, saw not one single zombie. Oh well. We did, however, happen upon a small group of African American youths with baseball bats. David, the largest and drunkest of us, was super tense and ready for a fight. The black guys were busy drinking some vodka and joking with their girls and didn't bother us as we calmly walked past. Good thing, too. As big and scary as David is, there's no way we could have taken on a couple of bats.

Leaving the park, we drove around for a bit and landed at the 24hr Wal-Mart for some soda because we were a bit parched from the clammy, heat of the South Louisiana night. In the parking lot, looking for a place to park, we drove past a couple knocking boots on the hood of their car. Stunned, we circled a few times, just to make sure we saw what we thought we saw. And we did. But we were thirsty, and headed inside.

Normally, we'd walk around the store for a while, killing time, but this particular night, all we wanted was a soda. So we mostly hung out by the vending machines at the entrance. It's probably the only place in America where you can get a coke for 25 cents. It's awesome.

While we chilled, a black guy came up and asked if we knew the number of a towing company. We expected that he was a hobo looking for a hand out. But he assured us that he worked off-shore and just got back. He's pretty well-off and this is the first time in years that his truck had broken down. We also learned that he and his family were from Jeanerette and that they'd be moving pretty soon because it's a bad neighborhood and he doesn't want his kids to get shot while playing in the yard. He bid us adieu and left as quickly as he had come.

It does my heart good to meet a good guy like that who doesn't want anything and is embarrassed to even ask a favor. It does my heart wrong to see the list of missing children on the bulletin board by the door. I figure at least a few of those kids just ran away. The majority probably were taken against their will. Including the 49 year old in the top right corner who I joked about, causing the girl working the door to reprimand me.

After failing at the crane game, we looked over to the quarter machines. You know... those vending machines with the cheap little toys? The Japs have the Gashapon machines with high quality stuff, and we get the ones with the cheap plastic whistles and temporary tattoos.

This one, however, had a thing of beauty. A mustache. Of coarse, seeing the furry prize, Thomas had to give it a go. "Dude, don't waste your money, what are the chances of you getting one?" And, of course, he did. It was a fetching, raven haired handle bar which was easily applied to his upper lip thanks to its adhesive backing. If only we could grow real ones as glorious.

The night drew to a close. Before heading home, we stopped in at the free carwash to try and get David's truck washed. It's not really free. We just discovered a bug in the payment system and exploit it. You're supposed to put your money in, receive a ticket and then punch in that ticket on the keypad. The ticket number isn't really important because, in reality, you can punch in any 5 digit number and it will work just fine. Unfortunately, the machine had been fixed and David's truck remains dirty.

After that let down, we decided to call it a night. It was 2AM and it had been a long evening. There would be other nights for other adventures and this night had come to an end.

Until next time,

~~Ben

MySQL Date Manipulation

2007-10-05T23:31:00.000-04:00

At school, we use Windows boxes with .Net 2.0 and MS SQL Server. That's what we learned in class. .Net and SQL Server. The server that Poonheads.com is hosted on is a Windows box with .Net 2.0 and SQL Server. I used C#.Net to program most of the applications that run on Poonheads. I like using Visual Studio and .Net and SQL Server.

At work, we use LAMPs. Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Needless to say, that is not a Windows box with .Net and SQL Server.

Not saying I hate it. I actually like PHP. That's what I used in highschool and that's what powered the first few versions of Poonheads. It's just that development takes longer, as it doesn't have a sweet IDE with a drag and drop interface.

And also, I'm not certified in MySQL. Sure, a lot of things carry over. SQL is SQL, after all. Unfortunately, a lot of the awesome stuff I learned to do with my SQL Server certification, I can't do with MySQL. Mostly because the version we use is super old. If I could use subqueries, that would be one thing... but no. It makes my life a little more difficult.

So, I started a big new top secret project today. It's not a super complicated database. I've got start date and a duration. Two different tables. What I need is an end date. Doesn't sound to difficult. Just add the duration to the start date. But what you may not think about at first is that you need to take into account the variation in the days in a month, and what if it goes into the next year? And what about leap year?

Well, all these things make getting that end date a little more difficult. Luckily, PHP has some built in functions that make dealing with dates a lot easier. What I came up with looked something like this:

  //get the start date
  $query = "SELECT startdate FROM someTable";
  $result = mysql_query($query);
  $row = mysql_fetch_object($result);
  $startdate = $row->startdate;

  //get the duration
  $query = "SELECT duration FROM otherTable";
  $result = mysql_query($query);
  $row = mysql_fetch_object($result);
  $startdate = $row->duration;

  //get the end date
  $endDate = strtotime($enddate." + ".$duration." days");

Now, the actual code was a bit more complex, but that's basically it. It may not look like a big deal, but it's very clunky. Especially if you have to do it a hundred times (once for each row). If you're crafty, you'd be able to shrink it up with a JOIN, which would make it easier when you start having to loop through the whole list:

  $query = "SELECT a.startdate, b.duration FROM someTable a LEFT JOIN otherTable b ON(a.ID = b.ID)";
  $result = mysql_query($query);
  while($row = mysql_fetch_object($result))
    $endDate = strtotime($row->startdate." + ".$row->duration." days");

Simplifies things a bit. It's sleeker... more elegant, if you will. But it's still not what I want. It works, but because the $endDate is outside the query, I can't throw in an ORDER BY and have it order the results by the end date. In order to order the results, I'd have to stick everything in an array, then sort the array using some custom compare function. That's a lot of work. If I could get MySQL to do everything for me, that would be great. If I could get something like "SELECT (a.startdate + b.duration) AS endDate FROM ... I would be in business. Unfortunately, that doesn't work.

That's when I discovered this article: http://www.devshed.com/c/a/MySQL/Date-Arithmetic-With-MySQL/ . Thanks to these guys, I came up with this:

  $query = "SELECT FROM_DAYS(TO_DAYS(a.startdate) + b.duration) AS endDate FROM someTable a LEFT JOIN otherTable b ON(a.ID = b.ID) ORDER BY endDate";
  $result = mysql_query($query);
  while($row = mysql_fetch_object($result))
    $endDate = $row->endDate;

That makes MySQL do all the heavy lifting. A lot easier than the insanity that would have been produced if I tried to come up with some crazy array sorting algorithm. The code in this post hasn't been tested, but the code I used in the project worked like a charm. I was pretty happy with myself. So happy, in fact, that I decided to treat myself and go home at quitting time.

Until next time,

~~Ben

The Knife Collector

2007-10-04T23:29:00.000-04:00

I like knives. I've been attracted to knives since I was a kid. There's just something about them that appeals to me.

I suppose it could be argued that it's some kind of latent homosexual tendency because of the phallic nature of the knife, but that argument could be made for a lot of things. I think it's more of a nerd thing rather than a gay thing. It would be one thing if I were a hunter who hunted and stuff, but I'm not. So it must be because I'm a nerd. For some reason, nerds tend to be attracted to knives and swords and guns. Nobody really knows why.

I feel so ashamed when I walk past the knife case at Wal-Mart or Academy and pause for a minute to look at the new Bucks. I try my hardest to be non-nerd in public, but it's so difficult sometimes. It's embarrassing, but sometimes you just can't hide who your are.

So, why knives over guns or leather thongs? Sure. As weapons, they're not as effective as guns, but I can't say I've ever been in a gun fight. Guns, however, are illegal in Russian knife fights, so I'd say it evens out. And leather thongs tend to make my balls hurt. I think the thing I like most about knives is the utility. You can do lots of things with knives. Like cut things. And if it's a Swiss-Army knife, you can uncork wine bottles. But mainly, you can cut things.

So, anyway. I like knives. I own a lot of knives. I have big knives and small knives. Some of them were really expensive. Others... not so much. In fact, out of all the knives I own, the one I use the most is a cheap, single blade tactical folder.

It's about 4 inches closed, 7 inches open. It's mostly stainless steel with cheap plastic grips glued onto the sides. It's got a pocket clip on the backside, which I never use because it sits on my desk where I'll always know where it is. The thumb post (which can be changed around for left-handed use) allows for one-handed opening, but I've loosened the action so that I can flick it open rather easily without using the thumb-post. It's a locking blade, but it won't lock unless I flick it open real hard. The clip point blade is partially serrated which makes cutting through cardboard really easy.

I mostly use it as a letter opener, but it lends itself to general desk type cutting. It cuts tape, sharpens pencils, opens packages and cleans fingernails. In a pinch, I suppose I could kill a bear with it, but I rarely get attacked by bears. And I've got other knives that would be better suited for that purpose, anyway. Also, it gives me something to play with while I thinking of something to write about.

So, it's not a super good knife (it's not even very sharp), but I like it. I'd probably be lost without it and if ever it gets lost in my seat cushion or under my keyboard, I would probably cry.

I've said all I can say about this particular knife. I have others, though. I'll probably discuss the rest of my collection in more detail in the future because coming up with new and exciting things to write about ever day is really tough. Regular features make my life a lot easier. So, look forward to future knife write ups.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Hershey's Chocolate Syrup Cap

2007-10-03T20:44:00.000-04:00

Hershey's Chocolate Syrup is a pretty amazing thing. As someone who enjoys chocolate very much, I know this from experience. You can put it on just about anything. Or everything. Very few things can boast of this ability. Honey and Cheese are the only other two that I can think of off the top of my head. Neither of those, however, contain chocolate.

I put chocolate syrup on all sorts of things. I've been known to put it on cereal in the morning. On waffles. Toast. Ice cream. I put it in Coke. And everyone puts it in milk. As far as chocolate milk goes, the only thing that could even try to rival Hershey's syrup is Nestle's Quick. They don't have to be mutually exclusive, however. You can use both. And they're in separate leagues all together... one's a syrup and the other a powder.

Apart from the temptation to drink straight from the bottle, there's only one negative to be found with chocolate syrup:

The Cap.

As long as I can remember, chocolate syrup came in a curved brown bottle with a white and black pull top with a clear lid. Much like a sports bottle. Or a Poon Jug, for that matter. There is no good reason that this type of cap should have ever graced the top of a Hershey's bottle.

There are many methods for dealing with this type of cap in relation to Hershey's bottles. One method is to do as you would with a sports bottle. Pop off the clear lid stick the cap in your mouth and pull it open with your teeth. This is good if you live alone or enjoy drinking it straight. It's not so good for anything else.

My preferred method is as follows:

1) Remove the bottle from the fridge.
2) Remove the clear lid and place it on the counter. After several uses, the rim of the cap will be covered in chocolate and will leave a delicious brown ring on the counter top.
3) Grip the brown top with thumb and index finger.
4) Pull up, opening the cap.
5) Lick up all the syrup that is now covering your fingers from opening the cap.
6) Apply syrup to its destination.
7) Replace clear cap.
8) Put bottle on counter top.
9) Smack top of clear lid, which pushes down the brown cap, closing the bottle, while at the same time smears excess syrup all over the inside of the cap.
10) Return to fridge.

This is super messy.

A couple of months ago, I went to the fridge to fetch my Hershey's syrup when I discovered that all of these issues had been solved in a brand new high-tech cap design (http://www.hersheys.com/syrupcap/capology.aspx) . I was elated. With this new cap design, the efficiency my syruping process was greatly improved:

1) Remove bottle from fridge
2) Flip open cap
3) Pour syrup
4) Close cap
5) Return to fridge

No mess. No wasted effort. No wasted chocolate. One less thing for me to lose sleep over.

Weeks later, I returned to the fridge for another round of syrupy goodness. The previous bottle had been emptied and in its place was a brand new, freshly opened bottle. With the old cap design. My heart dropped. My hands trembled as I reached for the antiquated receptacle.

Why and how could they return to such an inefficient piece of garbage when the benefits of the new cap were so obvious? I poured my syrup and stirred my chocolate milk. I replaced the bottle and walked through the living room, pausing for a moment, looking into my cup.

"If I ever find the guy who changed the Hershey's cap back to the old style, I'll kill him. Mark my words."

Glenn looked up at me and said, "What the hell are you talking about?" I retold the story of chocolaty horror, to which he replied, "That's probably just an old bottle that we found in the back of the cabinet.

I was visibly relieved. The R&D department at Hershey's was saved for the moment. No one would have to die today. The world made sense again. If only for a little while.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Blogger Hack

2007-10-02T21:07:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, while making my daily post here, I realized one thing that my custom news poster has over Blogger: I can make custom tags. My news poster lets me put [URL]http://www.poonheads.com[/URL] and automatically makes it into a link. Yesterday, I had to write out the full HTML, which annoys me.

That got me thinking... I don't have any control over the server side of the app, so I can't add custom tags in there. But I *DO* have control over the client (or at least enough to make a difference). So I got to work with some javascript haxing.

I'm not too good with either javaScript OR regular expressions, but I make due.

var pees = document.getElementsByTagName("p");
var RegExp = /\s(http[s]?:[/]+[\S]+)/g
for(var k = 0; k < pees.length; k++)
{
    pees[k].innerHTML = pees[k].innerHTML.replace(RegExp, " $1");
}

The Blogger template gives me crap about malformed xml, so I crammed it into a .js and put it up on my server. It's at http://www.poonheads.com/replace.js . It's not 100%, but it gets the job done. Using the same principle (and a lot of wasted time making up regex's) I could probably hack up all kinds of stuff.

If I plan on doing a lot of code excerpts, I should probably hack up the <code> tag to display angle brackets and spaces. But I'm really lazy so I might not ever get around to it. Probably won't ever get around to it. But you never know.

So, do I get to call myself a javascript hacker yet? This counts, right?

Anyways, if you want more info on regex or javascript check out http://www.regular-expressions.info/ and http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp respectively.

Until next time,

~Ben

Of pngs and Feeds

2007-10-01T23:02:00.001-04:00

I managed to shoe horn the RSS feed into the front page of Poonheads.com. You can get to it, by the way, by hitting the Home link in the menu there at the top of the page.

Now, this was a challenge for me. At work, I mostly use PHP and javaScript. In all my wisdom, however, I decided to program poonheads.com in C#.net 2.0. I hadn't touched the code in about a year and a half when I initially wrote it ( and it was fresh in my mind from my .Net programming class).

Originally, the main news post on the front page pulled from an XML page on my server. It was just a matter of changing the reference to the Blogger feed. And adjusting to the feed's new schema. Which sucked because my xml file is really simple and the blogger feed was very much not simple. So it took a lot of trial and error. I provide you now with the code. The secret was the InferSchema part.

   DataSet newsSet = new DataSet();
        newsSet.ReadXml("http://poonheads.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", XmlReadMode.InferSchema);
         DataRow newPost = newsSet.Tables["entry"].Rows[0];
         lbl_title.Text = newsSet.Tables["title"].Rows[1][1].ToString();
         lbl_poster.Text = newsSet.Tables["author"].Rows[1][0].ToString();
         lbl_time.Text = newPost[1].ToString().Substring(0, 10);
         String body_text = newsSet.Tables["summary"].Rows[0][1].ToString();
         if (body_text.Length > 250)
         {
                  body_text += "...";
         }
         a_continue.Text = "CONTINUE READING";
         lbl_text.Text = body_text.Replace("\n", "<br />");
         a_continue.NavigateUrl = newsSet.Tables["link"].Rows[3]["href"].ToString();

So, I don't know if that helps, but that's what it is. I don't feel like commenting or explaining it. I figure anyone who's looking at this probably knows kind of what's going on and would be able to figure it out.

I'm not really sure of a good way to display code in blogger. I'll probably just put some border around the <code>s with css. That ought to work good enough. Which brings me to my next point.

IE does not properly support .png alpha transparency. I've always known this, but never really bothered until I downloaded the RSS icon, which used alpha transparency. I didn't really want to mess with making another one, so I decided on just looking up an IE hack. I found a couple, but the results were kind of meh.

So I present to you the only foolproof 100% effective way to deal with alpha transparency in IE: Don't use alpha transparency in your pngs. Use indexed pngs or use gifs. Create your design without having to rely on transparency and everyone will be happy. The end.

So that's all I have for today. Except this random youtube video David showed me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgnloJgui1U

Until next time.

~~Ben

Wisdom is Back!

2007-10-01T02:21:00.000-04:00

Welcome!!

The critically acclaimed, yet much ignored, original Poonheads.com feature has returned. Wisdom is back!

As you may or may not remember, the original Poonheads.com did not have a News section... it had Wisdom. I didn't want to limit the literary section of my site to just news, or just a personal blog, or just a place to discuss the technical aspects of my comicking. I wanted a place where I could combine all of these into one comprehensive collection. I wanted a place where I could write a thousand words of smart, thoughtful, prose that would complement the asinine antics of the characters in my comics. I wanted a place where I could share my wisdom with the world.

I don't mean to sound arrogant, even though that's how it seems sometimes. It just happens that I know a lot about a lot of things. I know a lot about things that many people don't think about. I think about a lot of things that people don't know about. Many of the things I think about are things that most people don't want to think about. I thought that my unique perspective on things would be of some use to everyone out there. Everyone who wants a unique perspective on things, anyway. And I thought my website would make a great vehicle for such perspectives.

As far as I know, not a whole lot of people actually read the wisdom. With the decline in comic production towards the end of Poonheads 2, I let the Wisdoms slip as well. Upon creating the current incarnation of Poonheads Dot Com, Wisdom faded completely into News where I primarily bitched about not having enough time to update and how stressed I was.

Now that Wisdom is back, however, I'll attempt to be just as insightful as I was once upon a time. With any luck, I'll update more often (perhaps daily). I'll try my damnedest to avoid writing about depressing emo crap. And I'll undoubtedly be as verbose as ever.

So, now that you all know what's in store, you're probably wondering why I've succumbed to a prepackaged, third party blogging software. I typically do things myself and tend to enjoy the coding and creating of custom apps. These days, I code all day at work and, in the very near future, I'll be programming a large custom app for the dean of my school. When I get home in the evening, the last thing I want to do is more of the same.

The current system is pretty good, why not just use that? Several reasons. First of all, it's cumbersome. I have to code everything by hand in either HTML or the custom markup I created. Also, the permissions on my server are always getting reset, so before I make a post, I've always got to go in and change the permissions back.

Secondly, I would rather trust the security of my data to someone who deals with it daily. That's what Blogger is. That's what they do and they do it well. Not to mention they're owned by Google. If the blog server goes down, Google will have to deal with it, not me. I dont' have to deal with tech support. It's all abstracted and very magical. And, because it's a different server, if my web server goes down or gets compromised, Wisdom will remain intact and online.

Thirdly, joining a community, such as Blogger, will provide more exposure. More exposure == more readers. With more readers, my wisdom will not go wasted into the night. What's the point of creating something if no one will see it? There's isn't one.

So, now that I've got an easier and faster way of getting my ideas down on paper (and by "down on paper", I mean "online"), I'll hopefully be able to retain the motivation to keep it up this time. Keep checking back to see what happens. Or don't. You're call.

Well, it's getting late and I'm finding it more and more difficult to form cohesive thoughts, so I think I'm going to go to bed.

Until Next time.

~~Ben

And just when you thought it was over...

2007-08-16T22:48:00.000-04:00

He goes and makes a new comic (http://www.poonheads.com/comics/Default.aspx?id=hotdogman). What's wrong with this guy? Is he crazy? A genius? A crazy genius? Or just a loser?

Hope you enjoy it. And also...until I get around to posting links to these on the actual site:

http://youtube.com/profile?user=benabus for my sweet videos.

http://benabus.deviantart.com/ for my sweet drawerings.

http://louisiana.facebook.com/profile.php?id=47900117 for my sweet face.

Until next time...

~~Ben

I Love Music

2007-06-12T22:45:00.000-04:00

Right, so before I get to this little nugget, I'd just like to throw down a quick little update on how things are going in Ben World...

First of all... Working full time sucks balls, but manages to be pretty awesome at the same time. It takes up a lot of my time, but I work with some cool people and don't hate my job.

Secondly, I've finally started on Captain Numbskull. For reals this time. I'm devoting a good part of my evenings to it. It's going slow but it's looking really good, In my opinion.

Now on to the Article: I love music.

Simple enough, right? Well, let me get into some details. For the most part, I enjoy music. All kinds. Mostly stuff that falls into the rock category. That being punk, classic rock, grunge, alternative, etc. I'm also fond of electronica, indie, pop, and even a little country and rap where relevant.

There are really only 3 bands that I am unable to listen to. Led Zepplin, Guns and Roses, and The Police. Not saying that they aren't good. They all have decent songs that I enjoy on the occasion. In general, I have to change the station when they come on, though. A lot of their music is long and drawn out and repetitive and not fun for me to listen to.

On the other end of the spectrum there are only 2 bands/musicians that I really really enjoy. Andrew W.K. and M.J. Hibbett. These are the only two musicians that I look up and say, "Oh, sweet. They've got a new album out. I must own it." I really love these guys. It's funny, too, because they are so totally different. That might be why I love them, though.

Details.

MJ Hibbett and The Validators (http://mjhibbett.tripod.com/) are a sort of indie rock band. It's very singer songwriter/folk-rock kind of stuff. And also, they're British.

Hibbett's songs are all good solid rock songs. Well put together. Catchy. Fun to listen to. The songs are, often times, about everyday kind of stuff. Hibbett's a real everyman. I can totally relate to what he sings about. I can feel where he's coming from and his songs speak to me. He's a wonderful songwriter, perhaps the best I've heard in recent years. Lyrically and musically, Hibbet's amazing.

And lets not forget about his band, The Validators. They seem to compliment each other fantastically. The percussions are solid, the bass is solid, the violin is solid, the backup vocals are solid. Everything just fits together nicely.

One thing that stands out, especially in their latest album, is the backup singer, Emma Pattison. Her voice is very unique and adds a ton of character to the music. She really puts the icing on the cake for me.

Now, Andrew WK (http://www.andrewwk.com/) is a character. I first saw him on MTV2 a while back. He kicked himself in the face. I was amazed. The energy and optimism he shows in life comes through beautifully in his music.

His first two albums could be described as nothing less than epic. A wall of sound. The energy exuded from this music can make your head explode. It is impossible for me to feel down when I listen to this stuff. Instant pick-me up. When I'm down or feeling stressed out about life... I put on some AWK and remember why I'm alive. It's nothing short of amazing.

His newest album isn't quite as epic as the first two. From what I understand, Andrew preformed most of the music himself and compressed it all together to result in an aural battering ram. For Close Calls, he utilized his backup band to a fuller extent.

While it's not quite as extreme, the talents of all his band members come through to form a full, more varied and complete rock sound. It is pleases my ears. The music isn't as intense, but the songs are better, by far.

With Andrew WK, however, it's not just about the music. It's about the message and the man. Andrew fancies himself a "motivational performer" and I believe that to be an accurate description. If ever there was a reason to believe that there is good still in this world, Andrew WK is it. His energy and charisma complement his music to bring about a message of hope. He may be just an average guy who loves life, but that doesn't mean he's not the best role model anyone can hope for.

The message he echoes is that you must enjoy life. Live it the way you want to. Never let down. That's a message worth listening to. As I've said before: It's helped me out of a bad place or two. I really thing that it could help anyone who needs it. It's just that amazing.

So. That's why MJ Hibbet and The Validators and Andrew WK are my two favorite musicians. I really don't play favorites often but when I say something is my favorite I mean it. When I say Hackers is my favorite movie, there's no gray area. Arby's is my favorite food. Ants are my least favorite animal. Hibbett and AWK are my favorite musicians.

Until next time.

~~Ben

A Long Long Time Ago...

2007-05-23T22:38:00.000-04:00

When I was a young man... I had tons of free time. Time that I would spend doing all sorts of awesome stuff. Had lots of energy. Lots of motivation. Dreams. Hope. Ambition.

Then I got old. I say that and people are all like, "Ben, you're only 22". Yeah, well... think of it this way... Assuming the average life expectancy these days is around 80 years. My life is already one quarter over. I'm 25% dead, already.

No, I'm not an old man. But sometimes it feels like it. Two or three years is a long time. I'm not as young as I was a few years ago when I first started this website. Time passes.Gas prices go up. Computer prices go down. Things change.

All I'm trying to say is that I'm not the same guy I used to be. I'm one semester away from graduating college. Then it's the real world. I've already got a real job, and let me tell you. Real jobs take a hell of a lot out of you. Eight hours a day behind a computer monitor is a lot more tiring than you might think.

That's why when I get home all I want to do is relax. Watch some TV... play my guitar... do nothing that takes much effort. I just want to chill. And on the weekends, I like sleeping too much and hanging out with friends. But still nothing really taxing.

I guess what this all comes down to is that recently, people have been bringing up the comic. Well... I'm not the same man I was a year ago. Making comics takes too much work. Not so much work as it is effort. Effort that could be put towards sleeping or eating or watching TV.

Don't get me wrong, I love comics and can never really quit. I've tried that before and it doesn't work. But I just don't expect to be making anything new any time soon. I've got a few projects that are kind of half-assed and going nowhere. I really would rather just sit back and watch reruns while chatting on the AIM.

So, what does this mean? Well, if you can't figure it out, then my readers aren't as intelligent as I thought they were. Poonheads: The Comic goes out, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Just fading out slowly. I've put my mark on the world with this nonsense, and I'm proud of that. I think I'll move on to something else, now.

Don't get me wrong. You can't stop The Poonheads. I've stated this many times before, mostly in the old Wisdom blog... Poonheads is not a comic. It's not a website. It's not a movie. It's not even a thing.

Poonheads is an idea... It is a force powerful enough to move small ponies. Poonheads:The Comic may be over but that won't stop it. Poonheads: The Movie never was and look how far that 'never was' has come. Poonheads will continue to exist as long as it is remembered. Even if it's only by me, Sterling and Pillboy. It will always exist. You can't stop the Poon.

Don't be surprised if you don't see anything further with the word Poonheads attached to it. That doesn't mean there is no more Poonheads. It just means that we've matured in some ways and want to take our Poontasticness to new levels, to new heights, and in new directions.

For example, after A-kon, I fully intend to make a real effort in realizing Captain Numbskull. But time management has never been my strong suit, and now that I have this job, it may never take shape. I'll keep my fingers crossed, though, as should you.

And of course, David and Pillboy are making a joint effort to produce some of the most horrifying comics ever produced. If they get enough of them by the fall, they'll try to publish them in the school paper. Keep your fingers crossed for that one, too.

But, then, don't be surprised if you DO see something with that grand old Poonheads logo slapped across it. There are many other mediums that I would love to see some good old fashioned Poontacular goodness in.

I really want to get a new video camera. I'd love to make a real movie. Maybe a horror movie. I'd also love to see a Poonheads: The Show. Like an online talk show or something. With Youtube being all the rage these days, I think it would have much potential.

And lets not ever forget about Poonheads: In Space. Need I say more?

But like I was saying to begin with. Three years is a long time. A damn long time. Yet, it seems like it was just yesterday that we were popping party poppers until daybreak. The Great Poonventure is still fresh in my mind. I can still recall making my very first post to Poonheads.com in the old Wisdom section.

A lot can change in those three short years, however. We've had many new experiences. We've lost old friends and gained new ones. Our tastes in music have changed (even though our taste in clothing hasn't). We've grown stronger and wiser. We've matured. We may deserve a punch in the mouth, but just because we're not the same old Poonheads that you've grown to love, doesn't mean that we're not still Poonheads worth loving.

We're still young. We've got three fourths of our lives left to live. 75% of our time here on earth left to make an impact. And I assure you, impacts will be made. Through this website and its comics alone, we've left a mark on the world. But that mark isn't big enough. We've left lasting impressions on many of you and permanently traumatized at least a couple. But if that impression isn't a lasting one... there's no point.

So we'll need to be bigger, badder, stronger, and more Poontacular than ever before. By the time we're done, sometime in the next 60 years, I assure you that we will be remembered.

~~Ben

Fruit Cock War II

2007-03-22T22:33:00.000-04:00

Suddenly... When we least expected it... Sterling unleashed a surprise attack with a banana-cock. We were slow to retaliate, but our response was anything but weak.

My prune-cock managed to penetrate Sterling's defenses, but didn't have the impact I was hoping for.

And that's when Pillboy hit us with a double cock onslaught in the form of a PinaColada-cock. Ravaged by his ruthlessness, Sterling and I retreated to plan our next move.

Pillboy may have won this round, but the war has just begun.

Check out the Images after the break.

Stay tuned for more non-stop cock drawing action!

The Super Pimps

2007-02-22T22:33:00.000-05:00

Saw this in Sterling's Facebook photo album. Thought it was relevant.

From left to right: Ben, Louie, Sterling, Crazy Giant Ninja in Vegas, Pillboy

This is a photo of the reunited League of Super Pimps. Who are the Super Pimps? They're pretty much the precursor to The Poonheads. Before we had a name, or a comic, or anything... We were the Super Pimps. Then Louie moved to Nevada. And we cried. Then, last October, we went to Las Vegas, to attend Louie's wedding. We haven't seen him since. One can only assume he's happily married, living with his woman in the rain forests of Siberia, vaccinating ice squirrels for rodent AIDS.

Incidentally, many of the early comics were to included Louie as a main character.. The 4th Poonhead, you might say. Unfortunately, they never got made. Things came up and the comic changed directions. I did manage to create one comic that combined many aspects of those early ideas.

Well.. Andy Griffith is starting, which means I need to hit the hay. Until next time...

~~Ben

It's Been a While

2007-02-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

Man, it's been a month. Over a month. I feel like I'm letting my sites go on the way side. I've got a bunch of stuff that I want to talk about, but I've been way busy since the semester started.

I've been working on my portfolio and my resume. I'm still working on the cover letter that I'm going to send to Google. I also need to add a link to it on the main page, next to the other sub sites. In the mean time, you can get to with portfolio.poonheads.com. It's got a links to a couple of my older sites, as well as my current sites. So it's really nothing you haven't already seen.

There are couple of good rants that I want to write up and post here, but I haven't had the time. Between classes, and Sanford and Son, and Heroes, and The Office, and Scrubs, and the whole internship search... there hasn't been a whole lot of time. I'll get to it, though. I want to write up a post on How The Internet Works and a DC vs. Marvel rant. Among other things.

But, seriously, I've been really trying to pull things together this semester. I'm ready to get out there and start life. And I'd like to start life off right. Preferably, with a sweet pad, a good job, and a steady pay check. Then, later, a hot wife, a big house, and a porch.

The good life.

Until next time,

~~Ben

And now back to your regularly scheduled program

2006-12-29T22:30:00.000-05:00

Where we join the Poonheads doing what they are usually doing... Just sitting around.

From left to right: Sterling, Pillboy, Ben

Picture taken by someone. I stole it off of facebook. Figured it was okay, since I was in it.

Friends Will Be Friends

2006-12-21T22:29:00.000-05:00

New comic up.

But before I talk about that, I'd like to advertise Campfire Comics. It's been a long time coming, and I'm glad I've finally got the ball rolling. What is it? Well... Check it out. Lots of information over there.

Now, about the new comic... It's not really very funny, but I've been meaning to draw it for a while. I know that Poonheads is usually pretty crazy and nonsensical... It's been getting more perverted and more bizzare since its inseption three years ago. Especially towards the end. Hell. The last few comics alone have had more testicals in them than most comics have during their entire run.

So, I guess this comic is a far cry from what we've seen recently. No balls at all. Not even much of a punch line. But that's okay. This comic is what Poonheads is really about.

Friendship.

Sure, sure. That may sound cheesy and a little queer, but it's a fact. Since its beginning, Poonheads has been about the friendship between the title characters. No matter what kind of crazy things happen to them, they stick together. They joke about each other, but it's all in good fun. Whatever happens... whatever disagreements occur, the friendship never fades.

The comic is, and always has been, an exagerated reflection of our real selves. Our friendship, however, is not exagerated.

Thinking back, until the Poonheads, I had no real friends. There were people I enjoyed hanging out with, whom I thought were friends, but when it came down to it, they really weren't. This newest comic is based on a true story. It was during this excursion that I realized what friends really were, and that the Poonheads were truely my friends.

Google "Friends will be Friends" by Queen. That song pretty accurately sums it up. In my opinion, anyways.

My step dad, when he's not being an asshole, is a pretty wise man. He once said to me, "If a man's got one good friend that he can count on in life, he's doing good." I've got more than one good friend, so I guess that means I'm doing really good.

Until next time...

~~Ben

SQL Server 2005

2006-12-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

Holy Crap! I'm a somebody now! That's right. You're speaking to an official Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in SQL Server 2005. Or MCTS, as we call it in the business.

What's that mean? It means that I'm awesome. And that I know pretty much everything there is to know about SQL Server 2005. I'll be getting all the good job offers and all the chicks now. And it'll be awesome.

Let me tell you... It sure feels good to be certified!

~~Ben

Mad leet guitar skillz

2006-12-06T22:26:00.000-05:00

Some of you may know that I'm a pretty sweet guitar player. In fact, I'm probably the best guitar player ever. It's okay if you don't believe me. My hardcore raw style isn't for everyone, and I can understand why people would say nay.

Those of you who know that I play guitar may be aware that I've written a song or two. And they're all really fucking awesome. When I'm not writing my own awesome songs, I learn other peoples awesome songs.

Probably the first song I ever learned to play on my guitar is Aeris's Theme from Final Fantasy 7. Having played this song for many many years now, I've played around and made it my own.

You can listen to my sweet ass rendition of said song here: CLICK HERE.

It's not the best recording. I used Sound Recorder and a shitty microphone. And also, I don't really know much about recording music.

Anyways. Let me know what you think. Unless you think I suck. In which case, you can shove it.

~~Ben

Scarred For Life

2006-11-24T22:25:00.000-05:00

New comic. Click Here. I warn you. It's extremely not safe for work. Lots of balls.

It's based on a true story. Of course, it's been embellished greatly for a comedic effect. That is all.

~~Ben

Carzorthade Guest Comic

2006-11-21T22:24:00.000-05:00

Hey all. I've not been updating as much as I'd like to. Busy with being not busy. You know. Anyways. My friend Chris over at Carzorthade has been pretty busy, also. So busy, in fact, that he's fallen prey to the "Oh yeah... I've just been busy. I'll be updating again soon. Just be patient" beast. So, I made up a guest comic for him. You can find it at his site, or here, on Poonheads.

I just made it as kind of an inside joke. Poking fun at a buddy. But I've been told that it's pretty funny on its own. Apparently, puppets are pretty funny in and of themselves. Who knew?

~~Ben

Poontonic

2006-11-08T22:23:00.000-05:00

My new favorite drink: PoonTonic, or a P&T for short. Basically, put some tang in a glass (2 Tablespoons/half a scoop). Add tonic water in place of normal water. I use Diet Tonic water, cuz I need to watch my figure. Stir briskly. The tonic gives it an extra flavor and a little fizz. You can also mix up a whole batch in a Poonjug, but that requires shaking and waiting for the tonic to settle down and all sorts of hassles. I just do it per serving in a glass. It's good. I encourage you try it.

Facts:

Tonic water will cost you around 50 cents per liter. Which is cheaper than regular water, considering you'd pay about a dollar for a 20oz bottle.

Tonic water contains quinine. It has all sorts of magic powers. It glows under a black light and is supposed to act as an anti-inflammatory. So, it's good for muscle aches. Wikipedia Reference

Tonic water, alone, tastes sort of citrusy and bitter. It's not bad, but it's better when mixed with poon.

Cheers

~~Ben

Moving in Stereo

2006-11-05T22:21:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know, one of my many hobbies is stereoscopy. That is, taking 3D pictures. The concept is simple. You have two eyes. Each eye sees things from a slightly different perspective, thus creating depth. This effect can be duplicated with cameras by taking a picture with two cameras (a few inches apart) at the same time. Then, if you put the two pictures side-by-side, and cross your eyes so that the images overlap, you get a 3D picture.

With a 'stereo pair', you can do all sorts of other things. You can make an animated "Time-Space Jiggle", where the animation flashes on image, then the other, then the first, etc. tricking the mind into seeing depth. You can use a computer program to create a depth map. You can make up one of those "red-blue" 3d glasses images. You can even make a magic eye.

So what's my point? Well. Yesterday, I finished setting up a server in my room. This would be the 3rd computer in my room: My laptop, my desktop, and now my server. I was explaining to a friend about how awesomely geeky I feel, now that I have 3 monitors closely surrounding me for no real reason. He told me to take a picture. So I did one better. I took a stereograph. And, for your viewing pleasure, I present to you... My desk setup in 3D:

The Stereograph Just cross your eyes until the two images are on top of each other

The Animation with Time Space Jiggle. No eye crossing required

One day, I'll trade in my cheapo home made stereo camera for something that takes decent pictures. Until then, I'll continue using this baby.

So, until next time.

~Ben

Phishing

2006-10-29T22:21:00.000-05:00

There's a new thing going around. "Anti-Phishing" technology. What is anti-phishing technology? Well... It's technology to prevent phishing. What is phishing? Well... there lies the problem.

Phishing is essentially when a bad person spoofs a legit website to obtain user information. So, the user enters their username and password into this fake site because they think it's a real site. The user info is sent to the bad person's database instead of the real site's user authentication system. The bad person uses that information to rack up charges, empty bank accounts, etc.

It's a scam, obviously. That can only effect stupid people. People who deserve to get phished. In the majority of cases, people like e-bay will say something like, "This is the only ONLY URL that you should be logging into: http://someURL.com". When a phisher sends the face address for users to 'login to', the url looks like this: http://avalulmmveriuo.com/userloginpage/. Only a fucking moron would click on said fake url. in the case of a clickage, only a really big fucking moron would not bother to check that this e-bay address is actually an e-bay address.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that anyone who falls for a phishing deserves to get phished. Instead of creating all this anti-phishing technology, they need to educate the masses on phishing. Sure. It happens, but it would happen a lot less if people knew what they were dealing with. It's like creating anti-fire technology instead of telling people that FIRE WILL BURN YOU.

~~Ben

Vegas Poonventure - short version

2006-10-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

So, Louie got married this past weekend. Congrats to the happy couple. She's really awesome. Louie's a lucky guy. So what's this about a Poonventure, you ask?

Well, the wedding was in Las Vegas, Nevada. Since Louie is our long lost 4th Poonhead, we thought it only fitting to crash the wedding. So, Sterling, Pillboy, and I hopped a plane to Vegas for the second great poonventure.

I won't go into details right now, because I'm lazy and don't feel like writing too much. Lets just say that Vegas is a really cool, really crazy city that we wouldn't mind going back to. There was booze, sex, and violence. No, seriously. This poonventure had everything that a good poonventure should have. I've got so many stories from this weekend, that I could write a small book. It was a blast. Louie is probably the most awesome guy in existance.

Until I get some more time to write up some details, I'll leave you with a picture. It pretty much sums up the trip pretty well:

Sterling's Porn Card Collection (.jpg 2.3MB ... Very big picture. Lots of horrific detail)

Well. That's all I've got for now. Until next time. ~Ben

Moar Fruit Cocks

2006-10-17T22:18:00.000-04:00

Okay, so the whole "Update every day" thing isn't working out so well. I've had a lot of stuff and a lot of slacking to do. I'm gonna try, though. Update when I think about it.

So, here are so more fruitcocks for your viewing (un)pleasure:

Cocoa Nuts

Georga Peach

Good luck, everybody!

~~Ben

Fruit Cock War

2006-10-14T22:17:00.000-04:00

I know what you're saying... "Ben! You said you were going to try to update this thing daily. Not two posts later, you're already slacking off! What gives!?"

Well... What gives is this: Last weekend, I was having serious problems getting my scripts to work. It was a total pain. Then, I realized that I had all these projects and test to take this week. So I tried to actually study for them. And they were beastly.

I'm taking class for SQL Server 2005. It is supposed to help us prepare for the Certification Exam. That was one of the hardest tests I've taken in a while. There was so much information on it, it was insane. And that's only a preview of the Certification exam. I'm going to have to be doing quite a bit of additional studying for this baby. It sucks.

And I had a couple of other tests in my Networking class and in my Business Process Reengineering class. Not too bad, but because I spent all of my time working on the SQL test, I didn't study much for either of them.

On Thursday, I rode the Night Shuttle around campus with Sterling, doing some interviews. I have a project for my Process Reengineering class that requires my team to reengineer the process of picking up students for the night shuttle service. So, basically.. Thursday was a really long day.

On the bright side of things, the average Poonhead love life is looking up. We've all got prospective babes lined up, and Pillboy and I are making some headway in making Sterling realize he's dating the creature from the black lagoon. So, Life in general is looking up. HIGH FIVE! YEAH!

So, another thing that we've been working on is a... FRUIT COCK WAR. What is a fruit cock war, you ask? Well. it's simple, really. We draw anthropomorphic fruit with large penises, trying to out do the last entry. Like the Thunderdome, there are no rules and there can be only one winner.

Here's what we've got so far:

My entry (the first strike): GRAPE COCK

Sterling's response: Big Boy, The Kiwi

Rest assured, you will be recieving an up-to-date report of every major Fruit Cock assault until this thing is over.

That is all. Until next time...

~~Ben

Mr. T vs. The Poonheads

2006-10-07T22:16:00.000-04:00

I know I said I was going to update more often, but just as I got the motivation necessary to do so, my server starts spazzing. None of my update scripts were working for the most part of last week. And that is my excuse.

Comic News: New Poonheads comic. If you don't get it (more than usual), then you fail at the Internet and need to lurk more.

It's fall break for me, right now. I've had the past couple of days off, but I've pretty much wasted them sleeping. Not a bad thing. Just unproductive.

I haven't done much coding at all in recent weeks. The Campfire comics and my forum are pretty much on hold for the moment. Mainly because I'm lazy.

I commissioned Chris from Carzorthade to write the script for Captain Numbskull. In reality, I'm not really any good at writing stuff like that. It's got a whole different vibe from Poonheads. Its hard for me to write a coherent story.

Nothing else to report today. Later.

~~Ben

Web Design 101: Part 1

2006-09-27T22:14:00.000-04:00

Hey. I'm going to start a series of articles entitled Web Design 101. These short articles aim to inform and educate readers on an often overlooked part of webmastering. Web Design is often taken for granted, and with the advent of sites like MySpace, it is becoming increasingly evident that this new generation of netizens have no understanding of this subject.

The first article will look at a basic concept in design: Form or Function? There's a raging debate in some circles over which is more important. In my humble opinion, neither is more important. Both form and function are equally important and neither should be overlooked.

But what is "Form" and "Function"? Form is essentially the "pretty-ness". Form is how the site is laid out. Images. What it looks like. Its aesthetic qualities. Pop out menus, colors, fonts, etc. Does the site look pretty? Function deals with how the site works. The ease at which a site is navigable. Link validation. Accessablity. Is the site easy to use?

I've been making websites for a long time. I've come to the realization that form and function really go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. A good website should be attractive to look at and easy to use.

It is very possible to have one without the other. Some sites are completely utilitarian. 100% functional. They do exactly what they are supposed to do. But they are really ugly. People, in general, would rather use a site that is nice to look at. No matter the functionality, if a site is ugly, people would rather not use it.

On the other hand, some sites are all about looks. I've noticed a lot of personal websites that use lots of copy/pasted CSS. They look really nice, but they do absolutely nothing. Sites that have no purpose are a waste of hard disk space. To have a good website, your site needs to actually have a purpose.

The problem with sites like MySpace is that they allow users to completely customize the stylesheets for their websites, but provide no help in the design department. This results in users trying to make their sites look pretty with crazy backgrounds, clashing colors, transparent panes, hover effects. All kinds of crazy stuff. The problem is, these people don't know anything about what they're doing.

This causes the the sites to be difficult to navigate. Difficult navigation discourages people from using a site. There's no point in making a site pretty if people can't or won't use it. But people would rather not use a site that doesn't look good.

I'm being reduntant, but do you get what I'm saying? FORM AND FUNCTION.

Some tips/pet peeves:

Footer Navigation: navigation links are very useful at the bottom of the page. This way, users don't have to go back to the top of the website to continue browsing.

Color Scheme: Many users are colorblind. Others have crappy computers incapable of corectly displaying colors. Contrast can be more important than the actual colors. In general, blue-on-red or red-on-blue is a bad choice. I'm not sure why, I think it has to do with how computer monitors work. Do not use color to imply navigation/links. Again, users may not be able to see the links, thus impairing the sites ease of use.

Background images are bad. The vast majority of background images make reading the site very difficult. If using background images, make sure they do not conflict with the text.

White is a bad choice for background color. It's like staring into a lightbulb and causes eyestrain. Light grey is infinitely better than white. #eeeeee vs. #ffffff

Never ever ever make a page scroll horizontally. Computers are made to go up and down. Look at the mouse wheel. Vertical. Not horizontal.

Design sites for 800x600 resolutions. The majority of computer users set their monitors at 1024x768, these days, but you need to take into consideration all minorities. I'd like to say that you should design for VGA, but that's impractical.

DESIGN FOR INTERNET EXPLORER. It's true, IE sucks balls. It's not standards compliant at all. Unfortunately, IE is used by 90% of web users. If you don't design for IE, you're alienating the majority of web users. I'm not saying to ignore other browsers. Just make sure the site is usable in IE.

Take it easy on the ads. You'll notice ads all over my site, but they are part of the design. Ads should never get in the way of usability. Put them in high visibility areas, but make sure they don't break the flow.

Keep important information above the fold. The fold is the bottom of the screen. This way, important information is available without having to scroll.

If you have a logo, or main title in the header of your page (The visible header, not the <head> tag), make that a link back to the main page of the site. It makes things a lot easier.

Americans read from left-to-right, top-to-bottom.

If at all possible, write pages in an xml type format. Use div and span tags to logically group data. Use CSS for the majority of design/layout. This allows people to turn off the StyleSheet and still get a readable page.

That's all that I can really think of at the moment. Man. I was not intending this article to be this long. Oh well. I guess webdesign is just something that irks me. I'll probably expound on each of these tips at a later date. Future posts won't be this long, so try not to get used to it.

k-bai

~~ben

Awesome Time

2006-09-15T18:45:00.000-04:00

Oh man. Things have been pretty awesome. No new content on the site, really. At all. In fact, I haven't worked on the site at all in about a month. School started a few weeks ago, so when I'm not in class, I've been watching TV and relaxing. Cuz that's what I do.

This weekend I plan to write up an awesome secret script that I can't tell you about. But it'll be awesome. And I'll hopefully get it done this weekend.

I haven't worked on Numbskull, or Poonheads, or Campfire. But I have been coloring Jaks Tales by Chris Paluszek. His other comic, Carzorthade is really fucking awesome. Check that one out, too. It makes me giggle.

Other projects include video editing. I've been learning to use Adobe Premiere. I've been experimenting on some old video that we shot several years ago. I have a video for "I turned into a martian" by the Misfits over at youtube. I have some other videos up there too, but I won't link to them. I'm sure you can find them. There's a clip from the mythical "Poonheads Movie". Pillboy doesn't like those clips, though, so I'll never do much else to them. Eventually, I'd like to host all my videos in a subsite of poonheads.com. But I'm lazy, so who knows when that'll get done.

Speaking of video, we hope to start a new online talk show thing. The Poonheads Show. I don't know when that'll take off, though. Sometime soon, hopefully. It will be awesome.

In other, non-online news. I asked out a girl the other day. First time in around 3 years. It feels good. And she even said, "Yeah, okay". She's pretty awesome. I don't know if she'll be able to handle the awesomeness that is POONHEADS. I mean, one of us at a time? Sure. But all three of us. That'll take some effort.

Speaking of girls: Sterling got a new girlfriend. We don't like her much. She's really creepy and not too attractive. So, Sterling... if you're reading this: Dude... you can do better, man. The world knows it. Dump her ass. And, Sterling's Girlfriend, if you're reading this: GTFO.

That's about it. Maybe I'll get to updating this site more often. ... Nah. Anyways. Stay awesome.

Content! Yay!

2006-08-11T18:45:00.000-04:00

Hello, friends! As you may have noted, there hasn't been a lot of activity here. Well, just in time for the new semester, I've created a fresh new Poonheads comic. I got a sudden burst of inspiration and had to churn this sucker out. The 'script' is kind of old, but as with most of my grand ideas, I lack enough motivation to turn them into comics.

So why the sudden inspiration? I think it might have something to do with my new Poonjug. For a while I stopped drinking Poon in mass quantities, but now that I've started again, I've found the energy and drive necessary to get some work done. So there you have it. New comic. It's awesome.

In other news, I've got a working prototype of my Campfire Comics application. It's not pretty or even really user friendly, but it works. If you feel like testing it out, have fun. I'm needing to design a layout and stuff for it, as well as some instructions, rules, etc. I'll get to it eventually, I swear.

But now that that's working, I can focus more on the comicing and design stuff. The bulk of the programming is done, finally. I've still got to set up the scripts for a couple of my other projects, but it's all copy pasta. The coding is all done, I just need to throw it into its own little place and its own design.

So, what other things am I working on? I've got 4 pages of Captain Numbskull drawn out. I always wanted to make Numbskull a more traditional comic, but I had always invisioned it in strip form. After thinking about it for a while I decided to make a comic Book. So you won't be seeing it anytime soon. I'm going to wait until I've completed a whole issue before posting it. But at that time, I might even try publishing it. Who knows!

I also intend to make a home for our favorite rock band, Black Steve. They play only the most awesomest of music. That website will house said awesome music. And it will be awesome. Of course, I'm still really lazy, so there's no telling when I'll get any of this done.

IN ADDITION, I've discovered a new hobby: Stereoscopy. Like... 3D pictures. I've got these two cheap digital cameras and I've lined them up so that they work like a set of eyes. This results in two images of the same thing with slightly different angles. If you cross your eyes at them, it gives an illusion of depth. It's awesome. Here is an example. Try to cross your eyes at that picture so that the green dots line up. If you succeed, you will get a picture of yours truely in all his 3D glory. Have fun with that. :)

So, in conclusion: I'm awesome. Take it easy.