I competed in the Oregon SkillsUSA web design competition again yesterday. The rules were the same as least year. We had four hours to build a website based on a fictitious website proposal. However, I went solo this time around and competed against six other teams of two. It was interesting to say the least.
After the competition I went to Red Robin with Sadie, her dad, and Emerald for lunch. I had the most amazing burger I’ve ever had in my life there. It was heavenly, epic even. I think it was called the Whiskey River BBQ Burger. The onion straws at the bottom are magical.
After lunch we went back to the competition for the awards ceremony. It was really long like last year’s. They awarded the winners in alphabetical order by competition name so web design was near the very end. Sadie and Emerald took third and I took first again. That makes me the two-time state web design champion monster. 
Here’s a link to the website I made. That’s what four hours, a computer, a Kit Kat bar, a bottle of water, and an iPod full of good music can get you.
Posted on April 13, 2008 in Code, Life, Web
I rediscovered my journal from fourth or fifth grade the other day. I wrote some “interesting” stuff back then. Here’s the first entry in my journal complete with mistakes.
May 20, 2001
Today I woke up at 9:30 to watch Rwall! Redwall is a T.V. show base on the book Redwall, written by Brian Jauces. When I was done watching Redwall, an hour later we went groecry shoping for Plenty Buffet. But, first we went to ABC to buy some shrimp, but then we realized we might be a couple hours till we get home and the shrimp would be dead by then. So we we to [insert Chinese characters] first. Then we went to [insert Chinese characters]. After that we went to Plenty Buffet to dropp of our grocies and went home. At home I mowed the lawn. Oh yeah, I for got that at ABC we bought some oysters. At dinner we ate some shrimp, oysters, and fish. I like the oysters the best. After dinner my mom cut my hair. Which took about 20 minutes. Now hear I am writing in my journel. oh, I for got to get my money.
This must have been a weekend because I used to go grocery shopping with my parents every Sunday. Life was simpler back then. The next entry brings back some memories.
May 21, 2001
At class today we did our morning routines as uasel. Then we read Bound for Oregon and did the questions. After that we did some math. One of the questions was so hard barely anybody could figure it out. But I managed to figure it out because one of my math books taoght me how to do that kind of proplem. By the time we were finished with math it was reccese. After reccese I got to silent read, which I enjoyed. My friend showed me the new book he got and he let me read a little bit and I enjoyed it a lot. We played kick ball at P.E. I liked to play kick ball. After reccese, the teacher said idenitie #6 (which was me and three other girls). The fate was that my wife got bit by a rattle snake. So I had to write how to treat the bite at home.
I think I was in forth grade when I wrote the journal entry above. We were learning about the Oregon Trail at the time. Mrs. Grilley, my forth grade teacher, created a game where the class was split into groups which raced to the end of an Oregon Trail game. It wasn’t The Oregon Trail computer game; it was more like Dungeons & Dragons meets Oregon Trail. My group won of course. 
I remember that day because my parents told me how to treat a snake bite. You have to tie off the limb just above the bite to prevent the poison from circulating, make two cuts with a knife where the bite is, and suck out the poisoned blood (and spit it out). That must be one of the few things I learned in elementary school that I still remember…
My dad bought me math workbooks when I was younger. I could do basic algebra by fifth grade. That’s part of the reason I zoomed through math in elementary, middle, and most of high school. It looks like I could have used some spelling and grammar workbooks though.
Posted on April 5, 2008 in Life
As I was sitting at my desk this morning reading my email, a new message arrived. When I switch over to the inbox view, I read the subject line of the new message and discover I have a new message on a social network I’m part of. How exciting—I don’t get these very often. I click on it to find out what it says, but I am quickly disappointed by a message telling me to go to the inbox on their site to read the message. What the hell?
They send me a message telling me to go check another inbox for a new message. Does anyone else see the redundancy in this? Then I wonder: why do they have a messaging system in the first place? If you think about it, all messaging in social networks really is just email. Why reinvent the wheel? Worse, why force people to check yet another inbox?
Let’s take a look at the differences between my MySpace inbox and my Gmail inbox.
Not much of a difference uh? From a developer standpoint this just seems counterproductive.
I can understand why some people might like this. It keeps things seperate. MySpace messages stay in one inbox and regular emails stays in another. But is there anything substantially different that people write in MySpace messages that merits separation?
So here’s my proposal: a social network messaging system that allows you to read and respond to messages via email. So if someone sends a me a message, the site forwards it to my email where I can read and respond to it—without leaving me email—and the site automagically forwards the email to the recipient who can respond however she wants to as well. Ideally the inbox on the social network would be kept synchronized.
Anyone who wants to implement this has my permission to use my idea.
Posted on March 29, 2008 in Web
By request, I added an option to make the widget title a link to the category page. You can turn this option on and off in the configuration dialog of the widget. It’s a simple checkbox.
I’ll add an option for post excerpts in the near future when I get my main laptop up and running again. I coded this feature on my secondary laptop which doesn’t have my usual coding software.
You can download the new plugin here at the WordPress plugin repository.
Also note that I’m closing comments on the other posts about Category Posts Widget because it’s becoming hard to keep track of them all across several different posts.
Posted on March 25, 2008 in Code
