21 Sep 2008
This is a kind of warped-up strange partially humoristic tutorial for photoshop, I found it quite entertaining. It teaches you quite a lot of functions in photoshop dynamically throughout a set of videos (which can also be found on youtube.com).
In my honest opinion it seems quite crazy, but it’s really entertaining, and the guy is an interesting actor… The first few seem rather uncertain although as you reach further into every following chapter, you notice they get much more interesting, much more intense, etc.
The first video of the series can be located on this playlist on YouTube.
I mean, video #14 starts with the following phrase: MY name is donnie and you suck at photoshop… I.. I don’t have a lot of time.. right nn… nnow so you’re just going to trust me… you’re bad.
A wonderful little rabbit hole with an interesting story where you can learn a couple of Photoshop tricks on the journey!
19 Sep 2008
OK, so you are walking down the street, and make a brief stop at an ATM to withdraw some cash. On the way out two cops “withdraw” the money from you… That’s injustice.
It did not happen to me, but to a friend of mine, and it infuriates me how this world we live in becomes further more violent every day; no matter the efforts to make things better, society seems to **want **to deteriorate.
In this city I live in, you can’t trust in those who supposedly defend you, you can’t trust in justice, you can’t trust in the law, as all laws are overriden by those who execute its powers.
Let’s take a stance. No more violence, no more crime, no more envy, no more fighting. Do not empower an idiocracy. Let’s think progress.
14 Aug 2008
Ok, so you might think you are bored of your current job, maybe you think the administration sucks, or that they are assigning tasks to you that don’t correspond to your area. Maybe they are paying you less than what you expected, or maybe they are taking a bit too long in moving you up to the next rung.
It’s a complex world we work in, and the following applies to small and large businesses; The vast majority of employees are always looking for a better quality of life, more income, a better position, etc. The vast majority of employers are looking for more profits, better elements, less costs, etc.
You may think that you might be a very good resource, that your capable of doing so much more, but to the administration you are only another element that represents a cost to the business, and while you don’t generate more income the less cost you generate will be better for them.
Theres a point of equillibrium here that businesses must seek: Put you in a position of comfort, where you earn the salary you wish, but continue to work for the business, in a position that represents a moderate expense for them, which will keep both of you happy. Unfortunately, we are never happy with what we have.
So many times we find ourselves in this position in which we want a higher salary, but we’re afraid the administration will bounce us off, we also want a higher position, but maybe the business isn’t in that great a shape to offer it to us, or maybe they have other “better” candidates.
My tip here is: If you really feel you’re wasting your time, leg it, there’s no point in wasting time in a business that will never let you get anywhere better, but be aware of all the risks this has. Sit down and think.
In most cases I’ve found the problem isn’t the business, it’s YOU and ME. We get bored of our position, we end up moving business to business on a horizontal scale, we never get payed much more than our older job, we’re just wasting time switching looking for a perfect spot. The truth is there is no perfect administration.
The point I want to reach is that a change of attitute may help you think twice about moving. I’ve found out that being annoyed at yourself, at the business or at staff members only brings more problems. Even if you don’t like someone very much, or you find your boss annoying, put on a smile, come in everyday feeling good, positive, well rested, thinking about what’s going on now with your mind on the future.
If you have problems completing a task, never get frustrated, if you find you start to circle the same subject, get out, breathe, and attack it from another perspective. If you still can’t complete it, then try studying it, from different angles, and in some moment it will come to you. The more frustrated and distracted you get, the task becomes harder and takes longer, becoming more tedious, and increasing your motivation to leave, walk out, etc.
“Cause quiting alone will never get you dry” - Jimmy Eat World (Night Drive)
29 Jul 2008
I’ve been creating and modifying a few stored procedures for a ‘debt history and future payments’ report in a VS.NET app using SQL Server 2005 for the past days. Quite a bit of a task to be honest, but I have found something very useful while developing large stored procedures. Some times they can get out of hand, you know, with virtual tables, views, massive calculations involving aggregate functions and loads of inner joins.
Document everything! Changes, current status, this way you’ll have a clue on where you stand and what you must achieve, so even if things get out of hand this is always a good reference, and gives you a great focus. It’s also a very good guide when you finished it, and several months later your customer calls you nagging that it’s not working anymore. You go back, read all you wrote, and get a full view on it’s current status and what you must do to correct the mistakes.
An example of my style of documenting stored procedures is as follows:
/*###########################
Stored Procedure: [NAME]
Main Author: Persons Name
Modifications: Person, Person, Person
Current State: Not Working
Parameters: @idcatalog: Catalog ID
@parameter1: Description
@parameter2: Description
Test Parameters: 1, 100, 2044
General Info: This stored procedure does this
and that and something else,
unfortunately it does not work
because it is missing this and
that and something else.
LOG: 28.07.2008 SP created with initial values. (Me)
29.07.2008 Parameter 2 added for +reason. (You)
###########################*/
You’ll notice a good improvement in programming time per stored procedure even though it takes you a mintue or two to write it down. It’ll help you out quite a lot in the future, you’ll see.
21 Jul 2008
Here are my entries for 2 composition contest’s that were held yesterday on the Mod_Shrine, unfortunately I got last place in both, but in the end… it’s music, and it’s shareable :) You need a tracker that supports .IT files to play it, or modplug player. Download MPP here.
The Genuine Sound of Vomit
The spasm
(Right click and save these files to your PC to listen, it won’t stream off the internet).