It's Almost 5 o'Clock...

....Which means I'm fiending for my commute home so I can work on other things.

Things that I need to do:

1. I need to kick myself in the ass and stop using my shitty modem as an excuse to not work on my project. I have an Amazon Web Services server running a guild website for my GW2 guild (which has been painfully inactive lately). I should just load it up there and use that instance as a host.
2. Once I'm done kicking myself in the ass, I need to break the damn code I've been pouring over so I can see what errors I can cause and, consequently, fix.
3. I also need to continue working through the programming projects in the textbook I have (yes, that one written by K.N. King that I was working out of ages and ages ago). I post my progress on these on GitHub. I think I mentioned that last week sometime.

I was working on one project that had a do loop in it, but my logic was obviously flawed, as the loop fired infinitely. My biggest question about loops has to do with the variables... And I may post up a thought process about them so I can work out the details of how they work. I'm thinking once I have that down, loops will come much easier to me.

Also on my list: working out some actual form of balance and continuity for the project I'm working on. I have a lot of features that I want to add to the base code I have and not much in the way of structure for adding them. There are huge-scope projects, like a different login system, and not-so-huge-scope projects, like adding in a racial selection menu to character creation. Content is taking a seat on the back burner until I can get some other details in place, but I've already printed up some material that should help me with that once I can spare the time to work on it.

Now, if WoW would stop sucking up all my time, I'll be in good shape.... *starts chanting "I'm not addicted" softly, feverishly*

Update of sorts

I'm terrible at this regular blogging thing.

Then again, I have usually made a point to blog about progress or interesting things I find pertaining to coding or scripting, and not much of either of those things have been happening lately (much to my chagrin).

I did take a huge step forward this week when I finally tackled an AWS EC2 Instance. EC2 is Amazon Web Services' virtual server service that allows 750 hours of micro instance runtime per month for a year, and you can host on Linux or Windows. There are lots of other services that fall under the "free tier" of Amazon Web Services, so go check them out if you feel it may help you out.

Right now, I have a private server running a game called Starbound. I wasn't able to get it set up without lots of help, namely a step-by-step guide from a kind fellow on Youtube who made a 15min video about a year ago. Starbound has been updated since, so it wasn't a perfect guide, but I was able to get it figured out. It is now plugging along quite happily on my Ubuntu instance.

Possibly the most difficult part of working on this project has been getting used to the lack of a GUI. I'm not good at that yet. I need to practice more and get better, and that was part of the reason I shied away from exploring AWS as a viable hosting option for a private server. Something clicked the other day, though, and I realized that I was never going to get better at it if I didn't give it a shot. So I went for it.

Now, I'll be looking into getting a Ventrilo or Mumble server set up for using in Starbound or any of the MMOs I play (GW2, FFXIV, WoW, SWToR) in either the same instance or a separate one. It is so empowering that it costs nothing and I have 100% uptime. I no longer need to worry if my internet goes out at my apartment, or if my computer auto-updates and terminates my server in the process. My next project will be to figure out how to work FTP on the virtual machine, so I can backup the universe files on my Starbound server.

As far as programming things, I have still been all over the place. I had a disenheartening chat with someone recently who managed to stick that small doubt back into my head that wonders if I'm ever going to feel like programming comes naturally, or if I will always fight with the logic. One of my biggest fears is that I will come to find out that I have spent so much time learning all of these things, only to be a mediocre programmer at best. I can handle being mediocre while I'm still learning; but to think that I'd be terrible at it no matter what I do is a hard feeling to beat.

Regardless, I'm plugging along with a Python class that is followed immediately by a C class. These are internet classes that are hosted by a kind person who believes in making programming easier for people to understand. His site, Learn Python the Hard Way, has helped me immensely. He encourages good study and research habits, points out tips and tricks along the way, and if you give him a little money, he offers personal 1-on-1 assistance via e-mail. I'm a big fan. ;)

Outside of that, I have been busy writing down ideas and plotlines for a major project. That keeps me busy when I'm not playing games or working. Maybe sometime soon, I'll be able to sit and hammer out more programming stuff. I also want to get a personal website up and running for myself, but that is pretty far down on the list of priorities. We'll see if it happens.

CSS Zen Garden

Perhaps lots of people already know about this resource, but perhaps not. I stumbled upon it last night while I was trying to figure out just what it was that I did to completely frog the skunk out of my website design.

CSS Zen Garden

Welcome to a website with general information and a multitude of design options to show just how powerful CSS can be. Each design can be downloaded and the CSS studied. Lots of the designs are also very well commented. The site is a little dated, and it admits that in the Resources section. But the designs are very inspiring, and they encourage using them as examples.

Progress on the Wordpress front has halted. I think it will be an option for another project, or a revise of the website down the road. For now, I'll be focusing on getting the design I have to do what I want without any advanced bells and whistles.

Code is Poetry

I found this on the Wordpress Website. I'm researching what it will involve to include a page on my company's website that will allow me to post updates on a daily or weekly basis. Wordpress has been mentioned in almost every resource I've read recently (that is anywhere near up-to-date), so I'm looking into it now.

Finding this at the bottom of their page was neat and I really like it. Click through the image to visit the Wordpress Codex, where I found this gorgeous little design piece.

All Over the Place

It has been a bit of a roller coaster for me lately, except without the rails for guidance. I'm not necessarily complaining, but it is certainly making my head spin.

I'll start by saying that this state of affairs is not a bad thing; it simply is the state of affairs. My direction changes every week, it seems. I don't really like telling people what I'm working on because I know by this point that something will change and I'll no longer be working on that thing I told them about.

This could account for my quietness here, despite having announced my return.

For a little bit, I had a bit of a programming mentor. We shared similar interests, played the same games, and really got along great for a while. During this time, I plunged head-first back into my C lessons. I read information from as many as three different resources, depending on which one was most convenient for the place and time. I also took up Python with an interesting approach of "code this and the instructor will show you why it works afterwards". That lasted until I reached the abstract "object" part of Python, and my mentor spent two hours trying to explain it over chat. I ended up grasping the idea, but I put off going back to the Python lessons. Instead, I read about more C.

This lasted until my mentor no longer had the time to dedicate to helping me. I continued, regardless, but I had a bit of a crisis in the meantime. The work I was putting in to learn C was for some pretty lofty goals -- goals that wouldn't be achieved for possibly years to come. Even the programs I had been brainstorming to automate certain systems at the printshop would have taken an enormous amount of time, and until I had something to show for it, I felt like I was a ship taking on water. The skill I was learning wasn't going to help me or my company by the time I could use it!

I'll take this moment to explain that I am part-owner of the above-mentioned printshop. Since 2012, when I became office manager, I have simply been putting in the time I need to and waiting to punch my card at the end of the day. My job started out being rewarding, but a combination of bad experiences with clients and the daily shifting deadlines had jaded me. The other business owners and myself spoke about selling the business, and since that was the plan, I didn't think too deeply on the details. Now, I realize that no one will pay what we ask if they don't think there is enough worth to justify it. Part of that worth is the online presence my business has.

During this epiphany, I was browsing some free coding classes. It was a Sunday morning. My fiancé was sleeping in. I was either going to find a free class or I was going to pay Blizzard money to reactivate my World of Warcraft account. Since nobody wants to teach C for free (or, if they do, they're hard to find), I was willing to take whatever I could get. What was the first thing that popped up for me?

HTML/CSS.

The course was on Codeacademy.com. They claimed you could learn everything you needed to know about basic HTML and CSS in 7 hours. I knew it wouldn't take me that long. So I completed the course in 6 hours. After that, I did a dummy page for a tabled project I had been mulling over. I showed it to my fiancé and after his outpouring of positivity, I began working on the design for my company's website.

I realize where this path takes me. Jquery/Javascript. MySQL. PHP. XML. There isn't much here that I can apply to C. But, there is a lot of information out there that I can accumulate. And once I learn it, it won't go away. This is a topic I can apply immediately to my work and will also help me immensely down the road.

So that is my state of affairs. In other news, House of Cards is an amazing series and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone (Kevin Spacey is fantastic). And I'll leave with a note that there could be a slight shift from C programming to web programming.