Hello all.  Updates follow, categorized for easy digestion:

Wedding Plans: Not much progress on this front lately.  We did purchase some paper the other day to use for making “save the date” cards (a task we need to get started on).  Other than that, there isn’t much to do at this point.  We’re going to look at the guest list some more to see who’s missing and how many we have (we’re trying desperately to keep the numbers down so we don’t end up spending a fortune).  We were in the paper the other day!  Our engagement announcement appeared in Saturday’s edition of the Press & Sun Bulletin.  Check out our wedding website for a link to the announcement online.

Google Calendar Feed Parser: As many of you know, I wrote my first WordPress plugin recently and I’m happy to report good news.  My plugin has had 50 downloads so far with 9 being the most downloads in one day!  I’ve also had some comments on the plugin’s post on this blog.  Check out that post or its page on the WordPress Plugins site.

Future Plugin: My second plugin will come in the form of a directory application that can be integrated into a WordPress blog.  This idea stems from a directory app I’ve been working on for my church.  I recently set up a WordPress blog as the main site for the church and rather than have a separate login for the directory, I decided the directory would function better as a plugin to WordPress, thus allowing a user to access both the blog and the directory without logging in twice (creating a plugin is the only way I know of to accomplish this).  Look for more information in the coming weeks.

New computer: I’m in the beginning stages of building a new computer for my parents/sister.  Our Dell has held up over the years, but it’s just too old to handle Windows Vista (our new Dell laptop came with Vista and because we needed to be able to use the printer attached to the desktop computer from the new laptop, an upgrade to Vista was the logical solution).  Now, no one uses that computer because it takes so long to do anything on.  So after some researching online, I’ve come up with what I think will be the final specs and we’re going to purchase a few pieces at a time over the coming weeks.

New phone: I recently purchased a Samsung SCH-i760 off of eBay for a hefty price.  This was a long-awaited upgrade from my Motorola v325i and I have to say I’m very pleased so far.  I really like having a full keyboard and the touchscreen is excellent as well.  Joelle likes it because it has Solitaire and Tetris (which I have to say are quite nice).

Work: Work is alright.  I’ve had an opportunity to do more of the web development work that I was supposed to have been doing all along.  When I get to work on that, I like my job a lot more.  Somewhere around the beginning of August I’m being reassigned to a new department: the operations center.  This department monitors web application availibility, network traffic, server availibility, etc. for the entire site and many of the remote sites.  I’m looking forward to it.

I think that’s about it for right now, stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks.

I finished the online version of my résumé today.  To view the complete version (with contact information) you’ll have to answer a simple question about me.  If you don’t know the answer and you think you should, email me and I’ll decide.  Anyway, if you notice any glaring spelling errors please let me know via a comment or an email or something.

Other than that I’ve been working on my church’s website a little lately.  As soon as I work out some server issues and get some content up, I’ll post a link here for you to check it out.

Yesterday was mine and Joelle’s 3 year anniversary.  We started dating on June 5th of 2005, the first day of our senior class trip.  Now, 3 years later, we’re planning our wedding and our future together.  I love her with all of my heart and I can’t wait until we’re married so we can start our lives together!

So yesterday I took some time to create a website for Joelle and I to use for our wedding plans.  Right now all that’s been posted are the locations of the ceremony and reception but as we progress through the different planning stages we’re going to post all the relevant information.  Take a look and be sure to let us know if you have any questions or comments.

As may be evident by the title of this post, our team of 7 was not one of the 50 winners of the Android Developer Challenge.  We were informed by email Friday afternoon that, regrettably, we would not be receiving one of the $25,000 prizes.

In all reality I knew we didn’t have much of a chance.  I saw a few of the other entries that people had posted on the internet and our application just doesn’t even compare.  I’m proud of what we did and I had a lot of fun doing it… I wish we’d had more time and energy to come up with a submission that could have competed better with the top entries.

There’s another Android Challenge starting later this year, perhaps we’ll continue work on our application in preparation for another submission then.  At some point in the future the write-up we submitted (and possibly the source code) will be posted on our website.

Well, I’ve been home for a few days now, had a good weekend spending time with Joelle and my family.  Joelle and I went shopping on Friday night and I spent entirely way too much money on clothes for work (some of which was funded by generous donations from my parents… thanks for that $0.63 gift card ).  Joelle’s birthday extravaganza took place on Saturday.  We had spaghetti for dinner and cookie cake and ice cream for dessert.

Then Monday came and I started my job.  As I understand it, I’m going to be doing some web development using Java Server Pages for possibly two different applications.  At this point I’m trying to wrap my head around the structure of the application and the way the different pieces of hardware and software interact.  I think I’m going to enjoy what I’m doing, but that remains to be seen.

As far as I know, I’m going to be working Monday - Thursday all through the summer and fall, hopefully maxing out my hours right before Christmas.  My intentions are to save the majority of what I make so that Joelle and I will have some money to work with when we get married.

Completely off-topic: Android winners were not announced yesterday, as was originally stated.  Word on the street (if by street you mean internet) is that the judges final scores for the top 100 applications are due tomorrow (the 7th).  Hopefully they’ll all be on time and we’ll find out by Thursday who the 50 winners are.

I guess that’s all for now.  I should probably try to find something to do that justifies my hourly pay rate.

Today is Joelle’s 21st Birthday!  If you see her or have some way of contacting her, wish her a happy one.  I’ve got to get her a present this weekend (or maybe I already did…).

It has been a long time since I posted on this thing, so several items of importance follow:

First, an update on the RSS Challenge I mentioned that we had in COSI. I didn’t win, Ryan did.  My entry had some database issues and several bugs which needed to be ironed out.

An update on Android: We submitted our entry to the contest on the April 14th deadline and are now waiting anxiously to hear from them.  Winners for round 1 are notified on or about May 5th.

School: Last week was dead week (the last week of classes before finals).  That means I had a buttload of work to do and no time to do it all.  I had two programming assignments due last Thursday, a project presentation on Friday, another presentation this past Monday as well as write ups for each of those.  I had one final each Monday and Tuesday and I have two today (one of which is already over).  Good news is that I got everything done and turned in on time and I think I’ve done decently on all my tests so far.

I start my co-op on Monday and will be working almost full time from then until Christmas.  I intend to work on a few different things this summer, hopefully one of which will be Android (I really hope we win this first round).  When the fall gets here I’m thinking I’m going to follow along with the Cryptography course Tino is teaching via Ryan and Jake.  I’d like to take the course but I won’t have an opportunity since it’s only offered in the fall.

All that said, I have about 80% of my stuff packed and will be heading home tomorrow probably around noon.  Hopefully I’ll have time in the near future to mess with the theme and get the colors the way I want them (I know some of you have said it’s too light, too boring, etc.).

Sometimes people are very frustrating.

After tonight’s COSI meeting (which is now), I’m presenting my entry to the COSI RSS Challenge.  Unfortunately, it’s not ready for public consumption (still has some database efficiency issues, etc.) but pretty soon I will link to it here for people to try out if they’re interested.  There are a whopping two other entries to the Challenge by Jake and Ryan so I expect competition to be fierce.

Also being presented tonight is Jake’s Open Server Platform project.  It’s a really awesome server framework written in Erlang.  He’s just released version 0.2 and his project is attracting the interest of people not only here in COSI but all over the place.  His code is all open source and can be viewed on Google Code.

So as you all know, Joelle and I are engaged.  That means wedding plans are abounding.  It’s almost overwhelming the amount of things to consider when it comes to a wedding.  That said, it’s also a lot of fun.  We’ve already been all over the Binghamton area looking at reception halls and have settled on The Silo Restaurant in Greene, NY.  They have a very nice banquet room for the reception and lots of landscape outside that will provide a nice background for pictures and such.

Joelle’s already decided on a wedding dress that I think she’s going to be ordering this weekend.  Also, she went out to the craft stores with her mom last weekend and put together a test centerpiece for the tables at the reception.

Now, you may think to yourself, “Self, they’re starting this planning business really early aren’t they?  I mean, their wedding isn’t for another year and a few months.”  And you’d be correct, we are starting early.  But we’re lucky we did because many of the reception halls we called were already booked for the date we picked (which means there are crazier people out there). The truth of it is, I’m glad we’re starting early.  Planning a wedding traditionally has a great deal of stress associated with it and I want to minimize that as much as possible.  Starting way early gives us plenty of time to make decisions on all the important things.

So pray for us.  If you know anything about weddings you know there’s still a lot of things to take care of, from favors for the guests to honeymoon arrangements.  I’ll keep you posted here on the plans and if you have any words of wisdom, leave them for me.

April Fool’s Day was welcomed just 18 minutes ago (EDT) and already there are a wealth of pranks littering teh intarwebs.

First, I present to you the Global Internet Maintenance Organization (GIMO).  The GIMO is the organization responsible for the cleanliness and upkeep of the intertubes and has designated April 1st as its annual “Internet Cleaning Day”.  The GIMO’s very own Alexander Gotham sent out a mass emailing just today announcing this to all internet users.  For more information, visit their website.

Second, Google released a brand new service today called gDay.  Powered by MATE technology, gDay seeks to provide the user with tomorrow’s search results today.  Check it out here.

Third, the author’s of XKCD, Questionable Content and Dinosaur Comics have teamed up to present what I find to be the most humorous April Fool’s Day prank I’ve seen.  Take a look at their respective websites, keeping in mind which you’re clicking on.  I think you’ll find the results quite amusing.  Of course, this will probably no longer be valid after April Fool’s Day is over.

Fourth, heeding the requests of the aforementioned Alexander Gotham of the GIMO, P-Dub of pdub.net has brought his site down for spring cleaning.

Fifth, Zach and Ryan officially announced the end of the Clarkson Open Source Institute.  All hardware is either being sold or donated with proceeds benefiting the K12 Program and the MCS Department here at Clarkson.

Sixth, I saw this link at the top of my Gmail screen last night, but at that time it didn’t actually go anywhere.  This morning, however, it leads to a new feature in Gmail known as Custom Time.  Check it out for yourself.

What a funny day.  I will probably update this list as I become aware of new pranks, so stay tuned.