I brought the list a little more up to date, and added one that was a glaring omission from the original!

http://www.snotmonkey.com/articles/34-things-to-make-your-time-at-ncsu-more-enjoyable/

With the release of the Windows 7 RC, I’ve been poking around at it to see what’s new and different. And I’ve already done a couple of things that really improve the experience (for me). Since I couldn’t find them explained anywhere else on the net, I figured I would post them here.

The first (and easiest) is enabling multiple concurrent seessions over Remote Desktop.
http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22479&st=0

Very well explained, and the downloads can be totally byte verified. Works perfectly on Win7 RC (7100), either by following the directions manually or using their pre-patched DLL and install script (I tried both methods, same working result and same hashed system state).

So, I’ve been super busy working for Microsoft for almost a year and a half now. I have some plans for new content for the site, but it’s all a matter of time (which I have a serious lack of at the moment) to get things put up.

For the moment, a couple of projects I’ve been working on outside of work will have to do:

http://www.vcaddygolf.com is an iPhone application I helped develop and continue to advise on, and

http://www.bigclimb.org is the next charity event I’ll be participating in (this weekend!)

I hope everyone is doing well, and I promise more cool stuff is coming

Yep, I believe in this guy enough to send him money. I guess there’s a first time ever.

So it’s now April 2007.

Lots of stuff has been happening with me as usual. The big news is I’ve partnered with my friend Kevin Robledo at linemodern. We are planning some big things this year, so keep checking out this site and linemodern.com!

Also I’m trying my hardest to finish my Master’s degree this semester, but who knows if I will actually walk in May or in December. I’m just ready to be out and done and be able to make some money off everything I’ve been learning.

I’m going to try and run the Chicago Marathon this October, but right now I can’t afford to sign up or reserve a hotel room, so I’m just going to have to keep training and cross my fingers that everything won’t be full when I finally have the money to commit to it. If anyone wants to donate like 300 bucks so I can go, feel FREE to get in touch with me ASAP.

http://www.ncsu.edu/facilities/campus_map_dev/index.php

Why is it I made a better campus map, and it’s on the ncsu servers, and no one has ever taken it live?

I ponder these things sometimes.

[update] Looks like they finally took it offline, got to wonder what ever happened with it. I’ll see about mirroring the whole thing here for posterity

[update2] Here it is, my final version: http://www.snotmonkey.com/work/maps

It’s been a while folks, but here’s the skinny on my life these past bunch of weeks:

-I entered a competition, sent in my stuff on Oct. 3rd. Didn’t have nearly the clear head or time I needed to really flesh out the idea. Apparently it didn’t get into the finalists pool, but based on what DID make it in, I was almost completely outside the realm of what they were looking for. A month of work for zero pay-off. It’ll take me another week or two to redo it all well enough to put it in as portfolio pieces.

-Finally got around to mostly finishing the new IDSA student chapter site. Still a few bits and pieces to spice it up, but it works and if people will put up their WORK, it will finally e able to show off what our program can do. www.ncsuidsa.org

-Made a set of three coat hooks for my materials class. I’m fairly happy with how they turned out conceptually, but I need a LOT more practice with craft on the lathe. Luckily photoshop should be able to save them for the portfolio.

-Built a soap-box derby car with a group of sophmores. We made a throwback X-Wing fighter, and whomped the competition The base of the car came from a tricycle, and I did pretty much all the metalwork on it. Learned how to MIG weld pretty well, and the rest of the team did an amazing job in framing it out, and the finishing work!

-Been working on a funded project for a company with a couple of other graduate students. Unfortunately it’s all under NDA, but hopefully I will be able to talk about it before too long.

-Made a pretty sweet poster for my history of ID course, it’s a poster in ode to Raymond Loewy. If you don’t know who this guy is, look him up, as he is basically responsible for industrial design in the US.

-Wrote a captcha defeating utility. Complete waste of time, but I needed to prove a point. And now that it’s done (took about 24hrs), I think I may release it to the public so people can make their anti-spam measures better.

-Started the mass exodus of posessions on ebay. With any luck, in a couple of months I will have consolidated all the garbage out of my life again. Sold off 11 items this week, more will come quickly.

-Planning on running a 10k this next weekend if the weather and my health hold up.

-Been working on a chair/furniture line for a competition thing due Dec 3rd. I’m having an extremely hard time with it. Probably gone through 4 designs now all the way to start fabrication before realizing they won’t be strong enough to sit on. Very frustrating trying to make a stable and supporting object into something light, airy and new.

So much more, but it will have to wait for another day

Well, I’m still not sure what prompted me to do it, but this Labor Day weekend was spent up in Virginia Beach running the Rock’n'Roll Half Marathon.

It was awesome. I understand the runners high now. I started in Corral 11, my race number was 11151. I however finished in the top 7000 (woot) out of 21,700 entrants. Quite proud of myself for that I must say. Finish time was 2:12, which was a bit dissappointing. I wanted to be closer to the 2 hour mark, but round about mile 10 my body just crashed and I started slowing from 9:30 mile times to 10:30-11 minute times.

Anyhoo, my buddy Lucy that went with me should have some pictures of the scene, but here are a couple from the official site

It was also freaking incredible to see the elite runners go past the other way. We were lucky to see them because the course basically loops back on itself and it was a sight to see!

I’ve been frantically adding image data from the NOAA to Google Earth of the post hurrican destruction. Others have already mapped in overlays for downtown New Orleans. I will try to constantly update the links as people add more to them, and hopefully we will get more images of Nawlins soon. Simply amazing.

If you have google earth, save these files (right click->save as) to your computer, then just double click them and it will launch google earth and add them for you.

If you dont have google earth, GET IT. http://kh.google.com/download/earth/index.html

http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/googleearth Go here to get the files

Yep, that’s my route home. All 4545 miles of it.

Highlight points:

1) Las Vegas
2) Hoover Dam
3) Zion National Park
4) Bonneville Salt Flats
5) Mt. Rushmore
6) Chimney Rock (Oregon Trail what what)
7) Boulder Co.
8) World’s Biggest Ball of Twine
9) Field of Dreams
10) St. Louis
11) HOME

The first stretch was from Pismo Beach to Las Vegas, where I had a room in the Luxor. The hotel really is beautiful, and other than the Bellagio, it’s the best I’ve been to on the strip.

Decided to play some table games and settled on Blackjack. I watched this Irish guy play two hands. First hand he dropped 1000 bucks, max bet, and lost it. Next hand he dropped 800 bucks, split it, doubled down on both splits, won 6400 and walked away. I was like holy fucking christ!

Anyway, I ended up playing for about 2 1/2 hours. All told I ended up 80 bucks richer and got my room comp’ed (another 80 bucks saved) and my meals comp’ed (another 30). Plus I got the fees from my credit card cash out waived (20 bucks). So I came out over 200 dollars richer.

Today I went to the Hoover Dam and Zion National Park, ended up spending a good part of the day in Zion. The Hoover Dam was awesome, but its so damn commercialized now, I couldn’t stand being there long. You can’t even get a decent picture without paying to go on the “tour”. It’s serious bullshit. Zion on the other hand, was absolutely AMAZING. It’s like being on another planet. I didn’t think I would enjoy it all that much because I didn’t have the time or equipment to really hike, but man, even as a drive through it was fabulous.

Then, tonight after dinner, on the way to my stopover in Salt Lake City, I get PULLED BY THE FUCKING Utah Highway Patrol. I was going UNDER the speed limit. So im like WTF when he comes up. He pops me for having a stuck on brake light and no proof of insurance, and FULLY tickets me for both. That son of a bitch. I’ll get both things resolved in the morning, but god what a bitch of a patrol officer.