..:- Glodev.com -:..

Glodev.com

Hello. It's been a while!
-May 22, 2013-

It has certainly been quite some time since my last update. After letting my site go into coast mode for a tad under eight years, I figure it would be nice to give those who are roaming by a little information as to the status of this web site.

Since 2005, life has been busy and eventful. Last year I earned my Ph.D. in Business Administration from Trident University. It was an enlightening, humbling, but rewarding experience. While progressing through the Ph.D. program, the coursework does a great job of helping to prepare students for their dissertation stage. However, once the coursework is finished, and the dissertation stage begins, it feels like being plopped into the middle of a large lake in a rowboat. Fortunately, my advisors acted as my beacon light to keep me focused and on-track to reach my goal. I would like to give special thanks to Dr. Alan Flaschner, Dr. Yancy Edwards, Dr. Mark Woodhull, and Dr. Joshua Shackman for being my beacon light – I couldn’t have done it without them.

My career has also changed significantly over the past eight years. While I still have a strong passion for programming and computer science, I have expanded my skill set to take on new challenges and responsibilities. I am the President of Inc. (OnPower Services’ parent company), where I provide direction for technology advancement within the company and work to design and implement information systems internally and for customers.

However, the biggest update I have is that about three years ago, I met the woman of my dreams. She said “yes” when I popped the big question, and we have been happily married for almost a year now!

Spammers are annoying
-November 14, 2005-

Over the past year, I have seen a growing trend in the amount of spammers attacking my site. These attacks include guestbook spamming, referral spamming, and email harvesting. In order to cut down on the number of spammers attacking my site, I have placed filters in various pages to recognize and ban spammers from my site. So far my blacklist has accumulated over 350 IP addresses. In an effort to help others secure their sites, I have built a page that will output a live copy of my deny list. This page is located at the following address:

Keep in mind that this list is generated on a live basis, so be sure to fetch the latest version every week or so.

Time flies by
-April 24, 2005-

Wow, I can't believe it has almost been a year since my last update. The past year has been a blur between work and school, and thus contributing to my lack of attention to my site. However, to mix things up a little bit, I am in the process of converting the site from a table-driven html layout design to a CSS-driven XHTML design. As of today, this change has only been applied to the main page here. All other pages in the site will continue to utilize the old design until I have the time to update them. In the mean time though, I am open to any suggestions that may help spruce up the appearance of this site. So if anybody has any ideas, feel free to drop me a message by clicking on my "contact me" link and speaking your mind.

Also, while the new layout may not look too different, the file size is about half as large as the old file, and should thereby load much more quickly. And a side note to Firefox users: This site will look much better in Firefox as opposed to other browsers since I am addicted to the -moz-border-radius CSS property that Mozilla/Firefox uses to easily create rounded borders. I'd like to extend a thanks to a good friend of mine (Keith M.) for helping me with the frustrating issues I have encountered in my journey to make this new home page completely XHTML transitional compliant.

In reference to visual changes, while most of the home page looks the same, some changes have been made beyond the conversion to a CSS-driven layout, including: 1) changing the background color of the news content area to a lighter color so reading the text is a bit easier on the eyes; 2) removal of the Google quick search box (not really necessary since it's just more efficient to go to Google's web site and type in any search queries there). Although, if you are still a fan of the previous front page layout and do not like these changes, the original home page can be located here:

On a side-note into my personal life, things are starting to get exciting within the PhD program I am currently enrolled in. This term I am enrolled in DBA699, which is the course that requires me to begin developing my prospectus, which will lead into my dissertation proposal, and eventually to the actual dissertation itself.

Mozilla Firefox 0.9
-June 16, 2004-

Ok, so it is a rare occurrence that I should post my thoughts about a web browser. However, after installing the most recent release of Mozilla Firefox 0.9, I feel compelled to divulge my thoughts on this browser.

I have been following the progress of the Firefox browser ever since it transitioned from Phoenix to Firebird, and then to Firefox. However, 0.9 completely impressed me -- in addition to many others I'm guessing since it went from the RC release to the stable release in a very short period of time.

When first using the browser, I immediately noticed how quick it is -- while Firefox 0.8 was quite fast as well, 0.9 appeared to start up more quickly and seems to display pages much faster as well. Additionally, I also noticed that the extensions and themes are no longer managed through the preferences section. Instead, they are now located right on the tools menu where the extensions and themes have their own managers. Furthermore, these managers now have their own update utilities as well! Therefore, it is not necessary to sort through the extension and theme libraries to see if your favorite extensions and themes have any new revisions out yet.

I also found the new theme to be very clean and simplistic. Less clutter is always better in my opinion. Also, while browsing through the extension library for my new Firefox 0.9 installation, I came across several extensions that many power users and web developers may treasure as I do:

Web developer extension:

(Many handy utilities for web developers -- too many to name here)

All-in-one gestures extension:

(Mouse gesture commands for power users)

BugMeNot

(No more pesky online registration processes for sites such as wallstreetjournal.com)

And of course, Firefox can be downloaded from

Enjoy!

New toys
-April 19, 2004-

So there I was a few days ago, looking through this new gadget magazine that arrived in the mail. When perusing through all of the different toys that would make a tech fan such as myself drool, I happened across a monitor stand that claims to hold three flat panel LCD monitors. Upon seeing these three monitors lined up in a row, I began to look at my two current monitors and felt this urge to add a 3rd. So, from there I became a victim to impulse buying once again, and ended up buying a third monitor and stand to hook up to my desktop. Click the link below for some before-and-after shots. The files prefixed with "DSC005" contain the the before photos, and the files starting with "DSC007" contain the after photos.

For those that are curious, the monitors are Samsung SyncMaster 191T+'s, and they are mounted on an Ergotron DeskStand 100 LCD monitor stand. The monitors are a great buy for the money, but the stand itself is a bit pricey -- however it is by no means low on quality. The stand is very well built and easy to put together.

Recovering from UMF 6
-March 8, 2004-

Well, I'm back from Ultra 6, and I'm sore and sunburnt... But had a great time :-) I managed to take a few pictures and movies while I was there, and am in the process of uploading them to http://www.glodev.com/ultra6

It's an ugly auto-indexed page right now, but I'll get around to dressing it up a bit when I get the chance.

As for details about the event, it was certainly one that I'll never forget. I first entered the grounds of the park around noon and didn't leave until 12:30 am. While I was there, I most frequently hit the ultra sound stage, the house tent, and of course, the main stage. Amongst the DJs and groups that I viewed while I was there are: Tiesto, James Holden, Ferry Corsten, Paul Van Dyk, Rabbit in the Moon, Way Out West, Paul Oakenfold, the Chemical Brothers, and many other greats.

Next year... I'm definitely going to make sure to hit this event again :-)

Update: here are some links that have lots 'o pictures and videos from WMC:

http://www.teamflak.com/wmc/03-07-04/index.html
http://www.pixorave.com/list.asp?displaywhat=0&pictures=miami_wmc04_ultra_030604_2
http://www.lushphilly.com/wmc%202004/index.htm
http://www.imagegames.com/pics/wmc2004/ultra.html
http://www.everything0.com/calendar/2004/040306a.shtml
http://www.remoserver.com/piero/
http://www.glodev.com/prnate469/
http://www.boodang.com/main/ultra6/index.htm
http://www.djscottkeith.com/WMCPics/Ultra/index.html

UMF 6
-March 3, 2004-

Well, it seems as though time has gone faster than I first intended (luckily), and now there are only a few days left until the Ultra Music Festival on March 6th. I decided that I'll need to make the special trip to Miami to catch this event.

I ended up going with VIP tickets since I liked the idea of having spots right up next to the two main stages and the access to the chilled out VIP tent with a beach atmosphere.

Unfortunately, they are a bit strict when it comes to cameras, so I'm not certain if I'll be able to bring one in or not -- although I will try :-) If I am indeed able to bring in a camera, then I'll be sure to post some pictures on my web site here so that everyone that couldn't make it knows what they missed ;-)

For more details on the Ultra Music Festival, visit their site at: http://www.ultramusicfestival.us

New family pet!
-February 12, 2004-

Yesterday my parents and I welcomed a new member to the family -- a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named 'Sid'. The minute we all saw him, we fell in love with him, so we couldn't help but want to take him home with us. He was sent from Dixon, MO via TransPet on Monday and arrived on Wednesday around 4:00pm. Miscellaneous pictures of him taken from the first trip home up to today can be found here: http://www.glodev.com/sid.php

Enjoy!

SWK rules
-August 8, 2003-

I'm sure you all are aware of the new Star Wars Kid clips that have been hitting the Internet. If not, then http://www.jedimaster.net has all the info you'll need to get up to speed on the subject :-)

Anyhow, my aim buddy icon was getting a bit old, so I decided to invest a couple minutes in making a new buddy icon featuring the star wars kid himself in action.

Download/View it from here: http://www.glodev.com/stuff/swk_aim_icon.gif

Finally an update
-July 11, 2003-

Well, this site has really been dead these past few... ok... this past year almost :-p Things have been pretty crazy between moving offices, wrapping up a large application, and school. However... when a small time window happens to appear where I find myself sitting at my computer for a day with nothing to do but ponder the universe, I think it will be time to overhaul this site. So, chances are, this site will change its look quite substantially sometime in the remainder of this year. I'm looking to keep the whole script repository and tutorials deal. However, I plan to reoganize it a bit futher by programming language as well. Then maybe I'll be able to compete with hotscripts.com or phpclasses.org (yeah right) :-p

Anyhow... until that time window opens... there will likely be no updates till then. Keep in mind that anyone can still join up and post their own scripts to share with others though.

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