Return to Jarada Productions

Friday, 25 July 2008

Happy Birthday

I am 20 today!! No longer a teenager, and no longer able to use that excuse for things!

Feel free to leave any comments you wish to, and when I find an ounce of time, I will blog a full report of this weekend (and past weeks) onto here.

Until then then...

Sunday, 6 July 2008

Into July

6th July! 6th July!!

Well, this is probably the longest time I haven't posted since I started posting. Heh. So I guess I'll bring you all up to date on the latest happenings.

Home
At home, I've been busy sorting out my room. The lighting is being organised as we speak, and the carpet has already been ordered. The curtains will be next, and then the accessories, such as LCARS Posters, will finish the room off. So not long to go.

As I said in my previous post, the summer party in July is approaching fast, as well as my birthday on the 25th. Preparations for that have already been put into motion as well.

Finally, my brothers have joined me and have broken up from school. So we are now all no-longer attending educational classes...

Uni
And with that, I move onto my University. I have recently received news of preliminary results stating that I have passed the second year. Which is awesome! As for work on GooLife, I am trying to move forward on that in my spare time but it is proving difficult to. My aim at current is to see if I can get a prototype of JXTA, the P2P Java networking tool. However, it requires ANT to work, so I need to get that configured first.

And finally, I am going to re-kick start my 3rd year project as we need to begin to move that forward as well. Hopefully both these projects can be pushed forward.

Work
At work, I've been working on two tasks. Firstly, I'm continuing to program my demo-app for the iPhone. It is getting there... slowly. Soon, I will be able to show people what I have done on it. The second task I'm working on is the Digital Vega website. The reorganisation and restructure of the CSS of the site is almost complete, just a few more images to change and then I can present it again.

Gaming
There are a few games I am playing on recently, both website-based and installed on my computer. They are the USS Andromeda, LCARS Terminal Forum RPG, a game on Facebook, EVE Online, Guild Wars, and of course the legendary Sims 2.

As you can probably tell, the majority of these games are multiplayer-based; ie, you play online with real people. Hey, I love MMORPGs!

Lastly, the Avatar: The Last Airbender is reairing from July 14th and airing new episodes every day until the finale on the 19th. Care to say I will be hooked when that happens... can't wait!

Final Note
Well, I hope this has shown you that I've been busy both working and enjoying my summer holiday so far. We have a plan to go to France and then Spain in August, so perhaps I will be able to post about that a little better then my last vacation...

So, until my next blog post, farewell!

Saturday, 31 May 2008

Talent

Well, it certainly hasn't been too long since my last blog post, but I wouldn't say it has been regular. That's because I've been busy doing other things and whenever I think about posting blog entries it's usually just gone midnight.

I am currently writing in my bedroom, which is even messier then before we started cleaning it out, and my brothers room next door is only just being put together. So his room is completely empty. I wonder where all the messy stuff came from?

Anyway, this past week has mainly been filled with working during the day and watching Britains Got Talent during the evening. Yes, I watch that show; it's quite funny to see what the three judges are going to say.

Last week I spent the day working and the evening playing games. I just really have too many things to do at the moment, so I am hoping for some productive work today to get things that I have been avoiding or not achieving out the way; such as this blog post.

As my room and my evening gets clearer, I hope I will get into the habit of posting these blog posts on a daily basis. Of course we all know that will take a little while before I get to that stage, but that's my aim for this blog. It really is annoying to try and remember the past 7/14/28 days past and summarise it all in a single blog post.

Now, for the future, I have something I want to point out. I will be sending invites to a select few people, but I just want to post this here for those lucky people who read my blog post. The thing is this: my family will be hosting a summer party in July, complete with food, drink, bouncy castles, and everyone and anyone we can invite. Of course we do have limited space, so I can't invite everyone I know, but if you are interested, and you would like to know more, feel free to contact me and if I can fit you in I'll send you an invite.

Right, with that out the way have a good weekend and hopefully I will post a blog soon!

Tuesday, 20 May 2008

Back to the Net

Well! It's been just under a month since my last blog post, so I thought I would update you all and hopefully go back into regular blog posting. So, here's what I have to say (once again split into sections...)

University
My second year is over! Exams are outta the way and I've now got four whole juicy months ahead of doing things other then University work. Does that mean I am not going to do anything for Uni? Nope, of course not!

I still have the development of GooLife to continue, and re-spark back into life. And I have recently released the Project Presentation and Project Report's for my third year Uni project, that is the LCARS Terminal Starship Commander. Just click that if you want to see them (apologies for the poor sound in the presentation, but there's not much I can do at the moment to fix that).

But other then these two projects, that's it for Uni work until my third and final year kicks in mid-september. Just check the number of days I have left on the time shown on the right... yeehar!!

My Room
I have pictures! Although my room is quite messy, I can point you to my web album that is holding the latest pictures of my room, including my new Sliding Door Wardrobe, and soon my new Desk and Chair! The album will be updated as and when I get new pictures, but my room is far from finished yet and there's still a way to go.

Gaming
Recently, I have been playing quite light games on my Mac and Windows PC during the free moments I've had, as I've been quite busy catching up on things (such as Blogging!)

Hopefully soon though I will be back in the game that I really want to return to... EVE Online. I want to celebrate my summer holidays by going online for an entire day and trading throughout that day non-stop, making lots of money. So I will look out for a day that's relatively free to do that sometime in the future.

And of course, now I'm on Summer holidays, I can get to play other games too!

Online
I also have to sort out my website at some point, and I'm still planning on moving away from basic XHTML to PHP produced XHTML. But that is a big project so I haven't had time to take part in it yet.

Final Notes
So, as you can see, even when I'm off from Uni I still have a lot of things I want to do! So I will be just as busy throughout the Summer holidays, also owing to the fact that I will be working on iPhone development throughout the holidays as well.

Until the next blog post then!

Thursday, 24 April 2008

Exam Season & Catchup on Stuff

Yeah, I know. I haven't posted another Blog entry for quite a while. So, I guess I've been too busy doing some other stuff, right? Well, I guess it's time I bring you up to date.

In this blog entry:
  • My New Mac (and why)
  • My New Bedroom (and progress)
  • The end of the second year at Uni
  • The end of a wonderful Anime series
My New Mac
So, let's start off with my new Mac. Yes. Let me repeat that for all out there: I have a new MacBook. So, why am I brandishing a lavish new MacBook? Well, the official reason is that I am now creating applications for the iPhone/iTouch. That's right! I get to learn the wonderful language of Objective-C.

For those who are interested, let me tell you that (from a newly-become Java developer) that Objective-C, apart from it's annoying memory management process (where's the garbage collector?), and the fact the interface and implementation is split, it is not a bad language. I love the Smalltalk-style syntax it uses for messaging; it just so beats everything hands down. And of course, it has all the benefits of Object-Oriented Programming.

What I don't like, is XCode. Apples programming tool. Sure, I have to use it, because at the moment Eclipse does not support Objective-C. But, compared to Eclipse, XCode just doesn't pull it. It is like going back in time; because it feels like I'm using some clunky old machine. Sure, it may do things Eclipse can't, as well as a few things that Eclipse can do, but it's just so difficult to use compared to Eclipse that those things don't matter much.

My advice to Apple: have a look at Eclipse and get into gear. It's time you caught up with how the rest of the world develops.

Moving out of development, and my MacBook is an awesome machine. You heard it from me: Mac OS beats Windows hands down! So, does that mean I'm a convert and am going to switch over to only using Mac? ... No. I still think Windows has a lot of huge advantages to it's OS. Not mentioning the wide use of the OS, the biggest advantage it has is the PC Game market. The amount of games on sale for PC just completely outstrips that of Mac: most major games developers who ship on anything but consoles ship to PC over Mac. Not to mention my Mac lacks a graphics card...

So no, I'm not ditching my Windows. But I do think Mac is better. Kapeesh? Oh, and perhaps when I get my website sorted out, you may see a few good Mac Apps that I like appearing there.

My New Bedroom
My bedroom is coming along nicely. The walls are done, the bed is in, and the wardrobe and carpet and soon to follow. And that's all I really have to say on the matter (yay! I love king-sized beds!)

End of the Second Year at Uni
As I said earlier, it's exam season. That means, for the next one and a half weeks, I will be revising hard! And for the next one and a half weeks after that, I will be revising hard and taking exams too! After the 14th May, I break up. That's when it's all over!

I can't wait!

But I must concentrate on getting past these exams and doing well. Remembering all the little things that matter in each subject. Practicing past papers. And doing work over playing with my Mac (and any related games).

Then I can concentrate on things like LCARS Terminal (RPG and Starship Commander), EVE Online (my trading), my various projects (such as my website), and the last thing to talk about, Avatar...

The End of Avatar: The Last Airbender
This July, the two-hour four-part finale of my first and by far favorite Anime series that I've really taken a heart to takes place. Avatar: The Last Airbender comes to a close.

For those of you who haven't started watching it yet: I suggest you watch the first few episodes (and I mean watch episodes 1, 2 and 3) to see if you like it as much as I do. It may look childish, but it has a lot of adult themes running through it, it's well animated with an absolutely delightful story.

There are whole websites and forums dedicated to the Anime, and a huge fan base (compared to similar titles), as well as my family and a few of my friends (who maybe aren't as big a fan as I am). But anyway, I leave you with the trailer, as well as a way to watch the series online if you're interested.



Watch Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes

Sunday, 23 March 2008

Happy Easter plus My Catchup on Stuff

For all who support and follow Easter: Happy Easter to you all! For all who do not follow this festival: Happy Chocolate Giving and Receiving Day to you all! Go out and buy lots of chocolate anyway!

This is going to be one long post. So I'm going to divide it up into sections.

Goldsmiths
So, what is going on at my university? Well, as you may or may not know: I'm on Easter holidays until the 21st April! So what you should be asking is: what has happened at my university?

And in fact, the last two weeks of Term (in fact the past two weeks) were so busy there were times that I thought I wouldn't have time to finish all that I had to do. Late nights and early mornings had ensued and it was only on the Wednesday just gone that everything came to a climax and then quickly fell again when deadline extensions thankfully came in for my two remaining projects. So what did I have to achieve?

Well, in Java we have put together, successfully, GooLife. In fact, it's so good I've even produced a YouTube video that shows off this fantastic application. This group project was fantastic; and it wouldn't have been the program it is today without all the contributions that people have made to it. From a personal point of view; it wouldn't have happened without them. Congrats to you all! It is of course going to still be in development, so who knows where it will go now?

In Website Design, I have built an PHP\MySQL\XSLT\XHTML based RSS News Aggregator that supports a backend database with a frontend PHP interface to allow for multiple users to register; choose from a variety of BBC feeds; and most importantly, filter, sort through, limit and hide chosen feeds.

In Software Engineering, I had to hand in a Project Report in regards to the LCARS Terminal Starship Commander. This report specified exactly what my plan was going to be in designing and building the program. I will, in due time of course, post up both this report and my presentation for private viewers who are related to this project (most specifically, LCARS Terminal themselves).

Finally, in Databases, which was a smaller group project, we have built a DVD and Video Game purchase and rental store. Although this project is the only project that is still ongoing (without being marked yet), it is nearly all finished. I intend to hand it in on Wednesday this week at the very latest, as this weekend has been extremely busy at home (as will be explained next).

Home
As said before, I have been extremely busy at home during this weekend. This is due to a very exciting change that is taking place before my very eyes: the redesign of my room. I first intended it to be a Star Trek bedroom as close to that from the USS Voyager as possible; but now I think it will more be a Star Trek 'themed' bedroom rather then an exact or even close to exact copy. This is due to three main reasons:
  1. The fact that we are on a budget that doesn't support such a design
  2. The fact that at current we have or have ordered furniture that isn't exactly found on a starship
  3. And the fact that we live in the 21st Century; there really isn't that much demand for 24th Century designs
But it's still exciting and will still look like a darn good room when finished!

Website
My personal website will also be going another redesign. As I have learnt more at University, I intend to simplify and enhance my website by converting all of the current files from basic XHTML into PHP enhanced XHTML. This will allow me to not only have a single web page for navigation links (rather then at current having to edit each individual HTML page to change a single link appearing on all those pages) as well as to add in extensions that only PHP can provide.

In the present, I have just upgraded my Web Portal to that provided by Netvibes. This again will allow my Web Portal to become more then what it is, propelling it out of a webpage and into a miniature website in a single webpage. It will still be the centre of my web existence, but it will be greater then what it is now by a long way.

Of course this blog will adapt to service the new Web Portal, but don't worry, it's position in my web empire is to stay! I have no intentions of removing or replacing this blog anytime soon.

Final Note
As you may have noticed, I am extremely busy at the moment. And during the holidays, I get to take on more work! So I am perhaps even more busy now then I was during the University term. Anyhow, I want to inform all EVE Online people that my return to full-time gaming on EVE is imminent and won't be affected by my current amount of work that I have been given. See you soon in space!

Saturday, 1 March 2008

Busy

Well, Reading Week has passed some two weeks ago. Hehe. So I've been extremely busy since then, as this is the half-term where assignments flood in thick and fast. And it's also a time that's busy for work as well.

I just wanted to say I've managed to find some time to update my website. The updates should be brought online later today, but don't expect too much: this update is really just laying the foundations for future updates, so to speak.

As for my gaming, I've found this wonderful new game called AudioSurf. You should check it out on YouTube as well. I've been playing it quite a bit during my free time.

I've also been doing some extensive Java Programming in designing the networking for our class Java Project, labelled GooLife. GooLife is about having these virtual tanks that have virtual creatures in them, and they connect to other virtual tanks on other computers over a network.

Anyhow, until next time...