Back From Georgia

I came back home from Thanksgiving break in Georgia yesterday. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the time with the family. I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving as well!

I brought two things home with me from Georgia. One is a little 6-week-old kitten we named Gracie (I might talk about her more later, or even post some pics), and the other is an old computer my aunt was planning on scrapping. It has some interesting family tree info on it she wanted me to pull off of it first, but after that, it is all mine. The reason I decided to take it home is because it has a PCI Ethernet adapter, which if you recall I have been looking for to connect my server to the network/internet. I will be doing some more work with the server and seeing if I can get the adapter working with it over the next couple days.

Me? A Teacher?

Earlier in the year, I suggested the idea of teaching GML (Game Maker) to the Programming II class. The teacher, Mr. Allen, decided that the first semester, he would teach the class Java, and the second semester, I could teach the class GML. Today, he gave me a 17-day timeframe to come up with a basic lesson plan to use after Christmas break. Im so excited to finally be able to share my infinite wisdom of computers with a class. :p

If I come up with a lesson plan that I feel like sticking to, Ill be sure to put it up on BlakeNet, along with select projects created by the students of the class.

BlakeNet

Saturday, November 3rd, I got bored and decided to completely clear off one of my old computers, install Linux, and get a server going. The next day, I installed and configured Apache, PHP4, and MySQL. What took me two weeks to post this? Well, Ive been busy working with the hardware of the machine.

The computer did not have an Ethernet adapter, so I got one from one of my dad's old work machines. The problem is the adapter is ISA, which Linux doesnt exactly like, and the ISA port seems to have issues with the adapter plugging into it fully. Either of these could be the cause of the problem. So, after two weeks of fighting it physically and digitally (with the immensely appreciated help of the LaunchPad help group), I have finally reached boiling point and trashed the card. Now, Im looking for a PCI Ethernet adapter.

In the meantime, I will be working offline with LeetBoard and a couple of my site concepts. When I find the adapter, you can check out the progress first-hand. The server, and inheritantly the website from which all of this material will be available, will be refered to as BlakeNet. Yes, its a pretty lame name. Ill come up with a better one when I have time to stop and think about it.

Playing The Oldies

Well, I decided to head into my room today and untangle the mass of cords all huddled up in the corner. After sorting them all out, I got to touch my old SNES and NES from way back in the day. I dusted them off and hooked them up, and sat down, ready to play.

Unfortunately, I couldnt get the SNES to play on my TV correctly. Ill have to work on that more later. But, I DID get the NES fired up, and after a few savage beatings, I actually got to play some of my old favorites. Super Mario (one and three), Mission: Impossible, Star Tropics, and even Solstice! It really took me back to the good ole days. I plan to take a break from the Wii for a while to just take in all of the glory of the old, crappy games we used to play and love to remember.

If any of you have an old system that may still have a chance of functioning, I suggest you wrestle it out and play it for a while too. Halo 3 wont miss you that long. ;)