I found a nice old web application I created a little less than a year ago during my Spanish class. The objective was simple, create a "wiki-esque" site that allows you to enter verbs, words and definitions and associate those with a picture. The idea was focused on being able to compose it as I was learning Spanish. At any rate:
The one feature I especially like about this site is the ability to add accents as you type in any text box.
Simply type the character of interest: a, then type the character ` (the backquote/tilda key on the top-left of the keyboard). This will immediately make any of the characters, accented. ?` = ¿, a` = á, n` = ñ... etc. Pretty neat eh?
Network monitoring is a pain in the neck. The major reason this is that way is party because it is a manual job for the most part. Writing scripts to automate, log and track information. But on the other hand, if we were to have a simple tool that shows the most important alerts front and center with a nice user interface - it is possible that network monitoring could be easier. Like this:
Here we can create an alert system on the right (always visible and automatically updating) and on the left hand side we can create column views. As an alternative to this, I was thinking of a canvas like area that we can zoom in and out of for context.
Here you can represent the monitoring objects of interest by icons and should there be any issues you add error, critical or warning icons to show that there is an issue. We could create different types of icons to represent things like servers, server applications, websites, clients, network routers, printers, fax machines and more. Best of all, we can maintain this is a small space since we are only displaying the most important information first.
I came up with a new design for my alter ego - theadvents - where I have a place to post project links, videos, and a mini-blog feed all on the home page. It hides a lot of the content from view so whenever people poke around I could have it display content. I was also thinking of having a live comment canvas where people can write comments and see others live (temporarily of course).
This way, the site can grow in content rather than be forced into it. :)
I finally got my Violin. Actually, I got it Monday and as soon as I tried to use it I could immediately tell that a) untuned b) the strings were in pretty rough shape (and too thin) and c) the fine tuners were bent. Tuesday afternoon I went to the Music Shop and replaced all the strings, the fine tuners and then I tuned it (while getting some really friendly help and hints about it). For the past week I have been essentially messing with learning notes, balancing my hand and holding things correctly among other best practices. But rather than write all day about it, here's what I experienced:
- Loosen the Bow (Twist the screw to the left) after every time you use it. (Tighten it when you want to use it)
- Use Rosin (It's a little piece that basically makes the bow hair a lot "stickier") on the bow.
For this you need to just place the Rosin on the bow hair and move the bow up and down (or back and forth) - Keep your Violin in tune
If you've never played music you may not know what in tune means. You should be able to download a few notes from online and compare. Ultimately you want to be able to notice out of tune sound. - Know the parts of the Violin, and the four strings (their notes and what they should sound like)
Starting from the bottom string to the top (from the above picture)
G, D, A, E - Get a shoulder rest, it's much easier to hold the Violin that way
- Watch a bunch of YouTube videos of other people playing the Violin (perhaps even giving lessons)
My personal favorites are: Zelda Lost Woods, Bioshock Rapture, Senna on Violin, and Zelda Ocarina of Time - Pick up Essential Elements 2000, it takes about a couple of days to memorize most of the things you see in sheet music. While you're at the Music Shop, also pick up a few other music sheet books. I got: Favorite Movie Themes, TV Favorites and High School Musical (I know, I just wanted to be funny for my sister on that one).
- Once you can figure out the notes, take a look at the other music books and transcribe what they read and start messing around with the Violin trying to play them.
- Other than those, the most important aspect of this is just really playing with the sounds. Mix and match tones and themes until you can seek out something you like or recognize. My first day I figured out how to play Twinkle Twinkle little star by accident (litterally in the first 10 minutes of using the Violin). The day after I figured out how to play a small part of Ocarina of Time.
I suppose I should get a tutor to fine tune these skills, but the internet seems to be working for me pretty well thus far.
Anyways, Enjoy :)
Remember a long time ago we built a few neat audio tools together? Then if you remember even further back I talked a bit about my involvement with some helpdesk systems. Well, we're going to revisit pieces of those in order to build something spectacular. We are going to build our own home-grown conference software. Here's a few ideas I had in mind for this:
Chatters
Chatters are little dots that radiate sound. Whenever someone logs-in or is available to talk to, or is in the queue to be talked to, then the little dot pops up on your desktop. If you click on the dot you can get more information about the person and options to talk with them.
Group Chatter
When you want to hold a conference you simply have to group a few people up together into a roughly drawn circle. A brush on the desktop to draw that circlish figure and dragging your buddies in there. Of course, this would have to notify the intending parties that a conference is being held, to which they may or may not join.
Let's start with those first and work our way up.
Chad's work inspired me to create this little piece I call Earthlet. Enjoy :)
If you're really ambitious you can download the PhotoShop PSD file below to make additions of your own.
Out of the many projects created from Processing, this one certainly caught my eye. It's an exploration of flock behavior used to collaborate with Nando Costa in producing television spots for Fox Japan. You can read more about the exploration of the project on Flight 404. The video below is a montage of all the videos (starting with the birds).
I know I can come up with something and it shall be launched! In the meantime, check out this new design I made. At some point I should actually put some content into the design, but I enjoy this. This one is called Plenatude.
It's not nearly as complete as the others, but I like the colored rays. I think I'll build on this one and get back to you. Here's another view without the navigation links, you can see the rays better.
I also made a "People's Software Manifesto". This should count as content.
To my dismay, my Violin may not be available until Tuesday, July 29th. Well, I can atleast provide everyone with something else pretty neat and useful. I found out that network management is a really ridiculous field. One that can take a lot of work - definitely not something you can just pick up overnight. So as an added segment to yesterday's post, here's how you can use WMI to obtain process info and CPU Usage.
WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation)
Here's a really big, essentially database from what I can tell, of hardware and software specific information pertaining to individual scopes and locations. In this huge api, there are essentially 3 classes that you will need for this example.
ManagementClass: deals with a list of instances
ManagementObject: identifies a single instance
ManagementScope: identifies the path (instance context) and scope (location for remote) <- not needed for local
Not much there, now for the code.
1. Add a reference to System.Management
2. Insert the using statement: using System.Management;
3. Add the following code into the main method.
ulong cpuUsage = 0;
ManagementClass processClass =
new ManagementClass("Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process");
foreach (var item in processClass.GetInstances())
{
ulong percent = (ulong)item["PercentProcessorTime"];
string name = item["Name"].ToString();
if (name == "Idle" || name == "_Total")
continue;
Console.WriteLine(" {0} {1}% CPU Time \t{2}kb Memory.",
item["Name"].ToString().PadRight(25), percent,
((ulong)item["WorkingSetPrivate"] / 1024));
cpuUsage += percent;
}
Console.WriteLine("Total CPU Usage: {0}%", cpuUsage);
