I’ve been finishing up the last-minute details in preparation of finishing up my M.A. in English. Now all that’s left to do is submit final coppies of the thesis to the graduate school and sign some forms. It’s all good to go. As of May 2001, I’ll have a second master’s degree. It’s been a long train coming, but I’m glad I took the time to finish it up. There was a time when I had pretty much given up on ever finishing it. But it came together more quickly than I thought it would. I’m going to do a PDF version and host it. Maybe the folks at jbarnes.com would like to link to it.
I cranked open WheatBlog (my PHP/MySQL weblog application-in-progress, not to be confused with this particular blog that you’re reading right now) yesterday, which was the first time I had since my recent vacation. I felt fairly proud of it. I have to make one simple change and then I’m going to release the source code. I have hosting set up on sourceforge.net (wheatblog.sourceforge.net), but there’s really not much there at the moment.
The Tares site is still down until I have time to make some changes and set up the CGIs. Drag. I have big plans for that site but no time to implement them. I also have a new version of the Nancy site (I’m taking over the design chores from our guitarist/lead singer, Sean), but I haven’t had time (or made time, or whatever) to upload and test them. It never ends. It never ends.
Sideline project for the next year: 1) learn the PHP/MySQL stuff cold and develop lots of portfolio pieces with it, and 2) learn as much Java as possible. I’ve been working through a new book on the second subject. I’m learning how to create GUI frontends. It’s fun. I’ve never really done any GUI stuff that wasn’t web-based (except for an Authorware CD-ROM in graduate school and some HyperCard stuff back in the day. Does anyone remember HyperCard and HyperScript? That’s half the reason I wanted a Mac). Authorware (a Macromedia product) is actually pretty cool, but it’s slow as hell and it’s one of those programs (like MS Word) that tries so hard to make things easy for you that it ends up complicating the process instead. Ever try to do a simple JavaScript-style rollover in Authorware 4? You’d be amazed how needlessly difficult it is. The new version is much better in that regard (in fact, in every regard).