Simplicity

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I’ve been very hush-hush about this but there’s this web project I intend to start – it’s called Simplicity. I’m going to be writing in Asp.NET but just for the fun of it I’ll write a PHP version when I’m through.

If anything, Simplicity is going to be anything but simple. I’m using plenty of Ajax – which I don’t know one bit about. I ordered a book on Ajax from Amazon and I’m contemplating orderig one about Web Sevices. The thing is, I’m running out of my supply of cash – and I haven’t gotten a job yet. I don’t want to go beyond a certain level – I’ve spent only four weeks here and I’ve spent more than $1000 and my budget isn’t helping any. I intend to buy a laptop and more programming books within three weeks. I hope it works out.

Back to Simplicity – the main thing keeping me away from using PHP at this time is the handling of web server controls. I intend to write a library later that handles that but that’s not my concern now.

The obvious problem I have is themeing. I had that problem with the Asp.NET AuthWare version. I had to use dozens and dozens of repeaters – I mean, it’s not funny.

My current solution currently is to write a web control library that picks certain templates from a database and displays it according to “rules”. I hope it works – do you have any
ideas?

Scare

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Yesterday my Dad and I got a scare from the student financial aid office. I was told to apply for the FAFSA within 10 business days, or be withdrawn from classes. Of course my Dad was very worried considering the letter arrived Nigeria two days ago and was dated
January 10. Twenty days had passed!

I met with Mr Heaster today and I discovered it was an error by the school – the FAFSA is only for US students, not for international students like me. I hurried off an email to my Dad – at least to allay his fears.

I also applied for a job from the Student Life office today. I hope I get one with lots of coding – or at least one in which I’ll be around computers a lot. I’m not sure I’ll like one that doesn’t put me close to machines.

Goings On

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I’m so anxious to work – but I haven’t gotten any job yet. My boss at CADS Consulting told me he still intends that I remain in the company. I’ll be writing a column on Designing with Web Standards for the Softellect magazine.

They had a probem implementing a solution for GloMobile – printing of PDFs and I wrote a library that plugs into PDFSharp. They couldn’t get it to work becuase I wrote it with Visual C# 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0. I’m trying to convince them to move up to Visual Studio 2005 – while it’s free.

I ordered some books from Amazon.com today. Two of them deal with programming – PHP 5 and Ajax – and the remaining are almost new novels I managed to get for about a cent each. The funny thing is that the cost of shipping the books runs into dollars (when I got them so cheaply)!

It’s hard to find a novel freak here – and I’m starving to lay my hands on some books. The books I ordered are by some of my best authors – Frederick Forsyth,Robert Ludlum and Nicholas Evans. I hope to order Jackie Chan’s “I am Jackie Chan” soon (did I tell you I’m a Jackie Chan fan)?

Jackie is a very wonderful person – the more I study him, the more I realise what an unpretentious and nice guy he is. He’s very charitable and all what not. I alo became hooked on Donnie Yen after Iron Monkey. I watched The Hero because he starred in it but I didn’t like it. Like most of Jet Li’s films, there’s a lot of unrealistic martial arts action – flying and so on.

Hallelujah

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Yesterday was a good day for me. My essay got lauded in Prof. Teets’ class as the best. I’d best not boast since I know it’s because I’ve been writing since I was eight – at one time I wanted to be an author but ridicule from my family who didn’t believe I knew
what I was saying (I was only eight then) made me drop it.

And speaking of my internet connection – I purchased a new network card yesterday. Now I don’t have to boot to Fedora to get on the net – again. I had a few problems setting it up but they were trivial compared to the onboard nVidia ethernet controller which by the way isn’t working.

I think this open-source thing is really getting to me – nearly all the software I’m running on my system are free.

Installation, Installation

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Ahem. Today I formatted my Windows partitions and installed Windows XP Pro. Can you imagine Windows doesn’t recognise Fedora as an Operating System (I made the mistake of setting the default boot to Windows when installing Fedora). I had to do some gymnastics – I reinstalled Fedora (all 6 CDs). I must say it wasn’t fun.

I contacted those eMachines staff and the only reply I got read something like:

Hello Azuka,Thank you for contacting eMachines.

I see that you have issue with your W3107 computer. You have changed
your operating system and now, you need a network driver. The D: partition is deleted and you cannot access the system recovery for applications and drivers.

I know this may cause you some concern and I know how you must feel.

Moving to Windows 95, Windows 98SE, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home, Windows XP 64-bit, Windows MCE, Windows and Linux are all unsupported operating system changes. You can attempt to locate drivers by going to windrivers.com or driversguide.com. eMachines only supports the computer as it shipped from the factory, with the original Operating System. This is in your warranty documentation.

We also have some telephone support options available for issues that are not covered under the original warranty. They are specialized in change of operating systems, third party hardware, software, installation, removal of software instructions, “how-to”, upgrades and out of warranty support.

You may consider contacting Answers by eMachines for a fee-based type of support over the phone at 877-721-7314.

Please Note: (The per minute charge for the number will begin 1 minute after you dial the number regardless of whether an agent has answered your call or not.)

I hope the information above will be helpful.

Please reply to this message if you require further assistance with this issue. If your reply is received while I am out of the office, to ensure a speedy resolution, your issue will be handled by one of my colleagues.

Sincerely,

Pamela

Well, I’ve decided I don’t need their @#$%^&* drivers anymore. I’ll purchase a usb-network cable and do my work. Next time, I’m going for Dell for sure. Trust me.

Linux Installation

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Yesterday I downloaded and burned Fedora Core 5 – the latest version of the Fedora Core (Red Hat’s free Linux system). I installed the stuff today but I had one major problem – my data. I left a default option on while installing so my hard disk (with two operating
systems – Windows XP Home and Windows XP Pro) – and all my data (movies. music and software) got completely erased. It’s a sad loss and I’m beginning to think I’m not so fond of this Fedora or Stetson stuff anyway.

I’ll recover my system tonight and reinstall Windows XP home or Pro since I need to develop some Asp.NET applications using Visual Web Developer. So long for all my data. It’s really, really touching.

One interesting thing is that this Fedora Core actually detected my network drivers and installed them – something Windows XP couldn’t do. The only thing is I’m not too familiar with the installation procedures and how to open files in Linux – or I’d probably have
installed Realtek AC’97 drivers. So long.