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The Dev LoungeThe Dev LoungeThe Dev Lounge is a place where Nick Shepherd, a software developer located in Charleston, SC, can express his opinions about the world at large. Articles
Fridays Feast #18
2008-01-18 16:12:00 Appetizer What is your favorite beverage? A nice cold Jack and Coke after a hard days of work. And a side of Tequila. :) Soup Name 3 things that are on your computer desk at home or work. Monitors, Keyboard and mouse. I generally keep my desk clean at home. Salad On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how honest do you think you are? About an 8 or 9. I’m generally too honest, now that’s not to say I don’t say a white lie every now and then. Main Course If you could change the name of one city in the world, what would you rename it and why? I can’t say I’d change the name of any city. After all who am I to change history? Dessert What stresses you out? What calms you down? Everything stresses me out. I’m a worry wart. My biggest sense of calming lately has been pool. Pool is my biggest outlet right now and sometimes I find myself playing it just a little too much. More About: Feast
It’s a Stupid World
2008-01-09 16:59:00 Are you kidding me? Seriously, I can’t quite grasp the stupidity of some people this day and age. Two men wheeled a dead man through the streets in an office chair to a check-cashing store and tried to cash his Social Security check before being arrested on fraud charges, police said. … “The witnesses saw the two pushing the chair with Cintron flopping from side to side and the two individuals propping him up and keeping him from flopping from side to side,” Browne said. I don’t know how these guys could think that there’d be someone else in this world dumber than them and would actually cash a check of a dead man flopping in an office chair. More About: World , Stupid
Fridays Feast #17
2008-01-04 18:53:00 Appetizer When was the last time you received a surprise in the mail, and what was it? It’s been so long I don’t even remember the last surprise I got in the mail. Soup If you could have a summer and/or winter home, where would you want it to be? I’d like my summer home to be somewhere in California and my winter home to be somewhere in New York City. Salad Pick one: pineapple, orange, banana, apple, cherry. Pineapple. Main Course Describe the nicest piece of clothing that you own. Depends on the definition of nicest. If nice is translated to dressy then a suit I bought a little over a year ago. If nice however is most comfortable, probably some of the clothes that I got for christmas this year (some new jeans and polo styled shirts). Dessert If you could forget one whole day from your life, which day would you choose to wipe from your memory? None, I can’t come up with any. Every horrific or embarrasing day I’ve eve... More About: Feast
Friday’s Feast #16
2007-12-28 18:11:00 Appetizer Name 2 things you would like to accomplish in 2008. Increase my salary by atleast 1/3 of what it is now. Become a 6 in 8 ball and a 7 in 9 ball. Soup With which cartoon character do you share personality traits? I can’t think of any, but possibly the Brain from Pinky and the Brain Salad What time of day (or night) were you born? To be honest, I’m not sure. My mother had to have a cesarian section to get me out. Main Course Tell us something special about your hometown. They have a pretty good professional Soccer team. I was born in Vicenza, Italy. Dessert If you could receive a letter from anyone in the world, who would you want to get one from? Publisher’s Clearing House saying I just won their $5000 a week for a lifetime contest! More About: Friday , Feast
Blind Application Execution
2007-12-24 15:55:00 Recently as I’ve been populating my new CMS architecture with my core classes and getting the foundation laid I’ve run into an interesting problem that I’m not sure how to proceed on. I have a solution to the problem that I have used for years, it works and it works well, however there are things that have always worried me about this type of code execution. Vague enough? Let me fill you in on the details… More About: Blind , Application , Execution
Friday’s Feast #15
2007-12-14 17:10:00 First off, it seems that all I do anymore is this weekly Friday s Feast . I’m going to try and get more active on this site after the holidays. I have a lot of plans which do include finally getting out that google maps tutorial and possibly a tutorial on creating your own search engine using Sphinx. We’ll see what happens, so without further ado, this weeks Friday's Feast. Appetizer Make up a word and give us its definition. jshfoiewodlfksnlnvlsdkjfoe822oijrwkjdlfks j : It doesn’t matter what it means because you’ll never be able to say it :) Soup What is currently your favorite song? I have too many favorite songs. I think one of my favorite bands would have to be Sublime, so most any song by them. I think my all time favorite song would be a classical tune however, something along the lines of Russian Christmas Music or Linconshire Posy… Salad What?s at the top of your Christmas wish list this year? I’d really like a poo...
Fridays Feast #14
2007-12-07 23:04:00 Appetizer What was the last game you purchased? It was probably WoW: Burning Crusade. It’s been a long time since I’ve played any games though and I’ve sold both my consoles. I really don’t have time to sit down and veg out in front of a video game anymore… Soup Name something in which you don?t believe. I don’t believe in not believing. (and I’ll probably get “this is another copout answer” from Josie O.o ) Salad If you could choose a celebrity to be your boss, who would you pick? I gues it depends on your definition of celebrity. I’d probably have to pick someone in the geekdom celebrity market like Matt Cutts or Kevin Mitnick. Someone I would learn some things from. Main Course What was a lesson you had to learn the hard way? Keeping good credit. I’m having to rebuild my credit and pay off debts from YEARS ago, so annoying, this is one thing they should teach in school that they mak... More About: Feast
Fridays Feast #13
2007-11-30 14:53:00 Appetizer What is your favorite carnival/amusement park ride? The newest fastest roller coaster. I’m the type of person that enjoys a new thrill. Getting on the same roller coaster or thrill ride gets less and less thrilling every time I ride it. If I had to choose a single ride though that I enjoy the most right now it would probably be a tie between the Incredible Hulk or the Dueling Dragons both at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in Orlande, FL. Soup How do you react in uncomfortable social situations? I’m sure I’m like 90% of the rest of the population…I get….wait for it……….uneasy Salad On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy discussing deep, philosophical topics? Depends on my mood. I’d much rather discuss deep, difficult technological topics, simply because a lot of people turn philisophical discussions political. Main Course Did you get a flu shot this year? If no... More About: Feast
Dirty Pussy and Pitching a Tent
2007-11-26 21:45:00 Caught this joke on a friend’s site… One December day we found an old straggly cat at our door. She was a sorry sight, starving, dirty, smelled terrible, skinny, and hair all matted down. We felt sorry for her so we put her in a carrier and took her to the vet. We didn’t know what to call her so we named her “Puss ycat.” The vet decided to keep her for a day or so. He said he would let us know when we could come and get her. My husband (the complainer) said, “OK, but don’t forget to wash her, she stinks.” He reminded the vet that it was his WIFE (me) that wanted the dirty cat, not him. My husband and my Vet don’t see eye to eye. The vet calls my husband ‘El-Cheap-O’, and my husband and calls the vet ‘El-Charge-O’. They love to hate each other and constantly ‘snipe’ at one another, with my husband getting in the last word on this particular occasion. The next day my husband had... More About: Dirty , Tent , Pussy
Fridays Feast #12
2007-11-16 14:03:00 Appetizer What was your first ?real? job? I was a Web Developer Intern in high school for a government contracting company. I did Cold Fusion development for them. Soup Where would you go if you wanted to spark your creativity? CSS Remix. Salad Complete this sentence: I am embarrassed when? I see people get embarrased on TV. It’s the weirdest thing and I get made fun of for it all the time. If something embarrasing happens to someone else, especially on a TV show, I start to blush and get all embarrased for them. Main Course What values did your parents instill in you? Tons of good values. Two of the biggest are Good Morales and Respect. Dessert Name 3 fads from your teenage years. I was never really into the big fad thing during my teenage years so I can’t really come up with any off the top of my head. More About: Feast
Christopher Dale Teseniar will be missed…
2007-11-12 21:30:00 Being a personal friend of the Teseniar’s my heart goes out to James, Lori, Tasha, JD and all of the rest of the family of Chris. I also send out my prayer’s to his girlfriend and son and hope them the best. We are always here for you. It’s sad to see this stuff happen. More About: Dale
Fridays Feast #11
2007-11-09 14:56:00 Appetizer Which snack do you like to get when you go to the movies? I either like to get the chocolate covered cookie dough bites or some twizzlers. Talking about movies, I think I might go see American Gangster this weekend. Soup What year did you start using the internet? That’s a hard one, I would say when I was 10 years old, so that would be 13 years ago, 1994. Yeah, that sounds about right. Salad What is your first name in Pig Latin? Ene-Gay (pronounced “Ene-Jay”) Main Course Name something you are picky about. My computer set up. I’m not as picky as I used to be. I used to reformat my computer once every 2 weeks and if anyone would get on my computer I would feel dirty and reformat it almost immediately. Alas, no more time to be that picky about my setup. Dessert Fill in the blanks: I ____ ____ yesterday and I ____ ____ today. I worked hard yesterday and I work hard today. More About: Feast
So Busy, So so Busy
2007-11-08 19:28:00 It seems I’m always busy as of late. Every time I turn around there is another project being thrown on the hot plate and I have no time to even recollect my thoughts after the previous one. Definitely a good thing considering the alternatives. So, that promised Google Maps Tutorial Series, well, there is a reason it’s late. And it’s not all my fault. Sure there is a little procrastination thrown in the mix. To top that off I’m still not quite sure how I want to organize it and I was never really good at organizing my ideas until they are already on paper and I can move them around (not necessarily physical paper, but you get my meaning). On related news there are some cool things on the horizon for SC Ventures, it’s a good time to be a part of this fast growing company. I’m really enjoying myself. On totally unrelated news, the APA decided it was my time to move up to a 5. Actually it seems that the real reason I moved up was complaints ... More About: Busy
Lo Piccolo Arrested
2007-11-05 18:22:00 Top mob boss in Sicily was arrested according to this article from the BBC today. I’ve always been somewhat interested in the dealings of the mafia. The stories are rather intriguing and despite the illegal aspect of the mafia there are a lot of really smart individuals who head it up. Some of the money making scams they pull are pretty elaborate. With his son Sandro - who was also arrested - 65-year-old Lo Piccolo has been a major power-broker in Sicily despite having been on the run for nearly 25 years. Nicknamed The Baron, he is believed by magistrates to have taken over from Bernardo Provenzano, who was the undisputed head of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra from 1995 until his arrest in 2006. Supposedly Piccolo had been on the run for 20 years. Imagine keeping out of site for that long. I simply couldn’t imagine doing that. More About: Arrested
Make My Logo Bigger Cream
2007-11-02 22:42:00 Someone linked this little piece of comedy gold to me this afternoon. The sad thing is I’ve heard all of those types of things mentioned in the video requested on several occasions during my time as a developer. Well worth the watch, I laughed my ass off! More About: Make , Logo , Cream
Fridays Feast #10
2007-11-02 17:23:00 Appetizer How much money do you plan to spend this upcoming holiday season? Enough to get everyone gifts and decorate my house. I’m really excited about the latter, it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to put up christmas decorations around a house. You’ll be able to see my house from the moon! :) Soup What was the last television show you watched, and was it good? I think the last television show I watched was Iron Chef America last night before heading to bed. It was ok, the secret ingredient was Milk and Heavy Cream, didn’t really interest me. Salad If you had to paint the walls of your living room tomorrow, what color would you choose? Probably a taupe. Like a brown paper bag. It’ll match my Marilyn Monroe painting I have in my living room. Main Course Name something clever or practical you have thought of that should be invented, but hasn?t yet. Flying cars. I think the world has a lot of real estate in i... More About: Feast
Youth Jailed for Killing Sister
2007-10-31 14:51:00 This is why we need the strict regulations on guns. Article She told her son about the gun as she left for London on the day the shooting happened. Mr Justice Holland said: “Inevitably, given his age, Kasha retrieved the gun. Inevitably, he started playing with it, it makes him feel a man. Playfully, he threatens his sister with it, having no idea of gun safety. “The gun fires and she receives a bullet in the head and is fatally wounded. I’m not sure exactly how gun laws work in Manchester but it does sound like they are pretty strict. It’s horrible to hear news like this because it’s actually happening every day. Innocent children getting killed because of curiousity stemmed by older adults that should know better. More About: Youth , Sister , Killing
Google Fixes and Page Rank
2007-10-31 01:33:00 For a while there my domain was returning weird “info:” results through Google . These weird results were finally resolved this passed weekend. On top of that I was awarded a Page Rank of 4. So going into Halloween I’ve had some great advances on this site. Not that I am seeing a whole of extra traffic lately. I am planning on attempting to start those Google Maps tutorials as soon as I finish up the Maps Application I am working on for work. I also plan on posting some pictures of my new house sometime soon. It’s a nice change to get out of an apartment and into a house.
Fridays Feast #9
2007-10-26 15:03:00 Appetizer Name a great website you would recommend to others. ForgetFoo. This site is a blog from a guy who works for Clearspring. A lot of his posts are rather informative and even more than that he has tons of great pictures O.o… Soup On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how often do you dream at night? Probably around 4. I probably actually dream more than that but I only remember about 40% of my dreams. Salad Did you have a pet as a child? If so, what kind and what was its name? A dog, and we named him “D” - “O” - “G”. Main Course If you had the chance to star in a commercial, what would you choose to advertise? Some type of pool cue or pool equipment. Dessert What is your favorite kind of hard candy? Creamsavers. More About: Feast
Google Maps Series Introduction
2007-10-23 21:09:00 As the “Web 2.0” trend explodes on the internet and information mashups become more and more commonplace developers are being asked to implement parts of the google api into existing web sites. Having a Google Map on a site where geographical information is presented is a very powerful feature. It’s no surprise that my boss came to me asking about implementing Google Maps into our new Real Estate web sites. Adding some of the features that were requested were a definite challenge and I have spent tons of time researching and developing the application as well as the tools that make the application possible. To start this series I plan to map out some of the features of the site in question and what type of solutions I came up with to solve the problems that were posed by adding these features. Once the map is presented, we’ll then tackle each one of these larger features in a seperate part. Explaining possible solutions and why the route I took was in o... More About: Series , Introduction
Death By Monkey
2007-10-22 16:17:00 Saw this article on the BBC this morning… SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys. The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by. Wow, and I thought squirrels were bad here. I can’t imagine getting attacked by wild monkeys on a daily basis… O.o More About: Monkey , Death
Fridays Feast #8
2007-10-19 20:03:00 Appetizer If you were a dog, what breed would you be, and why? Probably a smaller Pit Bull. But a Nice one…. growlllll Soup What does the color purple make you think of? My grandmother who passed last year. It was her favorite color. Salad Approximately how long does it take you to get ready each morning? 15-20 minutes. Sometimes longer if I am tired. Main Course How many cousins do you have, and are you close to them? Tons, and not really close to all of them. I’m only close to some of them. Dessert Take your initials (first, middle, last) and come up with something else those letters could stand for. (Example: SFO = Sweet Funny Otter) GNS: Ghastly New Seasons ( I don’t know, drew a blank on this one)… More About: Feast
Philipino Prisoners re-enacting ‘Thriller’
2007-10-12 20:11:00 Wow! Check out the video below… More About: Thriller , Prisoners , Hili
Fridays Feast #7
2007-10-12 18:46:00 Appetizer When was the last time you were surprised? I’m not quite sure…it’s been a while Soup Fill in the blanks: My eyes are ________, but I wish they were __________. My eyes are normal, but I wish they were X-RAY Enabled. Salad If you were a Beanie Baby, what would you look like and what would your name be? This is a tough one. I’d probably be a little leprechaun and my name would be shorty. O.o Main Course Name two things you consistently do that you consider to be healthy habits. Eat and Sleep. However, the act of eating is healthy but what I eat rarely is and the act of sleeping is healthy but the amount I sleep hardly is. Dessert What brand of toothpaste are you using these days? Do you like it? Why or why not? Colgate Green Tea Mint. I love it, tastes real refreshing and leaves your mouth feeling good even into the next morning and throughout the day. It also doesn’t leave that toothpaste aftertaste in your... More About: Feast
Moaning Lisa
2007-10-09 18:02:00 I saw this article on google news and thought it was hilarious. Trying to get off a mannequin as a game. crazy… Think of it like a flight simulator, but here the goal’s not quite as easy as landing a Boeing 747 at Baghdad International Airport. Like in real life, Moaning Lisa ’s got no instructions, and as Oh Gizmo’s Evan Ackerman explains, her specific pattern of sensitivity is unknown. Just like a real woman…
Cocaine found in Dead Beetles
2007-10-08 19:47:00 When I first saw the headline to this article I didn’t think twice about it. To be honest I didn’t even read the article since I saw it on an RSS feed and I figured it was a trailer full of VW Beetles that were stuffed. But Bugs? Wow… Dutch customs officers found 100 dead beetles stuffed with cocaine while examining a parcel from Peru, Dutch authorities said Thursday. The little drug couriers’ bodies had been slit open and filled with a total of 300 grams of cocaine, with an estimated street-value of 8,000 euros ($11,270). Seems like drug dealers are getting more and more creative. $11k per bug, wow… More About: Dead , Cocaine , Caine
Moving Day
2007-10-06 16:37:00 It’s moving day. I’m about to tear down the computer and finish packing up the rest of the house, then it’s a little bit of moving and hopefully I’ll be done before this evening rolls around. See you on the flip side! More About: Moving
Friday’s Feast 6
2007-10-05 15:06:00 Appetizer On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you look forward to your birthday? About a 4, it’s lost a lot of it’s exitement since when I was younger. The only reason I look forward to my birthday right now is it means I’m one year closer to cheaper insurance. Soup What is one word you don?t like the sound, spelling, or meaning of? I can’t come up with any word that doesn’t have it’s appropriate place in my vocabulary. Salad Do you wear sunglasses when you?re outside? If so, what does your current pair look like? Yes, when I have some. I tend to lose glasses quickly. Current pair is black and says ‘Gamecocks’ in white along the side. Go Coooocks! Main Course If you were to write a book, to whom would you dedicate it? My sister. Dessert Name a beverage that you enjoy. Jones Cream Soda….mmmmmmmm More About: Friday , Feast |



