I’m starting to really get hacked off at Enthusiast, the fanlisting management script. Multiple times in the past, it has been directly responsible for my fanlistings being on troubled lists. For reasons unknown to me, it has:

1. Not detected that some fanlistings haven’t been updated in two months time, even though it detects other fanlistings with the same problem
2. Tedious upgrades that broke mass amounts of includes… resulting in more troubles lists
3. Not managing things that would relatively be easy to implement (IE, code management – I realize there are “plugins/addons” out there for this, but I hesitate to use them as they don’t really look all that secure)

Enthusiast does many things well. It has been a fantastic time-saver and has allowed me to manage many more fanlistings than I could have done without it. However, it has flaws that so far haven’t been addressed – for whatever reason – and I’m fed up with it. There has to be a better way to do things.

I’ve had a bare-bones admin panel with some very basic functionality written for my own fanlisting management script which I hope will address the problems above. I’m not sure if I’ll ever release it for general use (if I get it finished, that is). I want something that is truly a content management system – I hate having to log in and modify code to add new link codes, change wording, etc. I want it to manage link codes, basic fanlisting functionality, affiliates, and page content. It is very idealistic of me, but seeing as how I’ve got two years of PHP/MySQL programming under my belt (with many more of OOP and HTML/CSS) I don’t think it’s so far-fetched. If I ever get enough time to sit down and finish it, that is.

So, being as it has been a mere 2.5 months since my last post, I had better attempt to fill in the gap. The fall 2009 semester has started and I’m already aghast that enrollment for next spring is starting soon (October 30!).

This semester I’m in:
- ANTH 618: Religion in Culture – really, really interesting class. I have found, however, that the majority of students seem to be anthro majors and therefore a lot of the terminology and such flies way over my little CIS head. Not to mention that I’ve been trained the last two years to think of everything in sequence and logically – and things don’t always go that way in class (not that that’s a bad thing). Studying culture is entirely different than computing, that’s for sure.
- DEN 325: Personal & Professional Development – dumb requirement we have to take in order to graduate. Yes, some of what we discuss in this class is worthwhile – but I was told in class that I needed a $400 outfit with a designer purse to get job offers. I’m not kidding.
- PHYS 114: General Physics II – getting the class-with-a-science-prereq out of the way. It sucks, and quite frankly I probably won’t use anything from this class afterwards. I’m also not really digging the abstract-ness of the concepts (flux! Henrys! DANGEROUS ELECTRICAL CURRENTS!)
- CIS 501: Software Architecture – I’m really enjoying this class. We hadn’t really been taught previously how to lay out programs before coding and although it was awkward coding from diagrams the first time, I can definitely say that it’s a time saver and makes things so squeaky clean it makes my nerd knees week (say that ten times fast). We’ve been using StarUML to draw up the diagrams, which is a free solution for those interested.
- CIS 308: C/C++ Programming – I’m actually retaking this, as I had dropped it halfway through last semester. I should have this bitch knocked out though because I’m having an easier time this go around. I still hate C, however. If the devil went down to Georgia, C would be in the back seat with a baseball bat smacking little old Grannys’ mailboxes and kicking puppies. Srsly.
- STAT 325: Intro to Statistics – This has been pretty easy so far and I actually had my first exam tonight. I’m pretty certain I did really well but as always I’ll only know for sure once I see my grade online.

My course load has been pretty bad this semester, but not nearly as bad as fall 2008 (I shudder at the thought). That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been around here… the other reason is severe stress in other areas, namely some personal issues with family members that I won’t detail here. I don’t really foresee things changing until Christmas break, but at which time I’ll likely be working 40 hours a week again so who knows. I’m not making any promises.

The photo isn’t random here, these are just some books I’ve been poking around in lately. I haven’t got very far as of yet but I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t claim to be knowledgeable about religion unless you start probing around in areas you previously had overlooked. I’m hoping to pick up some other religious materials soon… preferably over those I’m not too acquainted with, like Islam, Buddhism, etc. Any recommendations would be nice – although I would prefer ones that at least try to be academic – I’m not amused with Crocoduck reasoning.

Anyway, I’m still active around Twitter (@heatheronnen) and Facebook (I don’t add you unless I know you, but you can try if you really want to) if you’re interested. Hopefully it won’t be another 2.5 months before my next post…

Oh, and for some reason I’ve suddenly fell in love with Fleet Foxes.

I’ve started Folding@Home again. If you don’t know what that is, check out the FAQ. I used to do it quite awhile ago but I stopped and can’t even remember why; it was definitely gone when I reformatted my computer but anyway. It’s a pretty neat way to help out researching diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, ALS, etc. I know I don’t always have the time or money to help out as much as I’d like with the various walkathons and fundraisers they have so at least I can donate my computer’s processing power to helping out. It’s pretty easy — I just run it when my computer is already on, and it runs in the background doing the rest. Without trying to reach any goal I’ve already completed one work unit. There’s even teams you can join which is pretty cool.

I feel like I’m rambling, however, so I guess the point of this entry is that if you’re interested in helping to fight diseases and wouldn’t mind a program running nearly unnoticeably in the background then this is pretty neat. Also for the biology/genetics nerds who like to view the folding action real-time

I’ve just upgraded to WordPress 2.7.1. The new admin panel was and still is a bit shocking whenever I log in. I’ve just been with the old one for so long. It does look rather nice, though, and hopefully I’ll get used to where things are. Sooner or later.

PS: On April Fool’s Day I always look forward to seeing Google’s joke/prank. This year’s was pretty awesome in my opinion:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html
The previous link wasn’t quite as hilarious as the blogspot page they made for CADIE:
http://cadiesingularity.blogspot.com
Just picturing the Google techs working on that blog is priceless…

This weekend has seemed nothing but short. I’ve read two chapters of my geology book, done two online quizzes and leveled up only once in Perfect World. Hmm. I did also watch a Nova documentary on ape intelligence with David which was pretty good. (We’re both so nerdy that we watch documentaries for fun… har har.) I’m dead tired right now but I’m in no mood to go to sleep, and I’m waiting for an episode of House M.D to load, so I’m blogging.

Does anyone else enjoy House M.D? I’m rather addicted – I’ve been watching all the episodes online. I only started watching at the beginning of season 4 and so it’s rather interesting to start back at season 1 and see how the characters progress and change. I really want House to hook up with Cameron…

In other news, 2 new brush sets are up entitled “Fireworks” and “Tiny Stars”. I dug out some photographs that I’d taken at a local lake of an Independence Day fireworks display for the fireworks set and I’d just doodled around for the tiny stars set. Have fun.