Brettia

Lately it seems like there just aren’t enough hours in a day. I’ve got homework, chores, relatives, sleep, school, and PHP, and it all has to be done NOW. I have no way to prioritize or to figure out what really needs to be done, because everyone is pressuring me to do for them what they want.

It’s not that I can’t handle it. I know that I’m more than capable of leading a much busier lifestyle than I had in middle school. Back in 7th grade I read books and did homework. In 8th grade, I got into PHP, so I had to juggle programming, reading, homework, and friends. Back then, programming wasn’t such a big deal because I was doing it for self-improvement, not for a client. Now, I have a major project for the school website that needs to be done, as well as my church’s information portal, which I’ve put off for over two months. If I could just have a week to do everything without disturbance, then all would be right in the world.

Then again, I did have a week to do everything. Or close to one. I got out of school Wednesday because I had relatives in town, and we went on a scenic drive around Wickenburg and Castle Hot Springs that bordered closely on being an SSV. Thrusday was, of course, Thanksgiving, meaning I stuffed my already bloated self with turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and green beans. We just finished the leftovers today.
Friday was shopping day, which was a good thing only because most of the shopping was for electronics and such. That was how I came upon an ATI Radeon 9600 (128 MB) video card for only $70. My mom and I rushed to Best Buy to get it, but were disappointed when it turned out that we didn’t have an AGP slot in our computer. This angered me greatly, since all the manuals and specifications for our clunky old HP Pavilion 8660C clearly stated that there was indeed an AGP slot on the motherboard. Worse, the case fan which keeps the CPU from overheating decided to get loud and horrible, but it has since quieted down. I’ll probably end up having to replace it anyway.

So I was stuck with a beautiful new Radeon and nowhere to put it. Then on Saturday, after taking my uncle, aunt, and two cousins (the aforementioned relatives) to the airport, my dad and I went back to Best Buy to exchange it for a different one. We ended up with a NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 (256MB), which has twice the onboard memory as the Radeon did. The GeForce also was a PCI card, meaning that it went into one of the two PCI slots that were open in our PC. I had hoped that getting Windows to be happy with the new card would be as easy as installing a scanner or new speakers (just plug it in and you’re done), but that didn’t turn out to be the case.

You see, my computer came with “Intel Integrated Graphics,” which means that the graphics card is nonexistent and is virtually emulated by using some hard disk space, memory, and processor power. If I ever buy a new PC, or build my own, I will never settle for any kind of “integrated” or “on-board” graphics solution. That is usually only included because the manufacturer is too cheap to give you anything better. Since I was using the integrated graphics before getting the new card, that had to be disabled in order to switch to the GeForce. That proved to be much harder than it should have been.

Not long ago, I started experiencing problems with Windows Update (Microsoft’s website for patches and software updates pertaining to the operating system) where the updates would not install because they didn’t pass “Windows Logo Testing.” I dismissed this as a temporary error and ignored it, until I started having problems with the Device Manager administrative tool (Control Panel->System->Hardware tab->Device Manager) when trying to disable the old graphics card. Assuming that these problems were probably connected, I found that the reason the updates weren’t passing logo testing was that Cryptographic Services, a background process, wasn’t able to start. I jumped to the Services administrative tool and tried to start it manually, but I got error code 126.

Obviously 126 means nothing to me, so I Googled around a bit and found a helpful site that had information to aid me in fixing the problem and getting Cryptographic Services started. With the issue resolved, I was finally able to disable the integrated graphics, install all those updates that had been failing, and install the NVIDIA drivers for the new card. Now the only problem I have is a random reboot when playing DVDs. I can’t figure out why that it happening, but I rarely watch movies on here, anyway.

I stayed up late last night to play around with my new toy, fiddling with the display settings and trying out all my games to see how much improved they were. 256 MB is overkill when the only games you have are realtime strategy and simulation, but the low-end graphics was what was keeping me from buying any new games in the first place. Besides, the display options control panel includes a neat little setting that allows you to rotate the screen so that it will show up upside down or sideways. That’s pretty cool.

Now my mom asks, was it worth $120? I told her it was that or a new computer, and she went quiet. My parents have a phobia of spending more than $100 on any one thing, especially when it’s something that I want, not something that will benefit them. In the last six months we’ve gotten a new Toyota Sequoia, a new dishwasher, a new refrigerator, and a new stove. And we’re going to Spain in March. So why can’t I have a new computer? The logic is fuzzy, I need to hire Tyler to tune it. I don’t much care about the appliances, and the Sequoia is nice and roomy, but I didn’t have a problem with the Chevy Malib(u) that mom was driving before. If my parents are willing to spend $1,500 on new appliances, $26,000-ish on a new car, and $3,000-ish on a trip to Europe, then why not a $2,000 computer?

Don’t get me wrong, here, I’m thankful for everything that I have, but it just seems hypocritical for my parents to tell me over and over that we will never get a new PC when they themselves are the ones doing the big spending. Then again, they’re the ones doing all the earning as well. Also, my mom keeps saying how expensive computers are whenever I say anything about them, but you can get a good Dell for about $30/month with financing. That’s less than half of our phone bill.

I suppose I’ll just have to continue hoarding cash to get my own system. They (the parental units) had better realize now, though, that if I buy (or build) one myself, I’m not sharing. It’ll be their own fault when I have an Alienware Aurora Athlon64 FX while they’re stuck with our Pavilion Pentium III.

Eggplant.

There are a lot of things I should be doing right now. I have a worksheet to finish, a stupid Thanksgiving project for English, a one-page paper for Social Studies, the mile run in PE tomorrow, and a math quiz to study for. But instead, knowing that I have been neglecting my duties as a contributor to the general blogging community, I am posting now, in the interest of making you all happy.

I know I should have blogged long ago, since a lot has happened with my position as co-webmaster for my high school’s website and I have things I need to say about that. I’ve been buried under homework and chores lately; now I know what complaining about boredom gets you. So that’s my excuse for not blogging for nearly two weeks. Sorry.

I’m quite proud of one accomplishment completed over the last week: the CSHS Scholarship Database. It’s one of the first projects I’ve started that I actually finished completely. It helps to have a reason for coding other than personal improvement.

Eggplant. I’m losing the will to write already. Sorry again for the short entry. I’ll write again sometime.

Boredom has become a habit for me. That’s what happens when you have only a few core hobbies I guess. When one gets frustrating, they all do, and you don’t want to do anything anymore. Eventually I need to work on the course registration system (CRS) for Mr. Trapani, and then I have to do an extra credit web page project for social studies, and then I have to do a PowerPoint presentation for biology. Three technology-related projects, and I don’t want to do any of them, having spent most of my time in the past several days in front of a CRT.

I should be happy since I made a good deal of money over the weekend, what with $40 from my parents for chores (they owed me from past weeks) and an unexpected $50 from the neighbor whose dog I had to take care of. I’m up to somewhere around $150. Also, I was able to finally cut a deal with my parents in order to purchase a computer of my OWN (mine, all mine!). I have to come up with $600 first, though, and then most of my income will go to paying the monthly payment for it. Only problem is, I won’t have that much money until March 13th at my current rate. Grim.

The only thing I can think of doing to raise money is to design and maintain websites for people, but I’m finding it hard enough to design and maintain the three that I already have, so adding more to the roster might overload my circuits. I will get $100 from my mom’s co-worker for taking care of her plants and stuff from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, though, which helps a lot. And I can’t complain about the current $20/week arrangement with my parents for cleaning the house, which is really generous in itself. My thinking is that, if I make $80/month, then that will cover even the most expensive PC (Dell’s go up to about $65/month. I met a guy not long ago who said that he can get nice Dell and IBM laptops for as low as $600, though I don’t know the specifications. I’d rather not take any of those kind of deals, though, since you never know what you’ll get with them.

If only my parents were a bit more technologically oriented, like me, then things would be different. My mom uses a computer all day, though, and she doesn’t really want to come home and use one some more, and my dad just plays spy-ware stuffed games like PartyPoker over the Internet. I think he would really appreciate a new machine, though I know my selfish half won’t let me share my new computer much, in the event that I get one. If only I had $8,000, then I could get one of those tricked out Voodoo boxes, with custom paint and clear sides and ultra high-end components. If only, if only…

In other news, I read the latest Redwall book, Loamhedge, over the last week. It was really good, though I didn’t want to finish it, knowing that I’d have to wait another year or more for the next one to come out. I really have outgrown the books, but I read them anyway just because they were the first major series that I liked. I’ve read all fifteen.

Loamhedge has given me the writing bug again, but I’m afraid to sit down and try to write anything since the usual result of such an action is frustration and a month of writer’s block. Most of the time I attribute my inability to write fiction to a lack of experience and knowledge to draw off of, but I increasingly have a problem with rewording things over and over again until it’s so muddled even I cannot discern what I was trying to say in the first place.

Eggplant.

Time for another entry. Sure, it’s only been four days since the last one, but it’s looking to be a busy weekend, so I might not have time on Sunday.

I’ve gained another reader since I last wrote. It seems Mr. Larsen, my friend Sam’s dad, told Mr. Trapani (that technology teacher I told you about) about Organon when he told him about me. Or perhaps Mr. Trapani found his way here himself from the main website. I think that brings the total up to five. Wow, I’m really reaching a lot of people. My Webalizer log analysis information says that I’ve gotten over 1000 visitors (5500 hits) from 15 countries, but most of these are search engine robots and other indexers that follow links from major blog update sites like weblogs.com and blo.gs. Also, 42% of the hits come from me. (That’s kind of sad, in a way.)
I’ve also gotten a lot of visits from my content (a very good thing), mainly people searching for computer configurations and reaching my entry about my dream desktop/notebook PC. It’s probably now what they wanted, but I can’t say I care. Finally, my old friend Google tells me that there is only one site (brettia.com) that links to Organon, and that Organon is the top result for “Brett Epps.” Sadly, it’s a broken link. (By the way, did you know that Google has a built-in calculator? Just type your problem into the search box.)

This week was a bit hectic. First of all, I’ve been going to Mr. Trapani’s lab in the mornings to do work on the CSHS website for the counseling department. Thursday I managed to get out of P.E. (much to my friend Jim’s annoyance, who was forced to do the mile run alone) to check out a program Mr. Trapani found called WebMerge.
It’s a neat little piece of software, able to take data from an exported database file and generate static HTML pages from it. However, though it has some flexibility in its templating feature, its power really pales in comparison to that of PHP. (Sorry, Mr. Trapani, but I have a rigid honesty policy to follow here.) True, I use Movable Type for my weblog, which does essentially the same thing, but the real reason I don’t like WebMerge is that it offers no view of the underlying system that it runs on.
I think it will do fine for Mr. Trapani’s purposes (teaching his 6th period web development class about databases), but I really hope he doesn’t want to make it a core component of the website for the simple reason that it must be manually told to generate new pages, so it won’t work well with a dynamic (ever-changing) database. That, and the fact that WebMerge costs $80, which Mr. Trapani seems willing to pay. (Being on a $0 budget, I usually snub anything with a price tag, though there are some pretty good commercial programs out there that I am probably missing out on.)

Aside from the WebMerge project, Mr. Trapani also has me working on one big, more important task: building a Internet-based registration system for incoming 8th graders. Right now, students from the middle school have to make class selections on paper and turn those in, with a counselor or staff person hand inserting the results into a computer (I assume). With my system, which I can finish this weekend, providing I have the time, there will be no need for this arduous task, and the district will save paper. Not bad at all. Obviously there will be a lengthy beta process after I get a preliminary (alpha) version made, but it should be complete long before it is needed around February of 2004.

I’m really excited about this, for the sole reason that I finally get to do something fulfilling and enjoyable, qualities that my own website lacks. So thank you, Mr. Trapani, for awarding me this project when there were so many other contenders wishing to do it. (I was the only one.)

With this new project to work on, I’ve been watching the web development students closely, listening for any hint of knowledge about PHP or any other open-source scripting project that might prove useful. So far, all I’ve found is more people to teach, no one whom I can learn from.

I find it amusing that Mr. Trapani is so enthused by my talents. I seem to by his holy grail of a student, one that can do almost everything and is willing to learn the things he doesn’t know already. I never thought that I knew so much until I could compare myself to others my age and grade like this. I don’t know how I’ll manage to teach anyone in a few months the concepts that took me over a year to grasp, but I guess it’ll all work out all right if I take one thing at a time.

All that aside, I’ve got a new build of Linux running now (Red Hat’s Fedora Core 1). It’s pretty, with updated versions of the GNOME Desktop Environment, Apache, MySQL, and most importantly, PHP. It still doesn’t have the functionality, compliance, or ease-of-use that Windows has, but it seems to be about as stable. A new kernel, 2.6, is set to be released soon, and that will add to it’s ever-strengthening power.

Now I must run away and die, in other words, go take care of a neighbor’s dog. Hopefully I’ll get some cash out of the deal.

“School becomes increasingly annoying, students outraged at sudden rush of busy work and useless assignments, next on WORG News, Channel 42.”

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“We’re back! I’m Erik the Red with WORG News. Now I’ll pass it on to our reporter in the field, Crusty Eyelid. Crusty?”

“Thanks, Erik. I’m here live at The Unnecessarily Big Campus of Schools, in Cave Creek, Arizona with the education report. Students have become increasingly bored with their classes lately, claims local Brett Epps. Here’s a clip of my chat with him Sunday.”

[Roll Clip]

“So, what do you find most boring about school?”

“Everything. The teachers give out occasional interesting assignments, but most everything lately has been easy or busy work. I barely see a point in even going to school anymore.”

“Could you give us some examples?”

“In geometry, we do 10-15 homework problems nightly. The problem is, all but one or two take less than 30 seconds to complete. I wish the teacher would have us do five or six of the harder problems rather than so many uselessly easy ones.”

“Anything else?”

“In social studies, we just do outlines and questions on chapters in the textbook. That’s about all it amounts to. In biology, things are worse. Today, for instance, we did a “lab” where all we did was count letter strings and answer repetitive questions on gathered data. This was not only stupid, it barely had anything to do with what we were studying.”

[End Clip]

“Obviously, this is a growing problem in Arizona schools. We can only ask ourselves, ‘Are students really being challenged? Are we doing enough to provide accelerated learning programs at the high school level? Could we be doing something productive for three weeks of every school year rather than standardized tests that students remember the answers to because they are the same every year?’ Only time will tell.”

“I’m Crusty Eyelid, WORG News.”

“Thanks for that report, Crusty. And now on to weather…”