Furtheliest

Erm… I am alive, I promise

Due to many circumstances, ClipExtender is at the very BOTTOM of my list of things to work on. Since I’m the only person that it’s important to, I suppose that doesn’t really matter.

On another note, I’ve gotten my laptop set up dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12 with a shared partition between the two. The idea was that I could work on stuff like Java projects from either OS without having to copy files all over the place. This would be great to check compatibility with the two OSs! However, I can’t get Java working properly on the Ubuntu side of things. But that’s not even at the top of my list!

I’ve recently set up my really old laptop as a LAMP server (Linux, Apache, MySql, Php) and that has been a learning experience. My first time poking around in Linux, Apache and Php, as well as this particular implementation of Sql have been with this project. It’s been really fun though and I’m starting to make some stuff that I’m excited about. It’s a super secret project that’s actually based around super secrecy. This project has gotten me back into slinging code after a short hiatus, so it’s good.

On an art note, I’ve completed a medium sized (for me at  least) illustration contract that has turned out well. The door has been left open for some more work from that source in the future. I’m also about a day or two away from finishing a rather large contract (finally) and then being able to start on another one from the same source (more of a continuation or extension of the other one. We’ve been doing these in chunks over the span of a couple of years).

I haven’t really created any art for myself in awhile, but I’ve been getting inspired, and I have an idea that’s been nagging at me lately. We’ll see if it turns out to be worthy of the first art I post on this blog.

Chris

It’s alive! (mostly)

ClipExtender v1.0 has been tested on Vista and 7 and works fine, but my installer is all sorts of wonky, so I’ll have to rebuild it. Another day or two and I’ll be ready to show ClipEx to the world!

Almost ready!

ClipExtender is almost ready for a 1.0 release! It does not include all the features I want to put in there, in fact it’s really barebones, but it’s functional. I decided it is more important to get the program into the wild at this point to make sure the basic functionality is free of bugs before moving on.
I’ve created the install .exe and just need to test it on all of my computers. It should get tested on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, fingers crossed.
I think I can get it up later today, and will post a link for it on this blog.

First World Problems

I’m working on a fairly simple Java game with my brother in law and I’m currently designing and building the basic game architecture. I started with a typical object hierarchy but after some research I realized this may not be the best approach.
Well, I’m now trying to build an object component system, which is proving to hold its own challenges. In addition to this, I’m moving the specific data for the object classes out of the classes themselves and into data files. Combining the two approaches has me stumped right now. Ah well, such is life, and it is fun!

ClipExtender v0.2

  I have added a new revision to ClipExtender over at https://sourceforge.net/projects/clipextender/. I’ve added an ‘About’ section that covers version, copyright and licensing info, and an ‘Exit’ button that closes the application. I also cleaned up the user interface, getting rid of several buttons and a text box that were useful in building and testing the target functionality of the project, but are not needed now. I have upgraded the status of the project from ‘pre-alpha’ to ‘alpha’. I know the conventions for alpha, beta, release candidate and final release are very loose, but I figured I’d call it alpha since there are a number of features I’d like to add.

  Currently the program allows you to copy text items as you normally would from within Windows. When you do this, whatever you have added to the clipboard (by right clicking and hitting ‘Copy’ or by hitting ‘ctrl+C’) gets added to a list in ClipExtender. As you copy more stuff, the list gets longer, and when you need to go back and paste that first thing that you copied, all you do is click on it in the list and it’s ready to go. Voila!

  What I would like to add to the program is the ability to copy other stuff, namely images and html. Eventually I’d like to build the program for other operating systems (Ubuntu Linux would probably be the first, since I have access to that, followed possibly by Mac OSX and Windows XP). I’m also contemplating adding the ability to save a group of selections in order to re-load them later. I think this would be useful if you’re working on a long paper or something and know that you’ll need those selections multiple times in the future.

  Anyhow, despite being very busy due to work (and kids, and the wife, and keeping the house as clean as I can) progress is coming along swimmingly. I don’t know if I’ll end up recruiting anybody else to help on this project (it’s not a very big project after all) but if anybody wants to pitch in, let me know. Of course, feedback is also welcomed.

  Again, ClipExtender can be found at https://sourceforge.net/projects/clipextender/. Currently, there is not an installation file or an exe file, so if you wanna test it out you’ll need to download the source and build it. I’d recommend using Microsoft Visual Studio Express, which can be downloaded here. I will, of course, be providing an exe file and then an installer once the program comes along further and is finished.

Chris

ClipExtender meets the bazaar

    I’ve been working on a project for a little while now that is now working well. I call it ClipExtender and essentially its a small Windows Vista or 7 app that allows you to copy multiple items and then select which one you want to show up when you hit ‘Paste’. Its certainly not a new idea, I’ve seen a few pieces of software than do this, but most of them are not free and I just wanted to do my own anyhow.

    I’ve decided that not only will ClipExtender be completely free, but also open source as well, meaning that you can download it free but you can also contribute to development. At this point, I’ve only just gotten it working (relatively) reliably and would love any help I can get from the legions who know more than I do.

    Anyhow, the project site can be viewed at https://sourceforge.net/projects/clipextender/ and if you’d like to be added as a developer, let me know here or on the project site. I’ve only just created the site so it’s VERY sparse at the moment, but I will be adding important stuff soon (like a README file as well as setting up the Wiki to outline the current state of the program). Anyhow, thanks for checking it out. If you’re running Windows Vista or 7 and ever find yourself needing to copy multiple things but not having a place to paste them yet, keep an eye on this!

Chris

Asus eeePad Transformer

I bought myself an Asus Transformer with the keyboard dock today. It is certainly an awesome toy, although I don’t know if I’ll keep it. I think if I can get Ubuntu or Debian Linux running on it it would be very useful for development as it is even lighter and more portable than my already light and portable 14 inch Asus notebook. We shall see.
I have been wanting a true Android device for awhile now (I’ve gotten cyanogenMod 7.1 running on my HP Touchpad, which will probably be going up for sale if I decide to keep the Transformer) and having one would make it much easier to develop for Android, which I’ve been wanting to do. I can’t stomach forking over the 100 bucks to Apple in order to develop for iOS, so this would be a nice alternative.
Anyhow, this entire post has been typed on the Transformer’s keyboard dock and while it is a little small for my taste, I think I could get used to it. We shall see.

Birth of a Blog

This is not my first attempt at a blog, but it is my first post in THIS blog. My name is Chris and I am an amateur computer programmer as well as a professional artist (in the strictest sense of the word, I have and do get paid to create artwork. I’m not claiming my artwork is always or even often of professional quality). Neither of these things currently generates me a livable income but they end up taking up a fair amount of my free time anyway.

  I will most likely post stuff related to these two areas of my life. Sketches, musings on art, music, life and how they interact, links to where you can download the latest little software trinket I’ve created, etc.

  I don’t imagine anybody will see this for quite awhile as I probably won’t be ready to truly share this blog until I have something for people to look at, so when YOU are reading this, let it serve as an official notice of…. I dunno what really. The birth of a blog anyhow.

Chris