roncli.com blog

Seems sleep avoids me like the plague. Thank goodness I have a job that'll put up with me going in late, or even working from home for a bit. It's been three months, and I am really enjoying the work and the people I work with. The paperwork's a pain to keep up with, though... hopefully we can figure out how to make that go away.

I decided to take a look back over the last year or so and see what I've accomplished. Well, a whole lot of nothing.

Musically, only one song was completed, "Everytime", that was actually "completed" back in October of 2004, but I just didn't have the will to sit down and put it together. Once I finally did, it came out okay. I think I could've done better, though, but I still haven't learned enough about post production to do it.

But that's about it. I've started so many songs AGAIN that I can't keep track of them all. New music is in my head that I can't get out because I just don't have the will to open up Reason or ModPlug and write it. The only stuff I end up doing sounds like... well, "Everytime".

I have planned for a while to pretty much destroy roncli.com and make it better. However, I haven't had a good spark of imagination as far as what to actually fill the void with.

OSMusic.Net has all but died, despite my occasional bursts of work to try and get something going again. The previous ASP.Net project I mentioned may help with this, but then again, that all depends on whether or not a certain someone's decided to lose concentration and wander off to another idea. (I know you're listening Saurin!)

My work with Google Desktop has been fairly extensive lately, and I've mostly figured out how to get it to work in VB.Net. Despite the minor problem I had with it the other night that forced me to reinstall the program, it's been a great addition to my desktop, worthy of the space it takes up. And to a desktop space junkie who got himself a 22" monitor just so he could see it all, that's saying something. It'll be a while, though, before I'm able to put anything together, as it's either work with an incomplete VB.Net API that I haven't quite figured out yet, slowly learn C#, or use scripting which doesn't support everything I'd like to use.

Cent has been my oddball project. I've learned a great deal about C++ and can actually do stuff without having to look it up anymore. I've also got a handy dandy C++ book that I still need to finish up to help me along, should I need it. The program itself is working out good. I get stuck sometimes, but once I past those points the application works oh so wonderful. I haven't gotten into any 3D Crystal Space programming yet, but I understand the basic concepts and have read a lot about creating content for it. It shouldn't be a stretch to see this project through to completion, it's just going to take a hell of a lot of time to do.

Other things grab my attention every now and again, but usually not for too long. I haven't really been able to concentrate on any one thing, so it's good in a way to have so many projects to keep me going from day to day. Eventually, something will be completed, I hope, and I'll have something to show for all this time I've been seemingly accomplishing nothing.

Labels: Cent, Coding, Everytime, Gaming, Google Desktop, Music, OSMusic.Net

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Google Desktop 2 out of Beta
Posted: 5:21:00 PM 0 comments

Google has come out with the full release version of Google Desktop 2. It has a great desktop search capability which beats the pants off of Windows, but I like it for the sidebar. Email, news, weather, and all sorts of other things at my fingertips.

I've been playing with writing plugins in Visual Basic.Net, and with the help of some great people at Google, I have a version of a sample plugin that is very close to working. In the meantime, they decided to add scripting as another option for making plugins. It's more limited than using COM, but there still are a wide array of possibilities for plugins.

Of course, there are already quite a few sidebar plugins available. Check it out, more great freeware!

Labels: Google Desktop, Software

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Google's Boggle
Posted: 12:30:00 AM 0 comments

I'm rather annoyed.

I've been using the latest Google Desktop Search with the sidebar for a while, now. I really like the simplistic interface where I can have quick access to email, news, weather, and of course Google itself. But I don't like the way that Google makes 2 to 3 lines or more for each item. I also can think of little tweaks that I'd want to do to the existing news and web clips (RSS feeds) panels.

I also run Trillian, which has a "sidebar" of it's own that people have written some neat plugins for. The problem is, the interface for Trillian is too flashy. But it does things I like, especially with the RSS feeds plugin I have.

But, even on a 2048 pixel-wide screen, I find myself horizontally challenged, and can't justify giving the space to two sidebars. My solution, therefore, has been to attempt to pick up Google's plugin interface and try to code something in VB.Net. There are no VB.Net examples, but I've had success in the past porting C# to VB.Net. I gave it a try.

I have it mostly working. The COM registers. The panel displays. I can even click on a line item to see its details. The problem? The line item is absolutely blank. The only way I know it is there is if I move my mouse over it to see it highlight.

I tried posting to their developer groups to no avail, it seems the VB.Net code scared everyone away. I've been trying every now and again to get it working, and have learned loads about how Google processes information back and forth. I am going to be able to write some great stuff for this sidebar...

As soon as I can figure out how to get a damn content item to display.

Labels: Google Desktop, Software, Trillian

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Now That I Have Room...
Posted: 9:04:00 PM 0 comments

Now playing: DRAX - Tears of My Heart (1:48)

After transferring my MAME collection to a new external drive, I'm left with 30 GB+ of hard drive space, and as such I've decided to download Google Desktop again. They've since come out with a new version of the software which has another "clutter bar" that docks to the side. My first thought was, "How many stupid applications need a sidebar like this?"

Well, turns out that Google's sidebar is open, meaning you can write plugins for it. So I'm thinking of trying it out for a bit to see if I can get some functional plugins going for it. I use Trillian, and I've got it loaded up with plugins of its own. Trillian's I find are much nicer than Google's. All entries are on one line, and you can mouseover to see what they are. Google uses two, sometimes three lines for some things it really doesn't need to. But the general interface of Google Desktop is a bit better, and I'm sure with a bit of tinkering I could make plugins similar to what they have now that'll look a lot nicer.

Another thing that bothers me about Google Desktop is the lack of ability to skin it, but that's not really so bad. I'm sure they'll add that at some point. Functionality before beauty I always say, and the folks at Google are geniouses when it comes to that.

Labels: Google Desktop, Software

Monday, March 07, 2005

Google Desktop Search
Posted: 1:04:00 PM 0 comments

Now playing: Karmann - Number 27 (5:30)

Google continues to impress me with the quality of the products that they put out. Today I downloaded the Google Desktop Search. Easy install, and great integration with your desktop. Get this, it'll even put search results from your desktop into your google.com search results, all without sending anything to Google. It's absolutely brilliant, and makes all my other file finding utilities I've downloaded over the years irrelevant.

Google rocks.

Labels: Google Desktop, Software