Garrett Hoofman

Secondary Blogging

Garrett Hoofman — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:57:23 GMT

I've decided to start a second blog. Some of the articles will make it to this one, however, more specific ones will stay only to the new one.

http://www.visionsofafar.com

It uses the Blog Engine.net v1.4 Blogging Software. It set up really easy, and I like it a lot.

The man with the cast

Garrett Hoofman — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:19:18 GMT

I was on campus today walking towards one of the cs buildings when I caught sight of a man walking on crutches. His right leg was in a cast and it looked as though he was struggling to get where he was going. It didn't take long as I watched and he took a seat on a nearby bench.

I went up to him, told him my name, and asked what happened to his leg. He told me that he had broken his foot chopping wood. A log had rolled off the stack and onto his foot. So I asked if he needed any help and he gratefully accepted. I took his bag for him, and I walked him to his class. He was a nice guy, on his last year at tech as a Cival Major. Pretty nice guy. If I see him again, I'll be sure to give him another helping hand.

Choose College

Garrett Hoofman — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 03:36:56 GMT

College or no college? Jump into work, or push through the education.

I've decided to go back to college full time again. Michigan Tech was a fun time filled with lots of friends and lots of very good times. Now it's time to go back to those fun times, full time. I have two years left to get my bachelors degree in Computer Science and now I'm serious about getting it. I've worked in the tech industry in New Hampshire for 8 months now for one company. Now, they're either going out of business or they're getting sold off...

So, now is the best time to get out while I can. I'll be headed back to Michigan Tech from Salem, NH. It's a 1,250 mile trip over a 2 day period.

Changing the background color of a TD

Garrett Hoofman — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:45:12 GMT

So I just finished spending approximately an hour and a half trying to figure out why my very simple javascript code wasn't working...

function changeColor()
{
mb.style.backgroundColor = "#000000";
}

Basically, I had an image in the html page, when the mouse went over the image it called that function, which would change the background color of the TD named mb to Black.

I opened up IE and it worked. I opened up Firefox...and nothing happened.

Finally after searching and searching, I found the culprit.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

Can anybody tell me why that's preventing Firefox from changing the background color of a TD?

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        function changeImage()
        {
            mb.style.backgroundColor = "#000000";
        }
    </script>
    <title>
    Untitled Page
</title></head>
<body>
        <a href="#"><img border="0" src="sham.jpg" id="sham" onmouseover="changeImage()" /></a>
    <table style="width:100%;">

</body>
</html>

Email Newsletters/Campaigns

Garrett Hoofman — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:51:51 GMT

In the IT world a person tends to learn something new every day, if not hourly. It's a fast paced world that we all live in, especially once we start talking about computers. Today I learned a new feature of e-mail that I had never known about.

When you visit a web site and you subscribe to their newsletter you are often asked if you would prefer an html or a text version of their newsletter. Seeing this over the years off an on, I always assumed the only way to send html and text campaigns/newsletters out correctly was to keep two separate lists. Well, it turns out I was wrong.

There's a way to send out both the html and the text at the same time. The client will then decide if it wants to, or can, display the html or the text version. The technology for this is called Multipart/Alternative MIME.

This little bit of information crossed my path when I was trying to create a simplistic Mass Mailing application. I have an html version that the program creates, and a text version that the program creates. I then have a huge list of e-mails that need to be sent out to people. So I created some C# code.

        private void btnSendEmails_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

            string time = DateTime.Now.ToString();

            SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient("smtpserver");

            lblTotalEmails.Text = "100";

            progressBarEmails.Maximum = 100;

            progressBarEmails.Minimum = 0;

            progressBarEmails.Value = 0;

            for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)

                client.Send(createMail("AdressToSendTo"));

                lblSent.Text = "" + i;

                progressBarEmails.Value++;

                this.Refresh();

            MessageBox.Show(time + " : " + DateTime.Now.ToString());

        private MailMessage createMail(string to)

            MailMessage mail = new MailMessage();

            AlternateView viewTxt = new AlternateView(txtLoc, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Text.Plain);

            AlternateView viewHtml = new AlternateView(htmlLoc, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Text.Html);

            mail.AlternateViews.Add(viewHtml);

            mail.AlternateViews.Add(viewTxt);

            mail.To.Add(to);

            mail.From = new MailAddress("FromAddress");

            mail.Subject = txtSubject.Text;

            mail.IsBodyHtml = true;

            return mail;

Basically all that needs to be done, is to add the alternative views. Once the e-mail is sent out, the client then decides which version to display.

Time to go learn something new.

Barnes and Noble

Garrett Hoofman — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:04:05 GMT

I've turned 21 years of age and I've experienced the wonderful joys of drinking alcohol legally... It takes all the fun out of drinking. My birthday is always shortly after the holidays, which means everyone is just finishing up their present giving, and then they see my birthday. So for Christmas I received $100 in Barnes and Noble gift cards. Then for my birthday I received yet another $50 in Barnes and Noble gift cards. So today I walked myself into the store to look for some books, knowing full well that with $150 of gift cards I'd be able to get 2, maybe 3, computer books. So I walked in to this great big huge Barnes and Noble and found the computer section. Oh My Gosh! There's books everywhere, and I can't decide what I want to get.

I've learned so many things about computers through books. I've never really mastered a single subject, however, I've become advanced in every subject. Which means, if I come across a problem, then I know I can fix it, or make the solution even though I may not know immediately how to do it, and/or possibly what the absolute best/perfect way to do it is.

So I've learned C#, ASP.net, Managed DirectX, XNA, Windows 2003, SQL, ADO.net, Flash, CCNA Networking, and HLSL. There are hundreds of technologies out there. Tons of things that I would love to learn about.

Maya Modeling, Character Rigging and Animation

Advanced SQL Development / Programming

Flash CS3 Action Scripting

Advanced C++ Concepts

CCNA Study Books

GPU Gems Books

ASP.Net 3.5

Silverlight

Unix

Those are some of the technologies I would love to learn about right now. I know there are more technologies that I want to learn about. What I don't know though, is what books I should buy right now. What technology is the best thing I could learn to further my career/money making capabilities. So...

What books should I spend my $150 dollars on? Any suggestions?

Do not call!

Garrett Hoofman — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:57:37 GMT

So we've had a national do not call list for a while now. It seems to work pretty well too. The annoying telemarketers get farther and farther between, and you get rid of those exasperating calls. So if we've done this, why can't we have a Do not spam list? It could be a giant list of e-mails that say, you better not e-mail us, or you're going to be in big trouble.

I can understand why it might not work. It'd be easy to get around any kind of punishment simply because they don't live in the same country, and their country doesn't have any will to enforce it. I still want one though...Pretty please?

I must be missing something?

Garrett Hoofman — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:06:14 GMT

Ebay Auction

Why would you spend $125 dollars on a $100 gift card? ...

I'm not understanding it? Can somebody please fill me in? lol

Einstein's Puzzle

Garrett Hoofman — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:50:41 GMT

Today I saw this puzzle on the Internet. I love puzzles like these, which is probably why I like to program so much. It took me about 30 minutes and a couple sheets of paper to rifle through it all and get the answer.

How fast can you guys get it? Comment, and I'll let you know if you're right or not.

Einstein's Logic Puzzle

So you want a hard brain teaser! Well, here it is.

It's purported that Einstein said 98% of the world's population could not figure out this logic problem. Try your hand at it.

A logical question.

There are 5 houses each with a different color. Their owners, each with a unique heritage, drinks a certain type of beverage, smokes a certain brand of cigarette, and keep a certain variety of pet. None of the owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigarette or drink the same beverage.

Clues:

The Brit lives in the red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is just to the left of the white house.
The green house's owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Malls raises birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps a horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The owner who smokes Bluemasters also drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

Who owns the fish?

What's your GMail story?

Garrett Hoofman — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:44:27 GMT

Just saw this when I went to my GMail page. Thought you guys might find it humurous.

What's Your Gmail Story

Snow Day!

Garrett Hoofman — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:24:27 GMT

I get out of work 2 hours early for a snow day! This is the first snow day I've ever gotten for work. School days, sure all the time, but never for work.

I'm liking it. I can spend my extra time coding with the newly released XNA 2.0! W00T(Newly added to the dictionary, as I'm sure you all know by now)!

WireShark

Garrett Hoofman — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:13:24 GMT

I was looking for a network packet analyzer today so that I could see what's going through the network here. I figured I would only find software packages that cost a couple 100 dollars and I might find a couple off the wall minimal freeware packages.

However, I was taken by surprise. WireShark is an amazing little application that completely open source! I love this little tool, and I'm putting it to good use as I post this.

Wednesday December 13th, 2007

Garrett Hoofman — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:07:25 GMT

This day, oh how joyous it will become. Feasts will fall down from the sky, and the sun will shine brighter than any day before it. Clouds will whisk away and bring thoughts of happiness to our minds. Happy skipping from children will falter not once, and people of all ages will sing in happiness..........

Yeah right!

I get the Internet again today! I can't wait! I thought this day would be awesome. Perfect. Then I got pulled over by a cop at 8:32 AM when I'm supposed to be at work at 8:30 AM.... I was late, I was speeding, he caught me. Now I owe the state $50. :(

The day's happiness dropped a touch.

Mr. Wizard

Garrett Hoofman — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:24:08 GMT

Around the office here I'm called Mr.Wizard because when I'm called upon I get things fixed, and quickly, often times when it seems hopeless. I always come up with a solution, whether it's a permanent fix or at least a temporary one.

What kind of office nick names, or nick names around the home, have you guys had?

Mine :

Mr. Wizard

Gambit

Gravitron

Joyous Internet

Garrett Hoofman — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:34:40 GMT

By tomorrow night, I will have Internet at home again! I've been with out the Internet for 2 and a half weeks. That's the longest I have ever been with out Internet at home. So I'll be receiving a Fiber Optic connection from Verizon Wireless. I haven't heard much about their FiOS plans, but I'll let you guys know how it pans out.