Monthly Archive for January, 2005

JACL math contest

Published on January 29, 2005 in life. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Today I took the 38th annual San Jose JACL — Tokutomi Math Contest at Santa Teresa High School.

It took up pretty much the whole day–I arrived at 12:15 or so and hung out with everyone else there until the actual contest started at around 1 PM.

Unfortunately, the test-taking conditions were horrible, because we were located in an auditorium. There were wooden theater-style seats with tiny fold-out desks, maybe one and a half feet square, at most. Actually, they turned out not to be so bad, but full-size desks would have been nice.

The problems were actually harder than I had expected. I got 14 out of 20, which wasn’t too bad, but I could’ve done better. That put me in 3rd place for 7th grade. Tony came in 2nd, and Timothy came in first. Notice all three of us were from Miller! B-D Daiwei won best of the junior division (7th and 8th graders I think), and he got this huge plaque.

The whole event took me 1 hour transportation round-trip + 1 hour waiting + 1 hour test taking + 1 hour listening to solution + 1 hour awards ceremony = 5 hours total. I didn’t have anything else planned today, so it was a good day to spend the day. My 3rd place prize was a $2 Baskin-Robbins gift certificate, and with it I went and got a scoop of rocky road chocolate ice cream. :-9

Photoshop Effects – Photoshop Tutorials – Tutorial Outpost

Published on January 28, 2005 in notes and tech. 0 Comments

Photoshop Effects – Photoshop Tutorials – Tutorial Outpost

This site has tons of Photoshop tutorials for making cool effects! It’s awesome!

Programming, continued: DCLsoft

Published on January 16, 2005 in life. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Read 2005 Jan 16, Programming first.

I call my small programming business DCLsoft. My first paid project, ever, came from a guy who called himself Dave Diamond. It was initially a “Down and Dirty FTP client”, but it evolved into File Grabber, a stylish and fully functional FTP client. After my first job, projects just kept coming in. I did a WYSIWYG content editor, record management program, affiliate link checker, contact form, internet broadcast scheduler, online key generator, frontend media player, message thread CGI installation, and numerous enhancements to these programs. Right now I’m working on an dynamic, web-based media player for Traders Nation.

Overall, working on software projects in my spare time is a fun, and not to mention profitable, way for me to learn and practice my programming skills in real-world applications.

Programming

Published on January 16, 2005 in life. 0 Comments

I’ve been programming since I was about 6. It’s been almost 7 years since I started learning my first programming language, Visual Basic 5. Wow–now that I think about it, that’s a really long time ago. I started out making silly little projects and cloning other people’s programs. I think my first real, original program was “Word Search Suite”, a program that allows you to create and solve word searches. After that point, I gradually started to make more useful programs. Often, they related to my interests in some way, like my Resistor Calculator, which I made when I was learning about electronics. It would calculate resistor values based on their colored stripes. I also made programs such as my Alphabetizer, to help (or cheat, depending on how you look at it) on my homework.

Of course, I’ve come a long way since then. In 2002, I started seeing ads for RentACoder, an online marketplace built for safely and securely outsourcing software projects. At the time I ignored it–at least until I wanted a home theater system with a digital projector. That was in January 2003. My parents thought it wouldn’t be very practical, but I disagreed. I could buy it myself, if I had the money. That’s when I remembered the RentACoder site. My parents let me sign up, and I searched for a few weeks, but couldn’t land any jobs, so I gave up.

When summer came around, though, my interest in getting a home theater was rekindled. So, in August, I found my first job programming!

I call my small programming business DCLsoft. My first paid project, ever, came from a guy who called himself Dave Diamond. It was initially a “Down and Dirty FTP client”, but it evolved into File Grabber, a stylish and fully functional FTP client. After my first job, projects just kept coming in. I did a WYSIWYG content editor, record management program, affiliate link checker, contact form, internet broadcast scheduler, online key generator, frontend media player, message thread CGI installation, and numerous enhancements to these programs. Right now I’m working on an dynamic, web-based media player for Traders Nation.

Overall, working on software projects in my spare time is a fun, and not to mention profitable, way for me to learn and practice my programming skills in real-world applications.

Staying at South Lake Tahoe

Published on January 1, 2005 in life. 0 Comments Tags: .

Over the past three days, my family and I stayed in South Lake Tahoe. We were planning to go skiing. With the recent storms in the western U.S., however, skiing was impossible in the gusts of wind reaching 90 MPH at the peak of the mountain. We stayed at The Ridge Tahoe Resort with another family. Pretty much stuck inside, we nonetheless found plenty of things to do. The resort had ping pong and pool tables, as well as an exciting indoor/outdoor swimming pool and spa. Sitting in the heated spa out in the snow was a fun experience. Occasionally we went outside and played in the snow but we weren’t able to actually go skiing.

On the third day it was nice and sunny but Heavenly (the ski park) was closed because of an avalanche hazard. [hot] Oh well.

When we drove back it was a complete disaster. Hoping to get home early in the afternoon, left at 10 AM. However, for the first five hours or so traffic was completely stopped because some of US-50 was closed.

Stuck in traffic Stuck in traffic

We got back home later that day, at around 7 PM. Although we were tired, we still had enough energy to celebrate 2005. Happy New Year, and I hope you’ve had some very happy holidays!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Happy Holidays!