Recently, I have been having a blast with an old math book I found in the free bin at the book store and a few peices of free software - AutoHotkey (AHK) with PSPad and HTTP File Server (HFS).  Though I have been enjoying myself, I am aware that my activities are anti-social so I am posting to ease my conscience.

    I am going to explain what I have been doing and show some examples.  All of this is free and small in file size plus I am going to be very concise.  That said..

    AHK is one of the most awesome scripting languages I have come across.  It can record mouse movements and clicks and repeat them back to you.  In short, it automates all kinds of computer activities.  There is more to it than just being some macro program, though.  I will provide examples further down.

    PSPad is a text editor.  I like it cause it can function as an development environment for AHK files, BAT files, etc etc.. It is a great companion to AHK because it allows you to run the script by pressing F9 instead of having to click on the script.  There is more, but I will not extoll any more virtues here - you will have to find out for yourself.

    HFS is great because it is a very small EXE that lets you have a server on your computer with the greatest of ease.  All you have to do is run HFS, set up your router, and have DynDNS or someone like them forward traffic to your IP.  Unless somone requests, I will not go into all that here.  Suffice it to say that this is one of the easiest ways to have a server.  I have been running this software for a while.  So why am I excited about it?  I found a cool template to make my site look nice, Live 2, and I have figured out how to upload to it using an AHK script.

    Let me show some examples of what I've been doing.  

    Doctor Who Magazine Database - this is a database program I am working to create to help Ashley keep track of his Dr Who magazines.  It saves all records in XML format.  In the future I will adapt this to a sort of RSS blog client.  The point will be to be able to share with friends and update them of your current activity using a modified version of this program and HFS.

    I had planned to share more examples and include some graphics, but apparently you have to pay to upload pics to LJ and I don't want to be bothered to upload them to Flickr. This is one of the main reasons I seek to make it easy to keep my own site and upload/download to and from it - I think the world would be a better place if we all could host our content on our own machines... So?  You'll have to get AHK and download the scripts yourself if you want to see how beautiful they are.  I reccomend Orbit Diagram, but there are others at hcross.homeip.net/files/code/Work%20080521, where you can also see how nice the new site template is.

    For the record, I've still been thinking about John's forum scraping program; I will begin coding it this summer.  My point is to improve my skills by facilitating others.  My assumption is that we are all pretty similar in our needs and we expand ourselves by helping each other in attaining those needs.

    I'm going to work on making a script that creates an RSS feed (or several) for my site.  Basically, I'll make a program that watches a directory on your computer/server and updates an RSS accordingly.  This will be great for people that want to keep a sketch blog, for example.  You'll have a button to create a new sketch.  You press it and draw.  The rest will be done for you.  People may subscribe to your sketch RSS and be updated when a new sketch has been saved.  Easy as that!  Don't just think in terms of sketchs... this could be anything you do on your computer - stories, music, videos, etc.  I want it to be easier for people to connect - effortless versus click - click - username - password - title - description - scroll - scroll - edit - blah-blah - whatever...

    There are other ideas I have kicking around in my head, but they are few.  I'd like to get them out so I can see what's next.  Most of what I plan involves web content delivery / hosting / scraping / etc, but I do plan on making graphics / math programs, finance programs and maybe a game.

    Now I'm off to being the anti-social blogger who never posts.  

( hcross75 catches his breath after such a long post!!! )

   

   

I just got around to watching this last night; funny it was when wife and kids were out of town. My question is this: isn’t the edge of any sort of conservationist message dulled by the sort of half-hearted look at human behavior? Don’t think I’m very serious about this question, but it sort of nags at me. It’s almost like Stephen Colbert at the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner. WTF? Is that a den of wolves situation for him? Or does it take something away from the people that might take him seriously in his sarcastic remarks about the president? Perhaps, this is real art – it makes us question our attitudes. Perhaps true art is juxtaposition.

This is where I'll be after having been here ( http://ergonomic-ninja.livejournal.com ) for a while.

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