JK’s Journal

Dear Mr. J K

Published on Mar 10, 2010 at 19:36

Dear Mr. J K of 1 Oak St, Arlington, VA 22131,
If you received a PAX East packet in the mail recently, please don’t try to hitchhike to Boston at the last minute thinking you can get in to PAX East. The kind people at InteractiveTicketing are contacting whom I hope to be kind people at Reed Publishing to have them render the badge they sent invalid, and will instead arrange for a valid badge to be available for my privacy-paranoid, fake-address-using, moronic self to pickup at Will Call in Boston.

Of course, I don’t really know where the badges sent in the mail will actually end up. Perhaps they will go to Arlington, VA. Or, perhaps they will go to Santa’s Workshop at the North Pole, or even Area 51, because zip code 22131 doesn’t even compute in the US Postal System. Yes, I research my obfuscations ahead of time for maximum inefficiency.

Since I have your attention, I would like to vent a little more if you don’t mind. My own stupidity now forces me to wait in Will Call with other hapless goobers who put in wrong addresses, bought last minute tickets, or tried to use their PAX East badges to scrape paint off their siding. I’ll be separated from my friends, whom I don’t want to make suffer due to my extreme ineptitude, for the opening of the event -for who knows how long- on the very first day, and that’s what really ticks me off.

Thanks for listening, and sorry about the invalidated badge. In case you want to hunt me down and exact your revenge, I’ve included a photo.
~The Real JK

Pwning the PAX East 2010 Schedule

Published on Feb 28, 2010 at 23:49

The last weekend in March I’m going to PAX East 2010 in Boston with a couple of buddies (one of whom is our D&D Dungeon Master, to point out the meta geek factor). I’m über excited- not only have I never attended anything like this before, I’m glad to be taking a trip with friends to do something we want to do. QT is awesome, between supporting my overall geekiness and joining me in Xbox games frequently, but PAX is definitely not her scene.

One buddy pretty much planned the whole trip, from travel research to hotel arrangements, and the other has been researching quality food and beverage resources. So, when I saw the schedule and instantly wished it was in a more ingestable and collaborative format, I realized I could help out the crew by creating said format. Don’t get me wrong, the original schedule is sufficient and fits with the theme of the site. And I don’t doubt that the packet will contain awesome goodies to include a handier version of the schedule. But the packet is still 2+ weeks away and my logic-based, auto-collating geek brain needs a way to figure out what events overlap, minimal travel distance between events, and then synchronize that with the needs of the other two peeps at the convention.

Blah blah blah, I need to remember that this Journal article is singular in purpose: to provide a spreadsheet version of the PAX East 2010 schedule. Are there a gazillion other people doing the same thing? Probably. Could it look better and have more information? Definitely. But if it helps our crew, perhaps it can help someone else.

Here it is in all the formats available to me through Google Docs:
[Original] [Extra Crispy] [HTML] [CSV] [TXT] [PDF] [XLS] [ODS] [ATOM] [RSS]

Enjoy! And PS, this is definitely a rarely-visited blog- my Mom is probably my most-frequent reader (thanks Mom!). If this helps you out, a comment would be awesome.

Wanted: A better way to collaborate multiple attendees’ desired events; something Web 2.0 would be awesome. Any ideas?

Making Contact with Old Friends

Published on Feb 17, 2010 at 20:50

Pardon my waves of nostalgia- I’ve started keeping in touch with my old friend Vice, aka Vicevursa, also referenced by his website, Vicesounds. What most quickly comes to mind are his smiling face in our wedding photos (he was a groomsmen) and his son’s captivating dance moves at our wedding. Good Times.

By JK | Posted in Home Svelte Home, Life, Liberty, Pursuit | Comments (0)

Website CMS Quandary

Published on Jan 16, 2010 at 3:40

I’ve been considering redesigning PlanetJK for at least a year now. I’ve been truly considering it for about 3 months. One of the main problems I run into is Content vs. Aesthetics. I could justifiably ramble on for a long time about that topic alone, but realistically speaking I just want to focus on telling what I’m trying to do and go from there.

I’m immensely proud of the fact that the current design exists because of me manually coding PHP, CSS, and XHTML 1.1 Transitional files. I have my own homegrown template system that allows me to change the code on one include file and affect the entire site, whether it be menu, header, footer, content, or overall layout. Alas, the time to maintain such a setup eroded years ago, and I’ve been limping along ever since. It’s time to focus on content.

I really like WordPress as a blogging platform- I’ve been using it for years, and the backend is easily maintainable using DreamHost’s One-Click options. But now that I’m trying to incorporate WordPress as the sole website publisher/ controller/ editor/ etc, I find myself wanting assurances that it will be stable, secure, and work solidly for what I need.

Unfortunately, as an IT Security guy, I also know that WordPress has the potential to be more vulnerable than other CMS’. And yes, I know that virtually EVERYTHING is rife with vulnerabilities: the debate is fierce and will thrive for some time. At the same time, Zope and Plone have been relatively safe from exploits- yet, they’re much tougher to customize the way I want.

In the end, getting things the way I want is my first priority, so for now I’m strongly leaning toward WordPress. A very close second is being safe from exploits. Wish me luck in finding the appropriate level of compromise.

By JK | Posted in Home Svelte Home, Website News, xTreme G33k | Comments (3)