Wow, yesterday and today seemed to fly! Last night I wasn't feeling great after work, but I got together with Devin and Ryan anyway to make some progress on http://www.myaverage.com/. After I got home, I still wasn't feeling great and couldn't get to sleep, so I got the core UI layed out. Tonight, I hope to get some of the C API layed out so we can start regression testing the individual pieces. It will take a few weeks I think to get most of the API done though. Tonight is also Bowling night, so I am not sure how much code I will actually write. But, I'm just glad we are making progress on it.

Some people did not work today, but I went into work today and will go in tomorrow too for at least a half day since it's the last day of the quarter. The management staff presented an incentive program for our department today, which is very exciting! We have done bonuses in the past, but there was no program setup for it, so I'm glad there is now. Unfortunately, it starts Q1 '05. Oh well, I always love opportunities that allow me to expand my wealth. =)

On the New Years front, I am still undecided on what I am going to do. I am not the only one in this position though, as most of my friends don't have plans yet either. Something tells me that we will probably all end up at someone's house and throw a party. I really wanted to go up to the North Fork and visit Matt, Matt and Brad, but I don't feel like driving 5+ hours on icey roads. Since I saw them for Thanksgiving, it just doesn't seem worth it. I guess my plan is to keep it nice and quiet, try to stay out of jail and not get a DUI! =)

Happy New Years friends!

Recently, I have been working on a few non-work projects. They are websites that need to be very extendable so having a seperate backend, middle-ware and UI is very important. After I began looking into how I wanted to design this I began to consider performance, as these sites could potentially have excessive traffic. Now, as I am a Perl and PHP guru I figured I would start there. In thinking about this, I decided that since performance was an issue, and I couldn't decide between Perl or PHP, I turned to C as an alternative.

In the past I have used XS to extend C code to Perl, but I have never used Zend to do the same in PHP. After considering this for some time, I decided this was the only way to go, but before I could start writing the C framework, I needed to make sure I could figure out how to extend it to PHP.

After a few short hours, I had both a static php binary that contained my new test extension, and a dynamic loadable library of the same extension, which is preferrable. I am really suprised at how easy it was to extend this to PHP. In my opinion it is slightly easier then using XS for Perl, but both aren't really that difficult.

Well, now it's time to begin on the C framework for this project. Once that is done, I intend on extending it to both Perl and PHP, that way I'm not locked into one language or the other. All in all though, I think this is a great opportunity to write one API that can be used in 3 languages.

I will be adding a Project for this to http://www.lukedavison.net/index.php?func=projs in case others are interested in extending C code to PHP and/or Perl.

One of my homies Jeff sent me a link the other day to an article written by Richard Stallman regarding "Trusted Computing", or as he puts it "Treacherous Computing". I am somewhat familiar with the topic and have heard it discussed by others, but I wasn't fully aware of what it was until now.

Anyways, I strongly recommend reading it: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html

Today I will be coming home to an empty house once again. While it was nice to have my Mom and Brother visit, I'm glad to have my house all to myself again. Peace and quiet again... at last! Other then that, just trying to put together a trip to San Francisco to see some friends early February. Keeping busy with a large project at work. Oh, and trying to figure out New Years.

Ahh yes, New Years. There are always so many options, but I think I'm not "going out" this year, unless I can find a house party that interests me. Seeing how it is Tuesday, I am really thinking about just saying "fuck it!" and throw one at my house. All I know is that I do not want to go downtown. Too many cops, dumb ass bitches and people being stupid - just doesn't seem worth it this year. I guess it doesn't matter what I do though. I know I will be with friends having fun - and that's all I really give a shit about. =)

This year marks the first xmas in my first home!! It was alot of fun. My brother flew up from Livermore, CA and my Mom drove over from Kalispell, MT last Wednesday. Since we were having xmas at my house this year, there was alot of things I had to do, that I haven't had to do in the past. Stupid things like getting a xmas tree, putting up decorations and of course cooking a turkey. All in all though, I think I did a pretty good job. Turkey came out awesome! and the stuffing was pretty good too.

It was nice and quiet though. All of my friends took off for the weekend to go home. Most of them were still in state however, so a lot of them came back last night so we went out - showed my brother downtown Bozeman. It was real nice. Now, I just have to make it through New Years.