Well, how am I doing since the last post? Pretty well, I’d say. A lot has been happening between work and life. h4x.Stats is pretty close to complete. I was waiting until it was “complete” before I decided to put it up onto my github. I got hung up working on the stats page before losing my focus on the project. I plan on going back to it to finish that up after I am finished with my current projects.

And currently… I am working with Python! I decided to try out Python after getting fed up with my lack of knowlege of C++ and wanted to create a cross-platform program for my next project. That project was a program I have titled tweakZip. tweakZip is a program that will create a customized update.zip file that can be flashed to an Android device. It is sort of a “spiritual successor” to my old BarebonesAndroid project. Similarly, it allows you to delete unwanted system apps from the filesystem, and it also allows you to add files as well! On top of that, with it being a .zip file, you can use it multiple times, including every time you flash a new ROM to your device! As an example of the usefulness this can offer, my particular tweakZip build removes the CarHome and POP Email apps, installs TitaniumBackup into /data, installs a filemanager, terminal emulator, and launcher into /system, and restores the stock boot animation! It saves me A LOT of time every time I flash my phone (which is quite often)! The tweakZip program will be up on github very soon.

The other project I’ve been focused on is quickTray! quickTray is a program that places an icon into your system tray and allows quick access to a customization list of shortcuts. I got the idea for this at work when I found myself having to rapidly switching to different project workspaces in my IDE. This is my first time ever making anything with any type of graphical interface native to the operating system. I was very suprised with how quickly Python allowed me to achieve this. I’ve actually written it twice – the first time using PyWin32, and the second time using PyQT. With the PyQT rewrite, it went from being a Win32-only program to being cross-compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac. Currently the list of shortcuts is read from a text file that has to be edited manually. I have been working on a fully graphical editor to replace the manual text editing. This has helped me learn more about QT and graphical programming in general. It’s been very interesting! The editor will hopefully be completed soon. To download a pre-built version of this for Windows (Python is NOT required to run this!) you can download it here.

I really like Python a lot. I was quite suprised with how quickly and easily I was able to pick it up and start developing with it. Literally, all I had done to get started was reading the first few chapters of the official Python tutorial (to learn the basic syntax rules and how it handles loops/variables/libraries) and just hopped right in from there. Within a couple hours I was already making way more progress on tweakZip than I would have if I kept trying to write it in C++! It’s been a very interesting and educational experience.

On top of all this, I still have one or two web projects I’d like to eventually return to and publish. I really need to start using this page more (like I had originally intended)!

I seem to have a problem with focusing on my projects… I can’t focus on just one!  I currently have about 4 major projects right now.  h4x.stats, my latest one, was started about a week ago now.  The idea is for it to aid in the distribution of anything I might release, and to also provide me with another opportunity to further my learning.

What is h4x.stats, you ask?  Basically it is a link-shortener and click-tracker.  The aim is to work similarly to bit.ly.  You give it a URL, and it’ll give you back another URL to be posted out to the world.  People who click on the new link will have their click logged and will be redirected to the originally intended destination.

Why did I build this?  Frankly, because I didn’t want to try working with the bit.ly API.  I wasn’t sure that it would provide the functionality I wanted to employ further down the line.  Building my own system would solve that issue.  The motivation to pursue this right now was another project of mine (which I’m not quite ready to post about yet).  I was ready to share my work-in-progress code with friends but wanted to be able to track how many times the files were accessed.  I felt as if using bit.ly for the time being would have been rather silly if I was already planning on whipping this up.  The concept is simple enough that rigging up a working version like I have now would have been quick and easy.

Working on this was most interesting for me because it’s my first forray into learning jQuery.  After weeks of learning “standard” javascript, I decided it was finally time to jump in.  It’s been interesting.  Working with jQuery speeds up development by a lot! It’s been a pleasant enough experience that I think I’ll start transitioning my other projects over to it.

I don’t have much else to show for this project just yet.  I’ll be posting the other fore mentioned project with it soon, and I think that this might be the first thing that I post to my github account!  I can’t guarantee it will happen within another three weeks, but we’ll see.  Until then…

Code.

I’m planning on using this site as a portal for me to post my assorted endeavors into the realm of programming.  Projects of mine, code snippets, that sort of thing.  This is something I’ve always wanted to do with this domain, but due to my job and other priorities I haven’t been able to focus too much on any particular projects.  Lately, though, I’ve had plenty of projects!  I’ve also been working on learning new things… Javascript being one of those things.  HTML5 / CSS3 being another.

Initially I foresee posts about a couple decent sized projects I’ve been working on, some user scripts I’ve been developing for Chrome, and some cool functions I’ve whipped up during my journey of learning javascript.  Going to try to keep up with this pretty regularly… here’s hoping!