More on jME

Things are going well in jME land again. The site is back up and looking better than ever. I personally think we have one of the best looking demo areas out there. The old url still works, but it looks like we are officially now using www.jmonkeyengine.com. Design work on version 0.9 progresses, mostly focusing on memory and code efficiency, but also setting us up for the great features to come in jme core version 0.10, such as shadows and maps.

In other news, I've added my resume to the navbar in case anyone happens across my blog and needs a top notch Java developer. In the coming days I'll also showcase shots of a few of the great GUIs I've put together for various projects. Over the years I have put together many great Client/Server applications for Fortune 100 companies, but what I'm real proud of is making great Swing UIs that don't look like Java apps.

Stay tuned.

jME News

I figure some people may look here to find jME information since Mark's (Mojomonkey's) blog and the jME site have been down most of the time over the last few days. The following is from my experience talking with Mark and of course his word on the JGO forum or via email, etc. trumps whatever I say here. I just post this as a courtesy.

Due to some database corruption and service issues at the hosting company Mark was using, some of the forum database was lost. Fortunately it appears we'll be able to salvage most of this data, such as the actual topics and postings. It's possible people will have to re-register or something like that though.

Due to this fiasco and the lack of support he received from his host (ipowerweb.com), Mark has decided to move the site to another hosting company. The current contract was almost up anyhow and it looks like the new host has some better features. Of course, this move and hosting the site in general costs money, so if you use jME in your projects, please consider giving a small donation (see link to right.)

It's going to take a little while (read: maybe as much as a week) for setup and domain transfer to complete. Please be patient. :) Give Mark some words of encouragement and thanks for his hard work in taking care of this for all of us.

Thanks for your support and see you in the new forums!

Why Bard's World?

Some of you may be wondering why my blog is entitled "Bard's World"... Well, since I was a teenager, I've enjoyed writing fiction, poetry and short stories. I was very prolific throughout my teenage years, writing enough poetry to fill a nice sized book and working on as many as 5 stories at once.

One such story involved a bard by the name of Renanse. This bard came to represent me in many ways and when I first entered the world of the Internet in 1994 on a MUD called EliteMud, I used the name for my avatar. It's been my online pseudonym ever since.

Here's a sample of one of my poems from that time (slightly cleaned up):

I Shall Return, I Promise
by Joshua E. Slack

When the sun comes up again,
When the sky is crimson flames,
I shall return to you, be back again,
The only one I care this much for.

When the morning litany of sounds
Out of your window call,
I shall be again with you,
Basking in radiant beauty.


Do not think of me as gone;
I am merely out of sight.
Look, and if you think of me,
You'll see me in your heart.

Though long time prevails,
I am hardly gone.
Back again soon I will come.
I shall return, I promise.

MLKing day

I was passing an elementary school a few days ago in a nearby rural area and a sign said: School off Monday for M LKing day... The way the spacing was and where I was driving, I first thought "Oh, isn't that nice, they're having a holiday for the dairy farmers in the area." Yeah, I remembered later the actual holiday they were announcing... Ah well, happy milking day to you anyway!

Confusion says...

Yeah, I know it's "Confusius says", but in truth all I'm seeing lately is confusion.

WORK
My work trip looks like it is being pushed back a few weeks... The exact week/date is unknown and I absolutely hate large unknown events. I like to be able to schedule and budget several weeks in advance because doing major things last minute gives me a sick stomach. Yeah, I know that's life, but it doesn't make me feel any better.

SCHOOL
Because the work trip is pushed back far enough that I should be able to attend at least the first week of classes, I've decided to go ahead and register for 2 classes at ASU this semester. I don't want to put off these classes any more because it just makes me that much older when I finish. I'm still concerned about missing a few weeks of class though and I hope I get a chance to talk to a professor about that before I do miss those days. The whole experience looks like a big question mark at this point.

JME
I have been pretty excited to get back into coding here in my spare time since my trip to Seattle last month. Unfortunately, not much of that has occured yet and while I've seen some progress I still have the notion (likely clouded by other events in my life) that things won't really come together here. Hopefully I'm wrong though, wouldn't be the first time.

LIFE
Aaron has just turned 3 and is taking preschool type classes at the local community center twice a week. He seems to enjoy the other kids (all older than him by 6-18 months.) Jeni has recently interviewed for a part time job at a title company as a floater and notary agent. It might be as much as 30 hours a week, which would keep her away from home quite a bit. With recent shifts in work projects and all, we could really use the money, but I'm concerned about how this, school, and everything else will fit together and allow us to be there for Aaron. Maybe I need to start trimming some things out of life so I can be a bit less spread out.

Crystal, thou hast been slain!

Finally! I can now say that Crystal Reports is actually doable. In my blog in the past, I've recorded small victories getting CR to work with Java... The odd thing about CR though is that every time we get one thing working, the next day a new, bigger wall hits us and makes it look like the way we're trying to get CR to work will not work. In fact, I think I've switched the way we are attacking CR maybe 3-4 times in the last 2 months as new roadblocks came up or I just understood the various API's they provide a bit better. My main gripe is that the company that makes Crystal Reports provides very little useful documentation about Java integration and most of what they do provide (including that which comes bundled with the software) is outdated - it's based on CR9. We're using CR10 because we are using custom XML datasources that don't use ODBC (instead it's just xml and xsd files) These files are constructed on the fly and then a report is tweaked (also on the fly) so the urls it requests data for will point to the right file. The resulting report is exported to pdf, word, excel, etc. and sent back encrypted and attached to a message to a Swing application over the network to the requesting customer. Getting the URL rewriting with their new native (non-ADO -- which didn't handle data typing correctly) XML driver to work was a major pain... There is NO documentation for it at all.

Ok, </rant>... Honestly, I'm just thrilled that it works now. I just need a handful of weeks to document, clean the code and do some testing...

On another note, jME 0.8 came out this Monday and is full of lots of bug fixes and a few cool new features (including the Cloth and Swing stuff I mentioned earlier in my blog.) Check it out!

New Year, New Focus

Happy '05 everyone! As I ponder a new year ahead of me and one now quickly fading from memory, I realize that I waste a lot of time and effort on small things that may seem useful or important but really aren't. This year I plan to focus down on a few things and do those things to the best of my abilities. This may come off as egotistical (to the two people that read this blog,) but I have always felt that I have the potential to make a substantial contribution to society. I'm going to be 27 this year though (my son turns three years old tomorrow!!!) and I've yet to settle into which area exactly to invest myself in to hopefully produce that result.

Perhaps this is a common thought as a person travels through their life?

In any case, I believe my talent - and thus my potential contribution - lies in software programming. I love the logic, measureability, and creativity of programming. I love manipulating words and phrases in the pursuit of a system greater than the parts which create it. (I even used to be quite prolific in poetry and fictional writing....) That said, programming is an extremely wide topic/label if you think about it, so I really need to narrow this down somehow. I hope to do so, using this blog as a record, over the first part of this year.

I am hoping that continuing my education will spark some new ideas or open up new channels of thought. Unfortunately it appears that my job is going to take me away from home part of this month, coinciding with the first few weeks of Spring classes. As a result, I doubt I will take classes this semester. More delays?

Wish me luck and offer suggestions as you read along...