To-Do

No good tutorials exist on how to create and style the wordpress menu system.

Columbia College was throwing away these two awesome metal boxes.

My plan is to gut them, put in computer hardware scavaged from current machines I’ve got laying around and build an awesome looking Xbox Media Center without the Xbox.

To-Do:

1. Take one box apart
2. Remove all the internal components
3. Take apart an existing computer to retrieve:
   • motherboard
   • processor
   • ram
   • hard drive
   • optical drive
   • power supply (need a mini supply: option 1 & option 2)
4. install XBMC
5. get a remote control (lifehacker recommends)
6. cut sheet metal to fill in the front holes
7. cut a slot for the dvd drive to extend out
8. attach the cut metal to the dvd drive facia

The main reason I want to do this is the XBMC project dropped support for the classic Xbox, and it’s just a pain to work on the original xbox because of all the hoops you have to jump through.

Plus, if the DVD drive ever fails, it’s a huge pain to change.

Upgrades for the Future:

• It would be really cool to add a TV capture card to download shows

Joseph Lanham and his iPhone will be helping me film my efforts in the One Man Garage.

The One Man Garage is going to be a video series Joseph and I create about me trying to restore my pickup trucks, alone, and using only a standard two car, attached garage.

Most people don’t have much, if any, help when it comes to working on their vehicles.

My plan is to come up with handy ways to do jobs which normally take multiple people, and instead, accomplish them safely, and single-handedly.

http://ellisbenus.com/ellis-benus/build-a-rocket-stove/ ?

Test the “$50 Rustoleum” paint job.

http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

http://sixrevisions.com/web-standards/a-comprehensive-guide-inside-your/

http://lifehacker.com/5639095/how-to-write-a-post-for-lifehacker

http://lifehacker.com/5639631/chimp-rearview-monitor-mirror-eliminates-office-surprises

After we have our big garage sale next week, I need to do a home inventory of all our posessions to give to the insurance agent.

Also, I need to document the money I have put into my 78 Silverado for insurance purposes.

Update 10-14-2010 – Use the Amazon.com App:

Lifehacker.com introduced me to the Amazon.com Mobile App which allows you to photograph an item, and then Amazon should recognize what it is. This sounds a heck of a lot easier than making an Excel spreadsheet with photos.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work:

1. You snap a picture of any product.
2. The app uploads that picture to Amazon’s servers.
3. If it can, Amazon identifies the product and provides a link to it at Amazon Remembers (you have to be logged in). Amazon uses a combination of automated recognition software and real people to identify the items in the pictures you snap.

This would be great with my Data Plan Agnostic HTC Evo when I get it.

I purchased another domain name a while back, WebAdvocate.org

The reasoning behind this new website was to move out of only doing web design / development and more into a consulting capacity.

My plan for this site is to have a local business that other people can turn to for advice before they sink much money into any project…

A business looking to purchase a website could contact a Web Advocate and have a 1 hour meeting that will save them thousands of dollars.

I want to put more time and effort into building this site and attracting clients to it.

I purchased www.AutoHotorNot.com a few months ago.

This site will be a lot like the popular www.HotorNot.com but focused on automobiles instead of people.

My initial plan is to have a simple dark page with a single automobile image showing and 10 radio buttons for rating the vehicle.

When a user clicks a button to rate the vehicle, 1-10, then the vote will be logged and a new vehicle will be shown (jquery slide).

Initially there will be no log-in functionality, just the rating system.

Facebook Connect

In the future I want to add user accounts. The best thing to do would be use Facebook Connect and tie this website to Facebook so when people vote for automobiles they can publish their favorite to Facebook very easily, as well as login to AutoHotorNot.com with their Facebook ID instead of creating a new account on yet another website.

Update 9-2-2010:

Playing around with the jQuery plugin Cycle looks like it should be the way to go.

Here is a mind-map of how the programming on the site should work:

1. A user loads the homepage of AutoHotOrNot.com
2. jQuery loads/requests a random image from the database
   • Later this will be based on the user being logged in so they are not asked to rate the same image more than once
3. The user must click a Radio Button (1-10) to rate the current picture
4. When a Rating radio button is clicked:
   • The rating is logged in the database tagged with the image
   • A new random picture is requested from the database
   • The jQuery Cycle function is initiated to “slide” the image/rating bar off the page and a new one on
5. That’s it. For now.

Update 10-14-2010:

Todd Boyd, a fellow Columbia College Web Developer, has decided to help me with this project.

Also, Joseph Lanham of Simple Sammy Designs is doing a logo.

Here is the Pseudo Code for AutoHotorNot.com: