Tag Archives: portfolio

When Penguins Can Fly… (An Exercise in Portfolio Building)

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No, this is not an exercise in a delayed reaction for April Fool’s Day.  I am not that slow!  Rather I spent most of the weekend in a concerted effort to setup a portfolio and renewing my personal website.  I realize now the reason why I procrastinated to do so for years.  Setting everything up in a systematic manner is difficult and painful.  Digging through folders to find great examples of your work even more difficult.  However the effort was worth the pain.

The blog now has a unique title: “When Penguins Can Fly…”.  I think the title is appropriate considering how much of a Linux fan and of penguins I am.  At little bit of magic in Gimp and I replaced the background for the theme.  Anyone interested in using the theme for themselves, can find it here: Hacker Dreams WordPress theme version 0.1

After that and a bit of fun with the favicon, I started work on setting up the various pages and galleries in my portfolio.  It took a while to try out the various galleries, and I settled on the NEXGen Gallery plugin.  After some futzing around, I managed to setup quite a few nice galleries for the Draw section of my portfolio.  In the future I will need to either find even better art or create more artwork.  However this will have to do for now.  In addition I found an animation I did for a visual computing class that I uploaded to Youtube.

The most difficult aspect is the coding part of the portfolio.  I originally wanted to build a bunch of original apps with new source code.  Unfortunately that will take time that I do not have at the moment.  I will add those when I have a chance.  However for the moment downloads, brush ups of old work, screenshots and screencasts will have to do.

In a rare case, I am opening up the comments to take suggestions.  Please let me know what you think.

Out with the Old

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I’m preparing for what I hope will be a new phase in my life.  And one of the things I need for this change is a revised online presence.  I’ve experimented with various ideas and concepts.  And I want to try and implement them in my life.

One of the first to feel the changes, will be my blogging.  I deleted my old Blogspot blog.  All the content exists on this website anyways.   Also I’m planning to make this blog more into a portfolio, than just a blog straight up.  The blog obviously will be accessible, just not on the front page.  Also I’m thinking of doing some ExtJS magic and build a new AJAXy theme.  So if the site breaks, you know what I’ve been up to.

On another note, I’m getting back to developing justCheckers into reality.  And on the side playing around with the newly revived Pyzzle game engine.

Update – A Week in Review

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This has been quite a busy week in hindsight.  I managed to build up my portfolio and work on my professional image.  I managed to restart my coding and writing projects.  And I’ve finished up on my correspondences.  I look back and I’m quite proud of my achievements.  I just wish I could move such mountains on a regular basis.

Building a Portfolio

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Yesterday I started revamping my blog, and building my portfolio. Now I don’t really need a portfolio, since I chose a career of software engineering over graphic design and writing. However just because my current occupation doesn’t need my more artistic talents, that doesn’t mean I don’t have any. And it surely should not imply that I do not like to create art or to display it. So I’m putting up a few pages dedicated to a portfolio of my various works and ideas in: drawing, computer graphics, writing, user interface design and organization. How extensive this portfolio will be, depends on how much time and effort I can dedicate to this. It will definitely take sometime, so I don’t expect to finish overnight. Still, I should of done something like this years ago. More often than not, in a professional setting, people show interest in my talents outside of programming. So putting up a portfolio also makes sense too for career advancement. Right now I’m not too worried about that aspect. Rather I just feel like showcasing what I have done so far, and what I plan to do shortly.

Excuse the Dust

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I apologize again for the silence earlier this week.  I meant to post a few posts earlier on, but I did not get around to it.

Also you may have noticed that I’m updating this blog.  In fact in general I am updating and cleaning up my “Web” presence in a big way.  Hence I’m working on refreshing the look and feel of this blog.  I’m plan on modifying the current theme into something I built myself.  And I’ll building out my portfolio, something I should of done ages ago.  Hence I’ll try to keep updating this blog frequently, but I might be a bit too busy for daily updates.  Also the e-mail subscriptions ARE going way, please switch to using RSS feeds.

Kicking Tires

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This week, I’ve started working on my delayed projects again.  I feel exhausted from the week.  But I also can not wait to play around with my projects.

Learning Qt

I’ve always admired the KDE and Qt developers.  They make some of the most innovative and interesting technology in the consumer-desktop-mobile land.  I’ve decided to pick up learning Qt and C++.  So far I’ve read the beginning of C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 (1st ed).  I need to play around with C++, which I plan on doing it while using Qt Creator.  One of my first major Qt experiments might be getting the TEA text editor working on my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.  I know that Nokia just released the tech preview  of Qt 4 for S60 devices.  But I’ll give it a shot.  Hopefully the GUI will port over nicely.

Completing justCheckers

Yes, the project that I left for dead still lives.  I want to work on it, as portfolio material.  I first plan on building a website in PHP (or maybe JSP?) that renders beautiful CSS and XHTML.  And then I need to give the project much love.  But I owe it to myself to finish this application.  I won’t build any crazy game servers.  But I want to make something totally configurable and fun.  And in the process I want to create something that proves that I am a strong Java developer.

Writing A Collection of Shards

I am going back to writing.  Unfortunately I need to start almost from scratch, since many of my written sections simply will not work.  The ideas are there.  I just need to get them down on paper.

Driving License

This one is the ultimate in the tire kicking sense.  I plan on getting my driver’s license really soon.  Aside from parking, I feel comfortable driving.  Once I figure out all this parking stuff, then I’ll be ready.  I’m exciting since this will give me a lot more mobility and flexiblity.  I’ll be able to solve a lot of problems and have even more time to do things in the day.  And I’ll be able to sleep and live in normal time periods.

Where Did Everyone Go?

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Day 6 since handing my last assignment. 4 days to my only and last exam. Already I am wondering where did all my friends disappear to. Half of them probably sank into their textbooks, and wouldn’t come out until the end of April. The other half, already finished decided to leave the city, and possibly even the country. This effectively makes me alone. And I don’t study for exams. Ever.

So basically I get to bum around the house all day, cleaning, gardening and helping renovate the house. My portfolio(s) have to wait until, I finish everything around the house. I doubt it that I will touch any of my work-related work until after next weekend’s the trip to Montreal. Bother. With some chance, I will post a real open source gaming article this next week.

Freedom From Assignments!

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After a weeks hiatus I can finally blog again. The last few weeks tried my patience and sanity, since the majority of courses consisted of assignments. Leading up to last week Wednesday, my entire life revolved around writing assignments. Then the weekend ended up as one long last minute writing session for my professional writing course. Now with the exception of two articles that my writing professor wants me to edit, I am unofficially done my undergraduate studies. One exam from my easiest course this semester awaits. And then sometime in June, I officially pick up my diploma.

Unfortunately, freedom from assignments (mostly) does not translate into freedom from work. With guests coming from Poland, my folks want to fix up the house. And that translates into long days of housekeeping chores for me. Once the house is done, I still need to work on an outstanding contract, and work on my work portfolios. Portfolios, since I want to gather my programming, writing and graphics work in separate portfolios. Then the ominous job hunt commences. Lucky me.

With all this work ahead for me, I wonder about three issues. First, when (or if) I can take an extended vacation before I start a real job? Second, who will pay for my increasing debt? Third, when will I find the time and energy to do everything? I feel a 12 Task of Hercules moment coming on. So much for freedom from “assignments”.

Adjusting to Easy Schedule

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I am not good at adjustments. The switch from a super-busy, near-hyper-kinetic schedule to a “normal” lighter schedule keeps on throwing me off. Hence the lack of updates since Friday.

Yesterday was the great chill day. Today was the great after-chill day. Meaning, I did not get too much done when it comes to assignments or studying. Anyone who follows the justCheckers project got lucky with the new daily updates (at least on the wiki). Everyone else… kind of lucked out. (At least you lucky denizen of the blogosphere get a neat treat today – 3 make-up posts. Why? Because I love you and enjoy having a regular audience.)

Still, I rejoice at the thought of the “evil” over-busy semester finishing. With the exception of three moderately difficult exams, a wack of writing for my writing portfolio and two assignment-papers, my goal of finishing a B. Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, just got a semester to completion. The very thought of finishing in April-May 2007, makes me euphoric. Now assuming that I pass every course this semester, only 4 more courses await me next semester.

I only worry about what I do after-university. People assure me, there is a life after university. I am not too sure. I guess I will need a job, to pay off my meagre debt. But kind of a job? Where can I work? Sure I do plan to work for myself one day, only I need money to bootstrap any sort of business. I would prefer to entire self-employment on my own terms, rather than “starving” myself into it.

So where should I work? Most jobs want some sort of work experience, something I lack in the professional sense. Take gaming firms like Valve, Apogee, id or EA: everyone wants an artist with a portfolio (but can I build one in less than 6 months?), a project developer (do you know that I never worked in let alone managed developing a commercial game?) or a programmer (does Java AWT count as graphics experience? No I don’t do OpenGL, at least not yet). How about NASA’s JPL? Would love to code rovers to race around on Mars, yet neither engineer nor US citizen I am not.

Realistically, I should contemplate working for IBM or Canonical (makers of Ubuntu). Man too little dreamy options (Valve), and too many risky (Canonical) or dirrery options (IBM, Microsoft *shivers*). So long as all effort does not land me a low paying sys admin or code monkey job.

Gee… I Feel like a Tree

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No I mean it. I feel like a tree, and everybody wants a piece of me. Turns out that for all my well made plans, all of my last assignments happen to be group endeavours. And even with my best laid plans, it seems that the meeting times for my groups coalesced into a single time.

Right now I am in a lull between work. And hoped that today would be the day I relaxed and finished my writing portfolio. Not the case. Right now I am working on a network security assignment, on standby for my business of computing group and trying to get some writing in. Oh and in about an hour and a half, I scheduled a meeting with my library assignment group. Bad idea.

If I can get one assignment done, from beginning to end today, I will be ecstatic. I fear this week will be the week of sleepless nights. So coding, writing, research and even more writing. I will be lucky if I don’t get RSI from all this typing.

And I remember a time when Sundays were considered days of rest and reflection. The good news is that the writing block is gone. Mostly.