Here I am, at the end of our last day of school, feeling disoriented... Probably because it has been so intense these last couple of weeks and now, it's all over. Well we had a great year so have a fun summer vacation!!
Here is the video of our field day 2010... made from the roof!
posted
05/05/10
Wow... what a lucky day! It took me a few seconds to realize what was going on here as I saw this car park in Vinings... It was really cool to have the opportunity to take some pictures of Mr. Google's car used to make what we know as "street view" in Google maps!!!! I just wish I would have had more time to talk with him...
posted
04/13/10
Spring break was great and has not yet left me... Here is a picture of the view from one of my favorite spots in Miami... South Pointe Park!!!
posted
04/08/10
Even though I am still out of town on this beautiful spring break of our lives, I couldn't help myself but to start a new project... I have started developing on Android to create apps on the Droid phone! I have successfully created my first app yesterday... it is called "HeLLo" and the only thing it does is print "HeLLo Android" on the screen. I am completely aware that this app is useless but I first needed to be able to do the minimum programming in order to compile a final product called an app. Here is a picture of my app in the default icon...
And here is what is does...
posted
03/20/10
Now that everything on my new computer has been stable for a couple of weeks, I ran the "Windows Experience Index" assessment. It comes with Windows 7, so if you have it on your computer, run it to see what you score!! To get to it, just click on "Start", then right click on "Computer", and select "Properties". Click on "Score this Computer" to start the test which will take a few minutes... Compare your results with mine below!
...and here are the temperature statistics of my overclocked 4GHz four cores processor! As you can see, the temperatures of the cores near 100° Celcius when working at a 100% load... ouch!!!
posted
03/07/10
About every
three years, as far as I am concerned, is the time to spit
out a big chunk of money to build a new computer with all
the new technologies available out there... Well that time
has come again and it was this weekend!! The last parts
I was waiting for were at my door step last Friday after
school so I got busy right away building up the new beast!
You can follow all my steps by watching my latest youtube video!!! Get inspired...!
posted
02/10/10
Visual IRC client
2.0 rc5 is available for download
here!
If you are a Mac
user, click here and
follow instructions! (Merci Cal)
posted
02/08/10
Last year, I
was running a forum which really was a lot of fun... but it was
slow because it was not in real time. Now in 2010, I have decided
to make things better and faster! (especially
since bookface is going to start charging... Well let's face
it, they hold 100 million members. Let's say they implement the
subscription model with a $10 monthly fee. In the first
month, they would rack up $1 billion. If 90% of its members decided
to cancel their accounts, that is still $100 million in
that first month, or $1.2 billion annually)! That
being said, I have set up a server running Linux Ubuntu 9.10
(pictured below) and still working on the configuration of an
IRC server. You better believe it!!!
A terminal showing the IRC daemon up and running but not
yet configured properly...
posted
01/24/10
Yet another
rainy weekend... so I used that opportunity, once again,
to do some hardware/software development. Basically the
same project as last weekend but now as a fully independent
webserver, accessible from anywhere on the planet through
the Internet! The arduino platform is at the bottom with
an Arduino Ethernet shield stacked on top of it and
then a protoshield to top it off with a one wire digital
temperature sensor (DS18B20).
I also added a piezo speaker to let me know when someone
connects to it. It is important to mention that this
project does not need any computer to be turned on in order
to run... Now some people will ask "What is the purpose
of such a project?" and the answer is first of all to have
fun and learn but also to start with easy (and maybe useless)
projects and work your way up to more sophisticated and
complex projects. Just like in math, it is of paramount
importance to be able to add small numbers before you can
handle algebra...
Are you ready
to connect to it? Then use your web browser and type in
"66.190.90.176:8245"
posted
01/17/10
There is nothing
better, on such a rainy weekend, than to work on a little
project! After an afternoon of "work", here is
my final result: A stand-alone Arduino-driven digital temperature
sensor hooked-up to an LCD screen. I guess the most challenging
parts were to convert the information coming from the sensor
to meaningful numbers (Celcius and Fahrenheit temperatures)
and communicating with the LCD screen which I had never
worked with before...
posted
01/08/10
As you know,
I had so predicted that we were not going to have school
today..! There is not much snow out there but still several
ice patches. The following picture is a struggling fountain
on one of the partially frozen lakes in Vinings. I hope
that you too ventured outside to snap a few shots... send
me one!!!
Picture removed.
posted
01/02/10
First of all, happy new year to all of you! I hope that you had a great time during your winter break whether you stayed in Atlanta or traveled someplace... Even though I am no longer in Miami, I am still in Florida for the few last days left. Miami was incredible!!!! Here are just a puny few pictures I selected to share the beauty...
Here is the view from my hotel located downtown Miami. You can see the Miami River where boats came in and out. The road would sometimes open up to let big boats pass through! Quite CooL to watch...
I took the following picture from a boat overlooking South Beach. The very end of Miami beach has a park called "South Pointe" and is, I think, one of the best places to relax with a great scenery!
I am still not sure if this picture was actually real or if it was a dream... It was at a secluded garden south of Miami and there was absolutely nobody. It was so nice and calm...
While biking at South Pointe Park, I had to quickly stop to take that picture. Look at how huge the sun is...
Bank of America Tower is the coolest looking building in downtown Miami! Its color changes every month and it just happened to be blue for December. I took this evening shot across the street from my hotel.
Here is a view of downtown Miami taken from under the bridge of A1A in Miami Beach. Although it didn't feel like the safest place to be at night, that spot offered the ultimate view! Notice the Bank of America Tower on the right.
posted
11/29/09
Here are some
pictures of my Thanksgiving break at the beach near West Palm
Beach, Florida. I cannot tell you how much I needed the whole
entire week off... to do more resting, chilling and reading.
I hope you enjoyed YOUR few days off and that you used
your time wisely!
This is as close
to the moon as I can possibly afford to be...
A palm tree with lights in the night... how bizarre!!?
posted
11/16/09
A nine-year-old
fish was found DOA on the floor of room 301 this morning
at around 8h20. Cause of death: Suicide, Reasons: Unknown.
posted
10/25/09
It is always
difficult, from one year to another, to determine when
is the best time to hike in north Georgia and see the leaves
at their ultimate peak colors... Well I spent the day hiking
in the mountains and am very pleased with the timing. The
leaves were especially colorful from Elijay to the Blue
Ridge Lake area. The good news is, if you have not been
up there yet this fall, next weekend will probably still
be gorgeous. Here are a few pictures to inspire you...
posted
09/22/09
School was out
today... not that we were all directly affected but there were
serious accumulations of water in different places. I took
this picture late this afternoon at the Cochise club near the
Chattahoochee river in Vinings. You can tell by looking at the
color of the bushes and trees that the water had dropped
about 10 feet since yesterday! Poor lonely playground...
posted
09/07/09
I have spent
my Labor Day weekend in Asheville, North Carolina which I was
visiting for the first time ever. One of the most interesting
parts of my trip was to experience, for the second time
in my life, driving down a magnetic hill... Basically what happened
is that while driving down a hill, I realized that I was
pushing on the accelerator as if I was going uphill. So I stopped
the car on the side of the road, put it in neutral, and
realized that the car was not going down even though I
did not have my foot on the break! Do you have an explanation?!?
Even though the
weather and lighting was not perfect, I did take a lot of pictures
while hiking in the Pisgah National Forest in the Appalachian
Mountains of western North Carolina. The picture below is
the result of four pictures stitched together into a panoramic
one. It is obviously cropped here as the original one is super
huge.
Driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway also offered great views
and some spooky tunnels to get into...
The Blue Ridge
Mountains as seen from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Hmmm I wonder
where they got the "blue" from...
posted
08/30/09
Once again escaping
to Chattanooga for the weekend... and what great timing
to get away from the Atlanta rain! I cannot get enough
of their small friendly downtown area! Below is an evening
picture of the Walnut Street Bridge which is the second
longest pedestrian bridge in the nation! Walking and taking
pictures around Chattanooga are parts of the things that
make it so CooL!!
posted
08/01/09
Greetings to
all... I am back to posting after a wonderful summer! Just two
more weeks and we will be back in session for yet another
school year!!
To give you a very
brief summary of my summer, I spent my time traveling, reading,
and chilling. I went to the beach for a week where I love
playing in the sand. The picture below is one of my creations!
I also spent
a week in NYC which is always a CooL place to go with lots
of things to do... Then I went to Québec for two weeks
to visit my family and friends. I spent most of my time
at my lake house where I took a lot of pictures and also
did a new cloud time-lapse photography which I have already
put on YT (check it out). Below is a picture of a sizzling sunset
from across the lake!
Talking about
pictures, I have been thinking about starting a digital
photography club at SMS this year! Lots of 7th graders
showed interest in such a club last year but it was a bit
too late to get things rolling. BTW, this club would not
replace the foreign movie club which I am still definitely
doing! I will keep you posted so in the mean time, think
about how CooL it will be!...
