Nick Irelan's Blog

Demension 4700

2006-11-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

Hello Everybody,
I began this year as a college student and a volunteer for many political candidates as well as my church. I started having severe anxiety attacks that forced me to drop out of college, but they didn't drop the bill for college :). I need a job that I can do from home in order to get my life back together. I have a Dell Demension 4700 that I will give to anyone that finds me a job I can do from home.
Thanks guys.

Myspace Voter Drive

2006-09-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

Myspace is beginning a voter registration drive aimed at the site's young audience. All a myspace member has to do is go to http://www.myspace.com/declareyourself and enter thier state and zip code. This effort is part of a partnership with a nonpartison group called Declare Yourself. Users that do register are given badges to post on thier profiles.
In an interview with the Associated Press ,Jeff Berman, MySpace's senior vice president for public affairs said "Young people in this country ... are really engaged in what's happening in their community and want to make a difference. The key is to make it easy for them to get engaged. By putting these tools on MySpace and putting it in front of their eyes, you make it far more likely they will use them."
It would be nice to see the blogosphere adopt a similar plan. RSS feeds could be very effecitve for asking readers to vote. A registration form that is acessible from cell phones would also be helpful.

Guitar Programming

2006-04-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

I recently had an idea that ,at least for me, makes programming go a lot faster. I heard Van Halen's Eruption on the radio and like the rest of America I was still amazed that good old Eddie can play that fast. I wondered why programming could not go that fast too. So I went home and began attempting to write a program that can translate notes and cords played on the guitar into code. Its not at the point where it can make anything useful yet ,but Id like to give you a quick example of how it could work using an HTML document. Blogger wont let me post tags so I have to use "[" instead of "<".

[html] = C
[head] = D
[/head] = D#
[body] = A
[/body] = A#
[/html] = C#

In the example, I used a cord to represent a tag and the sharp version to close the tag. Text could be written using a keyboard of if two programmers were working together one could play chords or notes that represent code and the other could play what represents letters. I want to make this an open source project so email me (nickirelan@gmail.com) if you want to help.

The Best Quotes from Jobs and Gates.

2006-04-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have not only created some of the most widly loved and used products in the tech world they have also given it some of the most memorable quotes. These are important because they give us a great look into who the leaders of the tech industry really are.

Bill Gates

"I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you're trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you're giving it away."

"I have 100 billion dollars... You realize I could spend 3 million dollars a day, every day, for the next 100 years? And that's if I don't make another dime. Tell you what-I'll buy your right arm for a million dollars. I give you a million bucks, and I get to sever your arm right here."

"Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we'd want to get involved."

"People everywhere love Windows."

"You see, antiquated ideas of kindness and generosity are simply bugs that must be programmed out of our world. And these cold, unfeeling machines will show us the way."

Steve Jobs

"Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it."

"The products suck! There's no sex in them anymore!"

"Nobody has tried to swallow us since I've been here. I think they are afraid how we would taste."

"It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy."

"Apple's market share is bigger than BMW's or Mercedes's or Porsche's in the automotive market. What's wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?"

Open Source Feature Collector

2006-03-27T11:57:00.000-08:00

Like most computer users, I have many programs on my computer that basicly do many of the same things ,but have a few unique features. For example, I have Photoshop and Fireworks along with IE and Firefox. I am tired of programs wasting my hard drive with features that can be found elsewhere. I am starting an open source project that gives developers and open canvas, document, spreadsheet or whatever and allows them to just add the features they want in the same place where others can. No person can make this on thier own so please email me if you would like to help.