While sitting in the Taco Bell parking lot this evening, while eating my chalupa, I realized that I hated the look of my web site. It’s dated and ugly. I want something new, bold, and awesome. And then I realized that was what I was going to do. I also realized that I got chalupas confused with goreditas, and that chalupas suck.

Back to the issue at hand. Starting today, I will begin working on the second version of eligundry.com. This post is less about you, the reader, but more of a mission statement for myself, to remind myself what it is that I am going to do. I will try to blog this whole process, but as the past has shown me, don’t count on it, as I get easily distracted.

My goals for the new site are:

• To be written in valid HTML 5
• To use some CSS3
• Make use of jQuery and more advanced Javascript
• Integrate my Last.fm, Twitter, and blog into the site dynamically
• Be fully compatible with Internet Explorer
• A complete redesign of the blog to match the website
• More advanced uses of PHP

I know that these are lofty goals, but I feel that they are attainable ones. The biggest issue will be finding time to do this as well as my college work and work at Radio Shack. Hopefully, I can get this done fast, but I won’t be supervised if this takes til next year to fully launch.

So, there you have it. This redesign may take time, but then I remind myself that I can get this site out of beta faster than Gmail.

Fuckers....

Recently, I posted a small ad on Craigslist offering up my web design skills for free. This is an extremely generous offer, conisidering my jobless situation. My generousity aside, I’ve gotten a couple of spam emails instead of offers. And for each spam email, I have responded politely and professionaly. But today, the camel’s back broke and I decided to take my revenge. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that is just awesome.

While I do not claim to be an expert in the field of web design or search engine optimization, I do have a fairly neat looking web site showing up on the top of Google. Mind you, this web site has only been up for a couple of weeks and my name is fairly obscure, the tips that I think I can give you can apply to most anyone trying to promote themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

“Eli, how do I rip DVD’s?”

This the question I get asked most at school. And often, I will try to explain, but as I do, I can tell they just get lost. Maybe I’m just no good at talking. Maybe these people need me to hold their hands and just show them how to do it. Wait. That sounds pretty good. Lets do that.

This tutorial assumes that you have Windows, but you can still kind of follow this on a Mac, as they use the same program. What you need is:

• A DVD
• Handbrake
• DVD Decrypter

Step 1: Choose DVD

This is Sin City. It is amazing.

I chose Frank Miller’s “Sin City”. I do dig film noir movies.

Step 2: Insert DVD

Do I even need this picture?

I mean, this is pretty self-explanatory, but you’d be surprised what I see.

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Just look at the pics after the break. I don’t even really wanna talk about it right now. Or ever.
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Today, I was reflecting on one of my favorite Office Space scenes that invovled a pet rock and a horrible idea. More specifically, I was having these thoughts while listening to Soulja Boy (don’t ask, just don’t) and it got me to thinking. If the definition of success is making a million dollars, then Mr. Boy must be very successful, despite the fact his music sucks ass. I mean he wanted to become a Flash Programmer. That in itself is a failure, as Actionscript would be more accurately described as Actionshit.

Alas, what does it matter? Not much I guess. All I can pray for is that I have to never hear Crank Dat when driving ever again. Video after the break.

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I have something of a confession to make: I’ve never really used iTunes. I mean sure, I’ve installed it and used it for a day or two, but then promptly uninstalled it cause it was too slow. And I do own an iPod, but that has always had Rockbox on it, so I just dragged and dropped. I usually use Foobar2000 for listening to music, that is, until today.

As I am something of an iTunes virgin, I’ve decided to give it a fair shot for a week. That means I will use it for a whole week for all of my music needs and report back here in a week to describe my experiences. If I’m feeling really saucy, I might just format my iPod also to try the orginal firmware for once.

So far, I just have it installed, my libary has been indexed (which took a hella long time, if you ask me), and now I’m just waiting for Genius to get done so I can try dynamic playlist goodness. All is smoothe right now, except that I notice my computer running slower at times, but the true test will be when I restart and see how long it takes to boot up. A little suprised that it’s installer is 64 bit, but the program is not.

Wish me luck!

In my previous blog, I talked about my love for The Hood Internet. For those unaware, The Hood Internet is a remix duo based out of Chicago the remixes the a capella versions of rap songs with other indie, electronic, and rock songs as back beats. This usually leads to some pretty funky song combinations, such as Drippy I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, featuring Webbie and Black Moth Super Rainbow, or Tambourine Reckoning, featuring Eve and Radiohead. I could go on and on, as they have hundreds of songs all available for free.
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I’m sorry that I haven’t posted in a very long while (almost a month), but this is purely due to the fact that I’ve been working so hard on my website. I set up the subdomain test.eligundry.com so that curious eyes may be able to see the current status of my website. As you can see, thus far I only have the basic outline of the website. This is only after a month of solid work (two and a half hours each day). I consider my progress to be extremely disappointing, because I know that I can do much better with my time management. That said, this is the first website in which that I am actually happy with the design of. And a lot of that time was spent learning the ins and outs of CSS (which I found to be really easy to learn and use) and now I feel extremly comfortable using it.

Also, in that time, I finally figured out how to design a Wordpress theme. I found a great blank theme at refueled.net in which I used to fancy up this blog. My newly found knowledge of CSS help the designing of this Wordpress theme to be extremely easy. I just ask that you report any problems that you have with this theme to me in the comments.

All thats left for me to do on the website is:

~Finish the layout of the website. I have a general idea of what it will look like, but coding it has proven to be a little difficult, but I’ll get the idea soon enough.

~Figure out what I’ going to put in the gallery. I have no idea what to there yet. Maybe make some sample websites, I dunno.

~Make more blog posts and random quotes for the bottom of the page. In case you hadn’t noticed, the bottom of the page displays random and sometimes funny quotes. Check out this page to learn how to use javascript to make these quotes happen.

I plan to have this website finished within the next month or so, but that is always subject to change.

I have always wanted to learn to touch type. Maybe it was all the tech movies I saw, when the hackers could just type hundreds of lines of code without looking at the keyboard at all. Or maybe it was that typing class I took freshman year in high school that I failed cause I chicken pecked the keyboard. And I could never get the concept of home keys at all. This would make my desire of learning to touch type rather difficult. That is, until I saw this article.

While this article is mainly about painting your keyboard (which I discovered doesn’t work as well as it should, but that is another story), the author touches on the fact that if you have a black keyboard, sanding the letters off the keys is possible. This got me thinking, which got me to acting, finally ending with me and a completely blank keyboard making sweet, touch typing love. And, while I can’t type that fast (about 20-30 words per minute) or that accurately, I can now type without looking at the keyboard while chicken pecking.

I can’t have it all when it comes to touch typing, but I can come close. But, if I had a Das Keyboard, maybe then I could have it all.