Josh Evnin

I’m feelin’ good. Real good.

I went into the city today, as you might be able to tell by my earlier post. The fun news is that I rode my bike in. What a beautiful ride! Here in Chicago there’s a great bike path that runs along Lake Michigan, and it’s great. Basically it is a freeway for bikers, bladers, runners, and anybody else who doesn’t want to run on the freeway. I was really impressed. Oh, and downtown even had bike racks! Great stuff, windy city.

Now I’m beat…17 miles on a bike will tend to do that. I think Karen and I are going to head over to Target to pick up some sweet nourishment (candy and cake) and furniture (shoe rack). Piece.

May 17, 2006
Flickr got a new face!

flickrFace

Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

And boy do I like it! They’ve switched from disorganized links all over the place to simple drop-down menus. Noice…now maybe I’ll be able to find links. They could still use a little work on the information architecture at the bottom of the screen, but they did make that significantly better as well…so I’m happy enough. Baby steps…

Flickr Gamma, welcome!

May 16, 2006
Damn it Apple. Why must you disappoint me?

So here I am at the Apple store in Chicago…disappointed. I came today to have them look at my iPod shuffle. It’s got a software issue because I pulled it from the computer before it was ready to be pulled from the computer. They just told me that the damage is not repairable, but they can’t give me a new one because I’m out of my warranty period.

So what the eff am I supposed to do now? It’s obvious I’ll have to buy a new music player if I don’t want to carry around my giant 60 gig iPod that i’m pondering selling on ebay.

So what do I do? Do I jump to the nano? They’re pretty little machines, but do the batteries last? I’m going to be spending a lot of time on planes next year, so I don’t just want the battery to up and quit all the time. Plus, it just might be to big to carry with me all the time…and maybe even too big to fit in the tiny pocket on my running shorts (maybe not?).

I have loved my shuffle. Great battery life. It’s a brick. I’ve had no problems up until now…and it was my fault. But it’s got no screen. A screen would be nice. Some more space would be nice too. But it fits in my life. Wherever I go, there’s room for the shuffle.

Oh, and those iPod videos look pretty too. Horrible battery life. But pretty. And much smaller than my current iPod.

Or I could just not have a music player for a while and “tough it out.”

Am I lusting? I can trade in my old, broken shuffle for a new one and get 10% off. Plus the 10% I get for being a student (gotta use it while it lasts). So Internet, I ask again: What do I do?

May 16, 2006
Happy Birthday Rachel!

Josh & Rachel at Venice Beach

Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

Hope you have a great 24th!

May 13, 2006
Why am I unable to write?
Wow, Planet Informatics is quite active these days. Way to go, y’all. Let’s see how long this one can last at the top of the stack…

For the last week and a half or so, I’ve been writing my Capstone paper, the paper that is meant to sum up a year worth of work in a way that would be acceptable at an academic conference. Now, I’m not totally sure why it has to be conference acceptable, but that’s beside the point. I’ve been completely uninspired in my writing, and so for the moment, at least, I’ve given up.

Keep in mind, the only thing that stands between me and the official completion of my Master’s degree is this paper. 5-10 pages should be no problem. I’ve done it a million times, and this time I actually know what I’m talking about. So why can’t I just write the damn paper? Great question.

I’ve tried a lot of my old writing tricks:

Write constantly throughout the course of the project, this will help summarize things in the end

Organize all the materials that will need to be referenced

Make a semi-detailed outline

Don’t write it all in a sitting, set aside “chunks” of time to fill in bits and pieces

Don’t worry too much about editing until the end

I remember when I was a little kid my dad would edit my papers, and every once in a while he would call me over while he was reading it and say, “Josh, what’s on your mind? It looks like you’re not so focused on this essay…” Generally he’d be right. I’d go back and make major revisions, and the paper would be better for it.

Right now I know my mind is on other issues: Moving, Employment, “New” life, my first real break in a long time, summer trips.

I’ll get to my paper in the next few days, I know. I just need to find a way to focus my attention on it…
May 13, 2006
My Packrat Tendencies

So I’m in the process of packing my room. This is always a rather booooring, slow, tedious, yet insightful process. I get to go through all my stuff and realize that there are many things that I own that I never ever interact with, ever. Except when I’m preparing to move them.

I just came across all of my most important notes from college. The notes and quizzes and exams and everything else that got me through my undergrad Cognitive Science education. I rarely look at these notes anymore (though I have used them, on occasion). The only thing is, they fill half of a large box and are quite heavy. So I’m left to wonder, do I REALLY need these notes anymore?

The obvious answer is Probably Not…but I think it’s a tougher answer than just that. I get so attached to the work I do…to simply throw it in the trash seems wrong. For years I kept my scribbles and notes from elementary school, junior high, and high school in 2 huge boxes in an extra room at my home. I think my mom finally got fed up with them and threw them out. That was fine by me…probably because I had no choice, had plenty of time to part with them, and their purpose had been served. (My goal was to keep notes so my younger sister could get extra help in a subject if she needed…I think she might have looked at my Calculus notes, but I could be wrong.)

I’ve packed my CogSci notes into the box, but who knows if they’ll end up making this move. How can I just leave all my CogSci knowledge in a box in the trash?

May 13, 2006
Graduation & Josh’s Present State

In case it wasn’t apparent, last weekend I became a master. To be a little more precise, last Saturday I received my Master’s Degree in Human-Computer Interaction in a commencement ceremony at Indiana University Bloomington’s Assembly Hall. Congrats to me and all my commrades. If I may speak for all of us, it has been a great experience, life-changing in fact. Hopefully soon I’ll write up a summary of my experiences here. But first things first:

I need to buy myself a present!

I received a number of great gifts, many of which included cash. Now, if I were a good money-saver I’d probably plug this money into a 401k plan or other long-term investment opportunity, but alas, I am not said money-saver. I’ll get around to doing more of this saving in the next few years, as I make somewhat more money than I’ll be able to easily spend…hopefully.

So what should I get myself? A lot of ideas have crossed my mind. Part of me wants a portable video game system. It looks like no matter what job I end up with, I’ll be travelling a lot next year. A PSP or some sort of GameBoy would probably be nice while sitting in airports. But I keep reminding myself that I don’t really like video games all that much. I buy a game and play it for a week, then inevitably get bored. It’s just how it works with me. Instead I think I’ll just buy more books with the money I’d spend on video games. I like reading more anyway.

A new digital music player would be nice. My trusty shuffle seems to have conked out. This is quite ennervating…especially since I’ve only had the thing for a little over a year. Apple is balking at the idea of fixing it, which upsets me…and I refuse to pay the $110 fee that it costs to fix it when i could just buy a new one for $99. I shouldn’t have to pay anything at all, though…it’s a software issue, not hardware. They just need to flash on a new version of the OS. I’ll take it to an apple store next time I’m in a big city…until then I’ll use my big iPod…which seems ever-so-giant at the moment. I don’t know how that’s possible, but my 60 gig iPod Photo just feels huge when I try to pack it. I like to try to minimize weight as I travel, so the iPod just feels a little unruly. Still, at this point I’m depending on Apple to fix my Shuffle so I don’t have to spend money on a new one. So I’ll wait on the music stuff before I ponder buying new…

This all leads me to begin thinking about my digital photography. I really like taking pictures…and have become quite attached to my old Canon S200. I know how it works…I’ve figured out all the modes and buttons, but for some reason I feel like I need something new. When I think about the long-run of my photography hobby, I know that 2 megapixel images just aren’t enough. I want to be able to blow up pictures and make them big…just in case. I also know that newer cameras have cool new features that might improve my photography.

Part of me really wants a Digital SLR camera. The prices have dropped significantly, and it feels like this is the next logical step. There’s one big BUT though when it comes to SLR photography, in my mind. It’s an attitude change. With my tiny little point-and-shoot, I can put my camera away when I’m not using it, back in my bag, and become just another person in a crowd. With a big huge bulky SLR camera, you’re always a photographer, because the camera is giant. I just don’t know if I’m ready for that.

Still, I think I’m going on a number of trips this summer, and it would be nice to take good pictures and really learn something about photography. So I ask you, the internet. What do you think? Is Digital SLR photography worth it? Why do/don’t you do it? Why am I fit or not fit to do it? Oh, and if you’re in the know, what cameras should I check out?

I’ll look forward to your responses as I figure out what I should gift myself…

May 13, 2006
Announcing FlickrDownloadr

As you probably know, I’ve been working for the past few days on a tool that will make it easy for people to download their images from Flickr. I think an official *beta* version is just about ready.

NOTE: To those of you who have already used the tool, be advised that there is a new URL

Check out FlickrDownloadr

May 11, 2006
Download and backup your flickr photos!

So I played around a little more with the Flickr program I started yesterday. Now you can view and download the images you view, all with a single button click.

Instructions: Go to the page, enter the username, choose the number of images you’d like to see, and the size of the images. Wait for the images to download, then click the link on the upper right of the screen. This will download your images as a .zip file. Pretty cool, I know. This makes it really easy to backup your flickr photo collection. 🙂

Check it out!

May 10, 2006
Playing with Flickr’s API

This evening I took some time out to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I played with Flickr‘s API for interacting with photos using PHP. I invite you to check out what I made. It’s not all that impressive, but still, it was fun to make…and maybe soon I’ll actually build something useful!

Check it out

P.S. An example username to try it with is: josh.ev9

May 9, 2006