I fixed a few minor bugs in the journal software. For most of the day, efforts to complete Powerpoint slides by the quickly-approaching final presentation deadline appeared to be largely futile. Fortunately, some last-minute diligence and motivation resulted in a satisfactory preliminary set of slides, which I intend to run by Christina tomorrow. Microsoft Powerpoint 2003 was also easier to use than initially expected, and I’m relatively happy with the overall quality and content of the presentation.

Implemented the changes discussed yesterday. It was a long and tedious process to port the online journal software to the Smarty PHP Template Engine. The most important change is that the journal entries now use Text_Wiki, a package which allows journal entries to be written in the Wiki format, and transparently converting them to valid XHTML output. Perhaps the most frustrating experience of the day was converting the prior database entries to the new Wiki format, eventually accomplished through the use of a quick Python script. Journal comments should also be migrated over this new system in the near future.

The online journal now runs through php_cgiwrap to facilitate PHP code that needs to write to disk, and allow all code to run through the custom PHP build. It’s slightly slower his way, but much more secure. More importantly, the recent release of PHP 5 Release Candidate 1 prompted me to investigate two major PHP technologies.

The first of these is the Smarty Template Engine, a tool that allows developers to separate the application logic and presentation components of a website. It’s quite a step up from other template solution, and should greatly simplify the online journal code. The second of these technologies is PEAR, a PHP Extension and Application Repository. The system is essentially a framework and distribution system for reuseable PHP components. It is similar to apt-get in Debian or the familiar rpm in Red Hat.

Installation for both products was straightforward and successful. Since margum already has PEAR installed, it was a simple matter to create a local PEAR copy on a shared host.

I intend to implement both of these features this weekend, though I’ll postpone the install of PHP 5 RC1 until much later.

More modifications to the online journal software. I added the rss.barik.net and notes.barik.net subdomains to access the RSS feeds and personal notes by modifying the .htaccess file to support URL rewriting. I’ve also added HTML to allow for RSS autodiscovery by RSS readers.

Upgraded Debian packages. The Straw file format has changed, and the automatic import feature failed for some unknown reason, so I re-entered the data for all the RSS feeds that I subscribe to. Took an Electromagnetics exam in the morning, which I’m terribly glad is now over with. On an unrelated note, it turns out that the Internet Archive Wayback Machine has been archiving my site since late 2002. The basic layout really hasn’t changed much in all these years.

Did some last-minute homework and finished up Assignment 5 for Professional Practice just a few minutes before class began. Adam and I had our usual lunch at Little Dino’s after recitation.

I spent the remaining day studying for Electromagnetics, and attended a study session held by the professor in the evening. Topics on the upcoming exam include current density, conductors, capacitance, dielectric materials, boundary conditions, Laplace’s equation, Ampere’s law, and the magnetic field. All of it is a blur.

It’s hard getting back on track after a long break. The afternoon was spent studying for the upcoming Electromagnetics exam, and accomplishing little of anything else. I did, however, manage to finally get around to unpacking and cleaning up the room. And it looks like it’s going to be more of the same tomorrow.

The Spring Break 2004 pictures are now up and running, sans descriptions, though many of them are self-explanatory. I used OfotoNow by Kodak to remove red eye from several of the pictures. Made a few modifications to the PHP online journal code. Primarily, I added a php_value for default_charset to allow the HTML validator to recognize the character encoding correctly. I also fixed a few bugs in the image display code.

The group and I went out for a final lunch at the Chinese Buddha. I’ll miss all of you. I spent the remainder of the day catching up on sleep and updating the large backlog of journal entries. There are nearly 180 photographs to sort through and organize, and I doubt that I’ll finish it all by tonight.

The recent instability of gehennom has finally prompted me to migrate the online journal to margum. It should take about a day or so for DNS changes to propagate. The move was a relatively painless process.

Returned safely to Atlanta around one in the morning after an exhausting fourteen hour drive. The traffic on the way back was horrendous. I’m glad to be back, though I’m single and lonely once again.