Jake Alves

been a while - cause i've been busy

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:19:42 -0500

Sorry I haven't posted in a long time - been doing a lot of freelance work lately and that has been eating up all my free time.

Here is what I've been working on most recently.

usm advising network

As always - feedback is welcome.

Summer Vacation?

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:39:59 -0500

It's been a while since I've updated this site. My life has been hectic as I've been finishing off the semester. I did want to take a break from my busy schedule to talk about my plans for this summer. I haven't quite figured out exactly what I want to do this sumer, but I do know that this site will be one of my projects. My site will be going through yet another redesign (designers add?).

I also plan on creating a section for the content management system I have been developing for quite some time now. Currently it's a flex/php based image management system for online stores and portfolios but i have plans for it to be much more.

I also want to begin dabbling in some official development projects. I've been benefiting from many open source projects and I feel like it's about time that I start giving back to those communities.

SO - I guess, what I'm trying to say is - hang tight. I haven't been updating my content regularly - but I will be - soon. And I'm hoping to have more interesting content that people could use. (tutorials maybe??)

Brighten an otherwise dark image

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:53:55 -0500

I had some fun today touching up an image that I had taken the other day. The image came out really dark so I made it brighter and touched it up. By touch up - I mean - I reduced the graininess of the image by applying a surface blur to each color channel, adjusting the strength of the blur according to the amount of graininess found in that particular channel. Here is the byproduct:

Edited:

Original:

The Greatest Generation

Fri, 4 Apr 2008 05:00:00 -0500

When I was down in Biloxi, MS I had a lot of people walk up to me and thank me personally for my service. I always felt awkward when this happened because the people that were thanking me were always veterans who had made much more sacrifices than I had. The other day I had received a member address from USAA. Included was this video. This is the first time that I have heard this generation be described as "the greatest generation" and I feel that this description is fitting. Most of the veterans I met were some of the most humblest individuals I talked to and many went out of their way to give me the respect and honor that the whole nation should be showing them. So, thank you - to all the veterans that served and sacrificed in order to protect the lifestyle that I enjoy today.

A little bit of SEO

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 05:00:00 -0500

So i've been doing a lot of research lately on search engine optimization, and I've discovered that your rank in search engines is not just based on keywords and meta tags. One of the elements is site popularity - meaning - how many people have linked to your site. One way in which spider robots crawl through the web is by following all the links on a website, and if your site gets detected the most - then your site is deemed to be the most popular.

This is why being a part of all those social networks is so rewarding for your site - not only are you creating another avenue for traffic - but your also creating more links to your site. That is why a lot of SEO experts will recommend that you do as much free internet marketing as you can and social networking sites are a great way to do that. There are also web directories that you can submit your website to - like the Open Directory Project.

But face it, that's a lot of work for just a single link. So what is the easiest way to get people to link to your website? Comment. There are tons of Blogs out there and most of them have a commenting system, and most commenting systems allow you to integrate your website into the post (so that when a user clicks on your name they are navigated to your site). So - if you have blogs that you frequent - don't be afraid to leave a comment. I'm not suggesting that you go out and start spamming other people's blog (that would most likely just get your comments deleted and your IP banned) - but for the blogs that you do read - offering relevant comments that spark conversation will not only make the author excited that people are interacting with their site but it will also will help your site become more known.

EDIT: Posting on blogs that have "nofollow" disabled will help your rank. (like mine)

Website glitch

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 07:49:00 -0500

I just became aware of a glitch on my site. If you click on any of the lightbox links that are not included in the first post, the lightbox glitches out and you can't see the image or content (think that it flickers a bunch if you scroll). I just figured I would post real fast and let you know that I am aware of this issue and will be taking care of it when I have a chance. I think the reason why It's glitching is because it uses the scroll position of the browser in order to determine where to place the content so that it will be centered on screen. Because the layout of my site has a fixed div, this is causing the script to get confused about content location (cause it's placing the content further down the page when it should be placing it up higher).

EDIT: It would seem like I fixed this issue - if you notice any problems let me know by commenting.

Internet Explorer 8 - the toddler that breaks stuff

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 05:00:00 -0500

So I'm at the point in web development where all the technical elements of a site are done, and now I need to make sure it works with all the popular browsers (IE,Firefox,Opera). So I boot my mac up into windows and begin checking out the websites. Firefox and Opera are good (as always) and (as expected) IE gives me a problem. Ok, no problem - i've dealt with this issue before - but i grow curious - before I begin troubleshooting for IE I want to check out my site in the new IE 8 beta. So, after spending about 30 minutes installing IE 8, I open up the website only to realize that it's worse off in 8 then it was in 7. This i don't understand. How can a website, that runs perfectly fine in all the other browsers be worse off in the new "standard friendly" environment of internet explorer 8 ??? Well, I've pondered this question for a long time and I think I might of found the answer. IE 8 has a bunch of new features that is'nt much different then what Safari has done and Firefox. My guess is, that in the process of copying and pasting their code into their new web browser - Microsoft programmers accidently broke some other code they had copied and pasted into IE7 - and since they didn't really know how the code worked to begin with - they just ignored it and hoped no one would notice.

Anyway, I'm sure you can sense my current frustration with Microsoft and the new IE - it just annoys me that the most popular browser in the world is the one browser that doesn't play by the rules. Web programmers should not have to redesign their websites just to serve one browser and they certainly SHOULD NOT have to be concerned with new versions breaking their code. I mean - isn't that the point of web standards?

My solution - don't install IE8. As a matter of fact - if you haven't done so already - download Firefox or Opera. And if you are feeling a bit adventurous, and want to taste a little bit of mac - download Safari,you can see a demo of it here.

And for those that might be wondering - this is a serious post - no april fools joke here.

Litman Architecture site updated!

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:07:59 -0500

So I've finally got the Litman Architecture portfolio backbone up and running. The system is now entirely customizable and updatable - i can change and add content in a matter of minutes now. I ended up pulling another all nighter (for some reason i couldn't sleep so i decided just to work instead), so again i write another post completely tired. I did however wanted to post a link to the new gallery design:

here

enjoy.

Progress and the iphone

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:13:59 -0500

I had a rather productive day today - I've been working really hard on the portfolio section of Litman Architecture and I'm almost finished. Well - actually I am finished with the development and now just have to install it on the server and get all the content up. I'm really excited with what I've created for the site - i feel that it's a very unique take on a very popular effect and can't wait for you guys to be able to navigate over there and check it out for yourself.

Also - in other news, the new iphone SDK released today; Beta 2. This version is packaged with interface builder for the Iphone. I'm really excited about this new release simply because I'm hoping that with the new beta, Apple will allow more developers into their iphone developer program. I missed the first wave by a hair and I am pretty confident I will get in when there is a second wave. Once I get my developer key don't be surprised if you start seeing apps pop up here - maybe some gaming apps?? who knows.

After trying and failing for the past few days, I've finally figured out how to stitch together images in photoshop and have been working on some Halo 3 panoramas. This is one of my first and currently my favorite:

quickie

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:09:23 -0500

This is just a quick post - I'm hoping/planning - on using Nucleus' add later feature to write some more in depth, substantial posts but for now your going to have to settle with this quickie. Here is some more halo snapshots. enjoy:

on the second image you can see some distortion around master chief - that is mainly because I have not been able to find my pen for my Wacom tablet and thus am forced to use the macbook's built in trackpad to edit images.