Daniel15's Blog

So, I'm not sure how many people agree with me (I haven't really searched around to see if anyone has the same opinion), but I'm starting to form the opinion that there are two different types of developers: Those that can develop an application but don't really understand the concepts behind it, and those that have a relatively deep knowledge of how their code works and all fits together. Or, in other words, those think it's alright (and perhaps have it as a job), but are not very passionate, versus those that are very passionate about programming. Generally, I guess something like the following could be said:

People in the first group:

• Have done their main programming study at University or TAFE OR are self-taught with just the basics, generally nothing about best practices. Generally, they've learnt just enough to get by, nothing more
• Will copy and paste code and be happy that it works, but might not really understand how it actually works
• Don't really consider programming a hobby
• Might be considered "code monkeys" in some situations
• Generally need help with fixing odd bugs

And people in the second group:

• May have done a University course, but their main learning is self-taught
• Write applications, scripts, websites, whatever for fun (and might actively participate in open-source projects)
• Don't copy and paste code very often. Instead, they learn from other people's code, and then rewrite that code in their own style
• Consider programming one of their biggest hobbies
• Aware of some of the latest trends in software development
• Might often question things, like the ways people do things, and why code is written in a specific way (or is this just me?). Usually I do that just to learn how things are done.
• Can generally investigate and solve odd bugs pretty well

Anyone else agree with me? Personally I'm proud to be in the second group, the awesome group 😄

Anyways, I'll write another proper blog post, eventually. I started working recently, and will definitely have to blog about that 😃

Until next time,

— Daniel

Recently, I was looking through a few short domains, and decided to buy dan.cx. I think it's a pretty good domain, even if .cx is an odd TLD (it's the TLD for Christmas Island which is close to Australia, so I guess it's kinda related 😛). It's better than my old one (d15.biz) in my opinion. "d15" doesn't have too much meaning (apart from people that know it means "Daniel15"), whereas "dan" is a lot better. I'll still be using the old domain for some things (it'll still be my main email domain, since there doesn't seem to be a way to change the domain of a Google Apps setup, which is what I'm using for my email). I also got daniel.gd last night, but I'm not sure where I'll use that ("daniel good?" I dunno). It currently just redirects to dan.cx. I should probably stop buying domains. But, I bought these instead of renewing a few domains. I don't really work on MySpaceTools any more, so I'm just letting the domain expire. 😛

I guess you've probably noticed, but I've been doing some updates to my site (finally!). I rewrote it to use my own very simple CMS  (instead of a static HTML file), and added a "Projects" page showing some of the bigger projects I've worked on in the past. I'm considering switching the site to be fully WordPress (instead of just the blog), but I haven't done that just yet. Not sure if I will, I'm happy with the simple CMS for now. I thought WordPress might be easier for site management though. And the main part of the site is the blog, which might be better in the root. I dunno.

A proper blog post will come eventually. One day. 😃

Until next time,

— Daniel

Well, I haven't blogged for a while (seems to happen to me quite often). I was pretty busy with university work, exams, arranging a work placement for next year for IBL, and other stuff. I get my exam results in about one and a half weeks, hopefully I did alright on them. We'll see I guess...

Many of you know about my girlfriend. If not, her name is Ciera, and she's absolutely amazing 😄. We met online on MySpace (haha) towards the end of September 2008. I had broken up with my ex-girlfriend after a short and hopeless relationship in August 2008. I was rather upset after my ex broke up with me (to be honest, I really have no idea why, looking back at it now), and was just looking for people to talk to, to make me feel better. I was browsing MySpace one of those days, and was looking through Tom's (you know, the guy with the pretend friends) blog, where Ciera had posted a comment on one of the posts. There was something about her in particular (the way she wrote? Her picture? I really don't know) that made me click on her and take a look at her profile. Now, I don't know why this happened (even today, neither me nor her know why things happened the way they did), but I'm glad it did. Reading her profile made me realise that we had so much in common! I sent a friend request right away, wondering if she'd accept and become my friend. I really wanted to get to know her more.

Luckily, she accepted my friend request. We started talking on MySpace, and eventually on Windows Live Messenger. We chat for hours and hours every day... It made me really happy (still does today), and made me forget about my ex-girlfriend and what happened with her. We kept learning more and more about each other, and got closer and closer. It was amazing how much we have in common! After about a month, we started to realise how we felt about each other. What started as a good friendship was definitely growing into something bigger (bigger is better, right?). There was only one problem with this — Distance. You see, while I'm here in Australia, she's all the way in the USA. We were so close, and yet physically we were so so far away from each other. Quite annoying really 😦. She told me that when she finds a job, she'd start saving up to come see me!

Fast-forward eight months later, to June 2009, and Ciera was on her way here! She had saved up some money for the flight here, and I contributed some money towards it as well. It was so unbelievable, finally getting to be with her. I honestly didn't know what to expect, but I knew things were going to be alright (since me and Ciera were extra-close by this time 😄). And things were way better than just "alright" — The whole experience was AMAZING! We had a great time staying together! She was here for three months, and we did so much in that time! I showed her around some places in Melbourne, and we just generally  had a great time. Just holding hands and even just being in the same room as each other felt so amazing after dreaming about it for so long. It was really like a dream come true to us.  It was really upsetting when she had to leave though, and I still miss her all the time 😦. At least now I know who I'm going to spend my life with. It's a great feeling knowing someone as amazing and attractive as Ciera. 😃

Being in a long-distance relationship has been quite an experience. While it's quite hard and I miss her every day, knowing that she's there for me and we'll be together one day is an amazing thing. I miss her heaps. I miss her smile, her laugh, everything about her. Being able to chat to her every day helps HEAPS though. It makes me feel like she's with me, even though we're physically so far away.  A lot of people say that online relationships don't work, but me and Ciera are proving them wrong 😄. I love her more than anyone else I've ever met, and I have a feeling things will be like this forever. We're both working towards seeing each other again, and it'll be amazing. Like I mentioned at the start, I have a work placement next year. If that goes well, I'll save all the money from that, and use it to fly over to see her at the end of the year. That's pretty far away, but it'll be incredible when it happens. It'll be the first time I've travelled outside Australia (outside Victoria, even).

Ciera's also written a similar post on her blog, if you want to read her one.

Until next time,

— Daniel

Well, I got bored, so I decided to create a mashup of We Like to Party by the Vengaboys, and Without Me by Eminem. This is the first mashup I've ever done, so it's probably not too good 😛

Have a listen here:

[wpaudio url="http://d15.biz/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Daniel15_-Eminem_vs_Vengaboys(We_Like_to_Party).mp3"]

Tell me what you think 😃

I'll eventually post a proper blog post, I've been pretty busy. Ciera came here for three months (gotta blog post about that, of course 😄), and I've had quite a lot of university work as well.

— Daniel

Another song that I liked but couldn't find the lyrics to... Actually this one was from a mix, I've clipped it out and so I could have it as a separate MP3 file.

As for normal blogging, I'll resume eventually. Once I get university assignments and such sorted out, I guess.

Here's the song:

[Verse 1]

Listen to me, and I will tell you,

Of the way I like to live,

Take each day as if it's my last,

And every moment is my final breath

I know it sounds as if I'm crazy,

But I guess I will survive,

And everyday I take a chance,

Is another that I come alive

Read more ⇒

So, I was reading the news today, and came across this story. It states:

THE NSW Federal Court has not ruled out the possibility that an ISP could be in direct breach of copyright laws if it provides internet service to individuals that illegally share files on peer-to-peer networks.

A group of copyright holders represented by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) put the claim to the court as a part of its copyright case against Perth-headquartered ISP iiNet.

Most of AFACT’s original claims against iiNet lodged with the court last year were based on allegations that the ISP indirectly breached their members’ copyright. They alleged that iiNet effectively encouraged customers to engage in copyright breaches by failing to take steps to block illegal file sharing activity on its network.

However, on February 19, AFACT lodged an amended statement of claim to the court containing new allegations that iiNet engaged in primary acts of copyright infringement alongside illegal file sharers simply by carrying the data through its network and systems.

(bold by me)

This is totally stupid! Why should an ISP be responsible for the data it's carrying? Why is the electricity company not responsible? They're supplying the power to the systems mentioned, so they also provide services to people that illegally share files. What about the building company that built the houses/offices? They're responsible for housing the systems.

The thing is, ISPs don't know what the data being transferred on their network actually is. Much like the postal service... When you send a letter to someone, they don't open your letter and read it, they just send it. If I send you a terrible analogy that makes you think "oh my God, this guy needs to take lessons on writing", that's not Australia Post's issue. The postal service, and the ISP, are just transport agents. They send mesages from one location to another, but are not responsible for the contents of the messages. Saying that the ISP is responsible for illegal file sharers because their network is being used is like saying that VicRoads is responsible for criminals, because they're driving their cars on the roads. Clearly, this makes absolutely no sense. If you go to VicRoads and tell them to put tollbooths on the roads to identify every person driving to make sure they're not a criminal, they'd laugh at you. The ISPs should be doing the same thing — This is exactly what's being asked of them.

Also, the article said that the ISP would be responsible if "it provides internet service to individuals that illegally share files on peer-to-peer networks". How are they meant to know that individuals illegally share files? Note that ISPs already disconnect users they get copyright complaints about (how users are caught is a different issue altogether... Fake torrents and similar things. Might blog about this eventually). There's really no other way for them to know who illegally shares files. This sentence makes it sound like they want ISPs to add a "Do you illegally share files" tickbox on the registration form. 😛

And also, as Aaron mentioned on his blog, "copyright theft" makes no sense. The term they're actually looking for is "copyright infringement". But, they seem to barely know what they're doing, so I guess the use of a nonsensical term makes sense in whatever magical land they're living in. A land where there's no Peer-to-Peer networks, and everyone pays for the latest crappy music albums and TV shows and whatever else exists. For now, the rest of us live in reality, where none of this filtering is possible.

— Daniel

Well, back to posting coding-related blog posts, for now anyways 😛. Seeing as a lot of people seem to be confused by Object Oriented Programming, I thought I'd post a quick (or maybe not so quick) post about what OOP is, the main features, and how it can benefit you. This is paraphrased from an assignment I had on OOP last semester at university. I use C# code examples throughout this, but the concepts are very similar in other languages. Note that in this post, I assume you know the basics of programming, and just want to learn more about object orientation.

Now, let's begin looking at what OOP actually means. At its core, the Object Oriented paradigm consists of classes and objects. A class is a “thing” or entity that has a purpose, and an object is an instance of this entity. For example, a Car would be a class, and my car would be an object (instance of the Car class).

Read more ⇒

So, umm, yeah, I don't blog often. You've probably noticed. Seriously, look at the "Archives" widget on the right (or left, depending on what stylesheet you've chosen for this site) and you'll see there's basically nothing since 2007. I really just don't have much to write, haha. I eventually want to write a page about me for the homepage here, but I guess my MySpace and Facebook profiles are serving that purpose right now. In any case, my sister has a blog, which you should all go read. Unlike me, she has a talent for writing, and I promise you that her blog is a lot more exciting than mine. Go subscribe to her too. And send her lots of spam (well, okay, maybe not the spam, but do all the other things. 😛 ). Also, check out my friend Ben's new blog "EpicToast.com."

While I'm on the topic of blogs (including this one), it's interesting thing to note, my "37 things a girl probably doesn’t know about a guy" blog post is still by far the most popular/accessed. And it wasn't even mine, it was just copied and pasted from a MySpace bulletin. Maybe one day I'll write something similar, with my own thoughts on it. I guess. Speaking of random stuff that gets passed around, I keep getting tagged in those "12/20/38/50/100/whatever Things About Me" notes on Facebook, haven't done any yet though. I suppose I might do one of those one day. It's hard to think of that many things about myself, though. And I also try to avoid those chain things anyways. But one day someone will be like "OMG DANIEL YOU HAVEN'T DONE THOSE ANNOYING CHAIN THINGS, I HATE YOU LALALALALALA RAWRRRRRR" and I'll be like "OH FINE >_<" and do it. 😛

So anyways, what's been up with me, apart from avoiding chain "random stuff about me" Facebook forwards?? Well, Valentines Day came and went... I bought my amazing friend Ciera some flowers and a valentines day teddy... She loves them both 😄. I wanted to do something special, seeing as this year's the first year I've considered buying something for someone 😛. Apart from that, I haven't been doing all that much. Over the last few weeks, I worked on a few programming projects, then got bored of that and stopped working on them xD. Nothing much apart from that, just the usual chatting on Windows Live Messenger, and browsing Digg, news.com.au, and some other sites.

I go back to university on Monday... Second year of Professional Software Development at Swinburne University, should be fun 😃. No usability this semester! Although I reeeeeeeeeeally hope that we don't have a subject that's as bad as Usability was, HIT2308 Software Development Practices looks like it'll be just as bad as Usability 😢. And I have that THIS SEMESTER. We'll have to see if it's bad. I blame you (yes, whoever's reading this) if it is. You're evil 😦

For now, I'll leave you with this video clip by GoRemy:

❤️ GoRemy

And here is a remix of "Break Up" by Kim Sozzi that I started at the start of January:

[wpaudio url="http://dan.cx/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/Kim-Sozzi-Break-Up-Daniel15-Remix-2nd-Iteration.mp3"]

Here's the MP3, if you want it (not that you would, it's not too good 😛)

Well, that's all for now. Have fun browsing your internets.

— Daniel

Okay, so a lot of people read my blog post about my MySpace account getting deleted for reporting a security issue. Well it appears someone named Joe from MySpace's Security Enforcement division read that post, and contacted me via email. He was able to restore my account, so I now have a working MySpace account again, and someone to report security issues to 😃

So, yeah, things are all good now. Just thought I'd write a short post about this. 😄

— Daniel

As you might have read on my blog, I recently reported a security issue to MySpace. Instead of getting a "thank you for informing us of this problem" (which was all I wanted... I was aiming for MySpace to make their site safer, not for any publicity or anything 😛), they deleted my account. The security hole I reported was patched though, so I guess that's good. I'm still annoyed at the deletion though. All my test accounts got deleted, but suprisingly my music account wasn't.

Anyways, I've found another security hole today. Not another XSS hole, this is a different security hole with some privacy implications. So, the way that I see it, I have a few options regarding what I can do at this point:

1. Do "the right thing" and report it to them again. Probably getting my remaining accounts deleted in the process (I have a new personal profile, and my music profile that wasn't deleted).
2. Tell someone else and get them to report it on my behalf.
3. Ignore it and hope they fix it themselves.
4. Post it to a security/"hackers" website.

Obviously, the last one is not something I'd usually do, I'm just not that type of person. However, if someone were to do something like that, assuming it's posted anonymously, nothing bad would happen. So, the thing that's the most "correct" (reporting it to them) would get punished (as my previous reported security hole showed), whereas the thing that's "wrong" (posting it to a security site) wouldn't. Isn't it obvious what most people would do? How funny.

— Daniel