Justin McCandless

Ever since I started playing Minecraft at the end of the summer, I have wanted to start my own server.  Unfortunately, it’s pretty much taken me this whole time to accomplish that.  So, I thought I’d post a small tutorial here in case anyone else is having similar problems. First of all, my goals exactly.  I wanted to get the paid version of the Minecraft server up and running on an Ubuntu server that I had otherwise used as a web server.  I wanted to have multiple people be able to connect to this server through external ip addresses.  If you’re looking to do something similar, see if this helps.

Update: This project has been updated multiple times. Check out the latest post here: Open Source jQuery Carousel While working on the website for AIESEC Michigan, a student organization I'm in, I wrote a cool html/css/javascript scrolling image bar that I thought I'd share.  It takes a normally static title image bar that you might see on a typical website and gives it a nice lively touch by scrolling to a new image every few seconds.  It's similar to the different game announcements you see scrolling on Steam.

The website is pretty much back to normal now.  I've reentered all of the data I could find, which I believe was actually all but one or two of the original entries.  Again, huge thanks to Lazarus for saving all my old form data. I'll try to post a bit more about my internship in Austria and life in general as my senior year gets going.  And when I finally have the time, I'll update this blog engine like I've been planning!

justinmccandless.com has been down for the last few weeks, and a good amount of my entries are gone.  This was due to domain.com, my ex-hosting company, canceling my hosting while I was in Austria after a failed payment due to a change of credit cards.  This makes sense, but they also permanently deleted my databases, which wasn't cool. Thankfully, I had backed up my database in the middle of summer 2009 after realizing the tragedy that would be if I ever lost my database.  Along with the help of a few entries lying around my computers as text files, and the miracle working Firefox extension Lazarus, I also plan to recover at least a few more entries.  I'll be working on patching up the site, recovering entries, and trying to transition to a started Version 6 of the site going forward.

I have already been in Austria for almost 3 weeks so it is long due that I write someting about it.  I am here in Graz, Austria, working a computer engineering job at the Graz University of Technology that I got through AIESEC.  I'll be here until the very beginning of September.  I live in an apartment downtown with two roommates, one of which is an AIESECer.  I'm having an awesome time.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Well it 's been awhile since I talked about what I 'm doing in life, so here 's what 's going on. I finished winter semester long ago, bringing an end to my junior year.  In the hope that my senior year will be manageable, I stuck around Ann Arbor and took a few classes during spring term.  This also ended just a few weeks ago, bringing the dreaded two month period which must be filled with a job.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }h1 { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }h1.western { font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; }h1.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; }h1.ctl { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; }h2 { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { } One of my favorite things about using Linux is that for pretty much anything I ever find myself wanting to do, someone has written a free and open source program that allows me to do it.  The other day I needed to edit a specific type of vector graphic, so I opened up Ubuntu Software Center, downloaded a suitable program, and had finished what I needed to do in no time flat.  No messing with bureaucratic proprietary software, or fighting trial programs, I just got the tools I needed for free and finished exactly what I needed done.

I've been using a Motorola CLIQ for the past two months or so, coming off of my previous Blackberry Curve, so I thought I'd give my opinions on the phone. I'm on T Mobile, so I'll be giving my opinions from that network. For those who aren't familiar with it, the CLIQ is a touch screen + slide out keyboard type Android (1.5) phone. It's got a pretty standard line up of features for this type of phone: 5 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, GPS, 3G. Everything works acceptably well for the most part, with the only glaring weaknesses that I have noticed being in the processor and maybe the battery, which I'll get to.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { } A typical night during my time in Loja: "Justin, let's go daaancce!!" A typical night during my trip in Guatemala: "zzzzzz...."   Not that I should even compare the two, since Guatemala was only a one week project while I actually lived in Loja for four months, but the differences were profound.  In Loja I was living 24/7 with the locals, and really being able to integrate and experience the culture.  In Guatemala I was traveling around with a bunch of engineers, working briefly on two projects and then moving on for only a week.  And the engineers part is what the above example accents.  My primary companions were nerds just like myself, so not once was I pressured to drink, or dance, or otherwise be social.  It was actually really nice in a way.

Today was my last full day in Loja. That's kind of a bummer, but it was a pretty good day so I do feel like I had a good conclusion. I went to work at Arcoiris as usual, but today was my last day obviously. I immediately got to work on the website, since the last few days have been crunch time. I've had all kinds of suggestions for the website, and it has been pretty crazy. I even have a bunch of things I still need to finish in the US. I think I' ve worked 12 hour+ days for the last 3 days in a row.