I woke up this morning and decided that I hated everything.

If by this morning I meant some time mid-December, I’d be telling the truth. I was more or less tired of looking like a middle schooler to the internet, so much so that I stopped telling people that I had a blog. It had become something of an eyesore, full of outdated content and poorly modified php. So, I drafted a new theme from scratch, tore out some 30 unused plugins, and hid all my old posts (you can still find them if you search for them, though).

I set about coding this theme, which I now call Calcium, around the start of winter break. I was holed up in my house for about a month and, having completed finals and such, needed something to occupy my time. I had no obligations, I had no classes, and I had all the time in the world. So, naturally, I stayed inside and stared at my computer screen.

Looking at the github repo for this theme, my indecisiveness is more than apparent. I went through several design iterations, essentially starting over each time. I had a good deal of help from my less aesthetically challenged friends, which I greatly appreciate. The theme leans solidly on Skeleton, from which its name was derived, and takes visual cues from sites like Medium and Svbtle. After a few months of poking around, I ended up settling upon this.

There’s a lot to be done still (the “Contact” and “About me” pages are terrifying), but it’s at a place that I’m reasonably happy with. If you catch any obvious bugs, or have any critical feedback, please tell me. I’ll be updating the contents of this site over the course of the next few weeks, weeding out categories and pages and useless posts.

It’s been a while. A long while.

I’m going to restart this blog fresh. I’ll keep most of my old content around, since it certainly seems useful (especially to those of you trying to jailbreak things), but the site is going to be completely redesigned. I hope to be done within the next coming weeks. I want to start blogging again, but I want to do it right this time.

Cheers to all, and I hope your holidays have been well.

Salem

I'd hit that.

I recently purchased a laptop for college. It’s a Lenovo T420 and, despite looking like a 1990′s era business laptop, it’s one of the smoothest-working rigs I’ve used. I mean, the thing was built to take a beating, and sure shows it.  Continue reading →

Ironbuds - Modular earphones.

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to get rid of (or unsuccessfully try to repair) a pair of earbuds because part of them had frayed or broken. It sucks, particularly when the earphone itself still works fine. Those cables never last me. I abuse them way more than I should. At any rate, get ready for some modular earphones from Ironbuds, the first completely modular earbud: Ironbuds.

The site is still a startup and is using Kickstarter to raise some initial funds. The headphones are relatively cheap ($21-47 for some pretty good quality headphones) and seem to be made of high quality materials. The cables are even wound in a woven protective covering.

At any rate, definitely give it a look. If you donate to the startup, you can even receive a pair of earphones for yourself. I myself donated to the cause and will hopefully receive a pair soon.

Check them out on kickstarter.

So sorry for vanishing for a few solid months. I’ve been doing the whole “applying to college” things that people my age are expected to do. The good news is that I’ll be attending Carnegie Mellon for Computer Science next year. I’m super excited and can’t wait to sink my teeth in to some juicy code and theory. (gulp)

At any rate, I should be back to my good ol’ blogging self. Expect some design changes as I’ve been learning a lot of web design in the past few months.