Reading Time: 2 minutes Why this language? Oh gosh, what nerd doesn’t use this? Using the terminal window is the first thing any nerd needs to learn when you’re going through nerd school. Utilizing the DOS CMD (command) window is used in my everyday life. The first time I used this in a professional setting was when 8 computers at work got infected with a virus and the center manager didn’t know what to do. They called I.T. department and put in a work ticket but it would be at least a week before they got around to sending someone out. So, my boss looked to me and asked me if I could do something…uhh, heck yeah! With her permission I quickly put together a batch file which gave me admin access to the computer, I rebooted and jumped into a few files and within 15 minutes the virus was gone and she was back up and running. Regrets…? When people see you putting together a quick batch file which helps you get rid of a virus they start looking at you different, this isn’t in a good way either. They actually start thinking that you are a threat (at least this was the case with me). With a bit of 20/20 vision now I think I should have never started fixing small things around the office. Either way, I’ve used batch for so many years I honestly don’t know when I started. Holding back at work is a good thing though for sure. A Few of My Projects You can never know the settings that I.T. has used to lock out controls or to what extent they have locked down settings so each case will be different. Depending on how things are set up you may have to tweak the coding around. These are actually very simple. Sometimes you have to write a whole program to bypass things. These should give you something fun to play with. Of course, I’m not going to give you some really strong codes to bypass admin stuff because I wouldn’t want to be held accountable for anything you may do with that; so, I’m going to offer you something to get the creative juices flowing. Enjoy. Batch file projects Hack me in CLICK HERE to download a script which uses the “net user” function to add you as a user A little background on using “net user” Hack me out This takes your admin profile out. There may be some more steps you need to take to remove all of your tracks but this will give you a start. IP Finder This is a small script to locate IP. Download the file here   Summary of Downloads & Extra Links   Helpful links Basic DOS CMD’s Root Directories Recognized Environment Variables My Project Downloads Create Admin Access Remove Admin Access IP Finder

Reading Time: 2 minutes   Most Recent Robot How did this ever happen? Yeah…so, who really goes around just building robots, right? Well, I guess I do. I love repairing things that break and I love figuring out how things work. When our DVD player broke we were just planning to throw it out so I asked my wife if it could be donated to my projects instead. She was game so long as it didn’t, “Make the house look messy.” Off to the Matt Cave with my freshly broken DVD player then! It took me a little bit to figure out how to interface with the circuitry but once I figured out how things worked with it I built a robotic arm out of it. At the time I was really big on Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and so I also wrote a program that allowed the sensors that I affixed to the robotic arm to play nice with MS Excel. I created live feeding graphs and data so as the robotic arm would ambulate it would provide live-feeding data to my computer. Eventually, I ran a demo for my wife and she thought it was beyond cool and she encouraged me to go to school to pursue doing these sort of things for a living (mostly because they make me so happy, too). In the beginning of any project things usually start out really small and then grow into bigger and better things. This was no different. In fact, I started with just an old DVD player and as time went on I began picking up printers, vacuums or just any broken electronic device that someone was throwing out. Due to funding, I started scraping for parts anywhere and everywhere. Seriously, an old broken bicycle is like the jackpot! If I can get a gear or cog I am so happy because I can use that in so many ways. So much to build, so little time I have a lot of different robotic ideas and projects that I would like to be a part of right now but I think I just need to give some things a little time. One of the largest issues is funding. It is not cheap to build robots and each time I see the cost of a new servo motor all I see are diapers. We still have a little one toddling around in diapers and when it comes down to it I’d rather get some diapers than anything hobby-wise. I did go by the local high schools to volunteer to be on their robotics teams and help the students build things for competitions but I was turned away because you have to either be one of their parents (and no, I couldn’t get any of the kids to agree to be my pretend kid either) or you have to be a teacher there. So, with all of these set backs I am just going to stand by and collect my parts slowly and build things as I can. I recently used one of my microcontrollers to operate the security door for my office and that was really cool. The resest was built from a broken vacuum cleaner, air compressor and some old work out equipment (and some other household things). I will undoubtedly keep assembling different devices and I will keep posting them on this page so you’ll have to keep in touch to see if there are any changes or updates.   Summary of Downloads & Extra Links   Helpful links Microcontrollers Parallax Clippard Bimba

Reading Time: 2 minutes Why Excel Rocks My discovery of programming actually happened while I was going to school for accounting. This was back in the day when you had to manually hand-write out your ledgers…yeah. Then along came a program called Microsoft Excel. Once I started playing around with the program I was blown away. All of those pain-staking nights of hand-writing out everything and then I found this automated way of doing the same thing (only I didn’t have to worry about the math being carried over to another ledger incorrectly). Of course, I played and played with Excel and then I learned about VBA! It was like another layer of fun for me because not only could the math still be taken care of by utilizing the many cell functions but I could begin automating all of the functions as well. Next, I just dove right in (no holding back). I discovered a little fact about me that I didn’t know before and that was the fact that I am a natural at programming. I picked up the code so quickly it even surprised me. Many of my spreadsheets actually began getting so large I had to flip over to databases and then Access entered the scene. I was having so much fun with Excel and the VBA behind the scenes Access came that much faster. Really, now I use them both very often and I love doing anything and everything in VBA (with both Excel and Access). My Projects I have some of my more fun projects here so you can download and play with the VBA and such. Downloads TNG & TOS Alarm Clock For the Trekies in the house here is a TNG/TOS Alarm Clock. I hope you enjoy! A Basic Countdown Clock This is a basic Countdown clock. Your Current Star Date It takes a little bit of math but you can find out your current star date. An Offical Timesheet I built this for my old job and my boss liked it so much she got it cleared through the proper channels and we all used this time sheet. Sample Test I built this form driven workbook to show a co-worker that you could actually use Excel to aid the people in the training division. Here was the sample test. Fun With API’s This is a basic IMAP weather API in Excel. I liked this one for a while but then it got old. If you are new to playing around with API’s this is a fun exercise. More Excel Automation A supervisor wanted a workbook created to help us tracking certain event logs. So, needless to say I turned to Excel to create this fun row adding workbook. Technically this one should have flipped over to an Access DB but the practice was really fun. I think I came up with this one just before a lot of my assignments at work ended up requiring a DB. Barnsley Fern Fractal Every math nerd ends up playing with fractals and I am no different. Fractals are very fun because of the math involved in them. This Barnsley Fern Fractal is one of my favorites and of course I had to push Excel until I figured out how to create a fractal in the program.

Reading Time: 1 minute Originally, I went to school to answer a few questions I had about an algorithm I had been struggling with as it pertained to a program I was writing and I ended up getting a degree in computer programming. From there, much of my technology-based works have been in order to adapt to changes in life and the needs at the time. For instance, much of the web work I’ve done has risen from need-based situations and I have done a great deal of it since. When I worked at the Arizona Department of Public Safety I developed a webpage that I used each day because it contained useful tools that I would use. That webpage may be viewed HERE. Since the time of that webpage, I’ve designed and re-designed many websites. From time to time I will go back and look at some of my older work and compare/contrast my progress. You may enjoy seeing some of my other work(s) and older versions of my webpage, too! The way my website looks now seems to fit my current mood, but I may change it again, who knows. Check out what I just changed it from and let me know what you think, I’d love to hear your feedback about which style you like better.