Winter has fired its warning shots this week, with biting cold and the threat of wintry weather. We didn't end up with snow, much to my dismay. Extremely cold and sunny is how I best remember Tennessee Decembers. The electric bill is going to be atrocious this month, I am sure of it.
The onset of winter also means the end of the fall semester. Finals start next Monday, and I wrapped up classes yesterday. I think this is the most dedicated, half-assed effort I've ever given to a semester. I'm attending class more regularly than usual, but my mind is usually elsewhere. I'm not too optimistic for stellar grades, but I'll get by. I had a professor today tell me that I would pass the course as long as I attempted the final. My math on the rest of them tells me that I have little to worry about. When you get this far in college, it becomes more about the remaining hours and less about the grades associated with them.
The newspaper wrapped up the last issue of the semester this week, which means next week is dedicated to the aforementioned finals and organizing the office. The Editorial Board will remain intact this time around (a relief), with only a few other personnel changes. This past semester has been an exercise in "no matter how long you work at a position, unexpected things will still come your way." We're trudging along from issue to issue, but I still maintain we're not reaching our potential. Then again, I was reminded today sifting through the archives that it has been much, much worse. This was also an exercise in why the Executive Editor (wasn't me at the time) should read every page before it goes to print.
My spare hours of late are filled with formulating a complete overhaul to Content Manager. As with every coding project I undertake, most of the work is being done in the late evening / early morning hours. Samantha has given up on prying me away from the computer, which either means "I win" or "I need serious help."
For those of you who don't work on the newspaper staff (or, those ... ahem ... who never update your own sections), Content Manager is my less-than-original name for a content management system for The Pacer. It seeks to offer all the amenities of the big guys (College Publisher, Digital Partners or New Digital Group) without all the ads. I had to learn PHP to even begin work on it, with the majority of the initial coding completed on an ill-fated family vacation to North Carolina. I burried my face in a 486 Compaq laptop while the rest of my family had loads of fun checking out lighthouses and prancing around in the Atlantic Ocean. My mother still reminds me that she was strongly considering buying a bus ticket to send me back to Middle Tennessee.
At any rate, the site won a regional award in its very first year of operation. To say it has rested on its laurels in the last three is an understatement. I blame a change in job titles and an unwillingness to allow anyone else to come anywhere near the core code of it. I'm almost to a point in the roadmap that I can safely say it will come to fruition soon. I've made the functions recyclable, so I'll start incorporating of the updates into my other sites.
I'll get screenshots up to my gallery once I have the opportunity to get to Nashville and argue with my former Web server. The project isn't anything earth shattering, but the change is notable.
Speaking of "former" Web server, I will not be as likely to update the look of the site until I get a better handle on Secure Shell with Dreamweaver. Samantha has allowed me to use a subfolder on her TextDrive account rather than my Dad's Network Solutions account or continuing to point the domain back to my house. TextDrive is picky about using SSH tunneling, something Dreamweaver MX doesn't handle natively. My days using Dreamweaver are likely numbered as it is, since making the switch to CSS-based layouts. However, I haven't found a satisfactory code editor / file transfer client.
I'll add that to my list(s) of things to do.