Jacob Hackamack

It seems weird to have to force myself to write blog posts.  I usually have thoughts I want to get out and tell other people about.  I guess Its just sitting down and putting my thoughts to some sort of logical path that you can follow that i keep putting off.  Code that I think about or designs that I come across are drawn on various strips of paper, scraps, my design notebooks, or even on my ipad.  There is no one central place for the designs.  I would love to have something to scan images and tag them with relevant information, but the time it takes to develop that gets thrown into current projects.  I see inspiration from every day designs and think about ways of improving things.  I guess I need to force myself to get the inspiration to write an app that I would really use, something that would scratch my itch, but I always seem to put other work ahead of it.  Thats why I rely on a standard WordPress blog.  A long time ago I had written a content management system for WCU that is still, in my belief, used today by the Motion Picture Program.  I’ve always wanted to rewrite it, make it better, fix my mistakes, but its not my current priority now that I’m not at WCU.  Maybe someday…

I have always wondered about logistics.  The moving of things from point A to point B in a certain date has intrigued me mainly from a programming perspective.  Where do you start? What data do you calculate to deliver a package from New York to Rural Oregon overnight?  It’s something that I’d be interested in looking at.  I’ll add it to my list of things to look at after iOS programming.

I love websites that have lots of data and provide an API for a way to mine the data.  Recently I’ve been playing around with iTunes U API for reporting data to build into charts that have data no more than 24 hours old (because of restrictions on the iTunes Content Caching System).  I will say that it’s way easier to export data, put it in your database, and run your own custom queries than trying to work off an Excel report, or use somebody else’s idea of how data should be displayed.  Information at your fingertips, but also information how you want it.

edit: changed CDN to Content Cashing system. (Documentation)

Welcome to the grand reopening of hackamack.com as a web portal that I might or might not update occasionally.  Here you’ll find my thoughts on issues that i’ve come across, things I think are cool, or just random jabbering from somebody who’s been up all night.  Subscribe at your own risk.