It was determined in 2009 that 2010 was the year to accomplish both data security prototype development and documentation toward publication. Operation 2010, with a milestone date set for ten-twenty-twenty-ten, is a mission to accomplish four overdue objectives:
The Milestones
Security Console v2.0
The main project developed for Information Security Corporation, this project began back in 2004 as a Windows Mobile ease of use prototype for work flow data security. In 2005 work began to convert the prototype to a desktop client application. Feature additions were added after the initial design phase and before the release to QA in 2008. 2009 began documentation work and revamping the underlying framework to properly implement interfaces to easy drop in custom applications into the framework.
Codename: Kaspyr
After completing Masters work at DePaul in the field of distributed systems, a truly distributed work flow application hasn't fully seen the light of day despite having all the pieces of the puzzle currently available and ready for assembly.
Webblazing the Next Level
As the daemon work continues and web interfaces become common, a new version of Webblaze is to be assembled to become the main UI rendering engine for the web daemon. This will advance the separation of layout and content from the developer while providing ease of using basic HTML to implement complex interfaces.
Documentation and Blogs
Through the use of the Over the Edge blog, documenting the work and advancements taken on these projects, as well as producing material for articles in new publications will be generated. While these articles will start as OTE entries they will be added to the website cross-referenced with the proper discussion topics, thus updating this site in the process.
Progress Reports
Quarter 2 in the books...
Resuming work after the Fourth of July holiday has everything in the third of three periods to accomplish our major milestones. In the excitement of a Stanley Cup Championship run, the start of vacation season and new long term directions affecting SC 2.0, it was still a successful quarter. This doesn't include a major home renovation project that popped up. The place has been resided and re-insulated and while that doesn't do much for the summer months, it should make this upcoming holiday and winter season a nice and toasty experience.
Project Kaspyr that was torn apart in the first quarter was rebuilt and in the new hybrid of Qt and WS classes and is once again running the service just as the original version did when development of that project left off from DePaul. Improvements to the event logging system now are in place and there is better information coming from the back end service. Configuration file structures have been converted from .ini to XML format and the restoration of the HTTP protocol connector is now pending. Once that is done Kaspyr will be integrated with the next version of another successful project.
Web Blaze version 2.0 has been started, mainly forced for 2 reasons: the port to hybrid Qt and WS technology and to custom integrate into web applications to provide proper HTML UI rendering. The main focus is to separate out the core library to be built into several other aspects. While a CGI server-side application will still be provided, some web servers aren't happy running applications to produce web content. For pages that are more static in nature a new WB Compiler is envisioned which will allow pages to be rendered then uploaded to their destination. This way free space servers can take advantage of Web Blaze features.
To make this all happen I did a little hardware upgrade. It was time to retire the notebook computer that has been my travel and side development companion since 2003. The new system finally rivals my desktop PC and has enough space and upgradeability to run my virtual machines and perform all the multitasking I do on a day to day basis. Now if I could simply finish these projects it would make the perfect showcase system.
SC 2.0 is about to enter its final phase of development. It has one main window left for implementation before adding in all the custom copy and paste, drag and drop, and fancy Windows 7 features. While the hope was that it would have been further along, it has been determined that SC is going to be part of a more enterprise wide solution and called for some extra development considerations. Additional progress does include a completely rebuilt help system that was made backward compatible into the existing version and updates to the outdated administrator configuration descriptions.
Finally the long anticipated conversion from paper to electronic document is underway. An over stuffed filing cabinet has been purged and more documents are being converted over to digital delivery. By the time this milestone list is due, everything should be converted away from paper.
Quarter 1 down, 2 to go
Right now, it is 75 degrees outside, the sun is shinning and instead of driving around with my windows down I am in the office catching up on projects before Easter break. That is right, it is the last day of March, 20 degrees above average and just as I need to keep focused I couldn't be more distracted. But with one quarter down it is a good time to see what accomplishments have been made and what is to come next. I speak of Operation 2010, my goals for the year to accomplish my academic and career objectives before I hit that magic age where designers and thinkers aren't taken seriously.
One objective was documentation and blogs. That has started. Here is a blog. There have been a few prior but there was also a bulk of work done to the website. An overhaul started back in 2009 and under the "In the Know" topic you can find an old screen shot of the previous version. The final steps though of updating didn't happen until this past winter when the CSS was standardized and data reorganized. Now there is a foundation to work so I can continue to build my online portfolio.
I did have another objective that I needed to pay some attention. With the development work increasing the second quarter of this year I needed to submit articles to a hobby journal. Knowing that I was going to be tied up I managed to get not one, not two but three articles into the queue which means there should be enough content in there that I am safe until summer. As those appear they get posted here under Pingame Journal in the Over The Edge area.
The company that provides my day job over the past quarter merged our two office together into one central location. Overall that doesn't have much of an effect on me other than I got a new desk in my office and an office phone that actually works. The company is purging a bunch of old computers and equipment which gave me an opportunity to go though my own stored crap. Old computer cases, motherboards, mice and other electronics are going to soon be on their way to recycling. The sea of cables that I have accumulated over the years have been distributed to other supplies, leaving just a few spare things around for future projects. If you think storing that technology you are replacing is a good idea.... don't. Just don't.
The project known as Security Console version 2.0 is coming along and major back end changes are both in and functioning. The next step is to activate front end user interaction enhancements which, my goal, is to have done by May. This is an area that is going to see a lot of posts from me as I am diving into the areas of drag and drop and clipboard operations. Both of these are not documented as well as one had hoped which leads me to think I am one of a very small group that expands this functionality. An old class that was a staple since I wrote the start of the framework back on Windows CE, which has been limiting the expansion of functionality, has been removed. Its replacement is what just passed all my unit testing prior to drafting this blog entry. It's cool and exciting cause it relies on other enhancements that will be covered later this spring.
Ah yes Spring, this is the time of year I was hoping to treat myself to a new notebook computer. But I only need to do that when the project using the code name Kaspyr reaches a certain point. Sadly though, over the past three months, this is where the progress has been the slowest. I'm good at handling 2 projects at once but with SC being the primary, this project continually got put on the back burner for such wintery tasks as filing income taxes, repairing the Jeep for the spring and summer driving season, and drafting a paper on a proposed distributed system for data security. That last one I am excited about as it gives me a chance to expand what I went to school for many a year ago.
With April coming it is time for the palm trees to make their appearance on this site. It is also time to start the second quarter and see how much can actually be done in a mere three months. Stay tuned...
