jQuery Portfolio, fashion design

I’ve put myself up to the challenge, this winter break, of constructing an extensive portfolio of all my fashion design, web dev, graphics, and IT projects. The tricky part here is, I’ve sworn to myself, I shall not use PHP. It’s been 3 nights, hopefully it will be done tomorrow evening! 

This image below will be on the landing page. I’m going to use a .mouseover() handler to switch it to the colored version of the image. By the way, that is me. And those are my clothing designs, haha.

Nominated for Liebster?

Hi all. There is something called the Liebster Award that is circulating around, in which you nominate your favorite bloggers, and fill out a questionairre. I got nominated by a good friend of mine over at The Nenja around a month ago. She’s a stylish young journalism major over at SFSU, and an ambitious copy-editor taking the Bay Area by storm. Also, quite possibly a ninja. Here I am answering her questions!

For those of you I nominated, I have a set of questions for you at the bottom of this post!
Cheers, Claire

1. How did you pick your blog’s name?
I’m a seasoned global dictator, it seemed appropriate. It is…the CLAIRE LI TAKEOVER.

2. What’s your favorite book?
Tough choice….I haven’t read fiction for a while. I will conclude that this was my most recent enjoyable read.

3. What’s the best career advice you’ve ever gotten?
Keep all of your potential leads in contact, even if you can’t accept the offer at this point in your life.

4. What’s your favorite recipe you make?
Sauteed shrimp and squid scampi, with cream sauce.

5. What song is currently on repeat in your brain? (Or iPod)

I’ve been diggin A7x’s new album, ya know.

6. Do you have a style icon? Who is it?
Claire Underwood, played by Robin Wright in “House of Cards”.

7. What’s your favorite feature about yourself?
Money-making ambition & inclination to learn.

8. What’s your favorite thing to post about on your blog?
-Information technology, programming, software & web development
-Fashion design, my magazine startup
-Artwork & freestyle raps

9. What’s your favorite post on my blog?
Well, Nena – I’d have to say I like the desk space article the most. I have to worry about getting my apartment in ship-shape for my sophomore year in less than two weeks, haha.

10. How to do you spread the word about your blog?
I haven’t yet, haha. I posted on my personal facebook, and I’ve vaguely mentioned my info tech blog to friends in real life. I don’t think any of them have found this.

My Questions for the Nominees!

1. What’s your career field?
2. What are your thought’s on SpaceX’s Hyperloop proposal?

3. What’s your most recent project?
4. Favorite drink?
5. What’s the most valuable ability listed under skill sets for your resume?
6. What was your proudest accomplishment?
7. Why did you start your blog?
8. Link your favorite post from your blog. Why is it your favorite?
9. What’s a post you like on my blog?
10.  What’s one of the coolest things you’ve done in your industry field?

—– Great Blogs that I Nominate! —–

1. www. salarymonkey.com
2. http://2point0press.blogspot.ca/
3. http://www.webrpi.wordpress.com/
4. http://pi0pi.com/
5. http://codewithzenmind.wordpress.com/
6. http://clprince.wordpress.com/
7. http://www.glennfolkes.com/
8. http://doncharisma.wordpress.com/
9. http://strongblogs.com/
10. http://jimmy2hats.com/

Working some PHP & mySQL magic here. :)

Claire’s accomplishments from this week.

• Built a mySQL database in two ways (1. Using mySQL’s built-in command line, 2. Through a PHP function stored inside a variable)
• Connected PHP input to the mySQL database, and wrote functions that would echo confirmation
• Built a mySQL table and assigned the fields (whether it was primary key, null, etc.) through PHP exclusively
• Created a front-end user-friendly UI for other employees in the company to use 🙂

Below is just test material. The real form is more detailed than this, but I just created a database that would accept “First Name”, “Last Name”, and “Age” as fields. So, office workers will never have to touch PHP code, or mySQL syntax to update the database, thanks to my front-end UI form! （´・ω・｀）I’m feeling really proud. Or maybe its just that day-old scone I ate…..

Basic front-end UI for the other employees to use. This was just a test form, the real database will have document name, date of creation, directory, etc.

Graphic Design & Magazine Editing

You can check out my inter-collegiate fashion & lifestyle magazine at http://www.dahliachic.com

Be sure to like us on facebook, and follow our social media!
http://www.facebook.com/dahliachicmagazine
http://www.instagram.com/dahliachic
http://www.twitter.com/DahliaChic
http://www.tumblr.com/blog/dahliachic

The graphic design work below is some of my handiwork from Issue #5 of Dahlia Chic Magazine.

This was a garden photospread of a photography team called La Femme Lazar, in San Diego. I also shadowed them for a day pretty recently , and have lots of video footage going up on Dahlia Chic’s youtube channel soon!

This was an article from a student at NYU. I did the graphics work for her piece on fashion inspired by classical artwork.

And of course, here is the cover of issue 5. We’re hoping to get some physical copies of the magazine printed soon! 🙂

Building my first mySQL database!

Just made a break-through. I’m learning the basics of building a MySQL database. Now what can I do with it?

Spent the morning at work understanding and getting acquainted with MySQL 5.6’s Command Line Client. It feels just like DOS so I wasn’t intimidated. Its just a matter of getting familiar with MySQL’s custom syntax. I wanted to build a basic database with two tables, just to show a proof of concept to my boss, before I dig into relational tables, and relational databases (oh my, I’m going to need some more coffee for this!).

Just needed something basic, with information I could populate and re-arrange. I figured that my favorite gangster rap artists, their albums, and distribution year would not be appropriate for the workplace, so I created some fields for senators from the 2013 U.S. House of Congress.

“We approve of this decision, Claire.”

This geeky collision of government, and programming is a result of being addicted to “House of Cards” recently. Let’s see how much I can build on this.

Programming work. A directory file crawler? BRING IT ON.

Three options for crawler, objective is directory & filepath listing. Among other things, unique filenames, timestamps (modification date versus date of creation), and other categories unique to the company I am interning for. I sat back, and pondered life (and this assignment)…..

1. I could use an excel spreadsheet, or a google spreadsheet, something to that extent, – and record filepaths locally, or on a remote FTP server.
2. I could use command prompt/ write a batch file that is accessed from the desktop, to record file-paths locally, or on a remote FTP server.
3. I could write a web-based crawler, using PHP. You know, since I’m a web developer and what-not…

Test 1. Good ol’ DOS. I was able to successfully record all the file names in a root path, and send the information into a text file rather than printing it to command prompt, and staring at it. Pretty cool, right?

(That is a delicious cake in the background.)

 

Excel Spreadsheet or Google Spreadsheet with Visual Basic		CMD, Batch file, Desktop application		Web-based crawler, using PHP
Pro	Con	Pro	Con	Pro	Con
Very straight forward.	Macro could be complex, and take more time. Currently cannot find a way to automatically update. Looking for parameters. Scrapes information from a table, but not the location of the files linked in the right-side column. Not sure if can turn into an application.	Very straight forward.	Tedious typing into command prompt. I want to try and design a basic GUI for employees to use. Can write a batch file that implements these steps into Windows Explorer, BUT – this requires the risk of modifying the registry. I prefer to write a batch file that implements these steps as a desktop application.	Easy to automatically update.	Not sure yet. More complex environment needed (Apache web server, PHP, MySQL, installed entire XAMPP package)

Woah! Apache time!

Hi there! It’s Claire again! Is it just me, or does Apache hate me? I’m in the midst of attempting to develop a PHP crawler that will extract the filepath from a large directory of files, and print it into a spreadsheet of some sort. Then I’ll be the coolest thing since canned bread. And people will throw gifts at me.  But currently, I’m overwhelmed by the complexity that comes with configuring an Apache web server on your machine. I need to be able to test locally, and there is even more to learn. After 40 minutes, I said “screw it” and installed the XAMPP package instead. I needed the PHP parser, and a database, regardless.

It’s already in sync with a copy of my FTP that I had previously installed on my computer. Also, that’s a koala.

The journey begins right now! Wish me luck.

The snail solution, at 4 AM

My boss asked me to refine the front-end for a php form. It checks for available domain names – for our company’s hosting service. I never like to dive into something without a plan, so I scribbled two solutions for him. Simple enough, right?

I told him, you can have Option 1, snails. Or……Option 2, snails also.

 

You think I’m kidding? I WENT THROUGH WITH IT.
*evil laughter*

(Ta-dah!)

#foreveralone

Goodnight, world. Now I have to wake up in a few hours to show this to my boss.
-Tired Claire, 4:08 AM

Got a summer job!

Claire Li is on the job!

I just accepted a summer job building virtual private servers for a web hosting company’s colocation and data centers. I’ll also get plenty of chances to work on web development also, primarily mySQL & PHP. There is so much to learn and create, so little time. This will be an exciting summer.

Compiling Web Dev Portfolio! (Eye Candy of the Day)

Wowwee. A good majority of these are from high school. These are hella old. Can’t wait to see what I have in store for the rest of this year! 🙂