I can’t believe it.  It’s September already.  My birthday is right around the corner. Amazing how fast this year has progressed. In a blink, August was gone.  September is my favorite month of the year.  It’s not too hot and not too cold.  I am not going taking any classes this semester.  It feels a bit weird because I had become accustomed to going to class for iPhone Application Development.  I got the iPhone Application Development certificate this past May 2010.  A year in progress, finally achieved.

I’ve made 2 iPhone apps that are still pending review in the App Store.  I’m anxiously awaiting an answer: approved or rejected.  The app development process was pretty hard.  I’ve been working my app for the past 10+ months.  It was hardest translating all the words I used in my app.  I am using Core Data with a sqlite database to store all the records.  It has been a fun learning experience for me and this is my first app submission.  Wish me luck!

I think Double Rainbow guy, Hungrybear9562 is totally COOL! I love his enthusiasm and excitement caught on video as shown below.  This video deeply touched me because of his raw excitement and passion for this incredible sight.  I’ve always loved rainbows since I was young.  They are beautiful, colorful, vivid, bright decorations in the sky that can be seen by many people all over the world.

There are a ton of Double Rainbow song remixes on Youtube now. Check it out!

I was bored today and decided to take a new picture for my blog.  I curled my hair with a flat iron and put on some make up. Nothing too special with this pic. I haven’t curled my hair in almost a year. I normally wear it straight.  Felt like doing something different today.

Today is pretty hot outside.  I’ll be going to a funeral later this evening with my hubby. I have a lot of photos from my North Carolina trip but I haven’t posted them online yet.  Am still working on the DVD slideshow that I will be sharing with a lot of relatives.

I want to go see Inception, we’ll see if I make it there this weekend to go watch it. I heard from friends that it’s a good movie.

OMG, I forgot all about the rice steam cakes I’m supposed to make! I better go do that right now.

I wanted to share a true short story about my past.

A young (high school) Annie waits for the bell to ring after her Word Perfect typing class. She thinks her computer teacher is so awesome and brilliant because her teacher gets to teach and work on computers.

Annie shyly asks her female teacher, “Can I learn programming? I don’t want to take typing classes. I want to learn how to make games and things to play on the computer.” (Annie loves Oregon Trail, Wheel of Fortune, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego).

Her teacher replies, “Programming is very hard. It’s not for girls. You have to be really good in math and be really smart. You can be a secretary if you really enjoy working with computers.”

Devastated by her teacher’s answer, a sad Annie walks away and scratches the thought of being a programmer off her list of aspiring dreams. … Hmm, a Secretary?

Flash foward years later ….

Today I am a web developer.  And sadly enough, I wish there were MORE female developers.  My struggle to become a web developer is probably like many other stories of others out there.  I had an interest, but someone else shot me down and told me I wasn’t worthy.  Well, as a young girl I was naive and I believed most things adults told me.  In my culture, I was taught to not question my elders and to be obedient.  I struggled as a teen (like many do) to figure out what I wanted to do in life.

Thanks to the encouragement of my friends and family, I was able to pursue my dream of becoming a web developer.  It was a really hard and difficult challenge.   I’ve come so far in my journey and it’s given me a sense of pride of achieving a goal I didn’t think was possible.

I believe that everyone deserves a chance to learn.  I’ve made many mistakes over the course of my lifetime and from that, I was able to grow as a person. In the words of a wise quote, “The light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion.  The tunnel is.”

Never lose sight of your dreams.

You can follow me at @annievang if you are on Twitter. I’m just testing out some functionality. Hover over my name @annievang !!

1. You need to have a Twitter account. http://twitter.com
2. Sign up your developer application at http://dev.twitter.com/anywhere and complete the form.
3. Add the javascript to your page.
4. Preview & test.  If something goes wrong, repeat step 3.
5. Done!

The instructions, tutorial, and documentation at dev.twitter.com were not intuitive.  Hovercards worked seamlessly since it requires only “read” access.  However, the follow badge widget was not working since it requires “read & write” access.  As of today Saturday, April 17, @anywhere applications are set to “read only”.

Here’s a link to the Google groups post stating that Twitter is working on a fix:

http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/browse_thread/thread/5c96366e2362fe85?pli=1

—- What I had to do to get around that was go to http://twitter.com/oauth and change my application settings to be “read & write”.

I wish Twitter would have updated their dev.twitter.com documentation page with that notice rather than just sending out a tweet.  I missed the tweet in my streams of other tweets and just read it now.  If it was noted on the documentation page, it would have saved me so much time troubleshooting.

I am really excited that I’m leaving to California tomorrow!  San Francisco to be exact!  I’m going to the Twitter Developer’s Conference aka “Chirp”.  I’ve always missed California since I moved away in 1994.  California is full of happy, warm memories for me.  It was the happiest place.

I’m looking forward to the developer’s sessions and hack day.  I’m a programmer at heart, so anything techie … I’m all for it!

I’ll be missing LOST on Tuesday night and my advanced iPhone class on Wednesday night! Oh man, I’m gonna miss an important class.  Luckily, my teacher said if I bring my external hard drive, I can transfer his video on lecture to my drive next week when I return.  SWEET! Can’t hardly wait for that class too!  And for LOST, thank goodness for my iPad ABC app, I can watch the episode from my iPad when I have time. Yay!!!!!

Okay, I better start packing cos I leave early tomorrow morning.  Got a transfer point in Denver.

I woke up at 7 am on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 to get ready for the big opening event!  By the time I got myself together, eat a quick breakfast and jet out the door, it was already 8:45 a.m.  I told my husband to drive as fast as he could cos I had to be at the store by 9 a.m.!  When I got there, there was a long line.  Click on the pictures below!

I saw my teacher Brad Larson standing in the other line marked “Pre-orders.”  He had pre-ordered his iPad in advanced and was able to get his quicker than the rest of the folks who didn’t… those like me!   I snapped a quick picture of the store before I entered!

Sorry, the pic is kind of dark.  It was in my bedroom and I didn’t have good lighting.  Look at how small my iPhone is compared to my iPad!

I’ve been a proud owner of my iPad for about a good week now and I’m still loving it.  I’m in process of making a video review of my favorite apps.  That will come soon!

I really liked this girl’s (she goes by applegirl002) video she made of her singing “Irreplaceable” by Beyonce using some iPhones as her instruments!  It’s pretty amazing what you can do with Apple products~!

I think this is what she said,  “Kick”, “snare plus clap”, “snare 2″, “High hat” then the chords to the song: ” A sharp, F, C minor, D sharp, D sharp minor, D Minor.”

The iphone apps she used in her video are:

• Beatmaker by Intua
• Guitar: Play and Share by the Frontier Design Group

She also made another video singing Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.”  The iphone apps she used in that video are:

• I am T-Pain
• Beat Maker
• Nlog Synthesizer
• Guitar by Frontier Design Group

Enjoy and happy making music!

I still have not gotten used to typing 2010.  I keep making the error of typing the year as 2009.  Every time I attempt to sign a check or date a document, I still put 2009.  Sometimes if I remember, I catch my mental mistake before actually executing it out.

My current playlist song:  N’Sync, God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On You

I was digging around in my archives and stumbled upon this really cute photo that my sister Song did of our niece, Evangeline.  Song did a great job at this photo and I really love it. 

I really want to buy the iPad.  I haven’t pre-ordered the iPad Wifi yet.  I figure I’d wait for the iPad Wifi + 3G, however I had a discussion with a classmate last night it and now I am considering just getting the wifi version.  I need to buy a MacBook Pro first.  My iMac is not portable.

I’ll be traveling to Missouri this weekend.  Gonna be a long drive.  My hubby is picking up his boat!

March 9th, 2010 celebrated the grand release of Final Fantasy XIII in North America. I bought it at Best Buy over my lunch hour. So far this week, I’ve only been able to play the game for 4 hours. I’m currently on Chapter 4. I’m getting hammered & killed by the watchdrones and soldiers. This game has some pretty amazing graphics and music. From my experience so far, this game has been pretty linear up to now. I’ve read that the later chapters are much longer and intense.

What I really like about it this game is that if you die, you just start right where you left off. LOL! There are tons of save crystals along the way, but I like the fact that when I die, I don’t have to start back at the last save crystal. Also, this game has changed quite a lot from the previous Final Fantasy versions I’ve played previously. You only get to control 1 player. If your player dies and you still have teammates standing with power, too bad … game over.

I haven’t mastered anything yet. I’m not following any official or unofficial guides so I’m sure I’m missing a lot of treasure and weapons by now. I gotta keep playing and let you know how it goes. So far, I think “Snow” (main male lead who is engaged to Serah, Lightening’s lil sister) is annoying and is a bad fighter. “Lightening” (main female fighter) is the girl version of Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII). She is a tough girl who loves her sister and but is deeply troubled by her past.

Love the fantasy and the graphics!