Greasemonkey is a Firefox add-on that lets you install scripts that will modify websites. I got so sick of seeing the Chrome ad on Google’s homepage I broke down and decided to write my own plugin. Now that I know how easy it is build Greasemonkey scripts I will for sure be making more of these in the future.

Update: The script will also now remove that annoying fade-in effect.

Installation Instructions:

1) Install Greasemonkey: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748/
2) Install my script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/81407

With all the code I’ve generated over the years I’ve decided to finally package some of it up and sell it. I’m using Envato’s site Code Canyon which I’m really loving. For my first script I decided to put up the very same photo gallery that I have been using on this site for a few years now. I completely recoded it to make it more user friendly and titled it “Auto Gallery from Folder Scan” and included this description “The Ultimate Lazy Man’s Gallery! This script scans images from within folders and automatically builds the thumbnails and gallery pages for you. The galleries are also loaded via ajax.”

I posted it on Code Canyon last Thursday and never could I have imagined how much love I’d be getting from doing so. Thanks to all those that have already download it! Here’s an image I made with an email Envato sent me pointing to the thumbnail of my script. Thanks for the love Envato, you guys are great!

For my next script I am completely rebuilding my Mobile Phone Uploader that I’ve been using on this site for the past few years as well. Its almost done and I am already getting really excited about it. As far as I can tell there isn’t anything quite like it on the net yet, which is the reason why I originally built it since I couldn’t find one to download. Everyone loves being able to send mobile uploads to places like Facebook and have them inserted automatically into a photo gallery, but now you’ll be able to do it on your own personal sites. Good stuff…

Besides writing, movies have always been a passion of mine. A couple of months ago I launched The Reel Place with some of my friends. My goal was to use it as an outlet to write and share my love of films with others and as an effect, kill two birds with one stone so to speak. To date I would have to say that it has been a success. Throughout this year I will use this blog as a similar outlet for me. I’m looking forward to sharing my life again with others.

Today starts a new chapter in the life of Sarah and I. In the almost 2 years we have been married we have been tossed around from house to house due to circumstances out of our control. Last night we moved into a condo in Provo practically next door to our two closest friends, Sasha and Lehi. Sarah and I couldn’t be happier. The year of 2010 is looking bright. We have a lot of goals and even more to look forward to. 2010, here we go…

Black Friday literally is Satan’s day. Its the day when all the brain washed people mindlessly storm stores at any cost to get crap such as reduced priced dvd players.

Is a cheaper dvd player really worth this?

“He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too…I literally had to fight people off my back.”

I mean honestly, how sick are we as a society when we go to these lengths just to get ours. This man who died was only a 34-year-old Wal-Mart worker, trying to do his job to hold these people back. At this same Wal-Mart a 28-year-old pregnant woman was also knocked over and is currently in the hospital. Come on.

“They’re savages,” said shopper Kimberly Cribbs, 27. “It’s sad. It’s terrible.”

Its like this day gives people the right to go completely carnal. To lust after items to such a degree that you’ll do anything to get to them, even trample on somebody to do it.

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’” she said. “They kept shopping.”

How twisted is that?

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” – 1 John 2:15-17

I could go on and on… but instead… I’m gonna go back to bed.

Sarah and I went on a really cool group date and had the most amazing dinner ever over at Mark Santamaria’s house and I drank the most delicious Horchata ever. Just look at it.

We also went to the Sego 3 concert and heard Pablo play, it was sweet!!

After he played we found this big giant wall that they let you paint on. Sarah drew this dude with a big nose.

So I drew a dude with a big nose, but mines cooler cause its a clown, Ha.

Then Pablo decided he wanted to do something too…

I got a new job, and now work for a company called Jandaco. I am one of their developers. Its working out real well so far, I’m loving it.

For lunch, they even let us play Guitar Hero!

Pablo got a new job too! He works at Gray Whale in the University Mall. He’s happy because now he can put more money towards his upcoming CD.

Which speaking of his upcoming CD, its going to be awesome!! He’s been working extra hard at it recently and I just don’t know how he freaking does it, Pablo is so talented its disgusting. I envy that kid at times.

Sarah and I finally got a washer and dryer, thanks to her buddy Jeff!

My dog Shadow is sweet.

I made some new improvements to the arcade system. I added some artwork and installed cup holders on the sides. Big thanks also go out to Clayton and Pablo for helping me move the beast into our home.

Antonio worked really hard and was editing our new movie over the past couple of weeks. Its the first one we’ve done in over 3 years!! It felt sooo good to be making movies again. We titled it, Super Action Gun and you can check it out on GiveMeBackMySon.com.

Also, yesterday we started filming a new movie, a Halloween one which should be good. We will be continuing filming today as well.

Gordo, Sasha, Sarah and I went to Cornbellys at Thanksgiving point, it was a ton of fun! Here’s Sarah and Sasha…

And Gordo, Sasha and Sarah…

Then we found a big giant tower of pumpkins! They were all so cool!

The Sasha and Sarah found a cow train that they couldn’t resist.

We then entered into the corn maze…

And completely owned it.

Sarah and I then went to Macey’s to buy pumpkins and while we were at the checkout we saw these bags of popcorn and it reminded us of our friends Sasha and Gordo whom we really love!

All in all, things have been going really well! I now have a business meeting in 30 minutes to finalize some stuff on the new business I helped start called TheAuctionWatchlist.com. Its going really well. Think of it as an online pawn shop. We buy and sell your used electronics.

I then gotta go to the film shoot which will be later this afternoon. Man, I love making movies and man do I love my life. Until next time…

I took a ton of pictures while we were on the set and I posted them all on our website GiveMeBackMySon.com, so be sure to check them out!!

First, I added a button that’s kind of hidden underneath the control panel, if you press it, it’ll power on the arcade machine.

I then added two more buttons on the top right corner of the arcade machine. One quits out of the game you are currently playing, the other resets the game.

I then bought a big fan that sits inside the arcade machine and powers on when the machine does. The idea is that it’ll just sit inside and keep the machine nice and cool to prevent overheating.

Now for the good stuff. My brother Alex, who is freaking amazing, built this bezel for the TV.

I then primed it.

And painted it black.

The TV bezel turned out SO nice! I am very pleased with it. That little touch made a huge difference. It’s starting to look more and more like an arcade machine everyday.

My back light for the marquee came in on Saturday and my artwork was shipped a few days ago. I am really hoping it’ll come in today so I can work on that.

Here’s my updated to do list: (It’s getting smaller!)

• Spray the whole cabinet down with a sealant.
• Buy two padded bar stools.
• Download or create preview videos. Bigger HD will be required.
• Cut a hand hold for the back panel.
• Mount the cup holders.
• Buy art and plexiglass for the control panel.
• Buy and mount edging crap for the side panels.
• Mount the LED light for the marquee.
• Buy and mount a coin door.
• Buy and mount caster wheels.
• Buy and mouth a sound system.
• Set up the mesh wiring stuff for the cooling vent.

That’s it for now! Check back soon for more updates!

I finally finished the wiring and it sure did end up beautiful:

After finishing the wiring I went to work on setting up the computer. I am using just a normal PC computer to run all the games. What took so long is I created a “shell” for it. What that means is I basically removed all traces of windows from it to create the illusion that it is not a normal personal computer.

To do that I created a new splash screen that shows up when you boot the computer to replace the “Windows XP” one. I then removed the mouse cursor, completely removed the desktop so it just shows up all black, I removed the tool bar, removed those annoying tool tips that pop up from time to time on the system tray and I even disabled all the start up and shutdown sounds. The system now shows “MAME” as it starts up and immediately after it it automatically boots to the front end software to load all the games! Its amazing.

If I wanted to get into windows though I still can. I setup a second user so if I were to plug in a keyboard and hit CTL + ALT + DEL I could logout of the MAME user and login to the administrator user that loads Windows XP like normal, so thats good. I did that so I would still have access to the computer to install games or tweak the settings if needed.

The front end I used is called GameEx. To customize the look and feel I built a custom theme for it. I am so pleased with it! It has SO many cool options. As of right now I got it setup so you can load MAME (arcade) games, SNES games, NES games, or Sega Genesis games all from the same loader. You can sort through the games by category such as puzzle or fighter or you can sort by name, year or manufacturer. You can create a list of your favorite games, it keeps a list of your most played games, most recently played games, etc. Its awesome!

So after all that hard work I finally got it to the point where its playable and IT WORKS!!

Now all I have to work on are all the details. I ordered all the artwork for it and I’m still waiting for that to come in. I also ordered a giant LED light that I am going to install behind the marquee so when the machine it turned on the marquee will glow.

Here’s my current to do list:

• Set up the mesh wiring stuff for the cooling vent
• Install carpet on the inside of the control panel & on the inside floor
• Buy art and plexiglass for control panel
• Setup a fan to cool the inside
• Buy and mount the sound system
• Drill holes for two more buttons, a power button and an escape button
• Buy and mount caster wheels
• Buy and mount coin door
• Buy a roll up keyboard
• Buy a wireless mouse
• Mount LED light
• Mount hinge on back door
• Buy and mount edging crap for side panels
• Buy or build a bezel to wrap and hide the TV’s edges so all you can see is the screen
• Buy a universal TV remote
• Buy a cord to output the sound to the sound system
• Mount the cup holders

That’s about it for now! In the mean time, while I work on all the details, stop by the house and you can play it and see it in action!

I then needed to put two coats of paint. To save money, I first put down one coat of a really dark blue paint because I had an extra can laying around.

I then went and bought a can of glossy black and covered it with its final coat.

I then cut out a piece of cardboard the exact size of my control panel and used it to figure out the layout of the buttons. When it was all done I cut out the buttons on the cardboard and laid it on top of the wooden panel and traced the buttons. My brother Jason helped me out a TON and together we drilled holes into the control panel.

This is what the final layout of the buttons looks like.

This is what it looks like on the backside.

Jay and I then stayed up until about 1:30 AM running the wires for the buttons.

Thinking about it now, I realized that we ran the wires a little wrong but it’ll be easily corrected. Today I am going to work on finishing the wiring.

Once its wired technically I could setup the computer and install all the things its going to need and I should be able to play it. After that all I need to do is work on the details of the cabinet. I need to add hinges, a cooling vent, some fans, add some extra buttons and most importantly the artwork! I’m going to get some sweet art printed out then I am going to place it on the cabinet and sandwich it with plexiglass. It’s going to look amazing. I’m getting excited!

I’ll keep you updated as things progress!!

I’ve decided that I am going to start making posts showing the progress of it for those that are into this kind of stuff like I am. I’ve already purchased all the wood, the controllers, buttons, tv and all the other techy stuff that it takes to build it. I had to buy something called an iPac to convert the signals of the buttons to signals the computer could recognize. Its going to be sweet! I’ve even got the computer that I am going to use to run the arcade software.

When its done I am going to have a fully functional arcade system with basically every single arcade game you can ever think of on it. Im going to have all this custom artwork done to it, fancy lights and everything, so basically it’ll become the ultimate dream for someone like me who is still a child at heart.

Last night we finished the cabinet. I am so blessed to have a brother (Alex) who has some MAD skills when its comes to carpentry. He seriously is the freaking man. My Dad who is also amazing helped a bit and definitely gave us some amazing ideas/suggestions.

Here’s what we did yesterday.

Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of the very beginning so this is the earliest picture I got of the project. The base and the sides are already up:

Here’s Alex. We put in the TV to make sure everything was sized right and in the picture he was checking how he was going to mount the control panel.

Here’s Alex and my dad sanding and in-setting the screws to make them all flush with the cabinet.

Here’s my baby so far. Its all sanded and ready for some primer and then paint!

After its painted there will be a lot of details that I need to work on. I need to get a mesh covering that will cover the hole we made in the roof to act as a vent. I’ll cut holes in the back and embed a USB fan that will run when the computer is running to vent the whole box to prevent it from overheating. I am also going to buy a coin door (that will actually function to give you credits) to mount on it, oh man! I’ve got tons of plans.

I’ll just keep posting pictures and updates as things progress. I’m getting really excited though because its all coming together so nicely, this really is going to be one of the coolest things ever when it is completed.