Welcome!
Welcome to my personal website! I am Ryan O'Connor, a senior college student majoring in Computer Science and trying to build a career in full stack web and mobile development. This website serves as a place for me to keep my portfolio, resume, and projects related to my field of study. It also serves as a place to keep my blog, woodworking projects, and anything else I may want here in the future.
What To Expect From This Blog
On this blog, I'll mostly post tutorials and guides on programming-related topics, such as how to use certain features in a web framework, how to implement certain behaviors on a mobile app, and how to solve some of the problems that pop up while programming. These programming-related posts will mostly serve as reminders for myself on how to solve problems that I've already solved. However, you may find some useful information in those posts if you are facing similar problems.
In addition, I'll occasionally make posts talking about woodworking. I'll explain what the different types of woodworking are, how to start learning woodworking, and how to create specific projects. You may find these posts interesting if you're new to woodworking or want to some ideas on what to make.
Every once in a while, I may share stories from my life that may or may not relate to programming or woodworking. These are just fun stories that may be interesting to those who want to know more about me or are just bored and want to read something.
Rarely, I'll post announcements about any major changes to this website. These announcements may talk about what new content is being added to the website (not including new blog posts), where you can find this site if I move it, and how the layout or UI of this website will change.
How I Started Woodworking
One of my favorite hobbies is woodworking, whether that be intarsia, carving, scrollwork, or woodturning. I started woodworking after me and my dad made a dolphin necklace for my mother's birthday. When my mom showed the necklace to my great-grandfather, a seasoned woodworker and craftsman, he jumped on the opportunity to teach me by purchasing a scroll-saw for me to start making wood cutouts. Due to his age, he did not have the mobility to demonstrate how to use the scroll saw, so my dad ended up helping me learn to use it. Despite this, he would still help me learn by giving me some of his old tools and woodworking magazines that had a variety of projects that I can work on. As a result, woodworking became a hobby.
How I Started Programming
I started programming in my senior year of high school when I took an AP Java Programming class as an elective. Despite being an AP class, I was told I would do well in that class because I had good grades in my Math class and had already taken AP classes before. When I first got to that class, however, I felt like a fish out of water. I had no idea what was going on in that class for the first month, mostly because I did not know Java syntax. Luckily, my classmates and teacher were very patient with me and would help me learn this syntax. I even shared another class with one of those classmates, which allowed him to help me with homework in that class. I would also end up installing the Eclipse IDE and Java on my home computer in order to practice.
Eventually, everything just "clicked" once I started learning if-else statements. The idea of performing a different set of instructions based on the conditional statements in those if-else statements allowed me to make programs that can do more than find the sum of two numbers and print the result to stdout. Over the next few months, I was able to catch up with my peers and even made my first video game in Java called 'I Am The Airforce!' (source code here). Because it's my first big programming project, the quality of the code is not good, but it's nice to look back and see how far I've come.
Fun Stuff About Me
Here are some fun facts about me!
I Have A Home Server
I'm currently running Debian 12 on my grandma's old computer and using it to host my Nextcloud instance for syncing files across all of my devices and backing up my data. I got the idea when I accidentally almost deleted my entire user folder on my Macbook (which I will explain in a future post). Since then, I realized just how easy it is to lose years of memories and work on a computer. As a result, I setup my home server with Nextcloud so that I can automatically sync files to that server while I'm on my laptop or computer.
Every week, I backup all of the data on the server to an external drive so that even if the server's hard drive is damaged, I still have a fresh backup of all of my data. It also has the added benefit that changes made to files on one computer will result in those changes propagating to all of my other devices. The only major inconvenience that my server has is that it will only accept HTTP requests from the LAN, meaning that if I'm not at home, I can't access my Nextcloud instance through my browser nor sync files with it. However, by not exposing my server to the Internet, I'm preventing my server from being hijacked by malicious actors over the Internet.
I Have All Of The Major Operating Systems
I have a device for every major operating system:
- Macbook Air running MacOS.
- Windows 10 desktop computer.
- Linux server running Debian 12.
- iPhone running iOS
- Samsung tablet running Android
I even have Windows 11 and TempleOS running on virtual machines on my Macbook (TempleOS is not a major operating system but I wanted to include it anyway). As a result, I appreciate all of the cross-platform applications that allow me to use them no matter what device I'm on.
I Play Video Games
Another hobby of mine is playing video games. For genres, I prefer platformers, first-person shooters, and sandbox games. I mostly play games on my PC or on my VR headset, though I still have an old Wii and Xbox 360 that I use once in a blue moon. If you're curious, here is a list of my favorite games:
- Super Mario Galaxy is my favorite Nintendo game.
- Minecraft is my favorite sandbox game.
- Doom Eternal is my favorite first-person shooter.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is my favorite RPG.
- The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is my favorite VR game.
The games that I've been playing as of now are Ultrakill on my PC and The Walking Dead: Retribution on my VR headset.
Conclusion
Now that you know a little more about me and what content I will be putting on this website, I hope that you'll check in every once in a while to see the new content I'll post in the future.
