Aaron Curley's Website Homepage
About this Site
The purpose of this website is to provide an odd collection of things that are relevant to me. Some items on this website were created fairly recently. Other, more 'childish' items may be more or less from my past. I've retained some older stuff on this site simply because it is part of who I am (and because I'm just too lazy to recreate my whole site).
Check out my programming projects. If you're not interested in my stuff, no worries...I'll make it easy on you - here's the link to www.google.com. :-P
Finally, I have some "real" Internet hosting with Midphase. I can now point my domain names here.
If people have any questions or comments, you can email me at accwebs [at] gmail [dot] com
My screen name (ABeakyboy) and how it came about
My screen name, ABeakyboy (pronounced eh-beekyboy) came from the name "Beaky". Ages ago, I used to be a big fan of Pokemon. Beaky is a stuffed-animal psyduck that I collected when Pokemon was all the rage. I've included a picture of him below. From him originated my screen name "Beakyboy" for a brief while until for some reason, I attached a letter A to the front to represent my first name, Aaron. Hence, the screen name "ABeakyboy" became my standard screen name, which I still use to this day. I've used it for years.
In my family, we have a tradition of giving "characters" to each of our stuffed animals. "Beaky" is extremely dumb and stupid. Yet, he often was known to possess strange powers. Beaky has a very innocent character and never does anything wrong on purpose.
More About Me
I, Aaron Curley, am a software engineer. I recently graduated from the University of Michigan - Dearborn with my software engineering degree. Programming is my hobby (and now my career choice). I am attending University of Tulsa for my Masters.
I love native code and dislike the current trend of replacing native code with interpreted languages like .NET. Interpreted languages have their place, but the current .NET hype is rather ridiculous. All new languages go through a 'honeymoon' period, and just like Java, this .NET one will pass in time. Don't get me wrong, .NET is a great tool, but like all tools, it has advantages and disadvantages. The pros and cons of any language should be weighed logically. Just try writing MS Windows in .NET and see what performance you get!
I am a practicing Roman Catholic. Without God and Christ, my life would be nothing.
I used to be very active on a number of web forums, but as of a year ago, I've decided that there are more important things in my life that need taking care of (though I really miss everyone I used to know online).
Other Sites I Host
In the past, my web server was used to host quite a bit of miscellaneous stuff. Even now, with paid hosting, I've retained most things and added some new stuff too!
Homeschool Advantage for College - My mom wrote a pretty-awesome book about the importance of dual-enrollment in a homeschool education. If you're a homeschooler, check out her site!
PA Hall of Fame - The PA Hall of Fame site was created by my sister, Ruth Curley. Though incomplete, it still maintains very complete records of members on the Pokemon Adventures web forum as of a year or so ago.
Web Puzzle - My sister made one of those guess-the-url puzzles that were popular at one time.
Must-Have Tools
Sysinternals Tools - Process Explorer and Autoruns are absolute must-have tools. I could not live without them. All of the tools are completely free. In fact, Sysinternals was bought out by Microsoft a few years back, so even businesses can now use the tools without paying for them.
Secunia Software Inspector - You may not know it, but there is a pretty good chance that you are running a lot of out-of-date software on your computer and don't even know it. Out-of-date software has security holes. This must-visit site will scan your computer and tell you which software needs updating to make your computer 100% secure.
Secunia Personal Software Inspector - If you're a fan of the online Software Inspector, you can keep even better track of application security by installing this free app that monitors your computer for insecure software 24/7!
BartPE - One of these bootable Windows XP CDs created by PE Builder will save you when you're in a jam.
Ultimate Boot CD for Windows - Uses BartPE to create a bootable Windows XP CD with 'loads' of plugins.
DOSBox - DOSBox emulates a DOS environment running on old hardware. Perfect for playing your old games that broke when you moved to NT!
Notepad++ - It's Notepad++, need I say more? If you do ANY kind of advanced computer work, ditch the built-in Windows notepad and switch to Notepad++. You won't regret it.
wxWidgets Library - An interesting C++ library that implements GUI classes that can be compiled on multiple platforms. Thus, C++ apps written with wxWidgets can be written in a platform-neutral API.
Boost Library - Another interesting C++ library. I've not had much time to play with this yet, but I've heard great things about it. Long live C++!
Other Recommended Links
Pokemon Adventures - A web forum I used to administrate. It was started by a friend.
InvisionFree and ZetaBoards Support - Support board for the InvisionFree/ZetaBoards forum service.
Professor Kelly's Home Page - The home page of a brilliant professor at MCCC. Has lots of good programming resources on it. You may also find his free EASy68K program very helpful for assembly language programming.
Professor Maxim's Home Page - An excellent software engineering professor from University of Michigan - Dearborn. If you happen to be a CIS student at UMD, be sure you get in with his classes!
Professor Medjahed's Home Page - Another good UMD professor.
Sunbelt Blog - A computer security blog I like to read. Lots of good info.
SANS Internet Storm Center - Don't you think you should be aware of current Internet threats?
UMD Second Life Presenter - I and Brian Martin created this system for UMD which allows live streaming of video into Second Life.
Just for Fun - A Fake Virus Notification
I made the following animation for my Graphics Design class a while ago at U of M - Dearborn. It presents a message that attempts to 'trick' the user into clicking on it. I made it look like a real Windows XP notification because that's what many advertisements do. Don't worry, your computer isn't really infected with anything; clicking on the fake notification simply opens a new page.
