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Displaying entries tagged: AJAX

satisifaction

November 18, 2007 - 10:16

- Photo Album - AJAX - Control Panel - JavaScript

Among other things, I wanted to dedicate some time this weekend to a computer project. For whatever reason, I couldn't seem to get myself in the mood to work on any video for Discomentary Volume 1, and I really did not want to open the Pandora's box of frustration that lies under the surface of my new Photo Album page. A few weeks back, whenever I dedicated a ton of time to the Photo Album, I got so incredibly frustrated with the browser incompatibly issues I was facing. I really just wanted to accomplish something I could be happy about, and couldn't risk working on that Album.

In my opinion, I need to finish certain parts of this site prior to finishing (or at least showing) my video. It's along the same lines of me not sending out an email to everyone I know about my website until those same parts are completed. The Photo Album page is one of those parts, as is a section for users to change and update their information. I decided that if I could start the user control panel page and make some good progress with it this weekend, it would give me good momentum to tackle the final issues with the Photo Album page. Some final parts of the Photo page will require a tad of AJAX(primarily updating a user log), additionally, the problems I am having with that page solely involve JavaScript. The control panel page would rely heavily on JS using a good amount of AJAX implementation, so to put it simply, I decided to grab the bull by it's horns, and dive into the control panel page.

The only golden rule I set down for the control panel page was that I definitely want to do it once and never think about it again. I therefore didn't want to take any cheap or lazy approaches. It is a page that seems so trivial and second thought, but it serves such an important purpose. I want this page to be as top notch as such a page can conceivably be. I have decided to go with an AJAX implementation of the submission of information wherever it seems appropriate (which has so far been with everything). This page is allowing me to tie in everything I have previously done with AJAX, before this, everything involving AJAX that I have done, except the "user name submission" on the home page, has been proof of concept.

Many hours and 482 lines of code later, I am extremely pleased with the progress I have made on the page. The learning curve on this page was pretty steep, I would say that I spent 95% of the time getting the first item to work as I wanted, and 5% on the following two. I am not releasing the page yet, it's layout is not in place and there are still many features to be added. With that said, the vast majority of the "hard part" is done. Almost everything else will take time and a little thought, but hopefully no innovation :-)

My weekend wasn't totally consumed with the above project, but I'm no longer in the mood to write about anything else. From the inside, out, good night.

Splash 8.41

September 10, 2007 - 10:17

- Splash - AJAX

[This will be boring to everyone]

I have updated the sites current index page, splash 8.41 is now live.

Updates include:
-The user name submission input in the user information box (displayed when a user is logged in) now uses AJAX. The page is not refreshed when the submit button is clicked.

Worthy to note, I have decided to take out the use of AJAX for user login for the main (splash) page. This decision was primarily made due to multiple parts of the main page relaying on whether or not a user is logged in. Implementing an AJAX approach would have required me to update all of those different sections whenever a login or logout occurred. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it (especially when so many other things are broke or simply missing)"

I have decided to focus my coding attention to a new picture page. I have placed a link to the one I was previously working on in the right column. It offers a different option for navigating photo albums, but you will see it's shortcomings are bountiful. If you think an album's thumbnails are taking a while to load, scroll down, as you will likely see the progress. I am going to scrap this page in lieu of a new layout I have been thinking about.

Any feedback regarding personal preferences for online photo browsing are welcome.

sleepy and full, good night.

non notable yet enjoyable weekend

September 9, 2007 - 10:37

- US Soccer - Xbox 360 - AJAX

I have had a fulfilling weekend doing many different things, I am currently a tad tired, or maybe just lazy, and don't really feel like typing about much.

-I bought Madden 08 for Xbox 360. Not being a huge football video game fan, I can say I like it.

-I went for a bike ride with a friend that extended a little over 2 hours and 20 miles, throughout rain and shine, it was nice.

-I spent a little more than a handful of hours implementing AJAX in yet to be released Splash 8.4, I have so far converted over the main user login function and the selection of a username function, to use AJAX. I am very pleased with the results so far.

-I worked on a little video editing, primarily on video from Summer 2002.

-My DVR only recorded the first half of USA vs Brazil...I thought we looked very competitive the first half and am saddened by the fact that I was unable to watch the second half. I need to clear out some shows on the DVR's hard drive.

Those are some notable highlights from a non notable yet enjoyable weekend. Good night.

There is more, but I just need to sleep

September 3, 2007 - 11:45

- Bermuda - Explorer of the Seas - After Effects - AJAX - Apple

The cruise was great. Overall, it was very relaxing, a quality many vacations often lack. The boat was huge and the amenities were plentiful. The ship, Explorer of the Seas, is new; with it's maiden voyage being in 2000. When I noticed all of the things in my room bearing the ships name, I initially thought that Royal Caribbean was simply acknowledging the fact that I myself was an explorer who happened to be at sea. When I later realized that no such acknowledgment had in fact taken place and that every room likely bared such items, I was not disappointed. I have posted some photos from the trip, the majority are ones I took, with there being some that my Mom took on her camera. Worthy to note, I really like being able to get someone else's entire "digital roll" of film from a trip I was also on. Not only was it nice having some of the very good shots my Mom took, but it is cool seeing the entire trip you were on through another persons eyes.

Here is a picture of our assistant waitress cutting my food for me. It's funny on its face, but even funnier because historically, cutting my food is my least favorite part about eating. Her name is Oana, pronounced as wanna:

Here is a picture of me in my new favorite hat:



The extended weekend I faced after returning to the inside Friday was nothing like the relaxing atmosphere I had just departed. I received phone calls from two different college friends during the cruise, each stating they were looking to visit during the weekend.My one friend and I went out pretty hard Friday night and had a great time. The next two days my other buddy and I really took advantage of the great weather as we hit up Grafton Lake State Park to walk some of the trails and then took a long bike tour around the city and then along the Hudson. We bought enough awesome food to grill that we were actually still able to make it out for a few hours each night. It was a really great weekend.

A picture of the ping pong table we moved outside:




[The rest of this post will likely be considered more boring than what you have just read, proceed with caution, if at all]

After being pretty lazy for the most part of the day, I finished a sequence for the New Orleans video slide show. This project is really just turning into a big sandbox, where I am trying out a ton of different ideas really quickly, that I would later slow down and use in future projects. Due to this, I will not spend an incredibly long amount of time polishing up some scenes that I see minor problems with when I watch it. I bought an After Effects book prior to the trip, it has proven to be a good investment, it has a lot of screen shots so it was actually useful even without the computer in front of me.

I got an urge to jump back into AJAX today, fear not, I resisted. I have some housecleaning I would like to do on this site, as well as some long overdue implementation of basic site functionality (looking up a forgotten password, blog comments in blog page, the list goes on forever...). I am fairly confident an AJAX approach will really get me the results I am looking for. And then there is the new picture page I have had on the back burner for a month or two...I am not too far from finishing it, but really need to figure out the best way to load a decent number of pictures in a reasonable amount of time, while also maintaining a snappy user interface. I might dabble a little bit more with AJAX in the near future, my last efforts bared me a fully functioning AJAX "set up" of pages but it was all proof of concept, as I quickly learned I was pursuing the wrong approach to what I was working on (Photo Album Bar on main page). With the kind of things I am now looking to work on, an AJAX approach is definitely appropriate, as everything will require the interaction of the server side database. With all that said there is a good chance that I will avoid any coding distractions as I continue my push on Discomentary Volume 1.

Well, I am tired.
Final thoughts you ask...?

-2 days until September 5th, I am very interested to see what Apple will release, with almost all speculation pointing at significantly improved iPods.

-I am VERY MAD at NBC. I blame them for the breakdown of talks regarding their content being on iTunes. I already bought a few Office seasons as well as all of Heros season 1, and now I can't continue my collection in the same format as what I already have. UGGGG to them.

[end of "more boring" stuff]

There is more, but I just need to sleep...from me, to you, inside to out, good night.

worthy to note

June 20, 2007 - 11:40

- AJAX

[disclaimer: most people will likely be uninterested in the following post]

I have successfully implemented the AJAX methodology to one button on my site. It is the "back arrow" on my picture album preview bar. This is a very significant step, yet I am still very early into learning the best way to use this style of coding. During my reading on all the subjects involved with AJAX, specifically JavaScript, I discovered that using an AJAX approach to creating a more seamless browsing experience for the picture album preview bar likely isn't the best approach; as JavaScript alone, without any server interaction [besides the initial page load] is all I need.

Due to the fact that I have spent a good majority of my free time over the past 10 days learning about AJAX, I decided to still implement this initial stage of the project using it. It serves as a good proof of concept model but isn't very practical. The only thing the PHP page does, which would normally be used to interact with the server, is get the variable using POST and then returning (echo) it.

The majority of the picture bar is disabled, but that "back arrow" sure is impressive. It will likely remain in it's current state for the next 20 - 72 hours, so feel free to enjoy the back scrolling without a page refresh @:
index8.php

Please note that the entire page, index8.php, is a "sandbox" for new improvements, so posting comments or navigating its links likely won't produce desirable outcomes.


Thinking back on this day, it is too bad that all you got was what I did in the last hour and a half as I was trying to fall asleep, today was relatively eventfull and exciting. Oh well...that's life on the inside for ya. Sleep well.

comment allez vous?

June 18, 2007 - 10:4

- comment section - AJAX

-I was talking to a friend last night who told me they left a comment on the site. After a few rounds of interrogations, I determined she wasn't lying... so I dug around in the code and found my error; comments are now working.

-I just got done with a huge session of working on the website. I had a friend over and between hanging out and eating a ton of pasta/meatballs/etc I was able to get all of the pages involved in my AJAX project talking to each other.

index8.php -- x --> ajaxRequest.js -- x --> djpb.php -- x --> ajaxRequest.js -- x --> index8.php

all without a page reload, how exciting :-)

so, that was a little site update. that's what I've been doing (within the realm of activities appropriate for anyone), so that's what you get.

Have a nice evening.

and done.

June 17, 2007 - 9:56

- AJAX

In conclusion:

-I got the new phone, I had to argue, but it worked out just fine.

-Hanging out with my parents was very nice [Borat voice].

[the remainder of this post could be considered boring]
-I took some significant steps this weekend in regards to implementing AJAX into parts of my site. I spent many hours working on it, and just an hour ago,I was a little sad, because I just couldn't get everything to come together like I was hoping for. I must say, I really dislike having to do things in Javascript, but the bottom line, is that it is definitely worthwhile, as it can really achieve some cool things. Any ways, I was stuck and done for the night, but then a friend and I were video chatting, and I sent him some code, and he found my trouble spot. Stupid JS Multidimensional Arrays. Anyways, I am very happy that things came together like they have. I would say I am 45% done with my first AJAX project, which deals with the picture album preview bar on my current home page. check out: index8.php if you want to follow along.

Ok, well that was a little boring and very dorky (much like you) but I do need to document significant milestones such as this. To forever capture the moment I give you this screenshot:


Good night.

blah blah busy

June 12, 2007 - 11:15

- ramble - AJAX - Washington Park

I feel like I am kind of busy these next few days, but maybe it is just like the "busy work" you used to get in elementary school. I hope it is, because then the outcome won't really matter. Due to the likely fact that this isn't that type of busy, I will look to apply an appropriate amount of effort into all upcoming tasks.

On a side note, I have successfully created my first page implementing the AJAX coding style/whatever. How exciting, I am about 0.001% proficient in this area.

And to wrap things up, a pleasant picture I took in the park yesterday from the cell. I was lucky enough to have a "heads up" on my current business, so the park was def the perfect place to get a head start.



inside/out,
good night.

recovery

June 11, 2007 - 10:31

- Alumni Weekend - Sopranos - AJAX

If ever there was a time that I would want to pat myself on the back, it would be today. I'm sure I doubted at the time I requested today off whether it was really necessary or not, but I can definitively give that answer today with a simple, "Yes, it is very necessary".

Alumni weekend was really really awesome.


[boring paragraph to follow]
I am about to bounce to the park to get some weird reading done on a short paper I have to write. Later today, I hope to commence my informal introduction into the AJAX programming concept. After a good amount on internal debate, I have come to the conclusion that I need to at least attempt to implement some of my site pages using the ideas behind AJAX, specifically the new Photo Album page I have already done some preliminary work on. Whether or not I actually choose to scrap my current methodology of using as little JavaScript as possible on the site is yet to be seen.
[end of boring paragraph]

My neck is sunburn and I feel kinda dirty. Not dirty like, I did something I shouldn't have done dirty, but dirty like I feel sticky and smelly although I showered before bed last night. Due to the relatively cool temperature last evening, I have drawn the conclusion that my body has successfully fought off any residual affects that might have still been lingering from this past weekend. Well done body, you are about to be rewarded with a large Turbo Ice.

In regards to any other outstanding issues I wish to comment on at this time, I would like to state that I am incredibly disgusted with the series finally of the Sopranos. My stomach hurts just thinking about how excited I was for last nights episode, only to be shockingly disappointed. I would like to leave the door open for me to change my opinion of the episode, possibly someone at HBO screwed up and spliced off the last 5 minutes of the show, or maybe I will read an incredibly insightful blog post explaining why it could ever be considered appropriate to have such a stupid ending to an otherwise decent series. My initial opinion is that the "main guy" for writing the Sopranos, or directing the Sopranos, or whoever is in charge there thinks they are a little bit more clever than they actually are. It's like they had this grand idea of summing things up, or explaining things, or telling a message, or pushing an agenda; but somewhere between that person getting stoned and coming up with the idea and actually producing the episode; they completely lost touch with reality. How about the minute the episode wasted showing Meadow trying to parallel park? I'm looking at the clock thinking, "OK, she is obviously gonna be spared the massacre that is about to happen in that restaurant because she parks like I do, otherwise why would we be seeing all of this?", but no, nothing. And then the stupid cat, OK, we all see the symbolism trying to be portrayed here, but honestly, I just didn't appreciate any of it. For the record, I have not seen even half of this series. Maybe there is a MUCH bigger picture that I am completely unaware of, a picture where everything that happened last night leaves the viewer feeling satisfied. If that is the case, then I would like to rescind all of the negative criticism I just gave.

OK, ok, that's enough ranting for now. I hope everyone has a great day at work, I will be thinking about all of you as I lay in the park, listening to really cool podcasts, reading some really cool material.

Cougar.

Have a nice day.