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stay clean
January 12, 2009 - 11:52
- Photo Album - ramble - sophomore year - body cleansing
I don't have anything specific I would like to get into right now. There has been a conversation I would like to have via a blog post regarding my thoughts and observations on what the first half of my life was like without the internet and what the second half has been with it, but now still isn't the time for all of that.
A nice little ramble would be nice right about now.
I'm currently uploading 67 pictures in a folder titled "5-00_College_Sophomore_Year". These pictures are a sub set of the massive number of pictures I received back from being scanned a few months ago. I briefly browsed through them for editorial reasons and am happy to report that the entire album will be posted. Unlike the majority of pictures that I sent away to be scanned, these pictures were housed in a scrapbook prior to me rubber banding them up and mailing them out. Looking back at the scrapbooks that I've made throughout the years, it is apparent that collecting meaningful groups of photos for preservation and display has always been a hobby of mine, without doubt the internet has made this more efficient and worthwhile. The fact that every picture passed a quick editorial glance does not mean that I do not look like a complete fool in well over half of the pictures.
If you did not realize by now, I will point out the pink elephant sitting in the room. This album is the first album I've uploaded from the year 2000! In addition to being the first album from the first year of the 21st century, it will also be the first album to test whether or not a Y2K bug is present in the PHP code that parses each album folders name for date and title information. I sit here a few years since I've written that code and all I can do is hope that the reason I used two year digits in the folder naming conventions opposed to four is due to me making an educated guess that I will not be posting any pictures from the year 2100, rather than me not taking into account this likely album year scenario. I semi remember having to fix a similar something a while back(too tired to read through blog right now to see) but I don't remember the specifics. We will keep our fingers wrong, if it breaks the parser than I will fix it and post a blog update.
As if my long list of disgustingly dorky blog posts was not enough for you to be mad at me, you should see me at this exact moment. I am sitting here at my desk, typing my blog post, and sipping a cup of tea. I feel like a cozy tool. UGGG. Not that there is anything wrong with any of the aforementioned things, but sometimes I have to just have to ask myself "what am I doing". I don't know, I just associate drinking tea before bed as being super sophisticated. Like, people that do this wear a different pair of pants every day to work and wash their sheets once a week. I had a turkey Hungry-Man TV dinner thing for supper and then some tater tots for dessert , I can't go and try to make that alright with one cup of delicious tea. The only argument I can present in my defense in this case of seemingly confused self identity is the fact that the tea I currently am elegantly sipping on is an item that I received as part of a 60 day set that is meant to be a routine to clean the body of the type of toxins that can build up from every day life. I bought this kit a few months ago after multiple discussions during lunch breaks with a prior co worker. We talked a little bit about all the guck from food and drinks that probably builds up in your body over years and that it would probably be a good idea to try to get it out. So this big box with at least 6 different sets of pills and shakes and tea arrives a few months ago, I open it up and take a look at everything and realize that this routine is more like a horrible relationship that requires all of your time and effort than a health fad, so I put it all back in the box and put that in the closet. Fast forward to about a week or two ago... I find myself in the store buying a scale so I can monitor interesting facts such as my current and historical weight (historical since the inception of the scale into my life. While the cause of my random curiosity and interest with my basic vital statistics still remains unknown, I can say with complete certainty that for a span of about 3 months prior to December I was on a very unhealthy food kick and the results of such a barrage of unhealthiness did leave me wondering what kind of effects it had taken. Along with all of this, I had a sudden urge to not eat any more unhealthy food. I've still gone to Taco Bell, Chinese buffet, and had meals like what I had tonight; but overall I would have to save that the amount of unhealthy food I consume on a daily basis has dropped approximately 75%. This dietary change was inevitable, as I ate unhealthy pretty carefree knowing I could get away with it only for a small period of time. All the details regarding the exciting subs and cereals I have been enjoying is even more boring that what I've already said, but this was all worth it to explain why I was drinking this cup of tea. As anyone could guess, the modifications I made to my eating habits opened the perfect window for me to also add in the body cleaning kits. And here we are now, me telling you a whole bunch about nothing exciting.
I'm incredibly tired and can't wait for bed.
From the clean inside, out, good night.
A nice little ramble would be nice right about now.
I'm currently uploading 67 pictures in a folder titled "5-00_College_Sophomore_Year". These pictures are a sub set of the massive number of pictures I received back from being scanned a few months ago. I briefly browsed through them for editorial reasons and am happy to report that the entire album will be posted. Unlike the majority of pictures that I sent away to be scanned, these pictures were housed in a scrapbook prior to me rubber banding them up and mailing them out. Looking back at the scrapbooks that I've made throughout the years, it is apparent that collecting meaningful groups of photos for preservation and display has always been a hobby of mine, without doubt the internet has made this more efficient and worthwhile. The fact that every picture passed a quick editorial glance does not mean that I do not look like a complete fool in well over half of the pictures.
If you did not realize by now, I will point out the pink elephant sitting in the room. This album is the first album I've uploaded from the year 2000! In addition to being the first album from the first year of the 21st century, it will also be the first album to test whether or not a Y2K bug is present in the PHP code that parses each album folders name for date and title information. I sit here a few years since I've written that code and all I can do is hope that the reason I used two year digits in the folder naming conventions opposed to four is due to me making an educated guess that I will not be posting any pictures from the year 2100, rather than me not taking into account this likely album year scenario. I semi remember having to fix a similar something a while back(too tired to read through blog right now to see) but I don't remember the specifics. We will keep our fingers wrong, if it breaks the parser than I will fix it and post a blog update.
As if my long list of disgustingly dorky blog posts was not enough for you to be mad at me, you should see me at this exact moment. I am sitting here at my desk, typing my blog post, and sipping a cup of tea. I feel like a cozy tool. UGGG. Not that there is anything wrong with any of the aforementioned things, but sometimes I have to just have to ask myself "what am I doing". I don't know, I just associate drinking tea before bed as being super sophisticated. Like, people that do this wear a different pair of pants every day to work and wash their sheets once a week. I had a turkey Hungry-Man TV dinner thing for supper and then some tater tots for dessert , I can't go and try to make that alright with one cup of delicious tea. The only argument I can present in my defense in this case of seemingly confused self identity is the fact that the tea I currently am elegantly sipping on is an item that I received as part of a 60 day set that is meant to be a routine to clean the body of the type of toxins that can build up from every day life. I bought this kit a few months ago after multiple discussions during lunch breaks with a prior co worker. We talked a little bit about all the guck from food and drinks that probably builds up in your body over years and that it would probably be a good idea to try to get it out. So this big box with at least 6 different sets of pills and shakes and tea arrives a few months ago, I open it up and take a look at everything and realize that this routine is more like a horrible relationship that requires all of your time and effort than a health fad, so I put it all back in the box and put that in the closet. Fast forward to about a week or two ago... I find myself in the store buying a scale so I can monitor interesting facts such as my current and historical weight (historical since the inception of the scale into my life. While the cause of my random curiosity and interest with my basic vital statistics still remains unknown, I can say with complete certainty that for a span of about 3 months prior to December I was on a very unhealthy food kick and the results of such a barrage of unhealthiness did leave me wondering what kind of effects it had taken. Along with all of this, I had a sudden urge to not eat any more unhealthy food. I've still gone to Taco Bell, Chinese buffet, and had meals like what I had tonight; but overall I would have to save that the amount of unhealthy food I consume on a daily basis has dropped approximately 75%. This dietary change was inevitable, as I ate unhealthy pretty carefree knowing I could get away with it only for a small period of time. All the details regarding the exciting subs and cereals I have been enjoying is even more boring that what I've already said, but this was all worth it to explain why I was drinking this cup of tea. As anyone could guess, the modifications I made to my eating habits opened the perfect window for me to also add in the body cleaning kits. And here we are now, me telling you a whole bunch about nothing exciting.
I'm incredibly tired and can't wait for bed.
From the clean inside, out, good night.
Sonic
March 16, 2008 - 7:13
- photo album - Ashley Dupre - Sonic
I'll blame the slightly sub two week delay in new bog entries on some recent time I've been spending on the new photo album page. I went ahead and made the current version, pic21, the default viewer for all photo albums. This version is not the final version I will end up with, but it is close. I am unfortunately aware of some instability issues which pretty much crash the whole page (try a refresh if it happens). Those issues occur at a rate where I feel the user interface enhancements will hopefully outweigh seldom stability issues (ha, I wonder if Microsoft said that about Windows). I think there is some error detection/handling that I can improve upon to eliminate some of the current issues I am aware of. The ideal solution for that page is for it to be completely re-written from the ground up. I ended up learning so many new JavaScript techniques during the development of this page, if I had to do it all over again, I would take a different approach. Specifically, I believe I would look to use global variables a lot more than I currently do. As is, I get a ton of information about the current state or status of the page by grabbing various information from different page elements (ie: grabbing the ALT value of an image in order to figure out what the page should do somewhere else); I have an uneducated hunch that many of the initial IE issues I previously experienced as well as some of the current instability issues that occur are due to one part of the page looking for information that either isn't set or is outdated due to delays caused by page loading. Oh well is all I can say about that right now though, it took some crazy (and sometimes dirty) coding to get the screwed up model I started with to perform as well asit currently does on at least IE6+, Firefox, Opera and I'm still testing on Safari.
Tonight I took down the streaming feed / store link to the Ashley Dupre song "What We Want". I put it up last week and thought it was a nice way to give a shout out to the entertaining story that has been filling the news the past few days. I have to admit, I've done some uncharecteristic internet gossip searching on this one. I just think it is so interesting how this girl is going to make sooooo much money over all this. I think it's great. I think she should stay super DL for as long as possible, then come out of nowhere with a book. She doesn't even have to write it, all she has to do is sit there and talk to some author about anything, and then they will make a book, and it will sell so many copies. Then she can sell the rights to the story, sell some CD's, and sell some poses. She is really going to make a ton of money.
I'm starving, I wish there was a Sonic I could goto to eat. I don't understand why they advertise for a place that doesn't even exist anywhere in this state. Uggg. Good bye.
Tonight I took down the streaming feed / store link to the Ashley Dupre song "What We Want". I put it up last week and thought it was a nice way to give a shout out to the entertaining story that has been filling the news the past few days. I have to admit, I've done some uncharecteristic internet gossip searching on this one. I just think it is so interesting how this girl is going to make sooooo much money over all this. I think it's great. I think she should stay super DL for as long as possible, then come out of nowhere with a book. She doesn't even have to write it, all she has to do is sit there and talk to some author about anything, and then they will make a book, and it will sell so many copies. Then she can sell the rights to the story, sell some CD's, and sell some poses. She is really going to make a ton of money.
I'm starving, I wish there was a Sonic I could goto to eat. I don't understand why they advertise for a place that doesn't even exist anywhere in this state. Uggg. Good bye.
about the new photo album page
December 16, 2007 - 9:34
- Photo Album
Waging the risk of entering into a chamber of complete frustration, I decided to put a decent amount of work into the new photo album page. As you may recall, I got the page very close to complete but then realized a major browser incompatibility issue with IE6. My absolute backup plan was to create two different versions of the page, but I would really like to avoid that horrible work around at all costs. The hours I put into this page yesterday went very unrewarded. I almost certainly broke some stuff and fixed little to nothing. As I laid in bed last night, I started thinking along the lines that I might be better off starting the page over, this time debugging in IE6 as well as Firefox, which is just a huge pain.
I knew that before making that drastic decision, I would be best off going over the issues with someone else. I luckily found my good computer science friend online this morning, I sent him my 2 files and started to express my despair via video chat. He looked over everything and we talked about some of the compatibility issues. After about an hour or two of tinkering around with the page, it was leaps and bounds better than before in regards to at least many of the album functions working in IE. This forward momentum was enough for me to gather the courage to attempt to fix the floating div issue, an issue which causes the page to be completely unusable in IE6. See, I had a floating div that "dropped" below the div it was supposed to float next to. I've experienced problems in IE like this in the past, but none of my prior solutions worked. After really nit picking through every single line of code, via inserting "alerts", so I could see exactly where my div floats broke, I was able to find the first line of code that caused the problem. About an hour after that, I was able to fix the problem, which is absolutely awesome. That problem scared me more than any other problem of this sort, I really had no clue how I was going to fix it.
At this moment, I am experiencing some issues with IE6 and Firefox. I can't completely track what causes the page to start malfunctioning, but I think that with a few hours of debugging, I should be able to get a grip on everything. No immediate rush on that, I am going to enjoy the fact that the page works as well as it does in IE6. There are still a decent amount of things that are "beta" but people would likely enjoy viewing albums in the new album, as is, over the old one.
Ewwww....that was just a ton from me about that page. I'm glad I got that out. I have to goto bed soon because I need to wake up earrrrly to go down to the city....Amtrak to NYP, then LI Express to Queens.... I enjoy going down there, but with the snowy weather we've had this weekend and expected into tomorrow, I am keeping my fingers crossed for limited delays with our travel.
Good night.
I knew that before making that drastic decision, I would be best off going over the issues with someone else. I luckily found my good computer science friend online this morning, I sent him my 2 files and started to express my despair via video chat. He looked over everything and we talked about some of the compatibility issues. After about an hour or two of tinkering around with the page, it was leaps and bounds better than before in regards to at least many of the album functions working in IE. This forward momentum was enough for me to gather the courage to attempt to fix the floating div issue, an issue which causes the page to be completely unusable in IE6. See, I had a floating div that "dropped" below the div it was supposed to float next to. I've experienced problems in IE like this in the past, but none of my prior solutions worked. After really nit picking through every single line of code, via inserting "alerts", so I could see exactly where my div floats broke, I was able to find the first line of code that caused the problem. About an hour after that, I was able to fix the problem, which is absolutely awesome. That problem scared me more than any other problem of this sort, I really had no clue how I was going to fix it.
At this moment, I am experiencing some issues with IE6 and Firefox. I can't completely track what causes the page to start malfunctioning, but I think that with a few hours of debugging, I should be able to get a grip on everything. No immediate rush on that, I am going to enjoy the fact that the page works as well as it does in IE6. There are still a decent amount of things that are "beta" but people would likely enjoy viewing albums in the new album, as is, over the old one.
Ewwww....that was just a ton from me about that page. I'm glad I got that out. I have to goto bed soon because I need to wake up earrrrly to go down to the city....Amtrak to NYP, then LI Express to Queens.... I enjoy going down there, but with the snowy weather we've had this weekend and expected into tomorrow, I am keeping my fingers crossed for limited delays with our travel.
Good night.
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.
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.
Photo Album Page
October 21, 2007 - 9:18
- Photo Album
This will be considered boring to many...
I've spent an enormous amount of time the past few days working on my new Photo Album page, the time was spent almost exclusively on getting the current version of the page to display properly in Internet Explorer, primarily version 6. Disappointingly, the only positive yield from this time spent was me gaining a better understanding into various Javascript features/concepts, opposed to actually implementing the current page in a fashion that would display as intended in Internet Explorer. After much research, as well as countless attempts at implementing a viable work around, I have come to the conclusion that I will likely have to use two different pages, with the users browser being the variable that determines which page is loaded. One of the biggest obstacles I face in using only one page is the difference between the way Firefox and Internet Explorer cache images and handle onload events. I am disappointed in this development because I am very pleased with the way the page looks and works in Firefox, and for that not to be carried over in it's entirety is unfortunate. On a positive note, I believe I will be able to implement a similar page for Internet Explorer, but some features and/or conveniences will be lost. One very specific feature that I am having a surprising amount of trouble with is displaying a hidden element after an onload even is fired. The IE page may have the thumbnails display in their full size while loading, and then resized once done. I have considered the option of going many steps backwards to redesign a page with at least IE 7 in mind, but I'm not going. This compromise will allow me to release the version I am very excited about for anyone using Firefox and Safari, and whatever I end up releasing for other browsers will be better than what is currently available.
Halo 3 has been a good stress reliever throughout all of this. I am very excited for when I'm done with all of this Javascript coding. I still prefer doing PHP projects, and I believe I prefer any creative project involving graphics or video much more. With the last two, you will hardly ever have to deal with the issues comparable to browser incompatibility issues .
I've spent an enormous amount of time the past few days working on my new Photo Album page, the time was spent almost exclusively on getting the current version of the page to display properly in Internet Explorer, primarily version 6. Disappointingly, the only positive yield from this time spent was me gaining a better understanding into various Javascript features/concepts, opposed to actually implementing the current page in a fashion that would display as intended in Internet Explorer. After much research, as well as countless attempts at implementing a viable work around, I have come to the conclusion that I will likely have to use two different pages, with the users browser being the variable that determines which page is loaded. One of the biggest obstacles I face in using only one page is the difference between the way Firefox and Internet Explorer cache images and handle onload events. I am disappointed in this development because I am very pleased with the way the page looks and works in Firefox, and for that not to be carried over in it's entirety is unfortunate. On a positive note, I believe I will be able to implement a similar page for Internet Explorer, but some features and/or conveniences will be lost. One very specific feature that I am having a surprising amount of trouble with is displaying a hidden element after an onload even is fired. The IE page may have the thumbnails display in their full size while loading, and then resized once done. I have considered the option of going many steps backwards to redesign a page with at least IE 7 in mind, but I'm not going. This compromise will allow me to release the version I am very excited about for anyone using Firefox and Safari, and whatever I end up releasing for other browsers will be better than what is currently available.
Halo 3 has been a good stress reliever throughout all of this. I am very excited for when I'm done with all of this Javascript coding. I still prefer doing PHP projects, and I believe I prefer any creative project involving graphics or video much more. With the last two, you will hardly ever have to deal with the issues comparable to browser incompatibility issues .
Aren't I so nice?
October 17, 2007 - 6:17
- Photo Album - random
Over a week later, I finally get around to writing another blog post. UGGG to me. I blame the fact that I don't have a working laptop. As some may remember, I previously discussed technical issues with my slightly old Powerbook, the issue is definitely the logic board. I just need to bring it in and pay the approximate $300 it will cost to fix it, and then I will be up and running, but then I just keep thinking about how nice it would be to install Production Premium CS3 on a new Intel dual-core, and I face the realization that whether or not I am willing to admit it, I am currently in the market for a new laptop. I am hoping that sometime after the beginning of the new year, Apple will release a new Pro line of laptops, which I would then look to buy with my hopefully significant 2007 tax returns. We will see. I'm going to still take my current laptop in, just to have something in front of me so I can watch TV guilt free, and not be thinking about a million things I would like to be doing on the computer. I find myself purchasing and watching a ton of iTunes TV shows, just to have something on when I'm working on stuff, it would be nice to be able to sit in the living room or in bed for a change, opposed to only the office.
Ahhh yes, I can see where this post is already heading, anyone not looking for some random geek talk, you are advised to turn around immediately.
I ordered a green chroma screen with stand today. It is 11'x12' big, which will provide amble room for some of the ideas I have in my head. I ordered and received a camera tripod last week, it's still in the box, but within the next month, I hope to wrap up a few web projects, and look to focus the majority of my time "on projects like this" working on my video. I will be sending out an email in the near future to various people, inviting them to come over and dance to some songs I have picked out. The list could change, but if I was to start the project tomorrow, the 2 songs I would use for this part of the video is:
UZI (Pinky Ring) by Wu Tang Clan
and
Drop It Like It's Hot - the instrumental version
The chroma screen will be used in many projects, but a dance video is likely the first project to test out it's usefulness. I am so excited for the moment when my new Photo Album is finished, I am looking forward to a hopefully long break away from heavy coding. I had to take a small break away from work on the Photo page over this past week as I worked on two different web sites. I will likely look to minimize any technology related obligations to others during the next few months as video work kicks into high gear, but would obviously not turn down an either super interesting or super lucrative deal.
I am excited for Leopard to be released on the 26th and I don't really care about 3rd Party Apps on the iPhone at the moment, but am interested to see what comes out this coming February.
I have the first of four softball games between tonight and Monday. It luckily is not pouring like it was at our last game. Better rain than snow. I wish it could stay summer all year long.
Well I need to get going, no time to even proof read this entry. I hope everyone has a nice day, on whichever day you read this, and all days following. Aren't I so nice?
ps - anyone else notice that I usually just copy and paste a random/obscure/unrelated line from the entry and make it the subject? I'm not deceptive, I'm lazy :-)
Ahhh yes, I can see where this post is already heading, anyone not looking for some random geek talk, you are advised to turn around immediately.
I ordered a green chroma screen with stand today. It is 11'x12' big, which will provide amble room for some of the ideas I have in my head. I ordered and received a camera tripod last week, it's still in the box, but within the next month, I hope to wrap up a few web projects, and look to focus the majority of my time "on projects like this" working on my video. I will be sending out an email in the near future to various people, inviting them to come over and dance to some songs I have picked out. The list could change, but if I was to start the project tomorrow, the 2 songs I would use for this part of the video is:
UZI (Pinky Ring) by Wu Tang Clan
and
Drop It Like It's Hot - the instrumental version
The chroma screen will be used in many projects, but a dance video is likely the first project to test out it's usefulness. I am so excited for the moment when my new Photo Album is finished, I am looking forward to a hopefully long break away from heavy coding. I had to take a small break away from work on the Photo page over this past week as I worked on two different web sites. I will likely look to minimize any technology related obligations to others during the next few months as video work kicks into high gear, but would obviously not turn down an either super interesting or super lucrative deal.
I am excited for Leopard to be released on the 26th and I don't really care about 3rd Party Apps on the iPhone at the moment, but am interested to see what comes out this coming February.
I have the first of four softball games between tonight and Monday. It luckily is not pouring like it was at our last game. Better rain than snow. I wish it could stay summer all year long.
Well I need to get going, no time to even proof read this entry. I hope everyone has a nice day, on whichever day you read this, and all days following. Aren't I so nice?
ps - anyone else notice that I usually just copy and paste a random/obscure/unrelated line from the entry and make it the subject? I'm not deceptive, I'm lazy :-)
likely, hopefully, and doubtfully
October 7, 2007 - 12:17
- Photo Album - Discomentary Volume 1 - Halo 3
My two days of jury duty resulted in me not sitting on the jury for the still ongoing trial, it was an interesting experience though.
I've put in a good amount of time into the new picture album page, it is progressing along very nicely. This will hopefully be my last hard core coding project for a while. Once this page is finished, I plan on spending almost all of the time I would spend on these kind of projects to Discomentary Volume 1. This time away from that video project has at least allowed me to put together some various trains of thoughts on different segments I would like to include in the upcoming video. As such, I am spending a lot of time working out, for what I consider to be, the finer details of the page. I have spent a considerable amount of time debating which approach/implementation is best when building a photo gallery. I am going to ramble quickly about my approach, just for the record, it will likely be worth skipping...
I decided to break each album up into pages of 28 pictures. Instead of loading a thumbnail version of the picture for the 28 thumbnails displayed at a time, I load the full size version, resulting in some wait time up front but none once that page of 28 is loaded [repeat number of pictures / 28]. This allows a user to mouse over over a thumbnail, simultaneously displaying the larger version next to it. This approach also allows for quick navigation of an album simply by clicking "next" (or "back"), a method of browsing I believe many people use. At the sacrifice of how large I could display the currently biggest available size of an image, I was able to reduce the need for users to click to another page to get a respectable view of the photo (pictures won't be displayed larger than 500x375). Specific to the page I currently have built and will almost certainly release, it was built more on the fly, than on paper before hand. I knew what I wanted in the end, I pretty much knew how to do what needed to be done to to it, I just didn't plan out the steps as they would need to be taken to put it all together. Luckily, as I have found with many other parts of this site, the flow of putting everything together seemed pretty inherent. I would say about 75% of the navigation is currently in place. There are several "counting errors" and ELSE IF statement that need to be addressed, but luckily much of the code (or at least heavy thinking) involved in addressing them has already be addressed. I worked out a lot of behind the scenes issues this weekend, I believe I have laid the majority of the final groundwork necessary for the page to be brought to a stage where I am comfortable not thinking about it for a very very long time.
Here is a screenshot of the page as it currently exists:
I have been playing so much Halo 3. The multiplayer is really unbelievable. The game is good enough where you can be running around killing the other team, while chatting with you team mates, and you almost get lost in whether or not you are playing a game or running around some field or fortress in a paintball like experience. I am lucky, because I turn off the lights, blast all 7.1 speakers, and really get sucked into the big HD experience. It is so late right now, but I think I might play one or two matches, UGGGG. I started playing the campaign version of the game today on Legendary with my considerably younger cousin (well 10 years is kind of considerable) and two of his friends, it is so amazing how easy as well as top notch the whole online experience is. I actually don't think the majority of people out there have experienced how far along online multiplayer games are, they have been popular on computers for over a decade, and now the consoles are brining it to a much wider audience. I really recommend people stop over a persons house who has Xbox Live, a 360, and a game like Halo 3, Gears of War, sports games...etc...and see what it's all about.
Well, that is likely, hopefully, and doubtfully (?), the dorkiest blog post I will ever write.
Good night.
I've put in a good amount of time into the new picture album page, it is progressing along very nicely. This will hopefully be my last hard core coding project for a while. Once this page is finished, I plan on spending almost all of the time I would spend on these kind of projects to Discomentary Volume 1. This time away from that video project has at least allowed me to put together some various trains of thoughts on different segments I would like to include in the upcoming video. As such, I am spending a lot of time working out, for what I consider to be, the finer details of the page. I have spent a considerable amount of time debating which approach/implementation is best when building a photo gallery. I am going to ramble quickly about my approach, just for the record, it will likely be worth skipping...
I decided to break each album up into pages of 28 pictures. Instead of loading a thumbnail version of the picture for the 28 thumbnails displayed at a time, I load the full size version, resulting in some wait time up front but none once that page of 28 is loaded [repeat number of pictures / 28]. This allows a user to mouse over over a thumbnail, simultaneously displaying the larger version next to it. This approach also allows for quick navigation of an album simply by clicking "next" (or "back"), a method of browsing I believe many people use. At the sacrifice of how large I could display the currently biggest available size of an image, I was able to reduce the need for users to click to another page to get a respectable view of the photo (pictures won't be displayed larger than 500x375). Specific to the page I currently have built and will almost certainly release, it was built more on the fly, than on paper before hand. I knew what I wanted in the end, I pretty much knew how to do what needed to be done to to it, I just didn't plan out the steps as they would need to be taken to put it all together. Luckily, as I have found with many other parts of this site, the flow of putting everything together seemed pretty inherent. I would say about 75% of the navigation is currently in place. There are several "counting errors" and ELSE IF statement that need to be addressed, but luckily much of the code (or at least heavy thinking) involved in addressing them has already be addressed. I worked out a lot of behind the scenes issues this weekend, I believe I have laid the majority of the final groundwork necessary for the page to be brought to a stage where I am comfortable not thinking about it for a very very long time.
Here is a screenshot of the page as it currently exists:
I have been playing so much Halo 3. The multiplayer is really unbelievable. The game is good enough where you can be running around killing the other team, while chatting with you team mates, and you almost get lost in whether or not you are playing a game or running around some field or fortress in a paintball like experience. I am lucky, because I turn off the lights, blast all 7.1 speakers, and really get sucked into the big HD experience. It is so late right now, but I think I might play one or two matches, UGGGG. I started playing the campaign version of the game today on Legendary with my considerably younger cousin (well 10 years is kind of considerable) and two of his friends, it is so amazing how easy as well as top notch the whole online experience is. I actually don't think the majority of people out there have experienced how far along online multiplayer games are, they have been popular on computers for over a decade, and now the consoles are brining it to a much wider audience. I really recommend people stop over a persons house who has Xbox Live, a 360, and a game like Halo 3, Gears of War, sports games...etc...and see what it's all about.
Well, that is likely, hopefully, and doubtfully (?), the dorkiest blog post I will ever write.
Good night.
simple yet intriguing
September 23, 2007 - 11:4
- Photo Album
Every few hours of every day I think of things I would like to share on this blog. From a quick picture or random observation/thought I get while I'm on the go, to full fledged dissertations on obscure topics; I look very much forward to keeping an official record of me.
With that said, even the small selection of blog posts available clearly demonstrate that when I am working on specific projects , I tend to write very little of anything interesting, especially when they are projects for this site. With the exact cause of this anomaly being unknown, I will go out on a limb with my immediate reaction: I believe that if free time was divided up into a pie, the slice I use for blogging is the same slice I use for projects exclusive to this site.
I decided to really attack the new photo album page. It is one of the most important parts of this site and I just needed to do it to get it over with. I will cautiously state that the page is 65% complete, with there currently being a fatal issue that absolutely nothing happens in any version of Internet Explorer (AHHHHHHHH!!!!). I can comfortably state how uncomfortable I am programming this much in JavaScript. I think the uneasy feeling can be attributed to the vast number of approaches I see to implement the page I want to end up with. I simply had to man up and face these insecurities, and while they still exist, I worry about them so much less than I did before, that is if you can worry about something less than never, ha! If I am able to get what I have done thus far to work in Internet Explorer, than I would say we are going to be golden. I made an executive decision the moment I realized that none of the JavaScript was working in IE; the progress being made on the page was happening at such an accelerated rate, stopping it to troubleshoot compatibility issues seemed premature. I am relying exclusively on Firefox as my testing browser and will worry about IE later. I hope that my expectation that finding and implementing a workable solution will be possible without a complete rewrite, because if I am wrong....that would just suck, big time, not cool.
Let's see, I have a MILLION things I would like to talk about, but will have to leave you with a simple yet intriguing: Good night from the inside.
With that said, even the small selection of blog posts available clearly demonstrate that when I am working on specific projects , I tend to write very little of anything interesting, especially when they are projects for this site. With the exact cause of this anomaly being unknown, I will go out on a limb with my immediate reaction: I believe that if free time was divided up into a pie, the slice I use for blogging is the same slice I use for projects exclusive to this site.
I decided to really attack the new photo album page. It is one of the most important parts of this site and I just needed to do it to get it over with. I will cautiously state that the page is 65% complete, with there currently being a fatal issue that absolutely nothing happens in any version of Internet Explorer (AHHHHHHHH!!!!). I can comfortably state how uncomfortable I am programming this much in JavaScript. I think the uneasy feeling can be attributed to the vast number of approaches I see to implement the page I want to end up with. I simply had to man up and face these insecurities, and while they still exist, I worry about them so much less than I did before, that is if you can worry about something less than never, ha! If I am able to get what I have done thus far to work in Internet Explorer, than I would say we are going to be golden. I made an executive decision the moment I realized that none of the JavaScript was working in IE; the progress being made on the page was happening at such an accelerated rate, stopping it to troubleshoot compatibility issues seemed premature. I am relying exclusively on Firefox as my testing browser and will worry about IE later. I hope that my expectation that finding and implementing a workable solution will be possible without a complete rewrite, because if I am wrong....that would just suck, big time, not cool.
Let's see, I have a MILLION things I would like to talk about, but will have to leave you with a simple yet intriguing: Good night from the inside.
splash 8.1
July 10, 2007 - 11:30
- iPhone - splash - photo album
-sometimes the iPhone does not "awaken" after sliding the little slider across the screen. I hope that gets fixed.
-I am still having an issue porting my verizon number to AT&T, I am now told it can not be done, yet I am still holding onto a small glimmer of hope.
-due to the possibility that I might have to contact a massive number of people to tell them my new number, I am going to try to get this site a little bit more up to par, with the hope that if I do send a huge BCC email, I can mention this place.
-I have just made my "splash 8.1" page the current index page. It includes a few minor fixes throughout the page but the biggest improvement is the photo album preview bar. This version is the JavaScript version I created what seems like forever ago. I added some random content to the right side of the page as well.
-work on the new photo album section is still coming along well. I have taken a few days off working on it to perform some simpler "house cleaning" around the site. I am currently a little stuck, specifically with hiding an image until it is fully loaded, then resizing it using a formula I was recently able to dig out of the deep crevices of my brain, it involves high school math, yet it took me a few days to remember it. Just so we never forget, here it is:
newImageHeight = (imageHeight * N) / imageWidth
newImageWidth = N
now that was dorky, yet it works (for images where width > height).
I am confident the solution to my current issue on the album page is overcome able, I just need to sit down and pound away at the issue for a little while.
-last weekend got pretty out of control. here is an odd picture from Saturday night, pre-craziness time:
I'm tired, hot day tomorrow, softball @ 6, need sleep and water, have a good evening.
-I am still having an issue porting my verizon number to AT&T, I am now told it can not be done, yet I am still holding onto a small glimmer of hope.
-due to the possibility that I might have to contact a massive number of people to tell them my new number, I am going to try to get this site a little bit more up to par, with the hope that if I do send a huge BCC email, I can mention this place.
-I have just made my "splash 8.1" page the current index page. It includes a few minor fixes throughout the page but the biggest improvement is the photo album preview bar. This version is the JavaScript version I created what seems like forever ago. I added some random content to the right side of the page as well.
-work on the new photo album section is still coming along well. I have taken a few days off working on it to perform some simpler "house cleaning" around the site. I am currently a little stuck, specifically with hiding an image until it is fully loaded, then resizing it using a formula I was recently able to dig out of the deep crevices of my brain, it involves high school math, yet it took me a few days to remember it. Just so we never forget, here it is:
newImageHeight = (imageHeight * N) / imageWidth
newImageWidth = N
now that was dorky, yet it works (for images where width > height).
I am confident the solution to my current issue on the album page is overcome able, I just need to sit down and pound away at the issue for a little while.
-last weekend got pretty out of control. here is an odd picture from Saturday night, pre-craziness time:
I'm tired, hot day tomorrow, softball @ 6, need sleep and water, have a good evening.
quick site update... photo album
February 5, 2007 - 10:3
- site design - Photo Album
I've been spending almost all of my site development efforts on the photo album page. I've made the current version I've been working on for the past week "live". It is a very early rendering of what will end up likely being the final version. I've developed a rotating gallery, that the user can navigate forwards and backwards. The selected picture is a little larger, with the previous/next albums pictures decreasing in size. There is much more that I am going to add to this album selection/preview bar, but I am happy with what has been completed thus far. On a side note, I doubt this bar displays as intended in Internet Explorer, I will find out for myself tomorrow at work.
In regards to the actual photo albums I've uploaded; I have uploaded a few new albums, and will continue to do so as times go by. One project I need to work on prior to uploading many albums is the different display needed for photos that are horizontal, and those that are vertical.
In regards to the Super Bowl, I was cheering for the Bears, but didn't loose any sleep over their loss.
In regards to SU loosing to uconn tonight, I am disappointed about this loss, but I still hold high confidence in a very strong Tournament showing.
In regards to this Wednesday at 10pm... I couldn't be more excited for LOST to begin!
In regards to the actual photo albums I've uploaded; I have uploaded a few new albums, and will continue to do so as times go by. One project I need to work on prior to uploading many albums is the different display needed for photos that are horizontal, and those that are vertical.
In regards to the Super Bowl, I was cheering for the Bears, but didn't loose any sleep over their loss.
In regards to SU loosing to uconn tonight, I am disappointed about this loss, but I still hold high confidence in a very strong Tournament showing.
In regards to this Wednesday at 10pm... I couldn't be more excited for LOST to begin!
Photo Album - quick update
January 28, 2007 - 10:24
- photo album
I've made some small additions to the photo pages, specifically, "Next" and "Previous" navigation button/preview images. An incredible amount of work is still to be done in this section of the site. I hope to get a lot of work done on it during the next week or so. It is currently my highest priority site project.
It's nice to see people signing up and browsing around, but I feel bad that the site is still under such a level of construction. Hopefully people will come back and check it out from time to time to see how things progress :-)
It's nice to see people signing up and browsing around, but I feel bad that the site is still under such a level of construction. Hopefully people will come back and check it out from time to time to see how things progress :-)
Splash 7.006 + Photo Album Beta
January 23, 2007 - 8:36
- Photo Album - Splash
This version of the Splash page is currently being listed as the index.
-Minor updates have been made to the splash page, majority of updates have been to Photo Album page.
Photo Album Page:
-Basic Framework is complete, yet improvements to album navigation and selection are still to come
I am pleased with the progress of the Photo Album page. The look is far from the final, but the navigation has a decent user interface thus far.
Notable functionality:
-When a picture is selected from the side preview area, the preview pictures are updated so the currently "selected" photo also appears as the first preview image. The code still needs some tweaking, but for the most part, it is working as I had originally planned.
-Minor updates have been made to the splash page, majority of updates have been to Photo Album page.
Photo Album Page:
-Basic Framework is complete, yet improvements to album navigation and selection are still to come
I am pleased with the progress of the Photo Album page. The look is far from the final, but the navigation has a decent user interface thus far.
Notable functionality:
-When a picture is selected from the side preview area, the preview pictures are updated so the currently "selected" photo also appears as the first preview image. The code still needs some tweaking, but for the most part, it is working as I had originally planned.
Album - Photo
January 20, 2007 - 13:20
- coding - photo album
I have been working on the photo album page for the past day or so. Since access to this page will require user login, this project was a good opportunity to create functions for the login code, opposed to continuing to put all of the form display and form handling code into each page that will require it. The site coding trend thus far has been along the lines of directly coding any functionality into the page that requires it, and then later when that functionality is required in another page, I take it out of it's original place and move it into a function, that I can call whenever and from wherever. This is has worked well thus far, since I get the code to work for it's direct intended purpose, and then later, clean it up a little bit to make it usable from anywhere.
I have placed a link to the photo album page under the link section of the Splash page currently found in the Sandbox. Eventually, this page will usually be called to display a particular album, but I will almost certainly have a main photo page, displaying some kind of index of albums.
As previously stated, all of this technical talk regarding the sites development will ultimately be the exception when coming to blog posts...but until I am further along with certain features and pages, it will seem more like the rule.
I have placed a link to the photo album page under the link section of the Splash page currently found in the Sandbox. Eventually, this page will usually be called to display a particular album, but I will almost certainly have a main photo page, displaying some kind of index of albums.
As previously stated, all of this technical talk regarding the sites development will ultimately be the exception when coming to blog posts...but until I am further along with certain features and pages, it will seem more like the rule.