"Working on the poetry site" written by Paul on estrip.org

Category: web

03/15/06 07:52 - 34ºF - ID#32523

Working on the poetry site

I am making a website for this older gentleman using my new CMS system. I love being able to quickly get something up with little effort, it gives me more opportunity to concentrate of the design. He typed all these poems on an old fashioend typewriter and is about 80 years old. He would like his work to be published to the web. I think it is pretty cool that it will have the photograph of the typed copy next to the html text of each poem.

I will post the link when it is done. The poetry is about the stages of life and is entitled, "The Ages of Woman and Man"

While I was at it, I created a typerwiter key maker, so I am going to do an estrip theme based on typewriters. It will be the first black theme.

Permalink: Working_on_the_poetry_site.html
Words: 148
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: web

03/15/06 07:02 - 35ºF - ID#32522

Surebert and alexwebcamworld

I redid the surebert site a while back and today I was looking at the stats. Surebert is a very simple to use AJAX API I wrote last year. It looks like it has been downloaded almost 500 times yet I the only place that linked back to the surebert site, like I requested, is my boss's church's web site. In combination with Poser (downloaded 150 times and avaiable in both ASP and PHP format), also on tthe surebert site it can grab data from anywhere on the net and include it live on your site using only javascript. in fact it is what runs the chat, the peep count, the old radio, the many other features on this site.

Today I found alexswebcamworld

] on google by searching for surbert.js.

The site seems to be a guy who keep most of his life on web cam. I frequently thought about this a couple years ago but honestly, having a mobile blog was more appealing at the timeand I went with that route. Maybe when I can have a live mobile webcam blog I will change my mind. I think actually, I can have that right now if I would just program it for my phone. I am so overly intimidated by Microsoft Visual Studio. It is so foreign to me, the way it works. Don't get me wrong, i love IDEs but the visual part is insane. I just am not comfortable giving up that much control to the system. It is probably because I don't fully understand how it works, but it seem slike whenever I start a project there a already a million files and lots of code.

Permalink: Surebert_and_alexwebcamworld.html
Words: 289
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: work

03/14/06 07:03 - 32ºF - ID#32521

restaurant and breaks

I totally get absorbed in the form maker API I was making at work and forgot to take a break. I am so angry with myself because I promised I wouldn't do that anymore after 5 years of virtually no breaks at Canisius.

This was all my fault I just forgot to go until 6:59. I get out at 7PM. The thing is I always wait for terry till 8. I f his stupid phone wasn't broken I could have just called to say I am walking home, but as I have to wait anyways - I decided I would spend $11 on a fancy dinner at the hotel next door to roswell. Their food is amazing.

The guy next to me if freaking about about how he has some paycut and won't be able to afford the $500 trips to toronto on the weekends. His attorney says this and that. Blah, blah,blah Ans his property value need to be re-evaluated Thank god he has no debt, he says to some woman he is with.

In the end he decided it wuld be okay because his lower salary is still higher than most people in Buffalo.

This is a chicken focaccia sandwich. Nothing about this type of bread says focaccia to me. At least it tastes really, really good.

Permalink: restaurant_and_breaks.html
Words: 217
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: web

03/13/06 10:21 - 57ºF - ID#32520

Google Mars

Has anyone else seen google mars

? It is a new mars mapping interface based on the googlemaps interface. I cannot wait till they have the 3d version. You can see the data in elevation, visible image, and infrared image maps.

Permalink: Google_Mars.html
Words: 49
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: pets

03/12/06 08:55 - 49ºF - ID#32519

Sugar Gliders

The sugar glider found an organic crunchy cheese stick.

And then spent the next half hour nibbling it.

Eventually, the other sugar glider came to investigate and snuggle

Permalink: Sugar_Gliders.html
Words: 42
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: gps

03/12/06 08:06 - 49ºF - ID#32518

GPS comes so far

I remember when (e:jacob) stole my first Delorme Earthmate GPS for my iBook. I loved it. The maps it used were so innaccurate and Arizona was developing so fast . that it often showed us simply driving through the desert. Using it was the utmost complicated endeavor as it required a serial to USB converter, batteries, plenty of sky view and like ten minutes of setup before it was ready. No tto mention the software and iBook itself were flaky.

Then when I worked on Public Transphere we had some 2000 serial GPS unit that was a little more sophisticated but the interface was just as bad.

Recently I ordered a bluetooth gps for my phone and today I started actually playing wiht it. It is so incredible. It is tiny, like the size of a pack of gum, fully rechargable via usb and even works in the house. Furthmore, it is so accurate that it can detect me lifting up and putting down the phone or the speed at which I walk down the driveway. The potential is incredible and it output fully standard compliant NMEA sentences.

Look at the data mapped to google earth as I drive down elmwood. It's really great because my phone is also a 700k-1MB/s modem for my laptop.

Before I even used it I ordered another GPS but this time just the little chip which can record to a SD card. The advantage of this setup is that it can be standalone and tiny, not much bigger than a quarter. I can attach it to anywhing and it will reocrd its position for up to two weeks.

Soon enough, I want to make my journal track me as I move around the city. To bad I sit at a desk for 8 hours a day. It might be kind of boring.

Permalink: GPS_comes_so_far.html
Words: 310
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: last

03/12/06 06:18 - 52ºF - ID#32517

Last Glimpses

This journal is dedicated to last glimpses

The last glimpse of being sick

The last glimpse of snow in the sun

the last glimpse of my chicago burger at Jimmy Macs

the last glimpse of my beard that got shaved

Permalink: Last_Glimpses.html
Words: 48
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: energy

03/11/06 08:59 - 48ºF - ID#32516

Daylight Savings Time

Has anyone really thought about daylight savings time? I never really thought about it much. (e:robin) cam eover and her and (e:matthew) were talking about when it begins this year. I looked it up an dfound ou that it begins the first sunday in April but starting in 2007, it is extended a month an begins in march.

The reason is that it saves a ton of energy. According to this site

Daylight Saving Time Saves Energy

Spring Graphic One of the biggest reasons we change our clocks to Daylight Saving Time (DST) is that it saves energy. Energy use and the demand for electricity for lighting our homes is directly connected to when we go to bed and when we get up. Bedtime for most of us is late evening through the year. When we go to bed, we turn off the lights and TV.

In the average home, 25 percent of all the electricity we use is for lighting and small appliances, such as TVs, VCRs and stereos. A good percentage of energy consumed by lighting and appliances occurs in the evening when families are home. By moving the clock ahead one hour, we can cut the amount of electricity we consume each day.

Studies done in the 1970s by the U.S. Department of Transportation show that we trim the entire country's electricity usage by about one percent EACH DAY with Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving Time "makes" the sun "set" one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour. This means that less electricity would be used for lighting and appliances late in the day.

Permalink: Daylight_Savings_Time.html
Words: 284
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: weather

03/11/06 11:48 - ID#32515

Outside but warm

My friend chris is visiting from San Francisco this weekend. Luckily, he is sick too. Pretty much everyone is.

We went to his mom's house to surprise her. she was having an openhouse and didn't know she was in town. Unfortunately, she has cats so I couldn't hang out otuside but it is 60 out today!

It's so nice to sit in the sun.

One of chris's relatives is an electrician who specializes in people with RF and EMT sensitivity. I never knew there was such a thing. Those poor people are not going to make the next evolutionary jump. Imagine being "alergic" to RF. You might as well move to a commune in the middle of the desert and line your house in aluminum foil.

Permalink: Outside_but_warm.html
Words: 131
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: family

03/10/06 03:51 - 39ºF - ID#32514

Logins and Pictures

Today (e:hodown) sent me a link to some pictures of her mom. The studio that took them required thsi complicated login and then when I trie dto save one for (e:lilho) it wouldn't let me. They tried to make it so that you can download the image by putting some lame transparent gif over the top. I hate pretend secuirty. I am a big fan of no security rather than pretend security.

The real problem is that although they require a login to see your picture you can easy circumvent the entire system by just going to the images directly. What's really insane is that the image increment sequentially so if you really wanted all the images from the you could just quickly loop through and save them. Not just the images of mother ho but every image on they site.

Needless to say I managed to get (e:hodown) all the glamour shots of her and (e:lilho)'s mother.