Miami City Ballet Launched

The new face of Miami City Ballet went live yesterday. Although we did not get the opportunity to rebuild the content management system, the redesign has gone very well.

On this site we leveraged the mootools javascript library. The vast majority of components on the site are original development. I am especially happy with the calendar applet seen throughout the site. I used it as the base to develop a couple classes WA007 will be providing free to other developers when we launch our 2009 company site.

The Flickr image feed was also an enjoyable piece of work. I turned off the autoplay feature by default to reduce memory use by the website. Hopefully this one will be used again in the future so I can turn that back on. The lightbox style popup from this is a slightly modified class called Milkbox written by Luca Reghellin.

All the flash is our own custom development including all the video players. The video players calculate buffering to avoid video pausing in mid-play to buffer again. The lightbox video players were a nice final touch to the overall site.

Laurel Highlands Hike

Kendra and I decided to go for a hike while we still had some nice fall colors. Since we are past the peak at our home we headed south to the Laurel Highands area. I posted up some of the photos we took on our Flickr account.

It was very cool out, but once we got moving we got used to it. The hike portion was less than 5 miles, but the terrain was fairly rough and it felt like a good workout. Sky's were perfectly clear and the view was spectacular. Will have to travel further to to get vista views like these once we are living in Ohio again.

Site Launch: MyCardioLog.com

It has been some time since my last blog post, and the reason for that is my new website. I've spent my free time over the last several weeks developing a site to track workouts. I launched MyCardioLog over last weekend and my regular blogging will continue now.

I began walking in 2007 for health reasons. At first I was so out of shape that I would not have wanted to track how poorly I was doing. In 2008 I am in much better condition, and look forward to my walks. I began looking for a web site that would allow me to keep a log. I wanted it to be simple to add an entry, track the weather, and allow me to put in a note if I desired. After several hours of searching I had found a half dozen different sites that all fell short of what I wanted.

My father is also a walker and when I visit I enjoy walking with him. I know he keeps a paper log of his own, but hoped that if I made my online log available for him he would like that better. Since I wanted this to be available for my father, it made sense to just open it up to the public at large. The one hurdle to this was my lack of artistic talent. I contacted Brian Law of Prime Design Solutions and he agreed to create a design for me. I am very happy with the results and am already enjoying the site.

I made the site capable of logging a person in automatically so the first page a returning user sees is "Add Entry". Based on a users zip code it gets the weather and fills in that information automatically. The standard list of workout types can be added to on the individual level so someone who wants to track "splitting wood" can do so. It remembers your last workout type and defaults that into the form when your adding a new entry. I did everything I could think of to make entry easy.

Over the next few months I will make additions to the site. I plan to add a lot more functionality in the "My Log" area where workouts are displayed. This includes reports with charting capabilities.

Gaming team work

Somewhere in my past I saw or heard a quote that stated, the one thing we all have in common is we think we are above average drivers. Playing a character in an MMOG works much the same way. Every person who plays thinks they are above average, and that is partially the point of playing. Thinking you are good at something makes you feel good.

The issue comes in with the definition of good. In a group that attempts to accomplish something there are several key rolls.

1. Tank: The tanks job is to keep the enemy mad at him so he gets hit on. This is also known as the masochist.
2. Healer: The job of the healer is to keep everyone alive.
3. Crowd Control: This position is not always present or necessary. When it is necessary it is very necessary and one of my favorite rolls to take. This involves either keeping a certain enemy from involving themselves in the fight at all, or in some way keeping them from doing anything if they do involve themselves. That could be sleeping, rooting, sheeping or one of many other possible methods. The reason I love it is that it usually involves a high level of skill to accomplish and stay alive. Something like a lion tamer in real life maybe.
   
4. DPS: This persons job is mostly to do damage. This person is also responsible for not doing so much damage that they pull the enemy off of the tank. Usually dps is running around in little more than a g-string and a cape so, they really can't take a hit. This is known as "squishable".
   

Many many people, especially dps/heal classes, want to measure good by looking at damage dealt or healing done. Neither of these are good measurements. As a race we like statistics and numbers. Saying 10 is better than 9 is comforting and familiar. Unfortunately it is rarely that simple.

As DPS/Healer you are also often responsible for countering spells thrown by the enemy. These can be pretty important spells. Preventing a 10,000 point heal is far better than doing 5,000 points of damage. That does not show up in charts though. The race to do the most damage, or the most healing, is a really good way to get everyone in your raid group killed. The DPS/Healer that does their job with attention to not pulling aggro and/or accomplishing other tasks during the combat is almost always the player who contributes more to the raids/groups success. This person usually will not be at the top of the charts for damage or healing.

The lost art of gaming

I started playing online games in the late 80's. Back then you dialed into a board on a modem and the game was text only. The first really good one had a limit of 30 players at a time and was called Tele-arena. It had six classes, 30 levels, and if you died you rolled up a new character. It was hard and the players were tremendously serious. I actually had someone track me down while I was on a date to inform me they had passed my character in level. Luckily the date was also a gamer.

Recently I tried playing Age of Conan. It is certainly a lot more attractive than Tele-arena. Beautiful sunsets, clear water, and green fields. If a player kills you after a few seconds you are teleported a short distance where you are reborn without losing any experience or even your buffs. And yet in the chat channel there is a constant flood of people whining about being killed. Wtf mate?

Warcraft had the clever idea of making the game so easy that anyone can succeed. It has the illusion of gaming, but all it really takes is time. With the huge success of Warcraft other companies began cranking out new mmog's. These companies are looking for a recreation of Warcraft so they can make lots of money. The guys in charge run room temperature IQ's, make 150k+ a year, and couldn't tell a good game from pong.

So we have a couple million of us true gamers floating from game to game looking for a challenge and being subjected to, and I exaggerate not in the least, games that 5 year old children play successfully. My best friends 5 year old daughter plays Warcraft amazingly well. I was on a raid about a year ago and someone said "shit" in the ventrillo channel. Several other players asked that we watch our language as the main tank was an 8 year old.

If one company would step up to the plate and make a really challenging game they would get a nice solid player base. It wouldn't be tens of millions of players like Warcraft is. Possibly not even a million people, but the people that did play would be very faithful and would probably be willing to pay a little extra each month for a game that challenged them.

When you die in a game there should be a penalty. The death penalty should be severe enough that it will take many hours, or even days of play to recover from. To get through an instance should require precision team work, and strategy. To solve a quest should take some thought. Unless it is a futuristic game there should not be a small map in the upper corner showing your exact location. No one running around with a sword should have a GPS in their backpack.

Someone please bring back gaming!

Political Concepts

When I saw this cartoon I laughed and wished we could get Bill back in office. Recently I have been thinking about how screwed we are as a nation and thought I would put forward an idea I had.

I think that one of the requirements for being president is that they have familiarity with being an American. All the presidents in my life time have been that 1% of Americans that have 99% of the wealth. These people have less concept of what being American is like than the workers in London.

I know that one of the requirements for being our President is being rich. It is a sad fact, but none the less true. So how can one of our rich elitists become familiar with the life of the masses? I would like it to be a requirement that each president take a 40+ hour a week job making an average or lower income for four years of their life. During this time they would have to live completely from their earned wages without any form of help including gifts. This job should be average as well. Something like an office worker, or postal delivery, but not vice president in charge of wining and dining clients.

Randomizing a recordset

One very common request on websites is to show a random few items from the database. Historically I have done some very elaborate coding to accomplish this. I've even gone to the extremes of allowing a weighting system on the entries so some records will come up more often than others. If true equal randomization is a must, such as in an advertising package, this would still be necessary.

At least 90% of the time a simple method that appears random is going to make everyone happy. Below I have pasted the very simple code which will allow you to get a random selection from mysql or ms sql.

MS SQL
order by NewID()
example: select top 5 * from Videos order by NewID()

mySQL
order by rand()
example: select * from Videos order by rand() limit 5

Using either of these puts all the work on the database.

Batman 'The Dark Knight' review

After the last Batman movie I was expecting quiet a bit out of the newest movie. I've always admired Heath Ledger, and I think he did a great job as the Joker. The acting was good. The special effects were great.

When watching any "hero" movie I am accustomed to a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. Vests that not only stop bullets but also stop the kinetic energy. People falling 20 stories are saved by being stopped instantly on a rope. But Batman tried to push this too far. The joker and crew were able to set explosives anywhere the wanted, in any size without being caught. Boats with large security details had the entire hold full of explosives. A hospital appeared to have a small bomb in every room. What do you say to the nurses as you wander from room to room planting C-4 explosives?

After we passed the 2 hour mark I was just ready for it to be over. I think the movie was worth seeing, but I would recommend waiting for the DVD.

Land of the Free?

About a month ago we noticed several of the shingles on our roof had slipped out of place. Mid way through putting a new roof over top the old one security shows up at my house and informs me we need permits. I give him a look like he told me Santa Claus is coming to town and explain that I am repairing damage to my roof and figure he will go away.

Instead of going away he tells me the county government requires a license for any roofing work. He leaves and I come inside to call the county. I talk to a young lady on the phone and explain the situation. My roof was damaged, and I am putting the exact same color of shingle over top the old. She tells me that I do have to put in an application for a permit. It is at this point that I actually begin to believe that no matter how absurd it sounds, it is true.

The permit was only $10, plus a stamp and about an hour of my time. The issue I have is that I need to get permission from the government to repair my own house. A repair that, if delayed, could have cost me tens of thousands of dollars in interior damage had water gotten through to the interior.

Property tax is rent you pay for the land the government owns. You have to pay the government for the privilege of any improvements, or even repairs, you make. Once you make improvements they come out and increase your rent. The government can kick you off that land at anytime so they can build something else there. You can now be locked up without any reason given, or even notification sent to your relatives, if they suspect you of ties to terrorists. Which really means they can do it as long as they are willing to say they suspect you of such ties.

Land of the free? Really?

Raspberry Season

When I first moved in there were a few scraggly raspberry bushes at the corner of my house. They really are not very decorative and I honestly kept meaning to cut them out, but I am basically lazy and never did. This year I was actually going to do it and noticed a bumper crop of berries coming on so I just cut everything but the berries out of the spot two months ago.

In the last week I have gotten 8 cups of berries from this small patch. I've done a lot of berry picking in my life and I've never seen so many berries from such a small patch. I will really hate cutting them down before I sell the house next year.

The first 4 cups of berries I turned into the pie on the left. My parents gave me the recipe and it tasted heavenly. The pie was a little more runny than I would have liked. I am not sure if I needed a little more flower or a little more cooking time, but I still rate it as a success.

Over the past few months I've been playing with Crumb Bar recipes. I started with a blueberry crumb bar recipe from AllRecipes.com. These were delicious out of the oven, but the next day they were a bit bland. On the right is the picture of my newest version of the recipe. I will not be altering the recipe any further as it came out perfect. The pictures are not the best as it was late with bad lighting and I was playing my So You Think You Can Dance Drinking Game by the time they were cool.

Pandora - the Music Genome Project

I spend anywhere from 40-80 hours a week at my computer with my dog for company. She's a good dog, but not much of a conversationalist. Thus, I spend a lot of time listening to music. I discovered Pandora about a year ago and think it is the best online streaming music site. It is free to use, and the advertisements are well done and non-invasive.

One nice feature is that it was built intelligently from a buffering standpoint. It attempts to buffer an entire song ahead. I've actually lost my internet connection for a couple minutes and not had my music miss a beat.

The best feature is how a user creates custom stations. Many years ago they started the Music Genome Project. They took songs and defined hundreds of attributes for each song. These attributes are things like "Subtle use of vocal harmony", and "Groove based composition". When you log into Pandora you create a station and enter a song or group you like as an initial seed. Pandora begins to play music based on this and you can give a particular song a thumbs up or thumbs down. Pandora tracks this information and refines the play list until you rarely get a song you do not like.

In the left navigation of my blog you can see I included a section with my Pandora stations. You might find that one of my stations is a good starting point for you.

Water Fueled Car

Since this hasn't been on CNN or any other news I follow, I assume that our corporate masters do not wish us to hear about this new car. Reuters had some information thankfully and with some surfing I was able to learn a little.

The car has been produced by Genepax Co Ltd in Japan. No time line for mass production has been announced yet, but they have stated they intend to do so in the "very near future". The current car is 300W, but they plan to produce 1kw units for both car and homes. They stated that 1 liter of water will run the car at 80kph/50mph for about an hour. I looked but could not find the top speed of the vehicle. I assume that the increased power generation would result in an increase of power, but decrease in efficiency.

I want to learn more about the long term effect of utilizing water this way. I know they are separating the hydrogen out of the water which must generate oxygen, but what happens after the separation I am unsure of. Could billions of cars like this cause global environmental issues such as too much ozone or reduction in our water supply? If anyone knows please pass the information along.

The best links I could find for information were.
NDTV
IPower

George Carlin Died

George Carlin was very possibly my favorite comedian of all time. His views on war, religion and humans in general was insightful and his delivery great. I can remember laughing so hard at some of his routines that I could not stand up.

He passed away from heart failure in LA. Here is the CNN article.

Below is a Carlin youtube video I enjoyed.

ShareYourListing.com has Street View

We just launched our integration of the Google Street View technology. A user now has the ability to switch the map to street view to refine the latitude, longitude, pitch and yaw. These new controls will only show up if the street you have the property on has street view data available. This data is fairly extensive and over half our current properties have it available.

What are the results of this functionality? Check out this current listings map view.
Prestigious Home

I am so impressed with this technology. Google has a lot of impressive tools, but the maps with street view is my favorite.

Movie Review - Incredible Hulk

I would give this movie 4 out of 5 stars. The special effects were very good and Edward Norton was fantastic. More importantly it was not the same old story that I was expecting. They started it out after he was on the run and the plot was enjoyable. I was very excited at the end of the film when Tony Stark showed up. I could see future movies bringing Iron Man, Spider Man, and or the Hulk together.

Live Tyler did an excellent job of acting, but her recent lip injections were distracting and really did not improve her appearance. I find it unfortunate that an actress of her quality feels the need to have surgical enhancements.

The trailer is below.

So You Think You Can Dance - Drinking Game

My wife and I are big fans of the So You Think You Can Dance show. This year I was really disappointed that a particular dancer did not make the final 20, and I had a rough day at work so I was drinking a little for the show.

Rules

1. When any routine completes and the judging begins...take a drink.
2. Anytime they say the word tamale...take a drink.
3. Anytime dancers fall to the floor....take a drink.

I only tried it for the one show, but I found it enjoyable.

On a side note...the dancer whom I really wanted to make it into the top 20 was Evan Kasprzack. His audition is embedded below.

Programming Language Rant

After 18 years of programming I have programmed in more languages than I care to think about. There are certain instances when one language is better than another, but I get so irritated when I hear a programmer going on about how one language is the end all be all of languages.

Any programmer saying php or .net or any other language is the best is really saying thats the language they know. I hear this most commonly about .net. Since this is the current push of the Microsoft marketing giant many peoples eyes glaze over as they chant "we hear and obey corporate master".

I could ramble on for pages regarding the shortcomings and issues with using .net. I have three years experience in .net and have seen a company go under and a PA county in danger of bankruptcy caused by .net projects gone awry. This does not mean that .net is useless or a language that should never be used. If the project has deep pockets, and you have a good .net programming resource then it is a fine language to use. But for the majority of projects another language is likely to be more suitable.

Fudgy Walnut Brownies

As a Jazzercise instructor my wife calls upon me to socialize now and then. Today is a local dance recital and afterward people are gathering for food and drinks. I volunteered to make our covered dish and went with brownies.



I selected the recipe Fudgy Walnut Brownies and added some broken up mini heath bars to the batter. Kendra and I both love the corner pieces so a few weeks ago I purchased the Bakers Edge brownie pan. The results tasted even better than it looked.

ShareYourListing.com

I work for a small company, WA007.com, out of Miami Florida. When I say small I refer to the number of full time employees, not the scale of our work. WA007 is best known for the outstanding design work of James Begera. James and I met up when he was doing design for a Bacardi project and the project manager realized the development team had no one who could integrate the back end with the Flash James had developed. I was brought in to fill that void. After which James brought me in as freelance work on many projects that needed content management or advanced flash. Early in 2007 I became a full time employee.

I brought a new level of capability to WA007, but the work coming in reflects our reputation for amazing designs. James and I decided that we should have a project for us that I could work on when development work was slow. We decided on a site that integrated real estate with our video expertise.

On June 1st of 2008 we launched the beta version of our vision. ShareYourListing.com has a lot of future enhancements planned, but I am pretty proud of where we are. In our first week, with no advertising, we have drawn the attention of several real estate agents and have great hopes for the success of the site.

One of our many features is the ability to embed our media center. Below is a sample property with the player. This is a demo property to show off the video capabilities. It is a very nicely prepared video.

Let the Blogging begin

After many months on twitter I've found out two things.

1. I post more often than I thought I would.
2. I often want to post more than 140 characters.
   

So here I am with my first adult sized blog area. I anticipate this will largely contain programming tips and tidbits, but once I get started who knows what might come out.

-Tom