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TopSat, 29 May 2004
May 29, 2004, 12:45
[home/hobbies/geocaching] I’m in my bed and the coordinates are N 43° 13’ 50.004 & W 079°48’ 28.540 at an altitude of 72.94 metres. Isn’t that a useful bit of information? ~Jason
In Bed with my Pocket PC
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Wed, 26 May 2004
May 26, 2004, 22:10
[home/hobbies/geocaching] I wrote a Perl script last night/tonight which solves a problem many Geocaching.com users might be facing. When you sign up for an account at www.geocaching.com, you have access to thousands of Geocaches hidden all over the world. But unless you pay for an elite subscription, you can’t download the special gpx files needed by so many of the software programs out there. All the information is on the free site, but the special gpx files with this information stored in a special format are not available. Until now, that is. I wrote a neat script which grabs whatever caches you want from the free section of www.geocaching.com, and converts this information into a gpx formatted file instantly. Anyone can use it. All you need to know are the waypoints for each cache. Put them in the URL like this: Notice how they’re separated by the veritcal pipe (|) symbol? Then view the source of the page and save it to your pocket pc, or other GPX reading device. I’m still messing with the formatting, trying to get it to display right in the software I’m using. I’m excited that it’s so easy now to get the GPX files you need any time, FOR FREE. ~Jason
Geocaching.com Perl Script
http://www.crookedbush.com/cgi-bin/geocache.pl?WP=GCGRPH|GC5473|GCGDQQ|GCJ62Y|GCGY8X|GCJ81R|GCJDGW
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Tue, 25 May 2004
May 25, 2004, 08:52
[home/webdesign] I spent some time last night and redesigned the look for NotationMachine.com. I’m pretty happy with it. It looks happier and more vibrant. Perhaps this will bring sales streaming in like the old days? ~Jason
Site Skin for NotationMachine.com
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Fri, 21 May 2004
May 21, 2004, 00:45
[home/webdesign] I designed the look and began uploading files to the new project I have called ShrimpUSA. It’s on hold while we wait for DNS to update— usually takes a coupla days. Stay posted. Oh, the really neat thing is I’ve got a few jobs through www.getafreelancer.com lately. Every one of them has been a fellow believer, and the last one was another music pastor! It’s so much nicer working with fellow believers (when they’re not cheap!). It’s like a big family. Jason
ShrimpUSA Started
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May 21, 2004, 00:42
[home/webdesign/perl_scripts/FileCABINET] Well, I’ve made a huge advance and learned a lot about processing cookies tonight. And about headers for XML, and so much more. Headers are such finicky things. You’ve got to send them at the right time and with the right information or everything gets mucked up. I was never too concerned about it before, but now that my scripts send XML to the browser, or cookies, they all need to handle headers just a little differently. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if I did what lots of other programmers do: multiple files to run a program. But I like everything consolidated into one file, so I have to use lots of brain-cells to figure out how the server will know what it’s supposed to do. I’ve spent a few hours and fixed up FileCABINET so that it has an integrated shopping cart. It’s cookie based, much better than what was there before. People won’t lose things from their cart like was happening before. Maybe more sales will result. Here’s hoping. I also have changed the text links to image links— but not sure I really like that yet. It does increase download times for the page. I used IE’s _search window (a special pane that opens on the left side of the window). I’m curious to know how various browsers handle this. Austin, that’s a challenge for you: try to fill up a cart at Intelliscript.net and tell me what happens. I’ve been SO BUSY with work lately. It’s good, and it’s bad (for my back). Night night. Jason
Shopping Cart Integration
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Mon, 17 May 2004
May 17, 2004, 21:00
[home/hobbies/geocaching] Today we began the adventure of Geocaching. Lucas, Seth, Shin and myself piled into the car, armed with information on the geocache locations and my brand new GPS unit. How exciting! Lucas sat in the front seat with the pocket pc and kept an eye on the coordinates. He was letting me know if we were going in the right direction to find the cache. We were all enthusiastic. Even Seth, strapped up in the back seat was visibly excited. We were on a mission; I think he could sense the growing suspense. Lucas indicated we were close, so I pulled into the nearest parking lot. We got out and began our search. We covered a LOT of ground. We went down the path, up the path, across a plain, through a swamp, all in vain. It was suprisingly difficult to make sense of these coordinates. We’d get so close, and yet one of the numbers were off. We didn’t despair yet though: we knew there would be a learning curve. It was quite funny: we took turns holding the unit, blindly following the moving numbers, with the other three right behind. Suddenly the leader would veer, and so would the followers, instantly adjusting course. We were getting nowhere. And all the time Seth’s patient little pitter-patter behind us— bringing up the rear. Finally we got so close. But we were standing in the middle of the parking lot. This couldn’t be right. We looked up, down, left, right— hopeless. “Let’s try the next one,” I said. I had brought a few geocache locations along, just in case we had trouble. We all agreed, and jumped in the car again. When we got out at the new spot I couldn’t believe our luck. “It’s right here, exactly!” I said. We had stopped at exactly the right spot. But no cache. We kicked around in the grass, but nothing. Again, the GeoCache had let us down. I looked at the notes again. “Something’s wrong,” I sighed. “It says we should be walking down by the falls, which is like way over there!.” I looked down again and read the notes. You can park at Albion Falls (Co-ordinates are North 43 Deg 11.996 West 079 Deg 49.274. I suddenly realised what was wrong. I had copied the locations of the parking lots! No WONDER there’s no GeoCache here! Next time I won’t make that mistake. We’ll have to try again another time. Jason
First Geocache Adventure
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May 17, 2004, 11:36
[home/journal] Add something to the ‘man-purse…’ My GPS came today and I cannot wait to begin Geocaching! Click the link to see all the Geocaches around my house! Whoopee! Jason
Add to the Purse
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Sun, 16 May 2004
May 16, 2004, 23:27
[home/journal] Hey Austin, Thanks for the link to the quiz. I took it too and came out
the same as you:
I’m Augustine Too!
“God will not suffer man to have the knowledge of
things to come; for if he had prescience of his prosperity he would be careless;
and understanding of his adversity he would be senseless.”
You are Augustine!
You love to study
tough issues and don’t mind it if you lose sleep over them. Everyone loves you
and wants to talk to you and hear your views, you even get things like “nice
debating with you.” Yep, you are super smart, even if you are still trying to
figure it all out. You’re also very honest, something people admire, even when
you do stupid things.
What theologian are
you? 
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Fri, 14 May 2004
May 14, 2004, 23:37
[home/journal] I’m tired of not being able to find the right solution to my man-purse dilemna. OK, I need to carry a bag that has all my stuff in it, cause I have lots of stuff. But I don’t want people looking at me thinking, “he’s carrying a purse; it must be his wife’s… is he carrying his wife’s purse? Is he gay?” What do I carry? I have an entire stereo system! Two sets of headphones and a headphone amp, twin speakers with that amplifier, MP3 player of course in my pocket pc. So there’s that, too, the pocket pc, and network card, modem, modem cable, 1/8” patch cord, adapter to 1/4”, and adapter to mono. There’s my wallet, money, cards, and keys. I have an RF transmitter for setting up my own little radio station— really! Sometimes I stick the digital camera in there. Then there are about four compact flash cards of varying memory sizes. Couple pens and a pencil. And I’m sure I’m forgetting something. I need some sort of bag to carry this stuff. But every bag I find looks suspiciously like a purse. I get the glances in the mall. People wonder if there’s lipstick in there, or a compact MIRROR! It’s a compact FLASH I say… This latest bag is so cool. It has leather and big hefty zippers, and lots of pocketses for my little toys. But Amy and Matt Collins say it’s a purse. It was only $3.99, so no loss, but how frustrating. I need a solution. Help? ~Jason
Quest for the Perfect Man-Purse
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Wed, 12 May 2004
May 12, 2004, 23:55
[home/webdesign/perl_scripts/FileCABINET] Still doing TONS of programming. I added a random feature to FileCABINET so that a ‘Today’s Highlight’ can be automatically generated, randomly choosing a script from the database. Last night I finally figured out the code to sort this multidimensional array on any column! Ugh, that was months in coming. What it means is that I added a new field to the database called sort (different than order) which displays the scripts in the order of your choice. This is nice if you want to put one script at the top of the list for a few days. Next is to develop the cookie based shopping cart instead of the query string cart I currently use. Then I’m focusing on integrating the FAQ Engine script into FileCABINET so that Frequently Asked Questions can be generated online by users instead of through the current mail-me-using-a-webform method. Then I can order, respond to, delete, ignore etc these questions as I like. Gotta love programming. That reminds me, Law & Order programming is almost complete and looks like it’s going to be AWESOME. ~Jason
More FileCABINET Development
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Tue, 11 May 2004
May 11, 2004, 12:45
[home/journal] Happy birthday Amy, ~Jason
25 again?
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Thu, 06 May 2004
May 06, 2004, 23:56
[home/webdesign/perl_scripts/FileCABINET] I discovered something pretty cool today— when submitting software it’s much faster if you have a PAD file created with all your data in it. You simply point another site to your PAD file, and all the form fields get automatically filled in: name of program, name of programmer, company address, file size, description, keywords, etc. The list goes on and on. Not having to type this stuff in on every site makes a huge difference! I created a couple of PAD files (for NotationMachine and ServiceBuilder) using a Windows program, and it worked like a charm. It got me thinking too… what if I made the FileCABINET software I wrote automatically generate PAD files! It meant I had to learn a little more XML, but I was up for the challenge, and it paid off! Now every file in my downloads on Intelliscript.net has it’s own PAD file, and it’s created automatically every time the XML is called for. You simply add the script’s ID number to the URL followed by .xml and FileCABINET does the rest. For example, FileCABINET’s unique ID is 23, so http://www.intelliscript.net/FileCABINET.pl/23.xml I’m starting to feel a little cocky! ~Jason
Automatic PAD Files
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May 06, 2004, 23:49
[home/webdesign/perl_scripts] This is long overdue. I Finally had a brainwave last night about how to sync our Outlook church calendar with the getChurch.org web site. It’s easy! Simply export the data in tab format, and save it to the anonymous folder on our server. My script does the next. Once a day, when it’s first called that day, it FTP’s the church network, grabs the file and saves it to the getChurch.org server. Then it calculates todays date, and parses the tab text file, searching for the date. It displays a search box and all records containing todays date in seconds. Easy to implement, easy to use, and easy to search. I love it. Now I’m going to think about how I can write a macro for our Secretary that automatically exports the church calendar every evening. With that done, it’s a no maintenance solution. ~Jason
Outlook Calendar Script
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Wed, 05 May 2004
May 05, 2004, 01:18
[home/movies] Saw a really cool, though really violent movie tonight: Shaft. It was like watching a 70’s police drama. I loved the horns, cry-baby guitar, disco bass, wow. This was amazing. Snooping around www.imdb.com I realised that there is a whole series of movies called Shaft. Looks like a trip to the video store is in order. ~Jason
Shaft
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May 05, 2004, 00:59
[home/webdesign/perl_scripts/autofollowup] I finally finished implementing the JavaScript WYSIWYG email draft section in Auto FollowUp. I think I’ve tracked all the bugs down, so I’ll make it available on Intelliscript.net soon. This feels like such a big deal. This has been on my task list for over a year! Can you tell I’m really excited? Lots of cool programming breakthroughs lately! ~Jason
JavaScript Emails
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Tue, 04 May 2004
May 04, 2004, 20:51
[home/webdesign/perl_scripts] My content editor which I use on client web sites so they can edit their own pages has just been improved! Now when I set up sites for people, they can login and use a simple and familiar WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface for making pages. This includes uploading files, inserting them into pages, bold, underline, etc., font face and colour, justification, bullets, lines, and more. I’ve been looking for a great JavaScript HTML editor that is EASY to deploy. Most of them try to charge you lots of money, but this one is completely free, and works wonderfully. I’ve started by implementing it into my EditContent script in use on www.odca.org, www.internationalwomenshealth.org, www.getchurch.org, www.saddlecorrections.com, www.brucerepei.com, among others. I hope to add it to http://www.InternetBusinessFollowup.com’s AFU script as well so that emails can be drafted in HTML from the browser. Mind you, it’s only supported on IE 5.5 and above, but I can deal with that since 90% of people fit into that group, and I can always instruct my users to update their browsers. This is an important and exciting discovery. HOW COOL! Expect much more elegant posts from me now! ~Jason
JavaScript HTML Editor
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May 04, 2004, 08:33
[home/curiosities]
Blog Lines Is Great
If you haven’t tried it yet, I suggest you sign up for a free account at BlogLines. Austin first turned me on to it. It’s great.
Here’s how it works. I log in to Bloglines and all the blogs I like to read are listed there. (I can add new ones as I want to). If the site has new information, the title is in bold, followed by a number which indicates how many new posts have been made since I last read it.
Why is this so great? Well time is always ‘of the essence.’ Instead of having to visit Ian Perry’s or Joanne’s blog site every day to find nothing’s changed, (suprise), I view it all on one page.
Another nice thing is that if you visit their site in a pocket pc, it displays a special pocket pc formated page that loads really fast.
Finally, they give you a snipped of code to paste in your site which generates a blog roll!
The only negative thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes it doesn’t pick up the new post immediately, but takes a few hours to register it.
Try it out, it’s free, and you’ll love it.
~Jason
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May 04, 2004, 00:38
[home/pocket_pc] BibleReader - This is a no-brainer. I like to carry a couple of translations around for comparison, specifically Todays English Version, and The Message. I used to carry the Greek around too, but gave up on that.
Calendar - I put all my appointments in here, with fifteen minute reminders. My PPC beeps at me when I forget, and 15 minutes is just enough time to get most places…
Contacts - Emails, phone numbers, directions to homes, and stuff like that.
Notes - Odd scriblings that don’t fit elsewhere. Lyrics to songs I write, journal entries, ideas, doodles…
Tasks - This is the most important part of my organizing. When there’s something I’ve got to do, I put it in here. I check this list multiple times of day to be sure I can’t procrastinate on an item any longer.
GPS - This is ‘yet to come’, as I’ve just bought a GPS over the Internet and it hasn’t arrived yet. I hope to do GeoCacheing with it; going on hikes with the family to discover hidden treasure.
Handstory - Handstory is a simple little text viewer, and nothing spectacular in itself— except for the desktop extension. When browsing, I can highlight text, right click, and then choose ‘copy to pocket pc.’ Instantly the text is downloaded to my PPC and ready to go. Or, I can select text and copy it, then click on the Handstory tray icon near my clock to do the same thing. Neat eh?
Notepad - I use notepad to Journal in my own language.
Passman - This is where I keep all my passwords for the various sites, software, etc. that I use. One place to keep em means I don’t lose them… I HOPE!
PocketStreets - This is funny. Pay attenion now, this is complex. Microsoft used to give away this software for free, version 1.0 or something. It was the MAPS you had to pay for, and so it wasn’t much use on it’s own. Well, recently they reversed it. Now the maps are free, and you have to pay for the software. Only the new free maps don’t work on the old free software… unless! Unless you happen to have a slick little conversion program which changes ONE BIT in the maps to make it readable on the PPC. So I have free maps and free software. The only thing is, I want the functionality in the new program, so I’ll likely buy it eventually.
Reader - I only read Ebooks, which really annoys just about everybody I run into who like to read. They like books. They say they like the smell of them, the texture, the experience. I like the fact that I have half-a-dozen books at my fingertips at any given time. Currently Wuthering Heights, Dracula, and The Importance of Being Ernest are in my to read list.
CedeFTP and FTPView - These two programs are both on my PPC because I can’t decide which one I like better. They’re both FTP clients for connecting to the church or my home networks over the Internet.
FTP Server - This is for turning my little PPC into a server so I can grab files off of it when it’s on the Internet. I never use it, so this is more of a novelty item.
Inbox - My mail application for sending an checking Internet mail, or syncing up with office mail through the cradle.
Internet Explorer - Guess?
Messenger - This is a chat application which I hardly ever use because I hate being… excuse me?… interrupted.
PocketFeed - Lets me grab RSS news feeds from friends blogs etc., and read them from the pocket pc. I have to be online to sync up.
RSS Viewer - Lets me grab RSS news feeds through ActiveSync, and read them at my convenience.
TCP/IP Address - A little app so I know what my IP address is.
Mobile Painting - Omm, for painting. Amazing program and you can do just about anything apparently. I’m not so good yet, but I like the program kinda.
Pictures - I can view a slideshow of all my sweeties, zoom in, crop, rotate, read my digital camera, etc. with this cool little program. It came with the Dell Axim X5.
Playlist Editor - For editing playlists.
Pocket MVP - I love this. I sometimes don’t get to watch a rented DVD with the family, so I’ll rip it, and send it to the pocket PC as a DIVX, then watch it bit by bit 10 minutes at a time over the next month!
Windows Media - MP3s, AVIs, and WMAs.
Pocket Excel - I keep track of mileage for work using a spreadsheet, then sync up and print it.
Pocket Word - Don’t use it a lot, but handwriting recognition in this program is killer.
PocketMoney - Don’t use it, got it free when I bought my folding keyboard.
SprintDB Pro - This is INCREDIBLE. This is easily the best piece of pocket PC software I’ve even owned. It’s basically a little pocket Access database with it’s own kind of programming basic. I am still learning but it seems there is no limit to what you can do with this program.
ActiveSync - Just lets you sync up with your desktop computer.
AvantGo - For grabbing web pages while you’re in the cradle, so you can read them anywhere.
dotPocket - I like this program, but it’s just expired and I haven’t bought it yet. dotPocket lets you change the width and height dimensions of your pocket pc, then control it from your desktop. Basically, your pocket PC becomes your desktop, so that your mouse and keyboard interact with it. It’s great.
ezyUnZIP - For zipping and unzipping files. Great if I download something while surfing with the pocket pc, and want to view or install it.
PHM Registry Editor - For hacking your registry. Don’t use it much.
Reminders - The 2003 Pocket PC doesn’t keep beeping if you don’t respond right away. I guess it’s trying to save batteries, but I like to be able to have it repeat the alarm until I hear it, so this program restores that feature.
vxUtilities - Network stuff like ping, finger, etc.
Rotating Playlist - When I sync up in the cradle, my 128 MB SD Ram card fills up with new mp3s from my music collection. I’ve always got new tunes to listen to!
What To Do With a Pocket PC
I am always interested when people describe what they use their computers for— the software they use, the purposes they serve. I thought it might be fun to outline some of my pocket PC uses, and perhaps make some of the software available here for people who can’t find it on the ‘net anymore.
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Mon, 03 May 2004
May 03, 2004, 16:35
[home/music/recording]
Personalities
I just finished my second recording session with Joe Finnocio. He’s an amaazing arranger— does a great job with big band stuff.
We recorded last week and this week for his son’s upcoming wedding. He’s very particular and perfectionistic— (though he says he’s getting better!! ) It can be a challenge when I think something sounds just great, and the other person says, “hmmm,” but we managed through it and really ended up with a terrific end product.
What I was so suprised about was how good the Peavey DPM3 SE sounds were. We used the Korg Trinity for strings, electric piano, percussion, and pads, and used the Peavey for brass, sax, and the bass too. I’m amazed at how good it came across.
Anyway, a long day, but I made 60 bucks, so not a total right-off.
Thanks Joe, if you ever read this, for asking me to do this project. I’m learning something, and enjoying myself. (Despite appearances.)
~Jason
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Sat, 01 May 2004
May 01, 2004, 00:08
[home/webdesign/perl_scripts] So Austin, take a look at this and see if you can implement it. I’d love to have your site on my PPC.
ATOM to RSS
I’ve been wishing that my friends Amy, Austin, Brian, Al, etc., had an RSS feed so I could read their blogs anytime from my PPC in the format of my choice. RSS is great.
Problem is, Blogger makes you pay for RSS feeds, and instead gives everyone ATOM feed for free. Yuck.
But while snooping around about this tonight at 12:07 a.m. Saturday morning, I stumbled upon this site, which describes how any Blogger user can make the modifications themselves easily.
~Jason
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