Recent Articles
West Texas Weather
Jun 6, 2006 Firefox Mozilla, Just Stuff..., Mashups 4 Comments
I remember saying a few months ago, “I can’t wait until it warms up.”
This is not what I had in mind…
I looked, and the record high for this day ever is 107°F. I’d like to try and find out what the highest temperature ever recorded was.
On this page I also found a link to a Google Map Mashup showing all of the Weather Stations plotted on a map. This is a really cool mashup with custom icons to show the temprerature, windspeed and direction at each stationstats of each station.
Also, the Firefox Extension in the screenshots above is ForeCastFox. It’s a great non-intrusive plugin for the weather, a much better alternative to the infamous WeatherBug.
Visual Database Design Tool, Like Visio
Jun 5, 2006 Databases SQL, MySQL, Software 4 Comments
I found a great visual database design tool, DBDesigner 4, to help with creating databases. DBDesigner is an Open Source project and is published under GNU GPL, So that is great!
I’ve been using the software for a couple of weeks now and have found it very useful. It has actually helped me learn a bit more about indexes for your database tables. You create tables by using the table tool in the work space and entering your fields. Once you have multiple tables you can use one of the relation tools (1:n or n:n) and create connecting lines that represent the table’s relationships. Very Cool! When creating these relations, the program even adds the appropriate id field and index for the relation.
Last but not least, once you have created your database you can generate the SQL create scripts to actually make the database. Very nice! Something else I found cool is it stores your projects in an XML file. So backing-up and moving things around manually will not cause havoc.
It even has a Reverse Engineering feature which I have yet to use, but I imagine it will connect to your database, analyze the structure and re-create it in software.
I have found the interface to be a bit buggy. When creating/editing tables, sometimes the focus does not goto the field you click. Seems to get stuck, until freeing yourself by just clicking random fields and pressing enter. Doesn’t sound appealing, but easy to over-look once you start using the program. Hopefully it will be fixed in later releases.
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High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography in Photoshop CS2
May 30, 2006 Graphic Design, Guides & Tutorials, Photography, Photoshop Leave a comment
Recently I have been working with some Photoshop tutorials so that I can produce better graphics for my websites. Graphics have always been my weak area. In the past I’ve tried to use as much CSS as possible to cover that up.
I have learned the combination of some farily simple graphics and css can produce some fantastic results, as I have seen many examples of in WordPress Themes.
While going through these tutorials I ran across one for High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography in Photoshop CS2. After seeing some of the examples of HDR Photos, I can see how you can really make an ordinary photo look like a work-of-art and give a real professional photography feel.
Once I find the right photo and try the tutorial, I’ll post my results. Besure to link me to any you create!
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Site Make-Over
May 9, 2006 Just Stuff... Leave a comment
Hello all.
It’s been some time since my last post, quite some time. But I’ve been working on a new theme to the site, I call it SF Blueprint. I have some other new plans for the site, hope to get them rolling soon.
The Top Ten Weblog Design Mistakes
Dec 6, 2005 Web Development 2 Comments
This was a good one.
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
BTW… my site fails several of these points, 
oh where has the time gone?