Author: Joe

Categories
Development

Use Google My Maps to create KML data

While in the process of working on some nifty mapping stuff, I wanted to produce some KML data that I could overlay onto a Google Map. I’m so glad that Google My Maps will allow you to easily export your polygons as a KML file.

So easy, just go to Google Maps, go to My Maps and then create a new map. Then use their super easy marker and polygon tools. The polygon tool works like a very primitive pen tool, but is good enough to draw most buildings on a map.

When you’re ready to export what you’ve drawn on your map as KML just click on the View in Google Earth link and it should produce a nice KML file for you.

Categories
Development

Google Webmaster Tools

I’ve always been a fan of the Webmaster Tools that Google offers. If you have a website, you really should make use of some of the really nice features that they offer. The crawling and indexing information found there is great.

In early December they added some new features, with the Site Performance feature being one of the more useful upgrades I’ve found in a while. It can be found under the Labs section and shares very useful info about your site’s speed as well as how well or not so well you rank in terms of load times compared with other sites.

As a guy who continually tries to squeeze each and every millisecond out of load times, this is great information to know! They also offer suggestions as to how you can improve the speed of certain pages on your site as well.

While many of these features can also be found in YSlow as well (which is another must for any developer), it also does warrant a look.

Categories
Development

Mullica Hill Skin Care Joomla install/conversion

Just finished up converting Mullica Hill Skin Care’s site to be powered by Joomla. Their site was a series of basic html files setup in Dreamweaver, and the client had used a Joomla powered site in the past and wanted this site to be powered by Joomla as well.

Joomla is an open source CMS (content management system). It’s pretty awesome and has been an excellent solution for many people I’ve worked with.

The site’s design stayed the same, with barely any changes made to the existing markup with the change over. We’ve also included a blog for the client to use too.

“Let me just say thanks again for converting the site so quickly…it’s so much easier to use!!!:)”

There’s some amazing tools available now for site owners, and it’s always great when I can set them up with the right tools to make their lives easier while at the same time having a current site.

Categories
Books

Head First SQL

I’m a big fan of the Head First series of books by O’Reilly, and noticed that they had released one of SQL. My SQL skills are pretty solid to begin with, but you can never know too much SQL so I figured I’d have to pick up Head First SQL and give it a read.

Tech books for me almost always written for a complete beginner or an expert in the field. It’s rare that you find one written for someone who already has a basic understanding, but wants to learn a bit more. Head First SQL did a really good job of explaining the basics of SQL as well as the more complex aspects of SQL.

The chapters on subqueries and joins was great for me. Those are areas that I can always get better with. Also some of the early chapters reminded me of IN and BETWEEN both of which I’d pretty much forgotten about over the years.

Another cool thing about this book is that not only is it a guide, but it also serves pretty well as a reference as well. Explaining SQL isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but Head First SQL has done the best job that I’ve read to date.

Categories
Adventure Sports

Carousel Park

The Shepherd and I made a voyage to Carousel Park in Delaware today. They have a very highly rated disc golf course that we were determined to play. It was in the high 20’s and probably not the finest of days to be outdoors playing disc golf, but while not the finest of players we are probably the toughest (or most stupidest) disc golf players east of the Mississippi.

The park was huge! It’s a horse park, dog park, and a bunch of other things too. There were a ton of horses and little ponies there. They poop a lot, but luckily none was to be found on the course.

A lot of people had their dogs at the dog park, and I like dogs so that’s always a plus.

The disc golf course was very impressive. Some great distance and some insane hills really made it unique. It took a little bit to figure out the course the first time through, but that also gave me an excuse to sprint ahead to scout the course out.

I did manage to land a disc in the middle of a frozen pond, but was able to retrieve it by throwing out a life preserver with a rope attached and lassoed it in. I think I enjoy saving lost discs more than actually playing.

While a little bit of a trip, the course was so impressive that we will have to make some more trips out there. It’d also probably be wise to go when it’s a bit nicer out, it was so cold today.

Categories
Development

Insert swf into Joomla article

Joomla TinyMCE Editor settingsI was having a hard time with inserting a swf into a Joomla Article using the TinyMCE editor. It seemed pretty simple, just click the media button, set the path and  you’re done. That seemed fine and simple enough, but the TinyMCE editor was just displaying an image tage, not the object code that I was expecting it to render.

After some time researching this, and trying just about everything I could think of it dawned on me. I have the the Code Cleanup on Save setting for the TinyMCE plugin set to Never, so the editor was never converting the swf code to the necessary code to embed it one the page.

Simply setting the TinyMCE plugin setting Code Cleanup on Save to Always fixed it for me. It’s amazing just how often it’s something so incredibly easy that can be the source of a problem. I’m thinking of a fine script to fix it when all I had to do was simply adjust a setting.