Author: Joe

Categories
Development

Using a Spreadsheet to populate a chart with the Google Visualization API

I’ve been messing around with adding charts/graphs to web pages that can pull their data from a Google Doc Spreadsheet.  That way the chart is updated when the data is updated, instead of placing a static image of a chart on the page.  Conveniently the Google Visualization API makes creating attractive visualization of data fairly easy.  All you have to do is set up a Google Docs Spreadsheet, then do the following steps:

To get the data source url for Google Spreadsheet data sources follow these steps:

  • Create a spreadsheet in the format expected by your gadget.
  • Select the range of cells you want to display in the gadget.
  • From the toolbar, click ‘Insert’ and choose ‘Gadget’.
  • Choose an existing gadget or select ‘Custom’ as the gadget type, enter the URL of your gadget XML specification and click ‘Add’.
  • In the gadget title, click the arrow icon on top right of the title bar.
  • Choose “Get query data source url…” from the popup menu.
Then you can just call that data source url through some javascript on a webpage.  


Categories
Adventure Sports

Went Fishing

Went fishing the other day for the second time.  The only other time I went was probably 8 years or so ago, and it didn’t go too well.  I also think I may’ve had an orange Snoopy fishing pole growing up, but can’t confirm if I ever went fishing with it or not.  Can’t remember that far back if it was an actual fishing pole or just a toy, but it was orange and had Snoopy on it.

I did purchase a fishing rod for this momentous occasion at K-mart.  I have no idea if it’s any good or not, but I do have a slight feeling that it will catch me many a fish and perhaps sharks or something cool like that too.  It came with all the stuff to get started, so that was really cool.  

The Shepherd, Dustin, Joe and myself got some clams for bait and headed over to probably around 17th Street in Longport and began to fish off the Jetty.  It wasn’t too difficult, you just throw the hook with bait into the water and wait.  And wait.  Nobody did catch anything that day, so I blame the fish.

Someone started up a movie based game to pass the time.  While facing elimination, I was certain that Will Smith was in the film Philadelphia.  Everyone else playing said he wasn’t in the movie, So I asked some joggers to settle this argument.  They didn’t think he was in the movie and I was then eliminated from the game, which for the record is a stupid game.

Categories
Development

reCAPTCHA

I’ve been looking to reduce the amount of spam that web forms have been getting hit with recently. Figured that a captcha would be a good solution to determine if a human is in fact filling out the form and not some spambot.  I’m been hesitant to implement most of the captcha solutions I’ve come across due to their lack of accessibility.  For instance, most standard captchas require that you look at an image and then key in what it says.  This would prohibit someone dependent on a screen reader or a user who has images disabled in their web browser.

I’ve been messing around with reCAPTCHA as a solution and thus far have been very much impressed.  It offers and easy and very well documented means of incorporating a captcha into a site.  And it also offers an audio captcha for vision impaired users, which is great.  Also the submissions go towards helping digitize older books.  Might as well apply that extra time to solving a noble cause.  They also offer a library to work with most every server side scripting language available.

Categories
Adventure

Bought a Car

Finally decided to get a new car on Saturday.  My trusty 2000 Honda Prelude has begun showing some age, and was due for some pricey fixes/maintenance.  So it made sense to move onto something new versus pouring a hefty sum into my existing car.

After doing a bunch of research, the Nissan Altima Coupe seemed like a decent fit.  It looked cool, seemed reliable, is good on gas, safe, and fairly fun to drive.  I actually decided to go with the 4 cylinder instead of the mean 6, due to the better mileage and not requiring premium fuel.  I’m not sure it that means I’m getting old or gas is getting too expense or perhaps a combination of both.

2009 Nissan Altima Coupe
2009 Nissan Altima Coupe

The trip to Admiral Nissan wasn’t bad at all.  The main reason I’d been putting off this purchase was that I just didn’t want to deal with the who car salesman experience.  Never been a fan of the salesman.  However Doug the salesman at Admiral who I dealt with turned out to be a pleasure to work with.  Not too pushy, didn’t talk to me like a retard, and pretty straight forward and to the point.  Amazingly we came to an agreement rather quickly and things went pretty smooth.

Categories
Uncategorized

Goodbye Adrienne

AdrienneSadly Adrienne passed away today.  She was a one of the kindest dogs I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.  I can’t sum her up better than just the fact the she was a good dog.  Extremely friendly, gentle, obedient, and just one of the sweetest dogs. 

She was twelve years old and had some gray hairs to show for it, but her passing came rather unexpected today.  She will truly be missed by myself and all those who were so very fortunate to of met her.

Categories
Development

Blog Redesign

I’m in the process of redesigning this blog.  The basic colors and layout are in place.  There’s still a couple of areas I need to finish up.  No amazing new features in this upgrade, just tried to make things a bit cleaner and easier to read.

  • Widened the layout of the site
  • Increased font size and spacing
  • New colors used sitewide
  • Plan to make my portfolio easier to navigate too, but haven’t gotten to that quite yet.