Movie exchange site

Well, after talking about this project for quite a while now, I think I'm finally getting somewhere. However, I don't want you to think that I got somewhere on my own... that would be crazy talk. I actually found a similar product online, an open source software package to manage dvd collections and keep track of who they're loaned to.

Since I didn't design it, it's not customized exactly to my needs. So, I'm going to spend some time customizing the look and the functionality of some pieces of the site. In the meantime, though, I thought I'd post a few screenshots of the application - VCD-db. It's a really great piece of software.

Take a look at the following screens. They will show the loan system (in it's current state), the category listing, the category listing (image view mode), and the page that shows a dvd's information.

You'll notice that the dvd info page closely resembles the look of the imdb page (and references it on the page). It does so, because when you add movies you have the option of typing a title and having the site search the imdb collection for similar titles. If you find a match, click the format (DVD or DVD+R or Divx... etc.), the number of discs then click confirm and your title is added with all relevant imdb data including a dvd cover, if available.

It's a time saver when adding DVD's... though even with that feature it's still time consuming. However, now I can track my DVD collection (along with a printable list the next time I go DVD shopping).

The downsides seem to be that the loan system is a somewhat manual process. Providing a list of users in addition to a custom borrowee would have been nice. Also, the ability to request to borrow a DVD from the category or movie page would be absolutely great. Granted, this would require some kind of queue management, but I think it would be a huge feature.

Lastly, my biggest complaint initially was that the my movies page didn't show my movies. That's crazy talk. I added a little code to show them on the my movies page now.

Don't let these complaints mislead you to thinking that this is a poorly written or designed software package... it's not. It's a great package, and it's well designed from a code standpoint. I would just like to improve the usability of the site.

So, in summary, I now have a system that will let me do most of what I want. List my DVD's, allow others to add their collections, and then trade the DVD's if people wish to do so. I just have to customize the look and try to improve some of the functionality. The last step (which should be the first step) will be to find a system that can host the site... as my host doesn't support PHP 5, which is a requirement of Vcd-db.

Effective Software Performance Measurement

With my new employer I've had the chance to learn many new techniques and "best-practices" when developing software. The most notable being the (effective) use of CVS and the use of a program that will generate generic classes and stored procedures from a database table's structure. However, recently, I've developed my own method for measuring the performance of my applications.

I call it the state performance measure, and it works by using states to quantify how well a program is performing (start taking notes, Johnny). For example, let's say I'm working on a program that will allow users to choose from a list of students at LSU and print address labels for those people. If that program finishes loading by the time I can count aloud to "one mississippi", then the program needs no further performance engineering.

If the program works extremely quickly (let's just say the program can run its task in "1-ohio") , the programmer who coded it is an absolute genius. As an aside, if you are a programmer who consistently writes "1-ohio" programs, you should confront your boss with this information in hand and demand a raise.

You see, what I've done here is developed a method where you take out all the extra variables and unnecessary calculations involved with determining whether a specific implementation is appropriate. You needn't consider whether your program is extremely complex - calculating the 10,000th digit of pi - or as simple as a "hello world" program. You just pick the fastest machine at your disposal, run your program and if the desired task is completed by "one mississippi" you're golden.

I'm available for speaking engagements.

Nintendo Wii!?

What genius had a nueron misfire with the new name for the nintendo!? The Nintendo Wii?

Can you picture yourself, or your kids saying "Hey, you wanna come over and play with my Wii?". If I overheard my child (assuming I had one, of course) asking that of another of his friends (my hypothetical child is a boy) I would immediately put them in an intensive therapy program and cut them off from all Disney movies.

I can't even say, or even write it without a little piece of my manliness dying. One of my chest hairs just fell out spontaneously after writing that.

DVD Checkout progress

The site/project I've been working on recently hasn't really had even a mouse's share of my time lately. That time's been devoted to getting into a little better shape, cleaning things (baby steps...), and doing laundry. Well, tonight, and last night (since there was no premarital counseling last night) I got some time to work on the design of the main page of the DVD checkout site.

In working on this portion of the site I was able to get together a color scheme and most of a splash/login page. Here, for your viewing pleasure is the design I came up with...

If anyone can come up with a name that's better than media exchange (and it's media because I'd like to expand to trade books or CD's or any other media) leave me a comment. You can even leave a comment giving me a slogan of some sort... that's another area where I struggle sometimes.

Here are a few duds:

• Jojometal.com's mess of media
• community dvd collection: your little slice of communism.
• Jojometal.com's DVD Checkout site: guaranteed to increase your bust size by 3 inches.
• Media Mayhem

I'd even like to hear about some corny ideas if you've got 'em.

Advanced mIRC Integration Plugin

A few months ago I found the Advanced mIRC Integration Program which allowed me to copy the name of the current song in winamp. Since I wanted to post this info to my blog every once in a while, I set up the program to paste preformatted text each time I press ctrl-alt-z.

In order to format the now playing text in a way that I thought was visially appealling I created a class in my CSS file called "nowplaying" that creates a border, a green background and a monkey image in the background. The plugin automatically pastes this code for me each time I press ctrl-alt-z:

<div class="nowplaying"><b>I'm listening to:</b>
<br/>%name</div>

Note: %name is replaced by the name of the song currently playing in winamp at the time I request the plugin's text.

I had to go and reconfigure everything today because I reinstalled winamp without thinking a few weeks ago and had no record of what program I used to copy the mp3 info to the clipboard. Now, I'm back in action with the "I'm listening to" footer, so expect to see some more of those.

Gallery Remote slow transfer problems and lockups

I've been using Gallery for a while as my photo album on this site and it's done me well. However, I've always had a big issue with the gallery remote program that you can use to upload a big group of photos at once.

When you choose to add photos to your site you can use a form (html form), or a java applet (big or small version). The java applet is called Gallery Remote. This is the version I always choose because it supports uploading in large batches, and I can preview the images I upload... basically it just provides a heck of a lot more features than a simple form-based upload method.

After using it a few times, I realized that most of the uploads would stop after getting about halfway through the list of pictures I'd selected to upload. I never really knew what the problem was, but since I usually post the pics in haste after downloading them from the camera I never really took the time to look into the problem. I would just cancel the stalled upload and start a new upload session where I left off. It was annoying, but functional and I think it was the one thing that I didn't like about Gallery.

Well, today I looked to the Gallery site for answers and realized that the Gallery Remote has a downloadable counterpart. It's still a java-based program, but it has a windows installer and comes with ImageMagick, a program that performs image manipulations. After using this program for a few minutes, I can already tell that it's a much more responsive program. It uploaded about 50 pictures in a matter of a couple minutes... which will of course depend on upload speeds, but the "preparing picture for upload" message wasn't on the screen for very long at all.

So, if you're using Gallery and have had similar problems, download the locally installed version from the Gallery website.

Intermittent Server code 500 errors.

Thank goodness! Movable type recently posted an entry to their news blog to let their users know that they're aware of an issue I've been having recently.

I've been driving myself crazy for the last few days trying to figure out what's been causing my site to give me errors (premature end of script headers & 500: Internal Server Errors). I even spent some of my vacation time in Austin trying to discover the source of the problem.
I didn't get very far.

It seems that an upgrade to Cpanel has caused some driver issues with those of us using mySQL to store our data. This actually makes more sense to me, since I hadn't modified my installation of MT for a month or so. I didn't think I could have done anything to screw my blog up, but I didn't think that the folks updating Cpanel would introduce a bug either. Anywho, they're on top of the issue and I hope to see a solution soon.