A Yankee in Texas

Last night I was a bit restless so I got up and decided to start breaking the grubfi.com project down in to pieces. I came up with four major areas that will need to be developed:

1) User Management: Since the point of the site it to let users add new locations and submit comments/reviews it’s necessary to have people register as users to help prevent and control abuse of the site.

• Registration Form: This should be pretty self explanatory, but its the form that is filled out to request a username and password on grubfi.com. Once the form has been properly filled out the data will be stored in the database as a registration request and an email will be sent to the email address supplied to the user.
• Registration Validation: When the user receives the email they will be instructed to click on a link to activate their registration. At that point they will be a valid active user on grubfi.com.
• Login/Logout: The code that validates users and sets a cookie on their browser. In the logging out process the cookie is unset and the user is no longer logged in.
• Lost Password: Inevitably a user will forget their password so a script must be provided for either retrieval or resetting of a users password.
• Edit User Information: Change of password or email. Also the editing of any user profile data that I might add.
• Upload Avatar: I am still up in the air about this and it kind of falls under user information, but uploading images has it’s own set of problems and risks.

2) Location Data: Users will be able to add, edit and comment/rate locations in the grubfi.com database.

• Add a Location: This will be a form that will ask for all the information needed to add a location to the database.
• Edit a Location: The location data will be editable by users so if something is inaccurate or has changed it can be edited by any user. That being said there will be a level of version control so that if needed the entry can be rolled back to a former version.
• Upload Images of the Location: Unlike avatars this feature will definately be included.

3) Comment/Rating System: The point of grubfi is not just to list locations, but to also provide a method of determine which locations are of what quality. The best way to achieve this is through a user comment/rating system.

• Add a Comment/Rating: This will likely be a simple form with a choice between 1-5 stars with a comment box. Comments will be required.
• Rate a comment: I am not sure if this is needed or how I will implement it. I kind of like the slashdot.com karma points system.
• Rate the Commenter: Again not sure if this is needed, but it does add an interesting aspect of community moderation

4) Search: So what good is all this data if you can’t search for what you are looking for.

Well, that is what I have so far…. more to come.

– Jeremy

I have been really dragging my feet on dedicating myself to a project outside of work. Programming isn’t just my job it’s my hobby, but I am pretty good at coming up with ideas and never finishing them. There is always an excuse… life gets too busy or whatever, but no more excuses. I am going to start development on Grubfi.com Feb 1st and I will be launching a beta version May 1st. I am dedicating myself to 2 hours of work a day on weekdays and 4 hours each day of the weekend. If I did the math right that should work out to 232 hours.

I am also going to put a budget of $500 on the project. The budget will be spent on some design work, probably, and advertising/marketing. The first version probably won’t have all the bells and whistles I would like it to have, but it will look decent and function. I am going to start the project by dividing it up in to smaller projects until I get to 1-2 hour chunks. Then I will apply those chunks to a time line and work from there.

What is Grubfi.com you ask… well I can’t tell you that yet, but I might have explained it in another blog post. Here’s a hint it has to do with food and free wireless internet.  Get it….?

– Jeremy

So Ben and I have our eyes on a new project. It’s actually something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, would’ve been pretty much impossible to do on Long Island which is launch a weather balloon with a small payload. The payload would consist of a GPS, a radio, a couple of digital cameras, some temperature sensors, and a flight computer.  The GPS would be for tracking and reading altitude, The radio would be a 2 meter “HAM” radio for sending data packets to the ground for tracking. The digital cameras would take pictures on the way up and down. The temperature sensors would umm… yah know measure temperature. Finally the flight computer would control it all.

Here is an example of what we’d like to do.

Who knows if it will ever get off the ground or end up like any other Ben and Jeremy project… dead in the water.

– Jeremy

….no matter what you think of Texas it’s not that easy to get a gun… ok well I take that back… it’s pretty darn easy, but they aren’t handing them out when you enter the state like some people would like to believe. However, today I signed Nicole and I up for an NRA First-Steps Pistol class and I am also considering purchasing my first gun, but I will wait till we take our class before making a purchase.

Now I would like to take a moment to say that I did not grow up around guns and I was raised to believe that violence, of any kind, should be the very last option. I still believe that and I still consider men of peace like Ghandi some of my heroes, but also know deep down inside that if I needed to defend myself or my family from a threat I would do anything to do so.

I also believe that in my life time their could be a situation where the government might not be able to protect everyone. Feel free to call me a crazy tin hat wearing fool, but I think most people that know me know I am a pretty level headed guy. In the event of a catastrophe would good would it be to be prepared if any idiot with a gun could come take your supplies from you because you aren’t armed. Maybe I spent too much time in the Boy Scouts…. “Always be prepared…”.

I also don’t believe it’s good enough to go down to the gun shop, pick up a gun and never learn how to properly use it. So to me saying “Well if something crazy ever happens I will run out and get a gun.” What good does that do you if you have no idea how to properly use it. Those types of skills are developed over time though training and practice.

I will let you know how the class goes… it’s not till Feb. 16th. Oh, in case you’re wondering…. I am thinking of getting a Glock 19. The place where we are taking the course rents Glock 19’s so it will be what we learn on.

– Jeremy

Nicole and I went to see the movie “Juno” tonight. It is definitely a must see movie. It’s funny and at times a little emotional. The soundtrack is fabulous. I purchased it off at Amazon.com as soon as I got home. (DRM free MP3 downloads kick much ass) When Juno comes out on video it will definitely become part of my collection. In fact I wouldn’t mind going to see it again in the theater.

– Jeremy

…err… I mean Cloverfield. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but if you are wondering what to expect definitely think Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla. As far as good or bad.. I really can’t say it was bad, but the word good doesn’t come to mind either. I think you will have to see it and decide for yourself.

– Jeremy

I have posted several times about my wireless networking issues. Nicole’s computer is almost directly diagonally across the apartment from the router and after passing through several wall the signal is crap. I tried aluminum foil and I purchased some “larger” antenna, but nothing seemed to help in the long run.

Today I was reading an article on Lifehacker about Tomato. Tomato is third party firmware that among a bunch of cool features allows you to turn up the transmitter power on your wireless access point (WAP). Now cranking it all the way up will most likely burn out your WAP and piss off your neighbors in short order. The article on Lifehacker suggested turning it up to 70 mW from 42 and that’s what I did. It seems to have helped.

Prior to me doing anything the signal was at -70 db… after it was -60 to -65 db. The laptop listed the connection as “Very Good”. Now I will leave Nicole to “test” it. I am sure she will let me know if it’s still not working. I will be keeping a close eye on how warm the WAP gets, but I am not too worried.

– Jeremy

So if you don’t know what Macheist is go check it out… for people who own a Mac it’s a cool fun way to get a nice bundle of applications for a low price. The catch is that some of the, arguably, better software has to be unlocked. They are unlocked by the number of bundles sold. So anyway I thought it would be cool to keep a running hourly average and estimate how many hours or days it will take to unlock the 3 locked apps.

And I give you The MacHeist 2 Unlock Estimator.

– Jeremy

… the game is afoot!! I am sorry for the lack of posts the last few days. I have been concentrating on my lifestyle change. My diet is going well and next week I am looking forward to adding some light resistance training to the mix.

You can read all about it at 80in08.com 

–  Jeremy