Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
4:29 Policy
I got this today for my daily devotional, and it really hit home - I think it's applicable to not only curse words, but all words and the attitude in which we say them. And, as a dad, I feel this is really important for the little ones - amazing how much influence a parent has on their offspring...
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
iPhone apps I want to get
This is just a little list I'm creating for myself - I'd like to purchase these iPhone apps, but I'm too cheap to do 'em all at once...
Camera+
Hipstamatic
Filter Mania
Color Splash
FX Photo Studio
Tiltshift
iMovie
Skyfire Web Browser - Plays Flash!
LiveSketch
My Sketch
Expensify - Scan your receipts and track your expenses. Automatically generate expense reports.
I'll modify this as needed; hmm, maybe I should make this a page instead...
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Struggling with Python
My struggle with the Python Language has been ongoing for a few weeks now. Prior to this experience, I have virtually no experience in any programming language, save HTML/CSS, and a little bit of PHP, if you call reverse engineering valid experience. As far as the HTML, I don't consider programming, although I'm sure people with a lot more CSS knowledge and talent would disagree with me; but I'm speaking to my abilities here.
Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun trying to pick up what I can and solve the "puzzle" that's set before me at work. I've been digging through books, tutorial sites, python.org, the help manual, forums, friends, and strangers in an attempt to get past one issue that I've been facing. I was able to write the "bottom" 3/4s of the code in relatively short time - let's just say it was easy enough... my problem was the initial decision point.??
To make a long story short:
I have an input field which can be a number such as "99,999" or "200' BELOW ..." - it comes in as a string. I needed to first check if it is a number, then do something with that; and then go into the "string" evaluations (bottom portion of the code).??
I went through several different methods of trying this - never could come up with a valid output... I bounced ideas off my boss, my co-workers, several people I know that code in other languages - as sounding boards - and came up with even more ideas/theories to try, all to no avail. I finally hit up a messageboard [http://www.python-forum.org] and posted a message there which was quickly answered by a few different people with different things to try that I hadn't come across. I tried them and they each accomplished a part of what I needed.
Frustrating.??
I mean I'm still having fun trying to solve the puzzle - but I'm just about exhausted from this one issue... So I'm sitting at home tonight, just taking it easy and catching up on some DVR material... when it hits me...??
Without boring you with the silly details, I went back to the basics and did a simple if-else statement and ended up solving the issue - I'm so excited, thrilled, and happy - yet feel silly because it was such a simple fix that I never even thought of. I don't know if this is common among "programmers" - but I will always remember, from now on, to look at the simple stuff first!
Glad to have found all the resources I have thus far - and I'm sure I'll need them again (SOON) in the future.??
What is that thing they say?... K.I.S.S. - keep it simple, STUPID!
Monday, August 1, 2011
Weekend Warrior'n
I spent the majority of the weekend hanging out with my brother, nephew & nieces, my family, and my iMac.
I am currently working on two different websites, one is a brand new site; while the other is a complete redo of one I built over 4 or 5 years ago.
I had committed to having something up on the server for the latter, so the powers that be could get a glimpse into the direction of look and feel, so I spent about 8 hours straight, yesterday working on this site. Normally, I think I would have been able to accomplish a lot more in that amount of time; however, as you can see in the pic, (at the bottom, that’s the top of my netbook) I was having to use my netbook with Photoshop to do all my graphic work, save that to my server, then go grab it on the Mac and move it into the MAMP directory so I could use it in my page… The main problem I have, is that I have only a windows copy of Photoshop – this makes it really hard to get into a workflow like I’m used to. This is the first time I’ve done a lot of work, without having a windows machine that I’ve done most all of my web/graphic work on… I’m used to it, my workflow is great. Until the only windows machine you have is a netbook (10” screen)… I made it happen, but it really pointed out a lot of things to me.
First off, on the iMac I’ve found that Aptana is an excellent tool for writing web pages (even has a python extension) – probably one of the best that I’ve used thus far (keep in mind, I am limiting myself to FREE apps). But it is different than what I’m used to – so it took a little getting used to – but the biggest issue I have with it is that the background of the code is BLACK… I HATE THAT! I spent a little time looking for an option to change it, but I haven’t found it on the first pass.
Secondly, I realize that I need to get on the stick and order Photoshop for the Mac. It’s horrible to use two different machines (diff OS’s) to do work like this… let alone that I have about 6 inches to do all my graphic work (real-estate-wise).
Thirdly, I need to start saving for a Mac Book Pro - I like to be able to move around and get comfortable when I’m working on things like this – remember, this isn’t my day job – and my weekends and evenings are family time – so I’d like to at least be able to sit in the same room as the rest of my family. Plus, the close-up-in-a-computer-armoire is located in the kitchen/dining area. This is an area that we don’t have a lot of airflow from the A/C going – so it was quite hot all day.
Eventually, I finished up the initial page for a sample of look and feel, uploaded it to the server – and sent out a link. I’m awaiting their feedback. As for the other site, I’m hoping to finish it up tonight or tomorrow – there’s gonna be some jscripting, so it may take me a bit to hack my way through that… once that’s done, I’ll have that online and we’ll be done with it for now.
Python/Model Builder > the first 2 weeks
I've??been working in both Python??and Model Builder, since my python script(s) reside in a model. I???ve been pretty impressed thus far with both ??? though I???m still right in the middle of newbie central??? I find myself digging through all the books I have, as well as the interwebs???????I've even joined the Python Users Group Mailing list in hopes of picking up on things I need help with, and to be able to ask questions when needed. (The list does get more Spam than any other list I'm apart of; maybe because it's so big?? But they really need to do something about that!)
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At this point, my goal is simply to rewrite the VBA code into usable Python so my toolbox will run in Arc10; eventually, I???d like to rewrite the entire model in Python (less moving parts, less dependency on Arc versions ??? plus, the script can then??be executed on a virtual server).
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At the end of our python class, I had a major complaint that we shouldn???t have used the last afternoon going over python that wasn???t directly related to Arc ??? well, last week I found out why she had the class set up that way???.
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When it comes down to using python to pound through your data/tables, Regular Expressions are inevitably necessary??? I have been backward and forward through that section of the book, and now hope that I can find a class that picks up with Python where that class left off. While I???m using python in my model, at present I???m using a Field Calculator with python code, which is awesome because I don???t have to worry about setting up a loop to run through each row ??? just an FYI??? There are some limitations of doing it that way, but for the record, you CAN import modules while in Field Calculator ??? tested this last week. I???m down to the knitty-gritty in the first implementation of code, but I???m stuck on one issue ??? the ???DEPTH_FROM??? field in the Property_Tract_Status table, in some instances, has words (which I???m successfully parsing through) and in others there are numbers.
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You???d think the rows with numbers would be easy to deal with numbers, right? Well, there???s a huge catch??? The numbers have commas as thousand???s separators??? effectively creating what???s known as a ???tuple??? in python.
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My hope is that I can use the split function and then strip the comma, then recompile into a number and then proceed through the rest of my code ??? I started this on Friday, but so far have been unsuccessful?????
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I found an IDE that I think far superior to PythonWin?? and IDLE > it???s called PyScripter (http://code.google.com/p/pyscripter/) < it???s freeware, and it works like a champ ?????it lets you navigate through the functions, objects, and imported modules. I'm now using it exclusively;??although, I usually have all three IDEs open (PyScripter, PythonWin, & IDLE), since using IDLE for ???help()??? is the fastest/easiest way to get said help (on things/functions of python outside of ArcPy)???
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