Archive for May, 2007

Scarily I’ve now been building web sites for a living for ten years. I get asked by friends who need or want a web site to help them. Here are a few of the free things you can use or may be using already without realising it.

1. Linux and Apache. A web site needs a web server running on an operating system and this pairing has become very popular.
2. HTML and CSS. Where would the web be without these two easy to learn mark up languages? Gopher? Gopher Holes?
3. JPEG, GIF and PNG. One of the things that helped HTML win over the alternatives: it allowed pictures to be easily included.
4. Perl and PHP. In the early days it was Perl was the gaffer tape that held the web together. I used to write a lot of Perl. PHP took over as it was better suited to the job. I’d now say PHP’s Smarty templating engine as one of the technologies that will keep the web moving. I just wish it had appeared earlier. My life would have been a lot easier.
5. MySQL. This has become the ubiquitous database for web work. I spend most of my time working on Oracle Databases. I know that makes me odd.
6. RSS and Atom. Want to syndicate your content? These two have become the syndicators equivalent of HTML. Now with Yahoo pipes and Widgetbox these are getting even more useful than just subscribing a feed reader.
7. Google Analytics and Analogue. Analogue has been around for a long time. If you’ve done log file analysis it’s not a bad tool. Google Analytics works by visitor tracking. Web sites used to pay thousands of pounds a year for this. So Google gave it us free. Thank you Google.
8. phpBB. Need a web forum? phpBB has become the forum and it’s pretty easy to set up.
9. Drupal, Mambo, Joomla, WordPress etc. There are lots of free (often PHP and MySQL based) content management systems out there that are getting easier to set up and easier to use. With these the web will be a place anyone can create a web site without too much difficulty.
10. Web Chat. There are several web based chat rooms packages you can set up for yourself. I use phpFreeChat. Just the one I happen to like.
11. Yahoo, Alta Vista and Google. Search engines let us find stuff. If they didn’t the web would have collapsed in on itself a long time ago. There was a time before Google. Shocking I know. A time when we turned to Alta Vista to organise the web or before that to Yahoo directory.
12. Web Services. Be it Web 2.0 social networking – MySpace, Facebook, Blogger and all the others. Free web e-mail Hotmail, Gmail and Merseymail. Free web hosting (well they’ve come and gone and now a new wave of them seems to be appearing). Information sites like Wikipedia and Squidoo. Forums like Renderosity and Cornucopia 3D. The list goes on and on. Some succeed others fail.
13. W3C. Where would we be without the World Wide Web Consortium gently steering the ship in the right direction? They don’t just tell us how HTML shoud work they give us handy tools including the validators and tools to help us make sure it all works.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

An architectural concept render with a sky from Bruno’s wonderful From Dusk Till Dawn set for Vue 6.

Edit: You can now download the tower model for free: Free Tower Model for Vue

I like to post my day’s blog on the day. It’s for but somehow I’m playing catch up again. Yesterday was more of the same from Sunday – wxPython and Boston Legal.

Really bad weather all day and in to this morning. Heavy rain and hail during the day with the odd crack of thunder. More thunder during the night. Then heavy rain on my way to work this morning.

Tonight I plan to make inroads in to the wxPython book as I’ve reached a section where I can start playing with code.

Its taken me most of today to get to this which given today was a rather gloomy bank holiday it shouldn’t have. I split yesterday between wxPython in Action, Boston Legal and Mambo.

Mambo in some ways was the easiest of the three as I got it up and running with only two references to the support documentation. One to get the WYSIWYG editor working and one to get SEO friendly URLs working. I’m not going to use it for the impworks site but I’ve been asked about it at work a couple of times and it seems like it might be the tools to help friends who want to make web sites but don’t want to fuss around with learning html create their own sites.

wxPython in Action is a well written technical guide to using wxPython! By the end of the day I’d ploughed my way to past page 100 and not written any code. I have covered a lot of theory which given my past track record with learning to code GUI applications is not a bad thing.

Boston Legal has given me a convenient opportunity to relax between chapters. Kim recommended it to me. Well more told me I had to watch it. Repeatedly. She was right. Other than the annoying theme music I’m really enjoying it.

Usual saturday chores and on the shopping list was a Lazy Susan or a similar rotating stable surface for a computer graphics project. Why did I need a rotatable stand all may become clear (or if it doesn’t work it wont). I ended up hiking round Liverpool’s shops trying to find somewhere selling one and that wasn’t enhanced. In time honoured fashion the one place I didn’t try on my way past and that I only decided to look in on the way back to catching the bus because it wasn’t out of my way was the place that had one. Thank you Mr Wilkinson.

I’ve also been looking at the new map sharing features on Google Maps and this seemed an ideal chance to show how easy it is now to share an annotated map. To see how my quest wandered go to Google Map of My Quest. Clearly there are many more useful things you could do with this and you can also share your maps as part of their search.

I’ve updated my Vue Python Mass File Conversion Script to include support for Vob now e-on have updated Vue 6 Infinite. I’ve also added support for Poser files as an import format although that was really just a change to the documentation.

1. Blue tit
2. Blackbird
3. Magpie
4. Sparrow
5. Crow
6. Heron
7. Mallard Duck
8. Pied Wagtail
9. Robin
10. Swift
11. House Martin
12. Pigeon

13. Common gull

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Made using Vue 6 Infinite (although this could have been made in any version of Vue) with a water plane, a bit of fog in the atmosphere, a couple of meta clouds and a plant from the wonderful new set of Realms Art Wetland Plants.

• Alison
• Angel Mama ( Pearls of Wisdom)
• Patois
• Kellyology
• The Simple Times In Life
• Jarid and Caydon’s blog
• Bobbie
• And Miles To Go…
• amy

I ment to post this explanation night but I was really tired so I had an early night and couldn’t get to sleep till well past 2AM. Anyway less of my problems you didn’t come here to hear me moan on…

The picture I posted last week for Wordless Wednesday, Duel 2 that several people said looked like a computer game was made using Poser and Vue. It was a rework of an earlier picture of mine, Duel. I decided to change the angle a little so rather than looking at the characters with a conventional photographic angle I’d look down on them from above. I also removed a lot of the objects that were already in the scene as they wouldn’t be visible with a steep downward looking angle on the scene but would be using precious computing resources.

However the image was now rather plain and empty with only a couple of characters on the dock in view so I added some clutter to make the setting more interesting. I also changed the water so it was more dramatic although I think it could still do with some more work. I also used SkinVue to try to improve the character’s look although I’m not certain it really made a lot of difference to this picture, if I improve the lighting it will probably have been worth the effort. I fiddled with the light a bit because the original lighting cast shadows that hid some of the detail in the picture. I may play with the lighting on this one again as I’m not really happy with it yet. Finally I rendered it and posted it here.

The following products were used in making the picture:

• Michael 3 Base (Now Available Free at Daz)
• Michael 3.0 Head & Body Morphs
• Victoria 3.0 Base
• Victoria 3.0 Head & Body Morphs
• Pirate Pack for M3
• Wharf Construction Set: Piers
• Pirate for V3
• Buccaneer Gear
• Swashbuckler Pirate Poses
• Wharf Clutter
• Pilot boat
• Port crane
• Oars and Paddles
• SkinVue6.2
• SkinVue6.2 DAZ Character Plugin

Kim’s first fantasy story (stop sniggering at the back) came out today. I read Nimue’s Price a few months ago before it went to be editor and really, really enjoyed it. If you like your fantasy with a twist or your Camelot a little unexpected I’d recommend it. In fact even if you like your fantasy straight and your Camelot straight out of Le Morte d’Arthur give it a go. You know you want to really.

You can buy it now from My Book Store and More for around $2.50 .