Not being a natural diary keeper I've found the idea of blogging a bit weird frankly. As a result its taken me a long time to start writing another entry in my blog. But having discovered Qumana I'm hoping it's going to be a bit easier...
Technology
Since my first posting I've been playing with loads of bits and pieces. Currently at work I've trying out Geospatial searching using .net. Currently SQL Server 2005 doesn't support Geospatial types (e.g. box, line. circle, polygon etc.) unless you pay a hefty licence fee for a third party add on. As a result I've been using Postgres with the PostGis add on. I have managed to find a .net provider for Postgres from Npgsql which works great and have managed to get quite a good service to handle finding object relationships and distances etc.
I should mention that I'm not normally a Microsoft fan but for the first time ever the search stuff has given me a chance to play with .net and Visual Studio etc. On the .net front I'm quite impressed (though there are several places where you just end up questioning why something has been designed a certain way!). What I'd really like to do now is work out how to get the same applications running on Mono and Apache.
This of course Geospatial searching has allot of similarities with navigational systems and as a result I'm getting quite interested in using a similar approach there. Which I guess needs some explanation as my site hasn't got any details on that yet. Basically the idea is to build an Opensource set of services that form the underlying framework for navigational systems (complying with both NMEA but also seeing if there are open XML standards for communication). After which I'd like to build the user interface section to handle setting up of co-ordinates, mapping etc. If any one else is interested in this then please get in contact here
Otherwise I've been playing around with Del.Ico.Us which I really like and have included my tags on the site here (mostly because I can...). I also had a play with Geni which you can use to create your family tree. Looks like ultimately you'd be able to link up tree's with other people's. What's annoying is that there doesn't seem to be any way of linking it to say Linked in or Plaxo which would be way more useful.
Which leads me onto a general technical rant - I really like Plaxo and I use Linked in - why don't these guy's work out a way to talk to each other and for that matter to other systems that use common data. This is a real pain....
OK rant over. On a different subject - I've been playing with Drupal and I now have pictures up and hopefully over the next few weeks / months I'll put all that stuff online. I will also start putting up some of the projects I've been working on so that people can see the code and download it / use it I guess.
General
That's enough about technology. I currently have a DIY project to build some cupboards which is easy. I built those a while back and if it wasn't for the arrival of small children I might of finished them. Sadly I designed the cupboards with a couple of curved doors to try and improve the overall look and blend them into the room better. Needless to say the flat doors are up and working but the curved ones are taking a little time... Hopefully I'll get some pictures up of the approach I've finally taken and the various trials we've had (my dad's an excellent carpenter - sadly he feels that as I designed something quite so stupid I should build them - but he has at least helped with the approach).
Otherwise the house is still in disarray - all the big things (i.e. plumbing, wiring, insulation, etc.) were done when we moved in but now all the smaller things have to be completed and that's not easy with children (which I find way more fun that doing the house!).
Powered by Qumana
