mamaLove

Gallery Changes

I’ve been working on some changes to Amelia’s photo gallery. I’m implementing slimbox to the album page, so that the photos load on the same page instead of having to reload a new page for each picture. Should be much nicer.

Another thing I want to do is fix the layout of the album list. It will most likely look the same, but I want to fix the html structure so that it is properly loaded using css instead of using tables. I know I can do it. I just have to figure it out.

I also need to fix the video page, so that all the video clips are fed from YouTube.

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RoR

I’ve been a VB developer for 8 years, first in VB6, and now in .NET. I don’t know near as much though because I only know enough to get my job done. Of course, most people are the same way.

But I’m tired of .net development. I’m ready for a change and so far, what I’ve seen of Ruby on Rails (RoR), I like. It’s simple, it’s easy to develop with and it works. It makes sense. It does a lot of the work for you, too, which means no switching from here to there to get an app working and running.

Granted, my web design skills are somewhat lacking, but I need a change. I don’t want to do Windows development anymore.

I’ve been reading books and tutorials on RoR and I’ve decided I need to develop some sort of app as a way to get my feet wet and get familiar with the framework. It would also give me something to show, if I ever decide to try and pursue a career in RoR development. But I’m at a loss as to what to build. I’m not too thrilled with the idea of making my own blogging software.

I’ve thought about a few idea, but none of them really sounds appealing or useful. Maybe because software development, regardless of platform, is just not exciting to me anymore. I think the whole idea has lost its spark. It goes back to the desire to leave the computer industry behind and find a decent paying job where the computer is just possibly a tool to aid in my work, not the main focus. My job currently depends on the computer. If you were to take it away, I couldn’t get my job done. I’d love to find a job where it’s only there to aid me or guide me but I’m not dependant on it, like I am now.

But since all I know is software development, I must stick to what I know. I can’t afford to relearn a new career or new skills needed to switch my field of work. So I thought maybe switching language and framework would at least offer something fresh. So I choose Ruby on Rails. If only I could find some useful, meaningful application to attempt to develop so that I can get familiar with it.

Anyone have any idea? This app most likely isn’t something I would be releasing to the public, but maybe use only personally on my own site or and extension of.

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Design Work

I’m contemplating trying to do some design work on the side. Not necessarily for pay, but just something to do for fun. I’ve gotten away from web design and scrapbooking and I’m finding I miss it. I miss doing the graphical design work.

The only problem I have is finding the time. When I get home, I want to do nothing but sit and either knit or watch tv. After the baby goes to bed that is. But maybe it’s time to change it up a bit. At least a few nights a week, just get on and play with graphics for a bit.

Things I’m thinking about include digital scrapbooking, blog banners (using scrapbooking techniques), basic web design layouts and maybe just playing with some of my existing photographs. I just think I’ve been doing too much windows programming and it’s burning me out so bad that I need to change it up a bit.

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The Big Merge

Over the past few days, the husband and I have merged our music and our photos. Gasp! Combined we now have over 7000 images in our iPhoto library and our iTunes library ridiculously large. Unfortunately, he never really kept his music organized, so now there are a bunch of file with no album, track #, genre, etc. That frustrates me because I like having all that data in the music file. It makes it easier to create smart playlists for syncing to the iPod. So this weekend I will be spending some time trying to clean up all the music that he imported to my iTunes library.

We definitely have a variety of music styles in there from alternative to rock to country to jazz to kids music for Amelia. We even have some latin music and hip hop. And don’t forget all my podcasts, audiobooks and holiday music. There’s a lot in there that I have to weed through now.

Thankfully, merging the photo libraries was easy since he didn’t really use any of the “features” of iPhoto. I use keywords heavily and I give most photos titles. I use smart albums and create descriptions of the albums. All this makes it easy to keep track of what’s been exported to Amelia’s photo gallery. So importing his pictures was easy. Just exclude all duplicates and we’re good to go.

The only issue with merging iTunes, is that only one account can have iTunes open at a time (we’re storing the library in the /users/shared folder). So anytime we use it, we have to make sure we quit when we are done, so it doesn’t get locked in case the other person needs to get in.

I know what I’ll be working on this weekend. Organizing our music library. Fun times! Of course he’s out of town on his annual guy trip, so it’s just me and the baby for a few days. I’ll have plenty of quiet time after Amelia goes to bed to work on that between knitting and catching up on All My Children.

Posted to Family, Macs, Technology | 1 Comment »

Computer Girl

Amelia loves trying to click the keys on the keyboard. It’s a struggle to keep her away from the thing. We really need to start introducing her to the computer just so she knows it as a tool and not as a toy. It’s just difficult right now because she doesn’t quite understand enough to get it, but she sees us on the computer enough to be interested. She will click the touchpad and the keyboard keys endlessly as any toddler. Here she is trying to be a computer girl.

In other news, I’m in the process of trying to export my posts and comments from Textpattern, because at long last, I want to migrate everything over to Wordpress. I use WP for my knitting blog and I really like it. Ease of use although I don’t know much about templates. I’m just tired of having to mess with HTML and WP templates are easy if you download a pre-made one, and tweak it like I did for wifeKnits. I found a script that I tweaked, that will take my TXP posts/comments and create a movable type import format file. I’m hoping that will do the trick and I won’t lose all the comments that I’ve built up over the years like I did when I transferred all my knitting posts.

Posted to Motherhood, Technology | No Comments »

Needing Content/Critiques

I’ve never really had a problem of trying to find content for my site. I usually have such a simplistic style site that I usually have to cut back on content. Now with my new layout, I’m find I have holes in my sidebar where I need more content. It’s kind of sad.

Of course now that it’s up, I’m not too comfortable with it. It feels too cluttered. Funny how it never felt that way when it was in development, but now that it’s live, it’s a little overwhelming. I have a feeling it may not last too long. Or if it does, it’s only because I’m tired of working on the site and need a break for a while. Ha!

As you can see, I have an empty spot down next to my true mom confessions link. Just not sure what to put there. I may end up taking out the img and replacing the spot with something completely different. Any ideas? More pictures possibly?

So what do you all think? Please be honest, because I really need the critiques. Just don’t be too harsh.

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