Part 3 of the flood trilogy

Greetings

The flood wasn't important enough to warrant all of these posts, but I don't have anything better to talk about.

In conclusion, here is the last flood post. This is the email sent to friends and family.


Greetings I worked from home yesterday. I had a conference in West Palm Beach at 6:30. I left my house at 5:30 to make sure I could find the place, etc. I was gone for about 3 to 3.5 hours.

During that 3 hours, Boynton Beach (where we live) got between 10 and 12 inches of rain. I didn't know this. I was in a conference listening to a bunch of geeks talk about microsoft products. (Bless them all, every last one of them, including the microsoft products. All hail microsoft. But I digress.). When I got back to the community, I thought it was suspcious that the gate was open. I thought it was more suspicious that the streets and lawns of the main road had been replaced by a lake. And when I say "lake" I'm not being overdramatic in describing a puddle. We're really talking about a lake for as far as the eye could see (assuming you don't have bionics). I just sat there sort of dumbfounded for a few minutes. I called gina and asked her to look out front. Naturally, she was afraid of the rain and was hiding under the coffee table, but I persuaded her to grab her teddy bear and go to the door. She quickly confirmed my suspicion: the house was now on the paved shore of a newly introduced body of water. Huh.

(Side bar: I proposed that we call it lake of jay, but that was lame, so it was rightly rejected. Alternatives are still under consideration.)

I parked my car a few miles away at my brother-in-law's house and got a ride back to the gate. Then I trekked through the water back to the house. Fortunately, it was just water. I feared there maybe some distateful...shall we say, "material", which would've prompted me to stay at a hotel for the night. I walked on the high parts whereever possible. At its lowest, it was well over my ankle. At its worse (remember, of the high ground) it was up to my knee.

Anyway, it was unusual, so thought I'd share. I love rainstorms and, of course, I happened to be gone for the biggest rainstorm that has probably occurred since we've lived her. Bogus. And it was dark, so I couldn't get any good pictures. More bogus. Thankfully, the water only made it about 1/2 way up the driveway. Most of you have never seen our community so I can't really describe it 500 words or less. You're just going to have to trust me. It was odd.

By this evening, the waters had mostly receeded. Then it rained again, and things started to backup into big puddles, but nothing like what happened yesterday. Good times. The cleanup should be fun.

More info here: http://jayallard.blogspot.comThere are some links and a couple of posts about it. I don't really have much else to talk about, so I'm going to milk this for all its worth. Please mark your calendar for the first annual "flood rememberance" ceremony, tentatively scheduled for 1/22/2009.

Waterfront Update

Late this afternoon, the waters had finally receeded enough so that I could see the street in all directions. Then it started raining again, and everything got backed up again, though not nearly as bad. Rather than a torrential flood, it was merely a big puddle.

The streets and lawns are a mess. All of the debris floated up then landed in what I assume to be random locations. Someone's going to need a broom.

We're not in a flood zone, so I don't have flood insurance. I should probably look into it. Maybe it will be cheap because its not a flood zone. The water was a good 10 feet from the garage door, but it was still alarming. What if I was napping in the driveway?

Last night, I was walking through it (before I dropped the car off) to see if it was low enough anywhere to reasonably drive through. Bill was hanging out in the driveway, so I called him over. He came prancing through the water like he didn't know it was there. This is a dog that hates the pool, but for some reason walking into a flood is ok. Silly dog. Anyway, it was fun watching him run around in it. He gave up quickly and headed back to the house via our neighbor's lawn.

Sun Sentinel Flood Watch report
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-boyntonfloods0122,0,561434.story

10 - 12 inches in 3 hours??!!
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flpflooding0123pnjan23,0,840793.story

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/01/23/s1c_flooding_0123.html

http://www.wpbf.com/news/15118241/detail.html

There's probably 100 more, but you get the idea.

DvdFriend - Create Account

I took a break from the "other" project so that I could add the "Create Account" functionality to DvdFriend. I've put it off for a long time because I really just had not desire to do it. Its a page with some fields and some validations. Its painfully boring at this point.

The validations are minimal. When you create an account, it should send you a verification email, but it doesn't. Additionaly, it should validate your email address. It doesn't. Why not? Because I'm still not in the mood.

Even though its a meager, at least its in there.

Chris requested a link for "MY REVIEWS" so that he can see what he's done. That would be a good feature.

I started a BROWSE page recently, but didn't have time to finish it before deploying this version.

Unexpected Waterfront Property

I was supposed to go to the office on Wendesday, but that's not happening, so I had to inform the team. Email follows.


Greetings

So I went to a MVC overview in West Palm last night. I left my house at 5:30. The MVC stuff was interesting. I learned a lot, met some people, ate some pizza, and was feeling pretty good about the universe in general.

I was whistling pleasant Disney tunes as I approached my community. The birds were singing. Animated animals greeted me and smiled. It was darn-near utopia. What could go wrong, right? Nothing! It would take something truly awful to ruin this little slice of heaven. Then I passed the threshold of the community and learned that all of the pleasantness was merely a coverup to mask a tragedy that had befallen my abode and all those around it: Complete flooding (well, not really). I have reason to believe this scenario was orchestrated by god himself in response to an unfortunate code bug I wrote in 1986. I was new to programming. It was pascal. I thought he would forgive, but he didn't. Instead, he waited all these years and finally cast his fury upon me. At last, I have been smote.

Fortunately, the flooding only made it 1/2 way up the driveway, so neither my paper-mache howitzer collection, or my gremlins, are at risk. But, the roads are unpassable. I had to park at my brother-in-laws house, get a ride back, then swim home. I'm seriously considering giving myself a tetnus shot, but that would require more courage than I have readily available.
I have 3 regrets about this whole thing:

- I love a good rainstorm. Why did I have to be in West Palm for the doozy of all rain storms? Yet another facet of god's cruel joke. Had I not been in West Palm for MVC, my car would be safe in the driveway. (So maybe microsoft is to blame for inventing mvc?)
- Why does it have to be dark at 9pm? I'd love to get some pictures. Maybe it will still be there by the morning.
- they should have just called it Struts.net instead of MVC.net

So, I'm writing to report that due to transportation difficulties, I won't be in Wednesday as planned. Lets make it Thursday instead. Unless there's an earthquake in my driveway or a worse-than-usual firestorm in my bathroom, it should work out just fine.

Question? Comments?

Dog Food

I made 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I was hungry.
75% of the first sandwich is all I could eat before completely losing interest.

So, I shared 1.25 sanwiches amongst three dogs resulting in approximately 0.416 sandwiches per dog.

I say "approximately" to allow for an error of margin, but that's just a formality. In actuality, I was very careful about distribution of the 1.25 sandwiches. Thanks to modern technologies, I'm confident that the distribution wasn't only fair, but was also accurate. I used the latest industry tools for weighing, measuring, and cutting the remaining sandwich parts.

I intentionally neglected to consider the weight of the dogs. (There was not a dog-weight-to-sandwich-mass ratio in my calculations.) I figure they all deserve just as much regardless of their size. The important part is the joy of eating them rather than the nutritional value.

Leia ate hers in two swallows. She doesn't chew things when she doesn't have to. I don't think she fully appreciates what she's eating; she just wants to eat.
Fred actually chewed his, but did so in one sitting.
Bill took his allotment back to his pillow and laid it out. He then nosed it around and ate it in chunks. He's always been a connoisseur of fine dining, so his behavior didn't surprise me. (To be honest, I lied about nosing it around. He just dropped it.)

The "crumbs" remain an issue. I think I'll just throw them away. I've already done enough math for one day.

Blog readers? / New Side Project

It has come to my attention that there are actually people out there who read this blog. They are an elite few. Vadim said he found it by searching for something else altogether. Interesting.

Anyhoo, some people left comments and I have not, to this point, acknowledged them. That's primarily because I didn't see them, and I didn't receive email notifications. Notifications were sent, but I didn't get them because of my spam blocker. That's been resolved.

So, comment away.

Speaking of comments, Chris has requested a DvdFriend feature that would allow him to respond to people's reviews. Neutral and negative comments about certain comic based movies inspire him to educate non-believers in the errors of their ways. In the old site, you could leave comments. On the new one, you cannot, but I'll get there. Its a good suggestion. He also mentioned how he has his blockbuster and facebook linked together, and he'd like to do something similar with DvdFriend. I didn't completely follow because I was thinking about a cheeseburger, but I'll follow up. It sounded like an interesting idea. However, a cheeseburger was more important at that particular moment.

On Monday, I had a meeting that secured a side project. As usual, the hobby site will take a back seat to actual work. The upcoming project is pretty big, though I hope I can still pick away at DvdFriend. It really needs a CREATE PROFILE page, but I'm bored to death with doing those. When I need a break from the other thing, maybe I can commit to doing that. (Maybe commit? That sounds like a non-commitment)

The side project is an update to a system I originally built 6 years ago. Since then, I've been occasionaly recruited to add new features. (Those who know me know the project I speak of)
Over the last couple days, I've been working on setting up a development vm including:
- vb 6.0 (for the vb stuff)
- vs 2005 (for the .net 1.1 stuff)
- vs 2008 (for the .net 2.0 and, possibly 3.0 stuff if the project requires new code)
- Sql 2005. This was supposed to be sql 2000, but the install keeps hanging and I can't connect. The application is a SQL 2000 application, so I'll just lower the db compatability, assuming that the 2005 install works)
It started off as an asp/vb COM+ app, but has evolved over the years. Each time somethine new comes out, I use it for new development. The new project involves changes to the foundation of the app, so I will most likely be coding in asp and vb.

That's about it.





So the DVDFriend community is now active with three people. World dominations starts with three people, so we're on the right track.

DvdFriend Updates - Library

I've been working on other projects for a couple months now. I put both on hold last night so that I could work on DvdFriend for a bit.

Chris T has offered a lot of feedback on what the site should be able to do. Fortunately, most of the stuff he has come up with is stuff that the old site could do. Once it gets rebuilt in the new site, it should be better than the orignal.

LIBRARY / RATINGS
When you click a product, you go to the product page where it shows you all of the ratings, reviews, prices, and summary information. There's a new section that allows you to:
- Change your rating (if you already have one)
- Add a rating (if you don't have one)
- Edit or Write a review (depending if you have one)

The ADD A RATING isn't perfect. It brings you to the EDIT REVIEW page rather than offering the drop down list. This is because that in order to create a rating, you have to specify the rating type such as MOVIE, BOOK or XBOX 360. Products in DvdFriend don't have product types. They're ambiguous. That's good because it allows me to bind anything to anything. Its bad for situations like this where I would like to do something specific.

There's an EDIT PRODUCT page in the admin side of the site. I'm going to work on that (eventually) and add some default information.

You'll also see there's a LIBRARY section. Here, you can select what formats of the product you own. DVD, HD-DVD, BLU-RAY, BOOK, XBOX 360, etc. This list is too long, but will work for now. Once the concept of PRODUCT TYPE exists, the list will adjust contextually.

When you click a checkbox in the library section, it uses ASP.NET AJAX to save the call automatically. This isn't anything fancy; its just an update panel.

XBOX 360
By request, I added an XBOX 360 entry and an image, so now we can review and sell games. I added some prices. They went in as DVD. I'll change those to XBOX when I feel less lazy.

REVIEW SOMETHING
There used to be a REVIEW SOMETHING link and a SEARCH link in the menu bar. The search sucked because when you found a product, you wouldn't have a way to write a review or rating. So, then you'd have to go to the REVIEW SOMETHING page and search again. Lame. Really, that was just due to the fact that the product page was incomplete. It was lacking a lot of functionality. That functionality is now in there, so it should be a better experience.

I got rid of the REVIEW SOMETHING link altogether. I used to need that so that I could add non-product related entries, such as news items, rants, etc, but I haven't used it much, so I don't need it. If/when I do need it, I'll add it to the admin site.

NEXT STEPS
Now that the library stuff is in there, I need to make it more available. I'm picturing a BROWSE page that will allow you to look at products different ways. Immediately, it would be nice to list all of the HD-DVDs so you can just go down the list and click those that are in your library.

Once people have items in their library, the next logical step is to share the list with friends and co-workers. In the old site, this was called DVD COMMUNITIES. I'll have to start rebuilding that.

Also, I think its about time to open up the site. I currently enable users on an individual basis because I haven't finished all of the signup stuff. I should probably make that a priority.

In the meantime, if you would like to be able to login to the site to set ratings or write reviews, let me know.

The Death of HD-DVD?

Oh crap.

I spent $500 on the HDA1 HD-DVD player when it first came out. My goal was to be the coolest kid on the block, though I didn't go door to door to confirm. Not too long later, Microsoft created the HD-DVD drive for the XBOX 360. Once again, I rushed out to get it. $179.

Since then we have ammassed a pretty good collection of HD-DVDs. In fact, 8 of them came in today due to a BUY 1 GET 1 FREE sale at Amazon. I ended up with Dante's Peak to round out the bunch, which I'm not proud of.

Ah, heck... why not. Here's the list of 8
- Fearless
- Breach
- Meet the Fockers
- Dante's Peak
- Knocked Up
- Assualt on Precinct 13
- Traffic

Dante's Peak is easily the weakest of the bunch, but the special effects should be pretty good in HD. Meet the Fockers was a hesitant choice, but its funny.

Anyhoo, I'm going to guess that we now have approximately 20 HD DVDs. That's a few bucks.

So, I'm invested. I knew there was a format going on, and due to my rabid hatred of Sony, I backed HD-DVD. I doubt my investment in the technology caused any perceivable ripples, but I did my part.

I never agreed with the "lets see who wins" approach to the format war. HD-DVD players got pretty cheap, especially if you own an XBOX. Rather than wait for a winner, people should jump in the ring and fight. A lot of people can't due to the cost, so we'll leave them alone, but if you're a technology nut with the means of picking one, then pick one.

Ah, the War. At the beginning of the summer, it felt like that BLU-RAY was winning. By the end, it felt like HD was winning. Paramount and Dreamworks signed exclusively with HD-DVD. Michael Bay made a ruckus about this, then retracted his comments the previous day. (That was actually kinda cool. He didn't try to pass it off as misunderstood, or something lame. He put it down as a rash remark, and moved on.)

Somewhere along the way, there were some stories stating that Blu-Ray wasn't going to allow adult movies. If that turned out to be the case, then I'm confident that HD would've won. The adult industry is a billion dollar industry. (Or more. Maybe less. I don't know. I'm obviously just making up numbers as I go.). Say what you will and object all you like, but porn drives industry.

I have been a little bit envious about Blu-Ray. I would like to get Spiderman 3 on Blu-Ray, for one. The Incredibles would be something special too. The standard "Resident Evil: Extinction" dvd came in today... The Blu-Ray version would be better. But, that's the way it goes. You pick a side and you get the good and the bad, and you miss out on some of the good. I'm ok with it.

Warner Bros supported both formats, until now. Today they announced that they will drop HD-DVD in May. Most of the "analysts" say that that's the end of the format war. It will be over in a matter of weeks at the most. I don't know if that true or not. I'm not familiar with the qualifications of the said "analysts", but I'm the trusting sort so I'll assume they know what they're talking about.

Christmas just passed. I know of one co-worker who got an A3 for Christmas. Another one is going to buy one this weekend, though maybe he'll change his mind now. I don't know. Either way, it feels like then beginning of the end of an era, and I don't know that his purchase (or lack thereof) will have an impact either way. C'est la vie. (I don't know what that means for sure, but it seems to be contextually accurate).

If this is the end of the format war, then lets make it a quick end. They're saying days or weeks. Let it be so.

Supposing that Blu-Ray does win, how does that affect moi? As already covered, I'll have to buy a Blu-Ray player. I won't buy a PS3 because I still rabidly hate sony. Nor will I buy a sony Blu-Ray player for the same reason. There are enough others to choose from.

I just jumped onto CircuitCity.com to look at the prices on Blu-Ray players. Then I realized it doesn't matter, so I stopped looking. If Blu-Ray wins, we'll have to buy a player, so it doesn't matter what they cost. If the time comes, it comes. Lets give it some time and see if the analysts are worth their salt. (Again, I don't know what that means. Is salt a currency?)

The focus of my website will have to change somewhat, too. When I add movies to the database, I have to choose an image. My current priority is HD-DVD, BLU-RAY, STANDARD. I'll have to reprioritize. (In a related story, I also have to change the site to store images per product format rather than per product.)

And that's it. Damn Warner Bros. If this were an actual war, they'd be the French. (I know I'm not being fair to Warner Bros or the French, but that's ok. This is a rant. I'm not required to be fair, accurate, or even cohesive. Be grateful that I'm using complete sentences.)

The end.

Patriots 38, Giants 35

What a game.

The Giants definitely came out swinging. They never let up, and they were winning for a good portion of the game. The starters played the entire game.

For a while there, it wasn't looking good for Patriot fans. But, even then, I would rather lose a ligitimate game then win a gimme. It would've sucked, but I would've been the right way to do it. The Giants did their part; they tried their hardest.

As hard as a game as that was, it was never really that bad. When they were down by 12, there was still plenty of time left to play, so no real concerns. The worst game of the season was the Ravens. Sure, there were other close calls, but the Ravens was the biggest nail biter by far.

Go Pats. Go Giants. (The Giants are my new second favorite team. They stepped up in a big way.)

Patriots and Giants

The big game is less than 3 hours away. The patriots are going for legendary status.

There has been a lot of talk about wether or not the two teams are going to show up to play. There are playoff advantages for the Giants if they take it easy. Technically, this game doesn't mean anything to them. Technically, it doesn't mean anything to the Patriots either other than the opportunity to be the first team in 35 years to have a perfect season. They say that its meaningless if they don't go all the way, but I disagree. Clearly that would be a better season, but regardless, no one has gone 16 and 0, not to mention all of the records that are about to be broken.

I hope that both teams show up to play. Obviously I want the Patriots to beat the Giants handily, but I'd rather that it wasn't a gimme. I want the Giants to come out swinging, and for the Patriots to beat them toe-to-toe.

I heard a quote somewhere that the Giants coach stated that it is not his responsibility to beat the patriots. 15 other teams have tried. If that quote is at all accurate, then I disagree. Its not his responsibility to stop them, but it his responsibility to try just like every other team has tried. 20 years from now, do you want to look back at this team and think that maybe you could've stopped them if only you tried? This is a key moment in football history. Don't roll over.

Jay's Prediction: Patriots 28, Giants 10. *
* - Jay's prediction is based on wild guessing.

Death of an XBox

After approximately 1 year and 10 months, it finally happened. My treasured XBox 360 has died.

Thankfully, it didn't suffer long. It crashed a couple times, and I knew that was the beginning of the end. Finally, after a particularly dramatic crash and a reboot, the three red lights started flashing.

Even though I knew it was coming, it didn't make it any easier. My good friend Mike, who has lost 2 XBoxs in the past, was quick to console me and offered advice on how to get on with my life. It started with a call to Microsoft, and will some day end with acceptance.

Over the next several hours, I have some tough decisions to make. It may take 3 or 4 weeks for the good folks at Microsoft to get a new XBOX 360 to me. Do I patiently wait that long, or do I give in to the great Halo 3 tempation and buy a new one?

I'll be honest. Everyone is expecting me to buy a new one. Its impractical. Its a waste of money. Some may even call it childish, but here I am, thinking about it. Verbalizing it. About to sleep on it. What will tomorrow bring? A trip to best buy, or quality time with my Nintendo DS? Or will I spend the day reading non-fiction thereby bettering myself as a human being? Place your bets.

There are 3 versions of the XBOX 360 available. The least dumb choice would be to buy the cheapest version, but in my time of grief, it is easy to consider upgrades.


The arcade version costs $280. As a general rule, I generally don't consider the minimal offering.

The premier model costs $350 and comes with 2 games whose combined worth is $120. $350 - 120 suggests that I'm only spending $220 on the acutal console. logical, right?

The elite model cost $450 and comes with 2 games and a 120gb drive. The games are worth $120, and the drive is worth $180. $450 - ($180 + $120) = $150. A console for $150 sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn't it? Seriously?

Oh, did I mention that the Elite is black? Oh yes. Black. That's old school. No more prissy white xbox 360 glaring at me from the entertainment center. Heck no. Its time to dare to be different.

Do you get the feeling I'm talking myself into anything?

That's it for tonight. Dawn is just a few hours away, and I have a lot to think about. I'm going to need some hot pockets.

DvdFriend Site Update

Greetings

Site development has been on a hiatus for several weeks; some of it involuntary, and some of it just laziness. I had a bunch of side work to do for one client, and I built a prototype for another. (Lets see if that prototype turns into actual work).

Anyhoo, I've been able to work on DvdFriend quite a bit this week.

Pricing
- Pricing - PREVIOUSLY: I created the APIs to retrieve the data from the vendor sites and update the DvdFriend database. There's a EDIT PRODUCT page that uses that technology to do the initial parsing.

NOW: The next step is to update the prices automatically on a periodic basis. When the page loads, it checks when the price was last updated. If it was over a day, it needs to get fresh pricing. It needs to do it in the background, though. I don't want the page to hang for 5 or 10 seconds as it hits the vendors. Additionaly, if hundreds of people are hitting hundreds of pages, I don't want it to process all of those remote requests at once.

I spent more time on this then I needed to. I could've slapped together a quick solution to satisfy the immediate need. Instead, I created a ThreadQueue api that allows for great reuse for future needs. Basically, its just a queue. You stuff things on the queue. You then assign a delegate to the queue, and tell it how many can be processed at once. The object takes it from there. It will start up to x number of threads which process the queue. When each thread finishes with a work item, another thread is started that handles the next one. Neat. (It uses the thread pool, so the same threads are used repeatedly.)

Its a neat object. I spent the extra time on it so that I can make it distributable. I'll finish it up and make it available somewhere.

So anyway, when the page loads, it checks to see if the prices need to be refreshed. If so, it queues the items that need to be refreshed. The page shows the prices, but displays "refreshing" beneath them. A tooltip tells you what's going on, and suggests that you refresh in a few seconds. (Later, I'll wrap this up in an update panel and have it refresh automatically. 1 thing at a time.)

There's one problem, though. I only have about 50 prices in the DB. The original DB, which has all of the pricing, is sitting on the hard drive on my shut-down home computer. I get home tomorrow and leave again Saturday morning. I'll see if I can run the conversion somewhere in that window.

Alas, the moral of the story is that pricing is now FULLY functional. I just have to repopulate the data.

Admin Product Editor
The product page editor is where you assign vendor product ids to the product. Once I have the product ID, I can refresh the pricing whenever I need to. Currently, that's done just by dragging-and-dropping the url from one browser to the editor page. That's a pain, but there aren't many options. IE7 really locks down things like cross-frame scripting. I looked at creating a windows form program where that wouldn't be an issue, but the IE control constantlly crashes under XP PRO SP2. So, at the time I did what I could and just added a textbox. You paste the url, and it will parse out all of the information.

That's handy for updating products on a one-by-one basis. But, it needs a way to deal with things in mass. It needs to tie into lists of products that need pricing.

I created a view that assembles all products + all product types + all vendors and indicates if pricing exists for each one. It also specifies if any reviews or ratings exist for that product. From that view, I can now create child views that provide specific useful information.

The first one is "products with reviews and without pricing". Now I can run a quick query and see which products people have reviewed but don't have prices. I can display the list of the left side of the page and work through them one by one. (They'll probably be ordered by recent review date so that the most recent stuff can be updated).

The editor page has a button that launches a search in the vendor site. I use that as a starting point, then browse to the particular product I want. I then paste (or drag) the url to the parent page.

That's a step in the right direction, but its annoying.

Solution!

At last, I came up with a great solution. As I said, there are all types of security things that prevent me from doing this the way I used to do it. Finally, I worked out something that isn't blocked by security.

You can create an IE Favorite that has javacript in it.

IE: instead of http://www.dvdfriend.us (or anything else), you can create a favorite for
javascript:alert('hello');

Each time you click the favorite, it gives you an alert box.
I created this one

javascript:alert(document.location.href)

Once that worked, I was cautiously optimistic that I could solve my problems.

The next test was this:

javascript:document.location.href='http://mymachine/test.aspx?url=' + escape(document.location.href);

That javascript redirects to a specified page and passes the URL of the current page to it. So, the final URL is something like

http://mymachine/test.aspx?url=www.blogger.com
(That's a simplified version. The full url is actually escaped within the parameter. I omitted the special chars)

This is the big test. If security was going to interfere, this would be the place. It didn't!

Once that worked, I knew I as home free.

Here's how the pricing editor works:
- Go to the Edit Product page
- Select the item you want to get pricing for (IE: Transformers / HD-DVD)
- The button redirects to VendorProxy.aspx
The proxy page saves the product id and the product type id as cookies
It then redirects to the search results page for the vendor passing TRANSFORMERS as the search keyword
- I select the TRANSFORMERS HD DVD that I was looking for.
- I then click a favorite on my link bar. It takes the url of the current page and passes it to my VendorProxyReturn.aspx page.
- The VendorProxyReturn page:
- gets the product id and product type id out of the cookie
- gets the url out of the querystring
- uses those three pieces of information to get the pricing
- Redirects back to the edit product page. The pricing is now populate for that item.

I've been doing this pricing stuff since 1999 or 2000. I've had many solutions over the years, and some have been very good but required a lot of code that wasn't 100% reliable due to the intricacies of each vendor. This solution, while not the most robust, is the simplest and easiest.

From a admin user perspective:
- click the button which opens the search results page for that vendor
- find the product
- click the favorite link
Done!

Its really cool. I'm thrilled that I finally found something that works. Another key advantage of this is that its something I'm comfortable letting other admin users use.

Product Type Images
DvdFriend is very movie centric, obviously. But, it supports all types of products. Its currently setup XBOX games and books too. The problem is that the main page is dominated by movies. If I suddenly drop in a book review, how do you know it's a book review?

I added icons to indicate the product type. There's a journal type thing for a book, and everything else is a film reel. (I'll find a good game icon when I need it). I think it looks pretty good on the page.



These changes are all live on http://www.dvdfriend.us

What's Next?
I'd like to start putting in ratings for tv shows. I have to build a product hierarchy, which doesn't exist yet. When I built this version of the DB, I kept it very flat. Previous incarnations became to complicated due to the hierarchies. Flat is simple. I can use other objects to build a hierarchy as needed, such as with TV shows, but not force it where it's not needed.

Hey, the Red Sox won

13-1? Is that even a game?

RedSox followup

When we last discussed the Red Sox situation, I expressed a disinterest in a certain ALCS game #3. As predicted, the Sox went on to lose that game. As declared, my conscience is clear. It would have been nice to see the back-to back-to back homeruns, but not that nice.

Since then, the Red Sox have won 3 in a row. I watched all three games. If they fell behind by 6 runs again, I probably would have shut it off again, but that didn't happen.

So last night they went the distance. They once again came from behind and won the pennant. It was as dramatic as 2004 (0-3 as opposed to 1-3), but it was still good.

Now on to the world series. Coincidentally, i'm going to be in Colorado next week. I don't know where Steamboat is relative to wherever the Rockies play, but it might be worth an excursion.

Go Sox.

And, let us not forget: Go Pats.

ALCS Game Three, Fifth Inning, Red Sox are losing by 6?! / Car Poolers

For the first time in the history of jay, as I remember it, I have stopped watching a game.

I don't often decide to sitdown and watch a baseball game, but when I do, it's a commitment. I sit there and watch it through thick-and-thin.

But not tonight. 6 - 0?!?! That's too hard to watch.

There's a chance that Red Sox could pull off this game. Maybe the Indians pitching will fall apart and the Red Sox will belt out 8 runs. Maybe. But probably not.

If they pull it off, I should feel guilty about changing the channel, but I won't. Instead of commiting to watching the game, I've re-commited to not feeling guilty if they suddenly win. Not only will I not feel guilty, but I will also not regret my decision.

Instead, I'm watching Car Poolers on the trusty DirecTv DVR. Once its over, I'll go back to the game for a status check. I expect that I'll then choose something else to watch.

In other news, I am also a Patriots fan. That eases the pain.

The site looks ok?!?!

Is it just me, or does http://www.dvdfriend.us actually look decent?

A few weeks ago, a guy at work gave it a face lift. He sent a screen shot of the work he did. I finally partially applied it this week. It doesn't exactly match what he came up with, but its close. I have to adjust some things as I go.

The LOGIN button is now fixed to say LOGIN even when you're already logged in. I need a LOGOUT image to fix that.

I recreated the functionality to assign the images. The admin tool uses Amazon Web Services to seek images. Its pretty easy to set them up now.

I've been working on the prices here and there, but haven't focused on it. Most days I come home and collapse on the couch instead of working on the site. Now that the site looks decent, maybe it'll keep me motivated. The pricing engine is built, and Amazon parsing is setup. I'm working on the pages that will put all that other code to use.

Another Highlander Travesty - Psych

Psych is a funny show on USA. It's definitely a lightweight, but it consistently makes me laugh.

It superficially offended me this week.

I wasn't offended by the "This blows with a capital c", line. Nor was I offended by the many jokes focused on grown men hanging out at the monkey bars. No, my skin is thicker than that.

In principle, I wasn't offended by the Christopher Lambert impression. But, truth be told, I was offended (superficially) by what he said in the voice of Lambert: "There can only be one".

There can only be one? How can you pay homage to a movie such as Highlander and screw up the fundamental line that defines 90% of the plot?

I spent a good amount of time documenting my thoughts on the Highlander legacy. Then, just a few days later by great coincidence the same movie is commented on by Psych. They couldn't take a few minutes to either lookup the line or watch the movie? No one involved with the shoot recognized the line was wrong?

Obviously, the line is "There can be only one". Not, "There can only be one".

Fortunately, Psych is just a TV show that provides mindless entertainment. Now that I've documented by brief lasting offence, I can move on.

Highlander : The Dissapointment

Highlander

"...A man's decapitated body, lying on the floor, next to its own severed head. A head, which at this time, has no name."

"I know his name".

... Insert Queen Music here... "Here we are, born to be kings. We're the princes of the universe. Fighting to survive in a war with the darkest powers."

etc.

I've always been a fan of Highlander. I remember seeing the commercials for the first movie, when I was 14, and knowing that I absolutely had to see it. I don't think I ever made it to the theater. Actually, I have no idea when or where I saw it first, but it has since maintained its position in the upper echolons of my list of favorite movies. In Talladega Nights, Ricky Bobby stated that it won an oscar for being the best movie ever made. That might be an exaggeration, but Highlander is a solid, memorable action movie.

It's greatness is in its simplicy: the world is populated by a bunch of immortals. The immortals do battle through the centuries, eliminating each other until only one remains. The only way to eliminate an immortal is to cut off his head. Each time you kill an immortal, you absorb his power, which is the sum of all the power of the immortals he killed previously. With a story like that, how can you go wrong?

Highlander was a complete story that focused on the two immortals that would become the last two: The Kurgan, and Connor MacLeod. (Connor is known as "The Highlander", because he is from the highlands of Scotland). They crossed paths over the centuries, and never in a friendly way. Connor is the good guy, and the Kurgan is the bad guy. We witness the full backstory on Connor, but nothing on the Kurgan. Sean Connery spends a couple sentences telling us who he is, but that's it. They didn't bother filming his back story.

The movie ends with the final duel between the final immortals. Who do you think won? (My money is on the good guy.) It was a nice neat package. All of the immortals were dead except for won. Connor won the prize.

Oh, one more thing. I was just writing the END GAME section and realized I didn't mention the HOLY GROUND part. Immortals can't fight on holy ground. Why not? I don't know. It's just a rule. Don't question the rules. Which religions does this rule apply to? What makes it holy ground?

No room for a sequel, right?

Highlander 2
Wrong.

The first Highlander movie didn't bother to explain where the immortals come from, or why they do what they do. In fact, I think there's a line in the prologue that states that no one knows, but i'm not sure. Maybe that was the TV show. The lack of this knowledge is part of its mystique. It didn't need an explanation. Immortals cut off each other's heads until only one is left; that's the important part.

Anyhoo, someone got it in their head that Highlander needed a sequel. Even worse, that someone was able to convince a studio, and the studio went ahead and gave it a green light. Big mistake.

Several decades elapsed between the story lines of Highlander and Highlander 2. In that time, everything changed. Connor MacLeod is now an old man. The earth is in a constant state of dark due to a giant shield that has been constructed around the planet. Connor used his knowledge from The Prize to help construct it. The movie has a completely different feel from it. It went from a modern day action movie, to a futuristic crappy sci-fi movie. Some genius even found a way to bring Sean Connery's character back to life just so that they could kill him a few scenes later.

Oh yea, did I mention the aliens? Yes, I said it. Aliens. It turns out all of the immortals are from another planet. They were deposited on earth for the purpose of the game. As soon as more aliens arrived, it was like a reset. Connor became young again, and went about his business of chopping off heads. There was a new bad guy in this, I think, but I don't remember his name. I won't lose sleep over it.

This movie is a disaster of biblical proportions. They completely butchered the story. They took all that was cool about the first movie, and spat on it. Shame on them. Really. Shame on them.

Highlander 2 was recut at least once. There was definitely a "renegade version", and possibly a director's cut, though they may both actually be the same cut. The renegade version was better than the original, but that's like saying NSync is better than the Backstreet Boys. They both still suck.

But, in its defense, I must say that it might've been a pretty good movie if it wasn't a Highlander movie. It might've been a good sci-fi movie if they didn't try to force it into the Highlander mythos. It could've been a movie about a shield around the planet, and maybe some non-immortal aliens. I don't know. It could've been less than hideous. But it wasn't.

Highlander 3 : The Final Dimension (or, sometimes The Sorcerer)

The smartest thing about H3 is that it completely disregarded H2 like it never happened. Aliens? What Aliens? What shield? What in the name of god are you talking about?

The best part is that they didn't acknowledge H2 in any way whatsoever. It just never happened. Excellent.

Then they pushed it too far and overlooked some things about the first movie too. Here's the basic idea: A few hundred years ago, Connor crossed paths with a few immortals inside a mountain. The mountain collapsed trapping the bad guy immortals. Fortunately, Connor got away.

A few hundred years later, Connor fought the Kurgan and won the prize. He then had a baby boy with the chic from the first movie. She got hit by a car and died. Then the immortals in the mountain broke out, and the game was back on. "Did you really think you were the last one?" "Well sure. I won the prize. I remember it clearly."

That's where it went wrong. Its as if the fact that they were buried in a mountain fooled the poweres of the universe that granted the prize. "Our bad, we didn't see him". It was dumb.

The movie, though, isn't a complete failure. It's bad, but not horrendous. The queen music was gone which allowed for an interesting new soundtrack that I really like.

I always think of Highlander 3 and Batman 2 being similar in the suck-to-good ratios. In batman 2, I like the catwoman parts. I didn't like the penguin parts. In Highlander 3, I liked the Connor/sword parts, and I didn't like the Mario Van Peebles part. If they got rid of Mario Van Peebles and most of the plot, then there wouldn't be much of a movie left, but what was left would've been pretty good. There's a good scene where Connor's sowrd gets broken. It actually is kind of sad as far as the Highlander universe is concerned. It's THE sword. You don't break the sword! He went back to the old country to fix it. Good stuff. I c an't remember much else that I specifically liked, but I remember there being a bunch of segments that didn't want to make me kill myself, which was much better than 2.

In short, Highlander 3 is watchable, with some better parts, but its still a failure overall.

Highlander : The TV Show
A Highlander TV show came on the air in 1992. Connor was in the opening episodes, but only to provide the introduction to a new character, Duncan McLeod. They're cousins. Duncan is another mmortal of the MacLeod clan, a few generations younger than Connor.

I didn't watch it when it aired. I recently watched a few episodes on DVD, but couldn't get into it. The production quality was terrible, and the stories were week. Acting, apparently, wasn't a prerequisite.

Somewhere along the way, the TV show introduced "The Watchers". The Watchers are mortals that are aware of the immortals. They monitor the game, but don't interfere. They keep tabs on everything.

As far as I can tell, the TV show disregards all of the movies.

Highlander 4 : End Game

Yea baby! This is the one right here. The year is 2000, and at long last, an excellent Highlander movie is created. I'm not being sarcastic. I love this movie. They did a great job. I like this as much as I liked the first one. It's not flawless, but neither is the first one.

Endgame is along the lines of the tv show more than the other movies. Duncan is a lead character. Connor is pretty signficant too, but this is basically the passing of the baton. They have to combine forces in order to defeat Kane. Kane murdered Connor's mother, so they have history. It's bitter sweet without the sweet.

Kane had a gang of immortals. They're the new young and hip immortals to usher in a new age of highlander. They attack Connor, and a great fight ensues. Duncan can kick ass in ways that Connor couldn't, and so can the bad guys. The Watchers finally stop watching, and engage, which gets Duncan out of a pinch.

Meanwhile, Connor has gone into hiding. He's tucked away at the Sanctuary, where by his own will he is sedated to pass through the years without fighting every 2 minutes. Its good for Connor because he's depressed, and its good for the folks that run the Sanctuary, because they must assure that there are always at least two live immortals. Kane finds out about this and invades the Sanctuary. He kills everyone except for Connor, because he wants to torment Connor for the rest of his life. This dude can hold a grudge.

The DVD had a great commentary. The movie was made for a small budget. They kept talking about the things they wanted to do, but couldn't due to time and money contraints. It's too bad about the time contraints. If they didn't have the budget, they should have at least been able to take their time with it. They also talked about the minor adjustments theyre made between the theatrical and DVD releases. For example, there was a scene where Connor and Duncan were fighting as one. The effect for that was cheesy, so they toned it down.

I sense that the people making the movie were very aware of the mythos and the fans. The fact that there are immortals everywhere is unbelievable enough. We don't need any sorcery or silly effects on top of it. Keep it simple. I remember in the commercial (or trailer) someone actually got cut in half then came back together because, obviously, they're immortal and need a way to deal with that. I'm pretty sure that got cut, which is good.

There's another scene in Endgame that I liked a lot, but it wasn't there the last time I watched it. I don't know which version its in, but if its not in the final version, it should be. There's an asian bad guy who turns out to have some honor. He realizes that Kane's about to kill him, and there's no chance he can defend himself. So, instead of surrendering his power to Kane, he sticks his sword into the wall, then runs into it decapitating himself. Awesome.

Highlander 5 - The Dissapointment

At last, we get to the point of my ramblings.

For years, there's been talk of Highlander 5 : The Source. This sounds like another attempt to explain the who and why of the game. H2 attempted it, and everyone involved is going to hell.

At least every few months, I jump online and search for 2 things: Highlander 5 and Mortal Kombat 3. Its a ritual. There is stuff to be found on H5, but not much. Production notes indicated when it finished shooting. In March, we learned the movie would be released in September 2007. It is now September 2007.

I saw a trailer, or a clip, a few months back. It didn't look good. The bad guy was the hunchback of Notre Dame. I can't imagine that will justify itself. There's no sign of Connor in this one; it's all Duncan.

Anyway, last night I did my periodic search for Highlander 5 and learned that it will be airing on the sci fi channel at 9pm on Saturday September 15th. I don't know if you've ever watched SCI FI on a Saturday night at 9pm, but its 90% crap. I happen to like it because I like crappy SCI FI movies, but that doesn't make them any less crappy.

I didn't expect H5 to get a theatrical release, but direct to tv? Really? Is it that bad?

Maybe not. Maybe this is the rare 9pm Saturday movie that turns out to be pretty good. Maybe its a gem. Maybe its the movie that made all the other crap worth watching. But, on the other hand, maybe not. Maybe, like most 9pm Saturday night movies, its crap.

I eagerly await 9/15/2007 to find out.

Conclusion
Highlander 1 is Excellent.
Highlander 2 dishonors Highlander 1. It's horrific.
Highlander 3, in a stroke of genius disregards H2. It also disregards the important parts of H1. Its bad, but not too bad.
Highlander 4 disregards all previous movies, but is excellent in its won rite.
Highlander 5 is going straight to tv. God help us.

DVDFriend.us - Making Progress

The site now allows for the adding of ratings and reviews. Yesterday I altered the GUI a bit. It looks like a third grader did it, which is better than usual.

Of the entire spectrum of colors visible to the human eye, I have limited myself to just these:

silver
dimgray
black
white
yellow
steel blue
and, for special occasions, red

I started adding some per-use controls such as "Reviews Auto Approved" and "New Product Auto Approved". In a more mature system, this would be dictated by roles based security, but that's overkill at this point. A few simple flags will suffice for now.

When a text box is selected, and you press enter, you expect it to activate the appropriate button. So, if you're typing in the search field and press enter, you expect it to search. ASP.NET 1.1 didn't do that on its own. Some javascript was needed. I started to write that javascript today, then slowed down and did some research. ASP.NET 2.0 offers a new DFAULT BUTTON property at the container level, which is handy.

I also added a NEWS section on the left hand side. Only admin users can add new NEWS items. (Again, this could be via RBS, but not yet).

All the blog entries (reviews, news, etc) are stored in one table. You define zones and associate them some blog types. I created one zone for the news on the left side of the page. It contains only the news blog type. The center zone contains all blog types except for news. The center zone is drawn by a repeater on the default.aspx. The news is drawn by an ASCX. You set the zone and the title, and it takes care of the rest.

I had a little trouble with the ASCX at first. There's an object data source and a repeater. The ODS points to an object which users Enterpriese Libary to return a datatable. It's pretty straight forward (thanks to the ODS), but it wouldn't bind. I found that the ODS was accidentally within an H1. Whoops.

The search needs some work. Currently, its tailored to searching for a product that you want to write about. You may also just want to read about it, or get pricing, etc. In that scenario, it should take you to the as-yet non-existent product page.

So, lots to do, but picking away...

Server move complete. Time to move on.

With regret, I sent the email that effectively terminates a 6 year business relationship. It sucks, but had to be done.




Hello

Ok, i've relocated. You can cancel the account now.

I'm really dissapointed that I have to leave after 6 years, but I can't just lose 6 months of data, especially when there's no way to know that its not going to happen again. I don't mind outages, but data loss is a different story.

Good luck with ---. I hope that not too many of your clients found yourself in my position.

Jay