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This is the Future Development Blog where I talk about future
enhancements to this site. Though don't hold your breath for them:
Poop Patrol Web Cam I'm tired of having to clean up after inconsiderate neighbors when they fail to clean up after their dog while walking in front of my house. So, I think that I am going to have a web cam point at the front of the house, take pictures, and then post them to this site.
The only problem is that my computer is in the back of the house and I want to mount the web cam in the front of the house. So the only solutions are either a wireless webcam (very expensive last time I checked) or a long wire between the webcam and the computer (which I am certain that my wife will veto).
This project will result in, at the very least, embarassing these people and, the ultimate prize, catching them on the spot! Anyway, this should be a fun project and I look forward to getting something going soon. I had been debating this for about the last 5 years. Why have 2 versions of an applcation that look identical to the end user? Especially if both have to be updated annually. And if one version takes a few days to update and the other takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months to update?
So I made the decesion to no longer update the flat file based Appalachian Trail Distance Calculator. The database version only requires updating one file, deleting the databse and then uploading the updated file to the database. So I did it. I kept both apps on my site but with a disclaimer on the flat file version that it was no loner being updated.
However, I had a delema on the ragtag.org site where this app also exists in that it is linked to by over 150 websites. So, I did a meta tag redirect to the database version and advised users to update their links/bookmarks on the interim screen.
So, problem solved. I would have posted this sooner except that I have been very busy lately. So the Appalachian Trail Distance Calculator lives on for an 8th year, if only in database form. Lately, I have had more than my fill of spam being received on this site. On my email account, on some days, I receive over 200 pieces of spam mail. In the forum area, I get 2 or 3 fraudulant posts a day from hackers and spammers. It is very frustrating. It is useless to try and filter these clowns out by IP address because, 99 percent of the time, they give a fake IP address. You then run the risk of blocking legitimate traffic. I have personally seen cases of when you try to block them, they flood you with spam from various fake IP addresses.
There are a number of possible solutions to this problem. Either lock the site down so that hardly anyone can send me email or post in the forum areas, write some tools to automate the task of validating if a request is real, or just shut the site down.
Not sure which way that I'm going to go. Some days, I just want to fight these you-know-whats and some days, I just want to stop using the web because this stuff is getting out of hand. Most of the culprits are from eastern Europe or Russia. They must not have alot to do over there since they seem to spend all of their time generating email, forum or link exchange spam. Either that or they really believe that they can get rich by generating this stuff. Anyway, the web is not a better place with these individuals around. This evening I finally finished the Blog software for this site. I can now post to my blogs, autogenerate XML RSS feeds for these blogs, allow others to comment on them and be able to edit or delete blog posts and comments. The edit and delete admin features also autogenerate an updated XML RSS feed.
This was a fun project. Now I am ready to update the Appalachian Trail Distance Calculator with the new 2006 distances, which should be available from the ATC within the next week or so. At least doing this stuff keeps me out of trouble :) I've been reading alot lately about this emerging web development technology called Ruby on Rails. It consists of a programming language called Ruby that is implemented within a framework called Rails. The numerous benefits of this concept include rapid development time, open source availability (sorry Bill), less code, DRY (don't repeat yourself) compliance, no compilation and no reliance on XML files.
From what I have read and the video that I have seen on the website www.rubyonrails.org it looks very easy to create a form a blog or whatever. Now, the hardest part may be getting this thing set up to work on one's server. But that is a fun challenge. I think that this technology may make web development fun again. It is my opinion that apps written in Java/jsp are too difficult to code, too slow for users and too much of a UI compromise.
Now, if I can convince my host provider to either let me install this stuff or have them install it, I can start playing with it. I think this will be my technical New Years resolution! The Future Development Blog on mikecalabrese.com is now ready. This blog will list things that I plan to undertake in the future regarding this site. These changes may not occur right away. And they may not occur at all. However, hopefully, if I commit to it here, it may just get done! |