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News & Updates from 2003:
26 December 2003
I've finally got around to adding categorical listings to the Aircraft Image Archive. It took me a while because I had to get the master list to be valid HTML, which was a pretty large task since I had left out the alt tag from each of the more than 300 pictures. It will probably still be a while before I get all the categories that I would like. So far, I've done Jet Fighters I and II, Bombers I and II, and the UMD Dragonfly, the R/C plane I helped design and build my senior year of college.
While making the changes to the master list, I discovered that I had left out about 20 aircraft, so I added them to the master list, and modified the first two pages in the alphabetical listing (1 & 2) to include them.
Also, over the past few days, I've made a few changes that were so small that they weren't worth making their own entry in these updates. I modified the navigation menu on the left to include a short description of each item that will appear when you hover over the link. I changed the navigation menu on the search results page (powered by Atomz) to match the rest of the site. And I added a page that used to be on my old site that lists Prime Numbers through 4001, and includes a newly written program to generate those numbers.
Oh, and happy holidays. Alex, Irma and I all had a nice Christmas with Irma's family. We're looking forward to New Year's when we'll head up to Pittsburgh to be with my family.
22 December 2003
You may have noticed the W3C icon in the lower right corner of some of the pages on this site:
About a month and a half ago, I started validating the HTML code of my web pages. Once I clean up the code so that a page is valid HTML, I put that icon on the page. Clicking on the icon will take you to the W3C site and run a check of the code on the page. This is a slow process, since I'm only checking pages when I get a chance. Any new pages I put up will be valid HTML.
You'd be surprised how many major websites are not valid HTML. Just go to the W3C HTML Validator and check some of your favorite websites. Chances are that they aren't valid. Programs like Front Page don't even generate valid code to begin with.
17 December 2003
Today marks the 100th anniversary of controlled powered flight. I just wanted to express my admiration for Orville and Wilbur, as well as the other aviation pioneers that have made flight possible. Take a look at the U.S. governments Centennial of Flight page, and don't miss their Essay Section, which has a lot of good theory and history, including pioneers before the Wright brothers.
25 November 2003
I made a small change to the autogyros page. I had called Harold Pitcairn a competitor of Cierva. This isn't true, as Pitcairn bought the licensing rights from Cierva, and actually named his company the Pitcairn Cierva Autogyro Company of America. I updated the page to change the wording. I plan on adding more about Pitcairn when I can.
19 November 2003
I think I've pretty much finished up major site maintenance for the time being. I went through every single .html file on my site, and put a banner at the top of old/outdated files (See Example). This caught many files that I missed in some of my previous updates.
On the website at my work, we recently switched software from Front Page to Dreamweaver (Don't worry, I still use notepad for this site). At the same time, we did a little trick where we use a server side includes (SSI) to store the menu as a separate file that doesn't get loaded into the page until the user downloads it. That makes it easy to update the menu- there's only one file that needs to be changed instead of every single page. I decided to do the same thing on this site. So that menu you see on the left is actually stored as its own file (navmenu.html). I had been wanting to change the menu, anyway, so that the site would have a consistent look no matter what browser you were using. I have also been thinking about adding new sections. I don't know how long it'll be before I do add new sections, but at least now it'll be a lot easier to update the menu. So I "borrowed" the code from my friend's site (TerrapinTables.com), and modified it a bit to give the look that I wanted. Now, the website looks the same on all the different browser's I've tested (except Lynx). IE users won't notice much of a difference from the old menu, but everyone else will.
While I was at it with this maintenance, I thought that all the updates were making my home page get too big. So, I made an archive to hold old updates, and I'm only going to keep one or a few updates on the home page.
I did add one new page, even if it's just a small one. It's about my RX-7 (a sports car, just in case you didn't know).
18 November 2003
In the same spirit as my update from the 14th, I've changed several old/outdated pages to redirect people to the new site. I didn't want to just delete them, in case that's the way people are linking to my site. I changed the pages from the text only version of the site, which was done when I was still in college and never update since. Since I've verified that my site shows up okay in Lynx, I decided to just do away with the text only version, so they now link to my main site, automatically redirecting after 10 seconds (See example). I've also added a banner to the top of several old pages that I left on the server for some reason or another (probably a neat Java script that I want to save) so that people don't confuse that page with the new one (Aircraft Images, Autogyros, Origami Glider, & Post-It Note Glider).
14 November 2003
When I redid the aircraft image archive, I left the old html files on the server, and used new names for the new versions. It turns out that a fair amount of people were visiting my site by connecting directly to those old pages. So, I've updated them to give a link to the new archive.
13 November 2003
Back When I transferred my site from Angelfire, I lost one full size picture from my AeroDesign© page and never realized it until now. I fixed the link to just point at the thumbnail. That still lets people see the picture, even though it isn't full size.
I also noticed that I'm getting a lot of 404 erros on the site, so I brought back a new version of my interactive Error 404 page. It's much simpler this time. All the user has to do is hit a button, and all the relevant information is automatically sent to me. I'd like to figure out how to do it without the user even having to hit a button, but I haven't been able to figure out a good way to do that, yet.
11 November 2003
A real small update for today, I added a link to IndianCaves.com on my Links page. It's a site that one of my friends from high school made, and is a pretty good way for all of us to stay in touch.
On another note aside from the website, wedding plans are moving right along. Me and Irma have set the date for June 12th.
3 November 2003
I added 3 new photos to the Cozumel photos page (Me and Irma Snorkeling, Me and Irma getting ready to snorkel, and Me, Irma, and Ralph in the Jeep). These were all photos that were taken and developed in Cozumel, and still packed away in the suitcase when I scanned in the other pictures.
28 October 2003
This past weekend I took a trip to Cozumel with my fiancée, Irma, her brother, sister in law, and her sister's in law parents. Even though it was a little more crowded than the weekend getaway we had originally planned, we still had a good time. I've made up a page for the Cozumel photos, and updated the main photo page to include a link to it.
9 October 2003
I just finished up replacing the radiator from my car with an upgraded aftermarket version. Because of the hassles I encountered, I decided to write up a page describing what I had to do, to help others that are going to do a similar procedure. So, if you're interested, take a look at How to Install a Koyo Radiator in a '94 RX-7.
7 October 2003
I've updated the two paper airplane pages (Post-It Note Glider & Origami Glider) to make them consistent with the rest of the site. In doing so, I dropped the snazzy interface of the old versions (Post-It Note Glider & Origami Glider). It wasn't working out exactly right with the formatting for the rest of the page, and I don't have a lot of time to mess around with it, plus I think there are advantages to the simpler interface, anyway. I also added photos to the Post-It Note glider page.
I've added a new quote to my Quotes page. And for two very small changes, I updated the titles in the headers of My Experiences Learning to Fly and TI-85 Flight Computer. They used to have the Aerodesign title, because that's the page I used as the starting point for them, and forget to fix the titles.
1 October 2003
I've finally updated the Aircraft Image Archive, making it consistent with the rest of the site, removing dead links, adding a few more pictures, and adding captions to each picture in the same manner that I did to the Photos section (using css with div tags). So far, the only listings are alphabetical, but categorical listings are on the way. The old page was an index, which generated each of the photo pages dynamically using javascript. I used javascript because the account I was on at the time wouldn't let me use anything server-side. Well, I decided that I don't really need to generate the pages dynamically, so I just went through and redid the page the old fashioned way.
For a few small changes, on my TI-85 page, I've updated the links to download the Graph Link software. It doesn't look like TI plans to support the TI-85 for very much longer. I changed my Error 404 page back to the originial version. Now that I've got the Royal Flush and Aircraft Image Archive pages updated, I don't think there will be as many 404 errors. And I've changed the options on my Atomz account, so that directories and obsolete versions of pages will not be indexed for the search feature.
19 September 2003
I know this is unrelated to the website, but I'm putting it here anyway. I proposed to my girlfriend last month on the the 23rd- she's now my fiancée. I'm getting married!
Okay, now the website. It's been a long time since there's been an update on this site. There are two reasons for that. First off, for a pretty good space of time I was so busy at work that I didn't have any time to work on the site. Then, when I finally did get some time to work on it, it was around the same time that I had to renew it, plus I had run out of storage space, so I decided to upgrade to a newer server at the same time. Anyway, I had some problems getting everything transferred and updated, but if you're reading this now, it means that it's all working.
First things first, I've made a few small changes to reflect my engagement to Irma. I updated the About Me page to call Irma my fiancée, and to add a picture of her daughter, Alex. I also added a paragraph about it to my mini bio.
On the Autogyro page, I've redone the section on comparing autogyros to airplanes and helicopters, correcting a few errors and making it more readable.
I've redone the photos section of the site. Each category now has its own page, as opposed to all of the pictures being on one page. I've also added two new categories, Europe II, a trip that I took after graduating from college, and Phone Pics, which has several of the photos that I've taken with my camera phone.
In my X-Plane, UDP, & Visual Basic page. I added an explanation of how integers work, so that you can figure out how to code to send to things like radio frequencies.
I also found some time to write a rant about the metric system. It's not that I think the metric system's all that bad, I just don't think it's any better than our standard system.
I redid the Operation Royal Flush page to get rid of the dead links, and added a handful of new pictures to replace some of the ones that I had lost.
24 June 2003
I started updating my Autogyro page. So far, I've corrected a few errors, and added some photos. I still plan on adding more information, specifically about Pitcairn and about the Fairey Rotodyne.
On another website, my friend Rick has pretty much completed the redesign of TerrapinTables.com. I drew those little graphics that pop up when you hold the mouse over a menu item. [Update: 24 Aug 03- Okay, so now Rick's drawn a few of the icons, too. But I did most of them, and told him how to do the ones that he did.]
28 May 2003
I've redone my Error 404 page in an effort to restore the content on this site that used to be available on my original Angelfire account before they deleted half of it. I added a form to the page, so that when people try to access a page or file that no longer exists, they can now send me the form telling me what they were trying to access. Since I don't have time to go through checking all the links, this should help let me know which links are broken, and help me focus my efforts on those links that people actually want to see.
26 May 2003
I just updated my mini bio. I doubt many people will read it, but it's there, anyway. I guess I ought to get to work updating the sections of this site that people actually look at.
I also added two links to the Links page. Irfanview is a great graphics viewer. It loads up almost instantly for looking at pictures. It's not real powerful for editing, but for browsing through directories of pictures, it can't be beat. Especially considering that it's less than a meg and it's free. Lavasoft makes a program called Ad Aware. This program automatically detects and deletes spyware and related programs from your computer. If you use the Internet a lot, this program is definitely worth downloading. It's free, too.
9 May 2003
Wow, look at that. The second day, and I've already got a new update. Sadly, it doesn't concern my website... My buddy Rick just set up a web log on the TerrapinTables website. He set it up so that any of his friends will able to post new messages, and anybody who wants to will be able to post comments to those messages. It's kind of a way for us to post random stuff aside from e-mail, and an exercise in nerdity by Rick.
On another note, I did slightly modify my post from yesterday. Not the actual content, but the way I did the links. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it. I think it's good enough for now.
8 May 2003
Okay, this is a new addition to my site (actually posting updates, I mean). We'll see how long I keep current with it. But since this is the first, I'll inlcude a few retroactive updates. Within the past month, I've made two major additions to my site. The first is a section on programming in Visual Basic to control the X-Plane flight simulator (X-Plane, UDP, & Visual Basic). It goes through the basics of network programming in Visual Basic, and a few specifics for X-Plane, like the exact format of the UDP packets being sent. I've also added a short essay describing my frustration with the way our government is handling security after the terrorist attacks of 2001 (National Security vs Personal Freedom). For a few smaller changes, I added a picture of my girlfriend to the About Me page, and I've added a link to the homepage of a guy I knew in college to my Links page. For a link to a separate website, here are some pictures I took of my friend, Chris Frazier's wedding (Frazier's Wedding).
And so ends my first update. We'll see if I can keep up with this, and if it ever resembles a web log, or a blog, as I've recently learned the new lingo.
