Older blog entries for aero6dof (starting at number 4)

29 Apr 2002 (updated 29 Apr 2002 at 18:47 UTC) »

Haven't posted for a while. I've been busy - the entries stopped just before my son was born... babies are a lot of work!

Anyway, fun new (to me) Debian utilities are apt-proxy and apt-spy. Apt-proxy is working happily on my home-office mini-network now and I'm playing with apt-spy.

Was invited to submit a followup proposal for my education project, writing it up now.

Also trying out a advogato ruby post script -- fun.

Working of filling out more of the functionality of my prototype. Anyone who is involved with administering the U.S. Federal Headstart program for their local area may eventually be interested in the Open Child Development System (OpenCDS) product. (no public versions availiable yet, mail me if interested) With the support of my local school district and the Dept. of Education.

I'm prototyping a core database schema that an organization can use to track program information. (As well as stay fairly independent of specific program forms and data collection requirements). Oh yes, this is all web based letting them use their existing desktop computers and whatever OS they want for the clients. (Although, I'm recommending Linux as a cost saver in the long term) Their sys admin is very unhappy about the new/upcoming licensing requirements for certain proprietray vendors.. :)

The idea is also to make it cross program for various other city, county (LA. Co.), and state (CA) child related programs. It is estimated that 95% of all the information collected from a potential recipient is common to all the programs anyway.

I spent this weekend reading and writing for a new, related proposal (also open source, not education dept. related). For the moment this shall remain nameless.

I also continued repainting the spare bedroom, getting it ready to become a nursery. The color my wife and I chose was darker than the color sample as it dried, but it lightened up to match when completely dry. Tonight is layer 2...

Well, I'm now prototypeing my web application in Ruby (moved from Zope). Development seems to be going much faster now. The installation Directory structure is much more sane to me now. (Although I probably could have ground on Zope until I found out how to structure it the way I wanted).

Still waiting for the gov't to pay their invoice. Gov't contracts are double edged. On the one hand, if you can establish a service with the gov't it tends to be pretty stable. On the other hand, they can be pretty slow to issue payments (esp. with the mail scares/slowdowns in D.C. where my customer is located.) Sigh...

Spent sunday on the Pomona Historic home tour with my wife. We saw a number of homes in the neighborhood. They were all built anywhere between the late 1800's to the 1930's. It's depressing how well some of the homes were built then compared to how they're built now. (although there's a natural filtering effect -- many of the houses built badly simply haven't survived.

Today I'm working on my db normalization utilites a little more. I've gotten the ruby NQXML parser reading my userform xml docs. Next I need some way of rationally comparing field names to collect common fields. Eventually, I hope to be able to automagically translate these docs into html forms code, gtk gui code, command-line interface code. (which fits nicely with my chalice notes.)

I spent yesterday trying to track down some form of ruby web application server. I found a few, but none seem to be actively developed against. I'll shelve the search for now and stay with the zope for now.

Today I'm working on some database normalization utilities. Given that my current project is converting a mostly paper system into an electronic web database system I think they'll come in handy. The idea is to enter each field of each existing form into a descriptor file (probably in xml). Then the utility will look through all the files and group common fields. I don't know how sophisticated it will get -- well see. The utility is being written in Ruby, my new favorite scripting language.

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