Monday December 2, 2002

Do you like maps? In Amsterdam they've hooked GPS's to volunteers and are mapping the city based on the collected traces. Too cool.



In between working on C++ code at work I've been putting together PHP code to load weather readings into a mySQL database (fired off by a cron job) and some PHP routines for turning the accrued data into meaningful graphs. The goal is to replace the images on our weather page. Currently they are produced by a program called VWS, running on a home pc and uploaded regularly. That's a bunch of large uploads, which aren't viewed all that often. So now the data scripts are grinding, the graphing scripts are plotting, and it's just a matter of getting a few more weeks of readings into the database to have some fun.



Sure, computers are fine for *serious* work but isn't the best thrill from finding a new game or an awesome screensaver? Marc Liyanage, always a great source for the latest OSX packages (PHP, MySQL, Apache, etc...) now has a whole page dedicated to customizing OS X including a link to the Solar Winds screensaver. My favorite setting is Cold Pricklies, but Cosmic Strings and Space Fur are a close second.