terrill.ca

Return of the Housing Maps, Part III

Housing Maps are back!

They took a four month break, but the monster is up and running once again. I took a bit different approach this time around. Slightly more graphic intensive, and hopefully a lot more lean on the content transfer side. I experimented using XML, JSON, and a few other formats on how best to this specific data to the client, hopefully those efforts pay off with increased responsiveness.

Right now there is only Waterloo, in the future we'll get Guelph and Ottawa back up, and move on from there. It is surprising how little the sites I scrape data from have changed since I last saw them. Very few edits were needed to bring UW back to running order.

Please send me your feedback. When one person plays developer and tester inconspicuous things can appear obvious, and obvious things can be hard to see. So let me know what you think via email or commenting below, thanks!

Happy New Year

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year (a bit late, I know). 2007 is looking like it will be a good one now that the snow has started to fall again. As you can see, there's been some hefty changes going on around here. I prefer the tweak and test method of programming (and styling) rather than the deploy->develope alot->test alot->deploy method. If you see anything gone wrong refresh your browser and if that doesn't cure it then contact me.

As for me; just started my second co-op term at Research In Motion in Waterloo as a Java Developer. They hooked me up with a brand new BlackBerry Pearl the first day (had to say Goodbye to the trusty 8700!). Looks like I will be working on some rather exciting new projects so I'm looking forward to getting some programming experience outside of the web industry.

There are a number of blog topics on the way. Hopefully I will finish implementing a way to save drafts on the admin side of the site. That will be a big blessing not having to write a whole post in one session.

One of the topics I am most excited about will be a big feature on Typography on the web. It will likely consist of praise for the sites leading the way, and a bunch of tips that can be used (with some research to back them up) to improve the usability and readability of online text. Typographic conscientiousness is a well matured design topic that has been poorly applied to most of Internet.

Sorry if I missed anyone in Hanover over the holidays. You know how busy things can get. I have a bit more spare time this term (no homework), so drop me a line if your in the Waterloo area.

A year with AdSense

It's been almost a full year now since I installed AdSense and I have made a (very) small fortune. It is now well into 4 digits and growing monthly (if you count the two decimal places)!

Truth is that I made a staggering $0.30 last month. My hopes are high for 2007 though. I've heard $20.00 is the minimum Google will send a cheque for... that is only $6.14 to go!