Category Archives: Web Applications

Adding More Places to Eat to My List

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Over the last nine or ten months of the pandemic, I have been gathering places to eat at Gotta Eat Here. So with not going out to eat or even having the means to do so. Such as a car or using the bus or metro (commuter train) that I do not want to use either right now.

New Food Resources

I have found many food-related shows. Been reading articles or found new people on Twitter with great food recommendations. The list of places they all are suggesting is adding up.

Adding My Backlog or Making Updates to the Application

So I have been adding them to my backlog in GitHub of places to add to my web-based application when I have time. The application lists all the places I have been or want to go to when I travel or even go to in the DC area.

Each day I make an effort to either add at least one place to the JSON files that power the application. Or add a new restaurant to the backlog.

I have found many new places to make it worth adding a new location (city or state) to the application. So that’s work that needs to be done too.

New Features

A feature I need to add to the website is the ability to link to a page with a dynamic map of places near the person. Or at least put the restaurants for that location all on one page. A more useful option is the ability to store the page contents with service workers. It’s for when there is no internet in some big cities or out in the middle of nowhere. So you can at least show the pages you brought up before.

Finding the Time

So here’s to making more time to work on these items.

I’m thinking a good time will be over the upcoming five-day long weekend. I figured since I already have MLK day off and the Inauguration off, I would take Tuesday the 19th off.

P.S. You can find my list of places to eat the website “Gotta Eat Here“.

You Should Use Your Local Public Library to Do Work

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You should use your local public library to read, do tech related work, catch up on e-mails, etc. on the weekends or nights after work when others are not around. Over the last year or two, I’ve found working at my local libraries has been easier than working in a coffee shop. It’s also a change of pace from working at home.

Using the library is easy on your budget. Doing this means you don’t have to buy another latte or fancy pastry or sandwich or salad or Gelato so you can get another hour and a half of internet connection. Or so you do not feel guilty that you stayed there for a few hours more without buying anything. Plus, if you’re drinking lots of coffee or tea, you won’t be all hopped up on caffeine by the end of the day. Even though some libraries let you bring in beverages in a fixed lid container. I think the main Columbus library sells drinks on the first floor.

Over the last year or so I have gone to a few of the Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC, libraries. Did this on a few nights and most weekends when I’m home. I spend my time working on improving my list of restaurant’s I want to visit when I travel or even at home application (jfc iii Ate Here). A lot of the time is spent finding the details about a restaurant. Such as their address, phone number, a description of the place and what they serve, and URL. Once, I have that information I put it in a GitHub issue so I can add them to the proper city or state JSON file when I have the time.

I especially like visiting the central libraries in bigger cities when I’m there visiting for work or on vacation. It’s great seeing how grand some of the older libraries are. In the last year or two, I have been to the following cities and their libraries.

Libraries are Listed Alphabetically by City Name

NOTE: Updated list of libraries and URLs on October 9, 2019.

I have found at the smaller libraries, the earlier you get there doing so allows you to locate a power outlet. Be they in, on, or under some tables. Other time you need to find a chair along the windows of the walls for an outlet. To avoid having the problem of lack of power I make sure to charge my laptop the night before. Or in the morning if the library doesn’t open until late morning or early afternoon.

Bringing headphones to help cancel out some of the noise can be useful depending on the library. Sometimes having headphones in or over your ears is enough to cancel out most of the sound so you can think. Doing so gives you that option if that is what you need to do.

No matter the size of the library they now all seem to have wifi so you can get to the internet. With not knowing how good the wifi is or how much content other people are going to be downloading I tend to bring my “Your Karma” mifi. Doing so allows me not have to worry about what others are doing on the internet.

Conclusion

Use your local libraries to get work done, so they continue to get the funding they need and are open for others to use. It beats sitting at home all the time. You might even see people you know or meet some new people.

On hot summer days or cold winters ones too it’s a pleasant place to relax and get out of the weather when you are traveling be it for work or vacation.

Bonus Location to Work

Use your local libraries to get work done, so they continue to get the funding they need and are open for others to use. It beats sitting at home all the time. You might even see people you know or meet some new people.

On hot summer days or cold winters ones too it’s a pleasant place to relax and get out of the weather. When you’re home or traveling be it for work or vacation libraries are a great place to be. Another great place to get some work done is your local auto dealer. I know you’re thinking I’m crazy. But if you can get an appointment on the weekend when they open. You then tell them you are waiting and will be sitting in the salesman’s section out front. Doing this is great if you have your own wifi/mifi. Because the service section has desks and opens an hour or two before the sales people get there. Giving you plenty of time to work quietly. Usually, the only person running around is someone either sweeping or mopping the floor so it looks good for customers buying cars.

Plus, it’s interesting on a Saturday towards the end of the month. Doing so lets you listen to the dealership manager or owner come to talk to the sales team to get them pumped up to sell cars. Along with reminding them they have to sell a certain amount of vehicles to meet quotas and they can get bonuses.

Use your local library to get work done.

Places to Eat Application Progress

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Here is the running progress of what is happening while doing research for my possible new web application to store places you want to eat while home or traveling. The big reason for this idea/application is I’m always asking or looking for places friends, family, the internet, TV, etc. recommend to eat because they have been there and think I would like to go there. Having personal recommendations from at least a reputable sources is better than looking at some application.

Normally, I got places from people in e-mail, text, Twitter, DM’s, Facebook, in person conversations, etc. I want a place to store all of that information, which is accessible to my phone since I pretty much have it with me at all times.

So here is what I have been doing Sunday, December 6, 2015, from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM.

9:00 AM

Was able to get started on time, but had great difficulties with using my old 13″ White MacBook and Time Machine, which decided it had to take all the system resources, so it made using the internet near impossible. Did a quick update to the new MacBook Pro and will switch to that when I leave the house with a log list of articles, forums, website, and phone-based applications to research and review.

10:30 AM

Started writing this blog post on what I had done so far. Most likely around noon going to head out to local coffee shop or two to do some reading and writing about resources I have found so far.

Noon

Spent the last hour or so gathering more resources of food related websites, application, and further URLs to research, along with a few different categories of applications on iTunes to check on applications.

Later today time will be spent downloading iPhone applications that have some kind of community feature or ability to store restaurant recommendations.

Now, it’s off to St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub to get out of the house and start working my way through all the information I have gathered so far, which is a good 35+ URLs. My guess is that will lead to even more information to wade through.

2:30 PM

I have spent the last hour or so adding ten more URLs to my list of things to read while reading through the current list. Even asked a few foodie friends on Twitter what they use to store recommendations and it seems they use applications/websites to look at what other’s recommend, but nothing to keep a list for themselves.

It seems more digging is required and that not many people store this information in any formal way or at least that’s what I have found so far.

Think it’s time to finish this article and get a late lunch before heading to next coffee shop to do more work.

5:00 PM

Didn’t get much done last two hours, since ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in about a year walking towards my car so talked to then and then went to grab a late lunch of oxtail steamed buns and Miso Porky Ramen at Yano, which is a new Ramen shop in Arlington, VA.

Plus, talked to my father for a bit after he butt dialed me on his iPhone, which has happened to me more than once. Not sure how he manages that on an iPhone.

6:00 PM

Thinks it’s time to head home and use a proper chair or sofa to do more sitting. All these coffee shop tables and chairs are not meant to sit for long times or at least all the ones I sat in today.

Once home it might be best to relax on the sofa while downloading and trying out the different iPhone applications I managed to find so far.

9:00 PM

Ended up leaving last coffee shop around 7:00 PM after I did some reading on my iPhone to break up the staring at my laptop all day. Manage to get home by 7:30 PM and threw in some laundry before resetting my iTunes password and downloading the following iPhone applications that I need to investigate further.

  • Zagat
  • OpenTable
  • TripAdvisor
  • theFork
  • FourSquare
  • Yelp
  • UrbanSpoon
  • ChefsFeed
  • Dine

All in all, it looks like I managed to put in around seven hours of research out of the 12 hours I planned for the research activity for today. Which I don’t think is bad for an unplanned event on a weekend, plus I was running around to different locations to see if one was better than another and had to eat too.

In the short amount of time to do research I have done, I have not found anything similar to the application I want to build that stores recommendations and information I gather to use later. Will most likely have to spend time in many foodie forums to see how people are keeping track of where they eat, which I have got to believe a bunch of people is doing.

Conclusion

Started writing this blog post on what I had done so far. Most likely around noon going to head out to local coffee shop or two to do some reading and writing about resources I have found so far.

Thanks, for reading along with my progress on this mini researchathon for this project.

Please add comments or e-mail them to me if you have any recommendation or resources, you think I might find useful.

Starting a Places to Eat Web Application

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Over the last couple of years, I have wanted to have an application that can keep track of places I want to eat be that from friends, new people I meet, the internet, TV show, etc. but I haven’t found it yet. Not that I have been looking all that hard and would know what best to Google for to find it.

So after being inspired once again by Amy Hoy, Alex Hamilton, and crew with their create something new in 24 hours I’m going to dive into to this with a 12 version Sunday, December 6th, to see what I can find out this idea. See #jfsathon and Just F’ing Ship the book.

Have already sat down and figure out a few things the application would need to get started and other things that would be nice to have later on. I know they would say I’m doing it wrong without doing research, so that is what most of my time fill be spent doing in this first 12 hours. Then over the course of the next few weekends and will most likely spend some time after work on more of this idea.

My 12 hour started at 9 AM and will most likely finish by 9:00 PM, so I can relax and get ready for a week of training starting on Monday morning. Of course, I will be taking a few breaks to get away from the computer and let things I have found out sink in to help me further down the road in this process.

If you have any suggestions or examples for me to look at please leave them in the comments.

 

NOT Continuing to Work on HoldAnEvent.com for Now

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It’s been a long while since I updated you all on how the work on the HoldAnEvent.com prototype is going. The short answer is the prototype is as complete as it’s going to get. The next steps are where the real work needs to begin, which includes the following items but is not the full list of work to be done:

  • Database functionality (currently it’s all smoke and mirrors)
  • Accessible ARIA
    • Error handling
    • Success messages
  • Security checking
  • Payment processing
  • Performance improvements:
    • Minify CSS
    • Minify JavaScript
    • Combine files

The work on Hold An Event has NOT been moving along at all in the last 25+ months besides making some code improvements. The updates were about updating accessibility and some performance items. These improvements will make the pages load quicker by minifying files and  removing necessary code (not needed when using HTML5.)

Part of the reason I have not done any more work on this project is that it is larger than one person or at least for me now with the knowledge I have. I’m looking to work on a smaller project I can complete and learn what I need to complete Hold An Event.

That project is about being able to save information about places you need to eat at while traveling or even if you are staying in town. I’m always asking people where to eat, especially if I’m traveling somewhere new.

The web based application will be simple; in that you store the name of the restaurant and the city at first and can add more information when you have the time or on a computer or tablet.

It’s for when you are in a city or other part of town you can search to find things near you and then sort the results by city, or distance from you, or maybe even food type later on in the process.

If this project sounds appealing to you, please leave a comment. If you would even pay for this service tell me how much a month or year it is worth to you.