Sarah says some interesting things in her sleep - if I remember them, I plan to keep a record of them here:
- Laughing (it's scary)
- "Shaula, are you awake??"
- "It's getting cloudy... ... ...I find that funny"
- "Woooaah.." (tone of quiet amazement)
- "We're going to Pyramid Rock"
- "Yeah, but not to the zoo ...to the factory."
Yub.com.au is a fantastic website! They even give you this little widget to put anywhere you want to flog your items!
The applet hits http://www.yub.com.au with the search terms (and any other search parameters entered by the user). The server will return the set of results in XML format and the applet will parse this resulting XML sheet and display the results!
I used and manipulated some of the classes from Josh Marinacci's 3-D Display Shelf with Perspective Transform to display the search results. It gives a really interactive and visually appealing way to scroll through potentially large result sets.
So here's my initial impressions of Java FX:
There is a bit of a learning curve. The first couple of days of working through tutorials and examples, it takes a bit of time to decode how things are working and the nature of the language. In particular the nesting of elements. When putting together a complex scene for the first time, the forest of curly braces can be a bit overwhelming.
The event triggers are good, but there was a lack of triggers for particular individual elements - such as the the Swing Combo Box. I was expecting that this element would have onValueChanged or onSelectedChanged events. I believe the dynamics between two drop downs could be linked through binding to values - but seemed like more trouble than it was worth for a simple event based action.
I coded the applet for web/stand alone execution. When I switched this code to be run on a mobile phone, half of the code was no longer supported. Effects and the Swing libraries were not available under the mobile profile. I understand this is because the mobile is more limiting medium, but it was still kind of disappointing. For a technology pertaining that it could be used in a such universal way (phones, web, TV) this difference was an quite unexpected (unpleasant) surprise.
Design, particularly of forms, is like playing a game of Battleships - trudging through co-ordinates until you get it right. If you wanted to move the whole scene's elements down 10px, you have to go to every individual element and change the y co-ordinate value by 10px. I think JavaFX will have to bring out an official WYSIWYG editor for generating the code needed to lay out all the elements the way you want them. Design is a very visual thing and trying to emulate it by typing code is not impossible, but it is painstaking.
On the filp side, programming the business logic, server requests, XML parsing and work flow were all quite straight forward and intuitive. Not being very experienced with working with or parsing XML, I found that JavaFX gave a good, understandable environment to learn in. The JavaFX environment interacts well with external data and works very nicely as a rich platform for internet applications, as it was intended to.
Grouping and binding are very intelligent mechanisms for controlling the JavaFX environment. They allow you to do many dynamic tasks and bridge the gap between front end and back end. Quite impressively in fact.
Overall, JavaFX looks like a promising technology. I'm sure in the versions to come it will be improved and become even more powerful. It does have the power and ability to be very prominent on the web (and other mediums running a JVM) but only time will tell how far both Sun Microsystems and the budding JavaFX programmers want to take it.
The Living End & Hotel Stay - 3rd October 2008
Got x-rays in the morning of my mouth, to find that my bottom wisdoms are crooked as! Dropped into Sarah's picked her up, then came home to get Dad to take us in to Geelong station and buy my special ticket. Found Hudge at the station and went up to Melbourne. Glenn and Kath were on the same train, but in another carriage. Once at Melbourne, we all ventured for lunch, and settled for eating in a food court. Continued the expedition down to Allan's music - and once there Me and Sarah went to Brooke's to return her laptop (which I fixed the sound for). Got drove back to Allan's Music by Leelee and looked at some expensive pianos with the crew. Now raining, we dropped into Target and Hudge got himself a belt - as he was in need.
We walked to Mantra on the park, where we were meant to be staying and found that they had over booked it - so we were upgraded to a better room at the Mantra on Russell St. We checked in there and unpacked and explored. Reece and Sarah went looking for the pool, and found it on Level 6. There was also a spa, gym and sauna there too! We pretty much immediately got changed into swim stuff back at our room and got into the pool. We swam around, while watching Glenn working out enthusiastically on the rowing machine. We then got into the spa part of the pool and stayed in there for quite some time relaxin! We all then went out for dinner at the Waiter's Club. It was a restaurant down an alleyway and up some stairs. Quite hidden, but really really yum and filling.
After woofing all our food down, we dropped into a convenience store/bottle-o were I got me some vodka and breakfast juice. We all returned to the hotel and had our respective drinks while watching RV on TV and shuddering at it's lameness. It got better as we drank though. Soon I was feeling the effects of drinking out of a jug instead of a glass. 2 jugs later we began the walk to the Queens Bridge Hotel. We took a crazy route through Southgate and stopped in at the ATM circle so everybody could cash out.
We got our moneys and continued walking to the gig. Everyone was busting to go, me the most so. We snuck into the arts centre and navigated through the MSO crowd to seek relief, and found it at the toilets with padded walls. We arrived at the Queens Bridge Hotel and watched Children Collide open for the Living End. Crazy crazy noise! Then as the Living End were a few songs in Me and Glenn made our way close to the front. It was a fair mosh bit, not brutal at all - so we really loved the Living End set. Which included 'Run to Paradise' into Roll On. Just Awesome! Exhausted, we walked back to the hotel stopping at Fed Square for hydration and McDonald's for the girls. Got back and crashed!!!
The next day... - 4th October 2008
Packed up and checked out in the morning and began walking again! Sarah and I had breakfast at Cafe Caldera in DFO (old Cafe Sapore). Smashed a huge hamburger, and reunited with the crew. Then caught the VLine bus home with Sarah and Hudge. Stuffed!
In case I forget...
- When it's sunny and warm you're outdoors - not inside on the computer!
- Kick the footy in the back yard
- Spend more time at the beach
- Celebrate Australia Day properly, in Australian style
- Spend much more time with Sarah
Name: Jasmine Errey
Era: HS > VCE
Characteristics: Loyal, Smart, Hard Worker, Good Listener, Giving
Genius at: Science, Photography
Favorite Memories:
- Jasmine proudly showed off her new keyring on her schoolbag outside the Home Economics wing at Minerva. It was a Cadbury key ring which she stated was 'chocolate scented'. I mistook this as 'chocolate centered' and tried to bite into it. The memory is as etched into my mind as the teeth marks are on the corner of that rubber keyring. She laughed about it, and didn't get angry about the fact her new keyring now had a bite mark across it.
- One year, she gave me a Milkybar and a hackey sack for my birthday. Quite possibly two of my favorite things at that time.
- When playing basketball for P.E in the Minerva Hall, I noticed Jasmine sitting on the sidelines. Being the good friend I am, I pulled her onto the court to get involved and have some fun. She was insisting that sport wasn't really her thing as I dragged her onto the court. I should have listened, as no more than 20 seconds later she went to catch the ball and it hit her straight in the head. I felt so bad. I think my words were something like: "I'm sorry, I didn't know... ..you can come sit back down now.." as I took her back to the sidelines. Sorry Jas.
- She was integral in one of the most path defining days of my life. One day at school she was asking me about Sarah (after Kristen's party)(those not in the know can probably join the dots)(those with dirty minds, it was just smoochin!). She made a comment which took my surprise "Do you want me to ask her out for you?"
Up until that point I didn't even think it was possible for someone like me to have a girlfriend. I thought Sarah was great, and maybe a lot greater than me - so the thought didn't cross my mind. I of course said 'yes!', she seemed to think it was possible! That very same day Sarah dropped a letter to Kristen asking me out. The rest is history (the present and the future!). - She was one of the very few people who listened to my rants and conspiracy theories
- One day she came and took photos of the Mudge (my high school band with a couple of mates) and made us all a frame of the four members, with kool paper and music stickers. It still hangs on my wall to this day...
Why you want to be her friend: "No matter what's going on around, or how fast the world moves - she will take the time to listen"
Name: Dirk Van Dalen
Era: HS > VCE
Characteristics: Fun, Loyal, Killer Dancer, Happy, Infectiously Happy, Infectiously Fun
Genius at: Soccer, Poker, Philosophy, Japanese
Favorite Memories:
- After Scottie's birthday party, most of the crew returned to Matt's house for post-drinks and general invading of cheese from the fridge. Dirk and I stayed up and watched Letterman and MAD TV - where, for the first time, we saw 'Kenny Roger's Jackass'. We laughed and cried for many hours into the night.
- Some of the crew once took a road trip to Dirk's house, where we played hackey-soccer on his back porch. It soon turned dangerous, with people kickbooting the ball at the water bowl and shed gutters for crazy effect. We later went into his house to look for some board games to play... but he DIDN"T OWN ANY!! No one could believe it and we continued to search rudimentary cupboards. Nothing. Jimmy Hendrix was the sound track for that day.
- On a whim I decided to go to Stewie's party, and lucky I did because I won a poker tournament that night. I came from the low stack, needing a '6' on the river to stay in the game - and Dirk (dealing) dealt me out that magical '6'. From then on I went from strength to strength and pipped Matty Hayes at the post for the victory, playing my 'AK' perfectly. After the game and big big party, I had no where to stay that night. At this point in time I didn't really know Dirk, but he still took me under his wing and gave me a bed for the night at his house ...and Coco Pops in the morning - I mean, what a champion!
- Many-a-memories meeting him at the world famous 'Inverleigh Fair', usually playing hackey sack. One such year included the guest appearance of a boy named Xavier, who at the time I didn't really know. He randomly asked if he could join in and we felt no stranger danger - although he was a complete stranger. We all played hackey for quite some time that day.
- He supported many of my crazy games such as 'Bottle Wars' and 'Star Cards'
- And may the devil strike me down, I almost forgot... the magical day in English where Dirk penned the song 'Afgan Man' (to the tune of 'Uptown Girl').
Why you want to be his friend: "He grooves without juice and gets your party started!"
(Although I hear now he drinks the occasional juice - but he doesn't need it to groove of course!)
