Tag: php

It's finally live! Today I launch Slicklister to the world. Slicklister is a project that's been on the back burner for a long, long time.

Slicklister is a list of links you find yourself regularly going to. Maybe it's your personal webmail, maybe it's your work webmail or ticketing dashboard. For me, it's a lot of news links, and special interest links I like to visit routinely. My page is here if you want to see what it looks like when setup: https://slicklister.com/tommygober (you can also just click on Links up at the top of Neodux).

The project started because I had a static HTML page that I kept on my local system, then moved to my webhost. I figured others might have a similar use-case, so I put all the links in a database and made the page pull those links for the user that link belongs to. Using a draggable interface through a JavaScript library Google first released well over a decade ago, I figured the UI can be simple and somewhat intuitive. It's not going to change the world, but I figure it might make someone's life a little more convenient. With most browsers sync'ing user profiles in the cloud, there may not be as much demand for the site as when I first envisioned it; but it's still something I use daily and set every personal web browser to use as the default page on start up.

So here we are. For the past 8-10 years, I've manually created links for myself, a couple family members, and a friend for years, but today you can create your own Slicklister page from the main Slicklister page and I even have a little script so you can enter your ZIP code to get started with some basic links relevant to your area like weather and movies. I hope some of you find utility in it and let me know if I need to add or revise any features!

While arguably probably not my best work, it only took me all of a couple hours, I present a listing of all the Texas Historical Markers. I don't know why I never linked to it before. Maybe I'm not too proud of it, but I wanted to give you access to it. What features do I need to add?

I discovered one evening that Texas has a database of all historical markers in the state freely available online in a comma separated value file (among other formats). What's a geek to do but grab the file and throw it in a MySQL database!
I whipped up a quick drop-down list of all the marker names and used AJAX to show the marker's text. A couple of simple URLs allow you to see, generally, where the marker is located. I have the location information in the database, but it's not Lat/Long which would make for easy map-making. Perhaps that will be my next step. Found a supporting .txt file that has most of the Lat/Long. A simple JOIN from the database fixed that problem. (though, to be honest, some of the coordinates are way off. Unless Texas has markers in Mexico.)

At any rate, take it or leave it, there it is: http://n5dux.com/histmark/

Most of the students where I teach have time in their computer labs to surf the web or play flash games. The IT department, in order to conserve bandwidth and filter "inappropriate material", need to block most games. Since most games are just mind-numbing wastes of time, most teachers support this. Students looking for games will scour the web searching for game sites that aren't blocked. As soon as one game site is discovered, the URL spreads like wildfire before the site is blocked in the next few days. The cycle repeats itself ad nauseum.

Seeing the problem from both sides, I decided to make an "approved games list" of games that at least feature some academic merit. I understand that games can be beneficial and educational while still being enjoyable. I asked my Computer Science class to find games they enjoy and add them to my games list. They needed to list the educational lessons found within the game and the supporting TEKS on my games list.
The end result has grown into "Mr. Gober's Games". Several students use the site daily and it has received the approval of administration.
Ideally, the next step will be to house the site on the school network to reduce the bandwidth load and increase response speed for the user.

Recently I have added a page to add games, a method to report broken or inappropriate games and a new ratings system. The ratings system was my first successful foray into AJAX. I've attempted AJAX before but came up short. Fortunately jQuery made the effort much easier by abstracting most of the work for me. So, take a look at Mr Gober's Games and have fun - don't forget to vote for your favorites!