Starting late on Monday carried over to a late night on Tuesday at work. It was an unexpected, but overall beneficial long day. I’ve managed to squeeze in a little time for refactoring the JavaScript portion of awFlickr app, which I plan to release into a private beta this weekend.
I’ll think of a better name once I get it out for testing. I’m planning on using this as a base for Spiral’s PHP version, and my tentatively named aw:Mail.
I picked up two books the other night to read for work & my personal projects. While looking for Design Patterns Explained I found PHP Design Patterns, which is a WROX book (I favor this publisher) and seemed to be the same core content in a shorter package. The other is the O’Reilly JavaScript Pocket Reference, which is going to be a bit of a refresher.
This past weekend I started working on a Flickr app that’s REST/JSON/JavaScript based (with a PHP back end generating the JSON). It’s a very old project I never really got started on, but was pretty easy to (almost) complete in under 2 days.
I discovered… a Flickr ID is too large for any web browser JavaScript engine to handle; they rounded up randomly. HTML comments on photos are very annoying from a programmatic point of view. I really like JavaScript.
I used the code base from my portfolio and hacked it up, by taking out the # operations and using events on all the dynamic objects/elements. I also corrected the JSON transportation. Now I’m left with a few visual effects to create, and some misc behavioral changes.
I’m hoping to have v1.0 released this week under the MIT license.
I’ve integrated my Flickr account with my website (finally!). It’s still in beta, more eye candy will be rolling out this week.
It’s my birthday, and I’m thirty! Glad I got my career in order over the last year; I’m feeling really happy about where I’m at.
Saturday morning was pretty chilly at -20c with windchill, but that didn’t stop me from taking a walk around Confederation Park with my fiance; cameras in hand! I opted to use my nifty fifty (50mm f1.4), at a pretty wide aperture of f2.0 for almost all of the photos. ISO100 was required, and there was no filter on the front element.
The full series is available at http://gallery.jasonmulligan.com/winterlude-2010 and will be continually updated while the festival is under way.
I shot the fireworks display from my home last night, mostly due of the cold but also because I got home late from the office and that left little time to get myself weather proofed and outside. Regardless, the show was awesome! I dragged the shutter too long it seems at 4 seconds, so a little “live ‘n’ learn” lesson occurred; usually I get it right.
I’m also doing the final content edit for Optis wedding album. Client feedback has been great, and we both decided to change 2 spreads slightly so there’s better flow in the story telling. I can’t wait to finish the book, it’s going to look amazing once it’s printed by KISS Wedding Books.
Later today I’m hoping to have enough time to walk through the ice carving that’s going on in Confederation Park, not too far from my home. It’s always fun to see the creative ice sculptures.
So it’s that day of the week that no one really loves. It’s going alright for me so far, I start work later than usual due to an after hours meeting scheduled with a client.
This weekend was relaxing, thanks to finally collecting a pay cheque after a couple of months of being unemployed in my primary career. I took Jen to a local pub we frequent that has good burgers & fries, and a nice selection of beer on tap. On Saturday we did a little clothes shopping and I scored a great wool winter jacket that’s more office friendly compared to my (very awesome) Ripzone Trilogy snowboard jacket.
On Sunday I laid out the wedding album for Johnny & Michelle. It took longer than I had originally expected, but it is the first book I’ve done via page spreads. Setting up my template/guides was essential to getting the look I wanted with easy to deploy asset placement. Tonight I might setup a Photoshop action to batch export low resolution .jpg files for them to review, but I might wait until Tuesday when I’m doing a normal 9-5hr work day.
I’m looking forward to getting out with my camera a bit more once it warms up. I’d like to pick up another light stand/strobe for my kit; but my camera gear purchases have been delegated to lowest priority for now. Mid to late summer I should be able to get a bunch of stuff I need / want so I can do more advanced work.