Update, Main Page

Continuing on edits made to the main page the last few nights, I have come close to finishing some significant edits to the main page. To start, the page has been organized slightly differently, with the News, Sports, and School menus moving across the page from right to left. This has freed up some space in the Current Weather Corner, which was actually contracted in size, resulting in a smaller window in the lower right corner. The window which used to show webcams is now used for displaying weather radar, which is controlled through a menu directly above. The webcams may be added back in at a later date after I check that they are all working (4 or 6 were not). Much of the title bar is now an image, with the links following below. In the middle of the site now resides a site index, which describes the major portions of the site behind the index page.

Some changes are still in the works, such as cleaning up the html and resetting the CSS styles. I recognize that the iframe setup for the radar will prevent any users acessing the website with IE from using them, however, to my knowledge I have yet to find a fix for that issue. This may be something that is resolved in the next major build of the main page, and further the website, converting to a master page format

12/28/09: Snow In the Forecast

Looks like another nor'easter will be making it's way north along the coast around New Year's Eve. Right now it is difficult to tell where the rain/snow line will end up, but there definitely looks to be enough moisture in this storm to produce another mess.

12/26/09: New Main Page Updates

Tonight, actually early this morning, I changed a portion of the main page. For a while I have been using the Quack to record changes to my website. Instead of entering these changes on the main page in text, they are now shown through an RSS feed that is using feedburner. This is a service offered by Google that I have added to my website. The new object will show the most recent posts, and cycle through them continually helping to clean up that part of the main page and conserve some space. Over the next few days there will likely continue to be some tweaking. Currently clicking on the object will take you directly to the main page of the blog, showing the most recent blog entry. Now since it's 5AM I'm off to sleep. Merry Christmas!

Travel Map Updated

Finally added something to my website again, and it's an update of the travel map. This addition includes my trip to and from Oklahoma in August and Knoxville in October. Now I'll have to make a trip to Kentucky to clear some holes.

Travel Map Updated

Updated the travel map tonight. I think the only thing that had to be added was the trip to Tennessee. That adds another state to my list, with a visit to Cocke and Sevier counties. Gatlinburg was a really cool town, though granted a bit of a tourist trap. I'll have to post the pics. On the way back, Mary, Caglar, and I took a detour and did some hiking in the Smokies, and drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The mountains were beautiful and the air refreshing compared to the 90 degree heat Columbia has been experiencing. The new map replaced the old one, of the same name (travelmap.gif) and is located in the Maps folder. I'm working on a GIS solution for this which will allow updating to be easier and for me to expand this mapping to a few other projects.

The Spread of WalMart and Target

I happened to run into this site Flowing Data, which looks like it takes on some interesting mapping ideas. They have two projects which show the spread of WalMart and Target across the country. Comparing them shows some interesting decisions in their spread; it seems like Walmart moved outwards from it's initial base in Arkansas and saturated new markets, whereas Target aimed to go to mostly any major market in the Midwest before expanding outward. Click below for each project:

Walmart
Target

Main Page and About Me Updated

I made a number of edits tonight to the website. The About Me page was revised and updated. I also made changes to the format of the main page, changing the banner, and some font issues below. I still cannot figure out how to get IE to recognize the iframe for the webcams. Firefox is showing them correctly. When I make the next update I will likely move the travel map into the Maps. A few other code changes need to be made. I need to work on standardizing the css tags in a separate file.