Sunday, October 21, 2007
Browser testing..
http://browsershots.org/ is very neat!
I checked this morning to be sure that my code worked on mgmhd.com. Had to switch out the featured movies. It didn't work. Oh well! I've fixed it now. Nothing better to do on a Sunday morning!
BFN
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
MGM HD and it's feed
I should say, MGM HD and it's lack of feed? As much as I like taking a pretty picture of a schedule, and having to retype it, and format to upload into the database, then go through and correct all the typos (or plain wrong titles) to make sure my fuzzy titles matching logic works and the titles actually appear on the schedule... I can't wait to get the feed!
Looks like it will be further away now than originally anticipated, so I am steeling myself to entering another day at a time for the schedule.
I shouldn't gripe.. but we have so many other things planned. We're still only half way through the enourmous conversion of the old DB structure to my new design. The design was completed, signed off, and the new databases created back in June! Not to mention all the updates and revisions we have for the Stargate sites.
I have my fingers crossed for a new season of Stargate, but partially because one of the higher ups noticed the extra effort I was putting towards the project, oh.. and all the posters in my cube *grin* and suggested I might go up to Vancouver to see if I could find some more content for the site or something like that. Woot! I'd even buy my own ticket ;)!
So.. in the meantime.. let me retype this schedule.
BFN
Looks like it will be further away now than originally anticipated, so I am steeling myself to entering another day at a time for the schedule.
I shouldn't gripe.. but we have so many other things planned. We're still only half way through the enourmous conversion of the old DB structure to my new design. The design was completed, signed off, and the new databases created back in June! Not to mention all the updates and revisions we have for the Stargate sites.
I have my fingers crossed for a new season of Stargate, but partially because one of the higher ups noticed the extra effort I was putting towards the project, oh.. and all the posters in my cube *grin* and suggested I might go up to Vancouver to see if I could find some more content for the site or something like that. Woot! I'd even buy my own ticket ;)!
So.. in the meantime.. let me retype this schedule.
BFN
Thursday, October 11, 2007
MGM HD.. what day is it? wait.. what time is it?
MGM HD site creation has certainly been an interesting experience. From what I understand the feedback on the TV Channel itself has been overwhelmingly positive. Which is great for us, because it means we're dealing with TPTB while they are in a good mood.
I can honestly say I never ever read a TV guide in my life. I don't know why, I just never needed to know when my shows are on, because I always had the power of advertising to let me know, and now my cable box tells me what's on when.
I thought someone had made a mistake, and messed up the "dates" on the excel spreadsheet I got, which had laid out (in a way no one could possibly script to get the data out of it) that each "day" starts at 6am, and goes through until 5.59am the following day.
Apparently that's how it's done in TV Guides, and TV Stations. Silly me to think that 12am marks the start of a new day! This has created tons of problems for me creating the schedule. As on the feed and schedule.. the date is correct literally, and the time is also correct. This means two things. I have to constantly be checking to make sure that today really is today.. it really is today if it's after 6am. Before 6am, I have to reset all the variable like it's yesterday.
My head hurts.. seriously my code has turned to complete spaghetti.. it's almost incomprehensible that I can't use plain regular old dates.. I have to always be checking the time to work out if it's really today or not.
The other snafu created by this crazy system is getting them out of the database in the right order, for the right "day". My query ended up like this:
Lovely aint it?
It's live, it appears to work, now I just have to wait and see what happens at the end of the month, and the end of the year. Lets hope I got all those calculations right!
BFN
I can honestly say I never ever read a TV guide in my life. I don't know why, I just never needed to know when my shows are on, because I always had the power of advertising to let me know, and now my cable box tells me what's on when.
I thought someone had made a mistake, and messed up the "dates" on the excel spreadsheet I got, which had laid out (in a way no one could possibly script to get the data out of it) that each "day" starts at 6am, and goes through until 5.59am the following day.
Apparently that's how it's done in TV Guides, and TV Stations. Silly me to think that 12am marks the start of a new day! This has created tons of problems for me creating the schedule. As on the feed and schedule.. the date is correct literally, and the time is also correct. This means two things. I have to constantly be checking to make sure that today really is today.. it really is today if it's after 6am. Before 6am, I have to reset all the variable like it's yesterday.
My head hurts.. seriously my code has turned to complete spaghetti.. it's almost incomprehensible that I can't use plain regular old dates.. I have to always be checking the time to work out if it's really today or not.
The other snafu created by this crazy system is getting them out of the database in the right order, for the right "day". My query ended up like this:
select * from schedule where (air_date='".$now_date."' and air_time >='600') or (air_date='".$tomorrow_date."' and air_time < '600') order by air_date, air_time
Lovely aint it?
It's live, it appears to work, now I just have to wait and see what happens at the end of the month, and the end of the year. Lets hope I got all those calculations right!
BFN
Saturday, October 6, 2007
MGM HD is feedless
At least for the time being, there is no feed for MGM HD. How was I to make a website with a schedule without a schedule??
Yikes.. I basically took a layout of the schedule, and created a version that I could import sans feed. I had to write a new version of all the pages, to process a title as the key. A title is not a very good key, for tons of reasons, but mostly because people tend to misspell things, to use different punctuation, or to just plain get the title wrong.
I spent a large time yesterday going through and "fixing" all the title names. FUN!!
It's done.. I have to go over it again with the printed schedules I brought home, but for the most part my code worked!! I shouldn't sound to surprised.. but I am ;)
Today's task was to get the search working. This can mean many things, and because I am again working with no spec, and no direction.. I've made it up. The search just submits via get directly to mgm.com. I assume this is what it's supposed to do, but I could be wrong.. it's happened before!
I heard from a friend that I've not spoken to in year this last week! Am excited to be back in contact, and hopefully will see him next time I go home.
well.. BFN!
Yikes.. I basically took a layout of the schedule, and created a version that I could import sans feed. I had to write a new version of all the pages, to process a title as the key. A title is not a very good key, for tons of reasons, but mostly because people tend to misspell things, to use different punctuation, or to just plain get the title wrong.
I spent a large time yesterday going through and "fixing" all the title names. FUN!!
It's done.. I have to go over it again with the printed schedules I brought home, but for the most part my code worked!! I shouldn't sound to surprised.. but I am ;)
Today's task was to get the search working. This can mean many things, and because I am again working with no spec, and no direction.. I've made it up. The search just submits via get directly to mgm.com. I assume this is what it's supposed to do, but I could be wrong.. it's happened before!
I heard from a friend that I've not spoken to in year this last week! Am excited to be back in contact, and hopefully will see him next time I go home.
well.. BFN!
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Ratings for Stargate Atlantis Season 4 Eps 1
Finally a result is in, and I didn't win our pool over the rating for the season premiere episode of SGA. As reported at gateworld.net, it's a 1.2.
http://gateworld.net/news/2007/10/season_four_premieres_with_1.2_r.shtml
My guess was a 1.7 which turns out to be far off, but is super sad, because how it does in the ratings in the next two more eps (or one more) will determine if the show is renewed.
*le sigh*
BFN
http://gateworld.net/news/2007/10/season_four_premieres_with_1.2_r.shtml
My guess was a 1.7 which turns out to be far off, but is super sad, because how it does in the ratings in the next two more eps (or one more) will determine if the show is renewed.
*le sigh*
BFN
Stargate is not over
We were supposed to spend all of September making updates and changes for the Stargate website. October 1st there was a meeting with TPTB and looks like we'll be focusing on it for at least another couple months.
Means our other projects, and most of my "goals" for this year (to get my bonus) won't come to fruition. That makes me super duper sad. Oh well! I do happen to like the Stargate franchise tons, so I will at least get to implement some of the ideas I have to improve the sites.
All the scripts and tools are done for MGM HD, now we just await the mysterious "feed" which we won't see until the day it goes live (or perhaps after!!)... Love developing blind!
Today I will be creating a function to go through the synopsis of each episode, and find the character and actor names, and surround them with links directly to each character page. FANCY! Well not really.
BFN
ps. I'd like to say, I am not responsible for Team Stargate.. but sorry to those who couldn't pick their province in the first week, that was my fault *blush*. I'd also like to point out that that "game" on the site wasn't us either.. third party marketing fluff.
Means our other projects, and most of my "goals" for this year (to get my bonus) won't come to fruition. That makes me super duper sad. Oh well! I do happen to like the Stargate franchise tons, so I will at least get to implement some of the ideas I have to improve the sites.
All the scripts and tools are done for MGM HD, now we just await the mysterious "feed" which we won't see until the day it goes live (or perhaps after!!)... Love developing blind!
Today I will be creating a function to go through the synopsis of each episode, and find the character and actor names, and surround them with links directly to each character page. FANCY! Well not really.
BFN
ps. I'd like to say, I am not responsible for Team Stargate.. but sorry to those who couldn't pick their province in the first week, that was my fault *blush*. I'd also like to point out that that "game" on the site wasn't us either.. third party marketing fluff.
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