Tim Ginn's Personal Blog » FIRST http://tim.timginn.com Human-Computer Interaction Masters Candidate at Queen's University, Vegetarian, Mandarin language learner, swing/jazz dancer and more. Sat, 02 May 2009 11:23:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Lego Robotics http://tim.timginn.com/2006/10/03/lego_robotics/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/10/03/lego_robotics/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 My Lego Robotics kids are awesome. What could be cooler than mentoring a bunch of 9-14 year olds playing with Lego and Robotics (we’re getting the brand new NXT system, too). Today was the first meeting and they watched some of the FIRST Lego League kickoff videos then we had a bit of a Q&A. Tuesdays are actually pretty good since the bus to Sempar passes campus right after my tutorial finishes. Tomorrow at 4:30 P.M. is the deadline for applications for mentors so at that point I’ll know who else is interested in helping. I filled in the Police Check form online so that should be ready in a week or two. There’s another FLL rookie team in Kingston made up of home-schoolers and we’re probably going to get together to do a practice competition before the real one at Calvin Park on November 11th.

Now, to do the less fun task of studying for the Algorithms (CISC365) test.

]]> http://tim.timginn.com/2006/10/03/lego_robotics/feed/ 0 FIRST Blogs Stuff http://tim.timginn.com/2006/05/28/first_blogs_stuff/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/05/28/first_blogs_stuff/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 FIRST Blogs features. For those of you who read this blog, Here's a sneak peak at one feature (topics for organisation). Those of you who have been invited to test the new stuff can create your own topic / reading list (which has an RSS feed associated with it, too), so, you can choose only those blogs/topics you're interested in and subscribe to them all at once. If anyone wants in on the testing let me know.]]> Well, I’m ready for select people to start testing some of the new FIRST Blogs features. For those of you who read this blog, Here’s a sneak peak at one feature (topics for organisation). Those of you who have been invited to test the new stuff can create your own topic / reading list (which has an RSS feed associated with it, too), so, you can choose only those blogs/topics you’re interested in and subscribe to them all at once. If anyone wants in on the testing let me know.

]]> http://tim.timginn.com/2006/05/28/first_blogs_stuff/feed/ 0 FIRST Blogs Userbar http://tim.timginn.com/2006/05/04/first_blogs_userbar/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/05/04/first_blogs_userbar/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 Chief Delphi, so, I've created a FIRST Blogs one. The BB code: [url=http://blog.openfirst.org/][img]http://www.openfirst.org/image/userbar/firstblogs.png[/img][/url] Which gives you this bar: (linked to FIRST Blogs). For any of you wanting to make your own Userbars, check out Userbar Maker (no Photoshop skills required). If someone wants to make an openFIRST one that would be cool. ]]> Userbars seem to be the current trendy thing on Chief Delphi, so, I’ve created a FIRST Blogs one.

The BB code:


[url=http://blog.openfirst.org/][img]http://www.openfirst.org/image/userbar/firstblogs.png[/img][/url]

Which gives you this bar:

(linked to FIRST Blogs).

For any of you wanting to make your own Userbars, check out Userbar Maker (no Photoshop skills required). If someone wants to make an openFIRST one that would be cool.

]]> http://tim.timginn.com/2006/05/04/first_blogs_userbar/feed/ 1 Tech: Discovering new blogs http://tim.timginn.com/2006/04/29/tech:_discovering_new_blogs/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/04/29/tech:_discovering_new_blogs/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 FIRST Blogs, which is, how exactly can we find FIRST bloggers and alumni? We've been somewhat successful in having people actively seek out the site and add their own blog, but, that doesn't seem to work as well for alumni who are no longer actively seeking out FIRST information. Every now and again we'll import the list of people who have joined a FIRST Robotics community on a specific blogging host like Live Journal; but, that misses a lot of the independent bloggers who set up their own sites (many of whom have the more interesting and in depth technical entries that I personally enjoy). One of the things I tried a while ago that didn't work too well was looking for sites that link to www.usfirst.org. This turned up a large number of news sites (including small town newspapers) that were mainly articles spreading information about FIRST. It's interesting stuff; but, not blogs, and not what I was looking for. Here's how I've been automatically discovering some neat FIRST blogs (and some interesting blogs that don't happen to be FIRST-related). I'm subscribed to the RSS feeds of both those result pages and when I see something interesting I'll add it to the queue If you've got a better way to do this, or any other suggestions for things, let me know. ]]> We face an interesting problem at FIRST Blogs, which is, how exactly can we find FIRST bloggers and alumni? We’ve been somewhat successful in having people actively seek out the site and add their own blog, but, that doesn’t seem to work as well for alumni who are no longer actively seeking out FIRST information. Every now and again we’ll import the list of people who have joined a FIRST Robotics community on a specific blogging host like Live Journal; but, that misses a lot of the independent bloggers who set up their own sites (many of whom have the more interesting and in depth technical entries that I personally enjoy).

One of the things I tried a while ago that didn’t work too well was looking for sites that link to www.usfirst.org. This turned up a large number of news sites (including small town newspapers) that were mainly articles spreading information about FIRST. It’s interesting stuff; but, not blogs, and not what I was looking for.

Here’s how I’ve been automatically discovering some neat FIRST blogs (and some interesting blogs that don’t happen to be FIRST-related).

I’m subscribed to the RSS feeds of both those result pages and when I see something interesting I’ll add it to the queue

If you’ve got a better way to do this, or any other suggestions for things, let me know.

]]> http://tim.timginn.com/2006/04/29/tech:_discovering_new_blogs/feed/ 0 Coming soon to FIRST Blogs http://tim.timginn.com/2006/04/28/coming_soon_to_first_blogs/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/04/28/coming_soon_to_first_blogs/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000
  • Feeds of new content that are potentially FIRST-related blogs incorporated into the moderator area (to help streamline the process of discovering new FIRST-related blogs) - not yet started
  • Automatic attempts at determining the RSS feed location from a blog address (to simplify adding new blogs for people) - researched, but, no code yet
  • Some method of viewing errors relating to a blog (to help moderators troubleshoot why something's not working as expected) - errors are tracked, but, not separated, yet
  • Credits page for moderators (Give credit where it's due) - not started (but I know the people)
  • Topic areas for blogs (to help combat information overload). - not started yet (any suggestions for topics?)
  • Custom reading lists (to let people pick and choose which blogs they'd like to view and to find out what blogs their friends are reading). - not started yet
  • Login system (to let people save the above settings and update/edit their listings in a more friendly manner) - not started yet (but partly researched to integrate with OpenID to let Live Journal people, etc. login without yet another password to remember)
  • FIRST Wiki integration (to pull down descriptions of blogs/teams where appropriate and use peer moderated descriptions of blogs) - code has been written, may require some tweaking
  • Updated layout (to better integrate with the rest of openFIRST) - Kayla's been working on it
    • If you've got anything else to suggest or would like to lend me a hand I'd be glad to hear from you - tim@openfirst.org. ]]>     Well, I’m all done with exams now (what a relief)… so, this means I’ve now got a lot more time to get various things done including openFIRST/FIRST Blogs stuff. I hope everyone’s having a good time in Atlanta.

    So, here (for reference) is my current new feature list for the next major feature rollout of FIRST Blogs and my progress thus far to completing them.

    • Feeds of new content that are potentially FIRST-related blogs incorporated into the moderator area (to help streamline the process of discovering new FIRST-related blogs) – not yet started
    • Automatic attempts at determining the RSS feed location from a blog address (to simplify adding new blogs for people) – researched, but, no code yet
    • Some method of viewing errors relating to a blog (to help moderators troubleshoot why something’s not working as expected) – errors are tracked, but, not separated, yet
    • Credits page for moderators (Give credit where it’s due) – not started (but I know the people)
    • Topic areas for blogs (to help combat information overload). – not started yet (any suggestions for topics?)
    • Custom reading lists (to let people pick and choose which blogs they’d like to view and to find out what blogs their friends are reading). – not started yet
    • Login system (to let people save the above settings and update/edit their listings in a more friendly manner) – not started yet (but partly researched to integrate with OpenID to let Live Journal people, etc. login without yet another password to remember)
    • FIRST Wiki integration (to pull down descriptions of blogs/teams where appropriate and use peer moderated descriptions of blogs) – code has been written, may require some tweaking
    • Updated layout (to better integrate with the rest of openFIRST) – Kayla’s been working on it

    If you’ve got anything else to suggest or would like to lend me a hand I’d be glad to hear from you – tim@openfirst.org.

    ]]>     http://tim.timginn.com/2006/04/28/coming_soon_to_first_blogs/feed/ 0     RSS good. Messy markup bad. http://tim.timginn.com/2006/04/20/rss_good___messy_markup_bad_/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/04/20/rss_good___messy_markup_bad_/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 the FIRST Blogs RSS Feed may have noticed that for the past little while (depending on your RSS reader software) there have been no new blog posts. This was due to some bad RSS created by a mistake in my processing of content before it's inserted in the feed. The bug's been around for a long time but didn't cause problems until a recently approved blog (which apparently has some awful markup) broke things. I've fixed the issue; but, you're likely to see an overwhelming number of blog posts at the moment (sorry about that). In the (hopefully near) future there will be a better way of reading blogs (probably something like a reading list and custom feeds per user). (more technical details about the problem are after the cut...) ]]> Those of you following the FIRST Blogs RSS Feed may have noticed that for the past little while (depending on your RSS reader software) there have been no new blog posts. This was due to some bad RSS created by a mistake in my processing of content before it’s inserted in the feed. The bug’s been around for a long time but didn’t cause problems until a recently approved blog (which apparently has some awful markup) broke things. I’ve fixed the issue; but, you’re likely to see an overwhelming number of blog posts at the moment (sorry about that). In the (hopefully near) future there will be a better way of reading blogs (probably something like a reading list and custom feeds per user).

    (more technical details about the problem are after the cut…)

    The problem was due to invalid XML entities being included in posts. The solution was to wrap anything that’s come from blogs in <![CDATA[...]]>. More information about that for the curious can be found at w3schools.

    ]]>     http://tim.timginn.com/2006/04/20/rss_good___messy_markup_bad_/feed/ 0     Subversion is nifty / FIRST Contacts Database http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/18/subversion_is_nifty_/_first_contacts_database/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/18/subversion_is_nifty_/_first_contacts_database/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 openFIRST www module from CVS to Subversion. I haven't used Subversion much before and after the switch it definitely seems like things are much faster and more efficient than they were with CVS. Doing updates/checkouts of only single directories (and their subdirectories) is a lot more straightforward (and that's the sort of thing we need for the subsites like Bugzilla). So far I'm quite impressed and think that this improvement will help the project significantly by saving developer and administrator time and just generally making working on the project less painful. It looks like a few new teams have registered for the FIRST Contacts Database since we put it up. That's great, as the more people who use it the better a resource it will become. ]]> Yesterday I migrated the openFIRST www module from CVS to Subversion. I haven’t used Subversion much before and after the switch it definitely seems like things are much faster and more efficient than they were with CVS. Doing updates/checkouts of only single directories (and their subdirectories) is a lot more straightforward (and that’s the sort of thing we need for the subsites like Bugzilla). So far I’m quite impressed and think that this improvement will help the project significantly by saving developer and administrator time and just generally making working on the project less painful.

    It looks like a few new teams have registered for the FIRST Contacts Database since we put it up. That’s great, as the more people who use it the better a resource it will become.

    ]]>     http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/18/subversion_is_nifty_/_first_contacts_database/feed/ 0     Are there FIRST Lego League teams doing this? http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/12/are_there_first_lego_league_teams_doing_this?/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/12/are_there_first_lego_league_teams_doing_this?/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 Brickfilms.com Video Podcast today (you can find it in iTunes). The Podcast itself is very entertaining; but, after watching it I'm left with the question: are there any FIRST Lego League teams doing this? If so, I'd definitely like to hear about it.]]> I came across the Brickfilms.com Video Podcast today (you can find it in iTunes). The Podcast itself is very entertaining; but, after watching it I’m left with the question: are there any FIRST Lego League teams doing this? If so, I’d definitely like to hear about it.

    ]]>     http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/12/are_there_first_lego_league_teams_doing_this?/feed/ 0     FIRST Contacts Database http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/11/first_contacts_database/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/11/first_contacts_database/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 openFIRST now hosts the FIRST Contact Database and the information from before is all still intact. Details like who exactly will be maintaining/updating things, etc. are still to be worked out; but, at the moment both Ryan and I have access to the site (it'll be added to the openFIRST Subversion repository once the migration from CVS is sufficiently far along). ]]> Some of you may remember (or may recall being signed up for) the FIRST Contact Database developed by Ryan Morehart. Well, Ryan’s family is moving to a location with an ISP that won’t let him continue hosting the project. When I realised that the site was down I took the liberty of contacting him to find out what’s up and offering to help if needed. The result is that openFIRST now hosts the FIRST Contact Database and the information from before is all still intact.

    Details like who exactly will be maintaining/updating things, etc. are still to be worked out; but, at the moment both Ryan and I have access to the site (it’ll be added to the openFIRST Subversion repository once the migration from CVS is sufficiently far along).

    ]]>     http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/11/first_contacts_database/feed/ 0     FIRST Blogs Updates http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/11/first_blogs_updates/ http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/11/first_blogs_updates/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 FIRST Blogs that make how updating of blogs is done more efficient. Amongst the changes are upgrading to a newer version of Magpie and changing some reporting things. In case anyone's curious there's been over 23,000 update cycles since FIRST Blogs started.]]> I’ve made a few behind the scenes updates to FIRST Blogs that make how updating of blogs is done more efficient. Amongst the changes are upgrading to a newer version of Magpie and changing some reporting things. In case anyone’s curious there’s been over 23,000 update cycles since FIRST Blogs started.

    ]]>     http://tim.timginn.com/2006/03/11/first_blogs_updates/feed/ 0