Some cool projects

So, it’s been a while since I posted a small blog entry. I’ve been working on some projects at work and at home, so I barely even thought about blogging.

Basically, for the last couple of months I didn’t really give myself any time off doing ‘whatever-I-want’. I didn’t feel like I waisted my time though! I had a lot of fun hanging around with friends, gaming, riding bike, but I haven’t really paid much attention to my personal programming projects. There are a few at this moment. First of all, I had a few courses last year on C#, to prep me for MS Certification. I also spent some time practacing some of the newer (ie. stuff I never have to use unless I am forced to use a specific technique) things. Things like principals, things like LINQ. So I started a few apps to train me in some of those fields. At this moment I have 2 apps under construction.

First of all, there is a datapump application. It is entirely based on generics. It’s purpose is to do a full data synchronisation between two databases. The could be Oracle, MSSQL or PostGreSQL. Even crosslinked! Well… so far I’ve only spent time in the generic stuff which is basically done. Then there’s the translation part (ie. resolving differences in datatypes and other DDL-related differences) and then there is the actual filling of the target database. However, I never got this far yet.

Second C# app I’m working on was started because of a personal need. I tend to buy lots of stuff. To some it may seem as useless stuff, but I like it. However, I can never really figure out my incoming/outgoing flows, so I started an app for that. For this app I used NHibernate, and I really like that as well! The app itself isn’t really far yet, all I did so far was being able to import a CVS of my bank into the database. Too bad every bank uses a different format. 🙁

 

On the work side, I did have my Oracle Spatial course which was a lot of fun. I did learn a few tricks, especially on the backend. Ofcourse, it’s nice to be able to do distance calculations on a line, but I rarely ever use that at this point. So I’m probably going to need to look that up again in due time.

 

Another project I’ve been working off and on for about 2 years now is my OpenLayers/Joomla mashup, which is actually looking like something now. My initial intention was to create a re-usable component for adding OpenLayers functionaly into Joomla!, but eventually it turned into an entire Joomla! suite. At this moment I have 1 component, 2 modules and 2 themes all working together to form the look and feel of my new Splog. (Spatial Log) I’m looking into releasing that website soon-ish, with just the minimal functionality. From there on, I will continue adding new things. Eventually, I will try to loosen the components and such and if people are interested in it, release the source of it. But that really depends on the level of decoupling posible.

 

So, that was a small runthrough of my projects I’m working on. Hopefully I will release a few soon. I might also going to start using this domain as my release platform, so keep in touch!