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revford blog

Install the sonic plug

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Traveller UWP Decoder Update

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:44:57 GMT

Just a quick update, the decoder was borking over system names with spaces in, all fixed now.

Traveller Search Galaxy, proof of concept

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:14:46 GMT

Another new Traveller tool for the website, it's a search tool to find planetary information.

Searches return UWPs you can click on to get a plain English description, they lead to the decode UWP page I update the other day.

You can search on any part of a UWP, most useful would be a planet name or remark. For example, searching for Green would return all systems with Green in the name, while searching for Ga would return all planets with Ga in the name and all planets with the remark Ga for Garden World.

This is very much a test of concept, it currently only covers a few subsectors of the Spinward Marches and Foreven Sectors. This will improve once I get motivated to enter more data, or talk David into doing some more of it.

As we create our own universes for Traveller games, I'll add search boxes for them too.

Traveller

Audio Player Updated

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:32:45 GMT

Updated the media player slightly, simplified it to a one button that switches between play and pause, rather than two individual buttons.

There is also a movie player in the code, but I've got no movies to post at the mo.

Grab the code from the links at the bottom.

media-player.js
media.css

Traveller UWP decoder updated, now useful

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:38:13 GMT

I've finally made the traveller UWP decoder useful.

It now has two modes of operation, you can access it with a link as before:

Emape 0103 B564500-B N I Ag Ga NI A G

Or just go directly to the page where you'll get a box like this one, where you can enter your own UWP and hit enter to decode.

As a bonus it now translates the remarks to plan text descriptions, to save you remembering what Ag and Ht mean.

I am planning more features, like a searchable database of OTU worlds, but all that is for the future. It's taken most of the year for me to drag my lazy arse back to this and add an entry box.

UWP Decoder

HTML5 and CSS3

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:47:31 GMT

HTML5
I should have mentioned this in one of the previous site update posts, but I've moved over to HTML5 for the site now. This is long overdue as it makes things easier for me and all the modern browsers have great support for it.

The only thing holding me back was a Firefox validator extension, but I've given up waiting on it to add HTML5 support. This means I'm back to having validator links on the pages, they don't hurt so don't worry about them.

CSS3
The code that's causing pages to not validate is still the -moz- variants of border-radius for Gecko. I like the effect too much to give it up to make my code validate. The WebKit browsers no longer require the -webkit- addition. Come on Mozilla, catch up.

It doesn't cause problems for browsers that don't support it. It just gets ignored. But it's still irritating.

So that's it, the site is now updated to the latest web standards and ready for the crazy future world we've all ended up living in.

New Audio Player

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:37:42 GMT

Some fiddling about with HTML5 and Javascript has created a new simple media player for the site.

Thanks to the <audio> tag in HTML5 I can move over from the mess of browser and plugin detection scripts I used to have to one simple player. No plugins required.

I've tested it in sensible browsers (Firefox/Chromium/Opera/Safari) on GNU/Linux and MacOS. It should work in recent versions of these and similar browsers for other platforms too.

Mac users will still need to install the Quicktime Components for Free media formats, I use Ogg Vorbis for audio on this site. MacOS doesn't include support for reasons of wanky Apple corporate greed.

Xiph QuickTime Components

B Movie Madness on YouTube

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 13:15:50 GMT

YouTube in the UK has now launched a movie section, carrying all sorts of B movies. It's like Harvey's movie collection, but online.

Tons of Jackie Chan, a few MST3K classics and plenty of Zombies.

YouTube - Films

Site Updates

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:54:53 GMT

A few minor code updates to the website today.

WebKit no longer requires the -webkit-border-radius CSS code, it now follows the standard border-radius, so I've updated the website. This leaves the Mozilla -moz-border-radius as the only non-standard CSS I include on the site. Come on Mozilla, your CSS3 is lagging behind Opera and WebKit now. :)

Also a minor change to the RSS feed, the current recommendation is to have the actual items as the last elements in the channel, so I moved the link up to the top. The old layout was valid, but the changes now matches all the RSS Best Practices Profile recommendations.

All this shouldn't make any difference to how the site works, other than it being slightly quicker to load (6 or so fewer lines of code, I don't think anyone could notice the difference) and a step closer to prefect standards compliance (which possibly only matters to me).

Traveller UWP decoder

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:37:31 GMT

I've added a simple web based UWP (Universal World Profile) decoder, it should turn regular Traveller UWPs into a human readable description of the world.

I've turned all the UWPs on the Machine Parts Transit Solutions page into links that decode them. Which is much more useful than code only Dave can read. :)

Here are a few examples:

• Iderati 0702 A887798-C N I Ht Ri Ag Ga Cap G
• Penelope 0503 C460642-4 I Ri NI De Lt G
• Mirriam 0303 B9998A6-A N I IWS A G
• Emape 0103 B564500-B N I Ag Ga NI A G

Traveller: Machine Parts Transit Solutions

Site Updated

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:46:38 GMT

It's been months but I've finally managed to sit down and write some more proper code.

I've replaced more of the Javascript that drives this site with Perl, this means more of the work is carried out offline, on my machine that generates and uploads this site, leaving less work for the web browsers of visitors to do.

Basically that means the whole site should speed up a bit. We should loose that second or so delay before the menu and logo appear.

I've also stopped trying to fix things for IE 6 now. Seriously now if you're still using IE 6 you should either switch to a standards compliant browser [Firefox| Opera|Chrome| Safari|Lynx] or at worst upgrade to a more recent version of IE.

Updated CSS

Tue, 26 May 2009 12:29:13 GMT

A while back Jak mentioned that he couldn't read the text on this page clearly, after a chat it turned out that the transparency on the page divs was the problem. The variations in the shades of grey on the text made it tricky to read.

So I've dropped the transparency and updated the colours used, borrowing the palette from the Tango open desktop project to hopefully provide a nice clear colour scheme.

Tango

That should solve any legibility issues.

You can grab all the CSS used on the site here:

HTML, CSS and Javascript

Bookmarks

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:35:09 GMT

As a special bonus for Harvey, you can now access my browser bookmarks here:

Bookmarks

We've Moved!

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:24:27 GMT

Transfer complete, we've now moved from revford.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk to revford.co.uk.

Everything should have crossed over now and a magical redirection page at the old address should give you the right link to the new site.

Nothing should really change right away, other than a much neater address. I've got a few new features planned that should appear over the next few months.

TVCatchup, web based Freeview

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:21:45 GMT

A nice addition to the iPlayer and the BBC Live streams, TVCatchup is a free (ad supported) web service that streams a whole mess of UK freeview channels live.

Strangely it doesn't include a catchup service as the name suggests, but it's quite handy to add ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 live streaming to the existing BBC services.

TVCatchup
BBC Three TV Live
BBC Four TV Live

Usage Stats, also Chrome is a sneaky bastard

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:25:21 GMT

Stats day today. As usual, it's a split between IE7 and Firefox, with IE6 in a solid third.

I'm starting to see some Chrome users. Which is great by me, as long as people are moving away from IE6.

It will be interesting to see how Chrome does compared to Opera down at the thin end of the share.

Chrome also claims to be Safari, which is sneaky of it. It would be good if browsers we more honest about who they are rather than claiming to be other software.

Claiming to be WebKit should be good enough, they don't need to pretend to be Safari too.

IE is bloody awful

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:29:10 GMT

Looking at the usage stats for the website, I'm seeing that just under a third of people are still using Internet Explorer 6.

IE is bloody awful in general, but at least newer versions have vaguely modern rendering engines.

If you're still using Internet Explorer 6, you're missing out on so much of the modern web.

It kinda works for most stuff, so people don't change it, but you're missing out on many of the great features of the World Wide Web and causing unending headaches to all the web developers out there.

You can change this, it doesn't take long, it won't cost you anything, your computer will be safer and run better.

There are many very good alternative browsers out there, you can install a few and see which one you like. I'm going to recommend two.

One is the free software Firefox, the other the proprietary Opera.

Firefox is best for newer computers, it should run on anything vaguely modern, so any machines from 2003 or later should be fine.

Firefox is the very best web browser available today. Packed with great features and excellent support for the latest web standards.

You can get Firefox, for free by clicking here: Firefox

Opera is best for older or lower powered computers, it works well on anything with Windows 98 or better. This is the browser used on the Nintendo Wii and some good quality mobile phones.

Opera is a good choice for anyone. It has excellent standards support and runs well on almost any computer from the late 90s to today.

You can get Opera, for free by clicking here: Opera

New Site Feature, Sortable News Updates

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:26:45 GMT

A new feature for the website, you can now click on the news topic icons to get all news posts on that subject.

So if you just want news about roleplaying, click on a icon like this:

It makes things quicker to find than trawling through 17 pages of posts.

New Icon for Web News

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:51:22 GMT

As I'm on a new icons roll, here is my new Web code and news icon, based on the famous GPL'ed Deer Park Globe.

As per the licence, my edit remains available to anyone to use under the LGPL, GPL or MPL licences. See here for details.

Image:Deer Park Globe.png

Stats, corrected

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:06:33 GMT

Stats eh? Well, it looks like the "this weeks" stats I had were wrong. I'd made a sorting error that was giving me an almost random seven days, instead of the last seven.

That will teach me to reuse old code without double checking what it does. :)

The new order puts Opera down to it's expected traffic level.

IE and Firefox and Safari gain slightly as a result, the foul IE6 getting a giant leap.

Windows dominance slips down to a combined 66%, but it's still Windows XP that towers over everything.

Usage stats for the week

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 13:32:17 GMT

Everyone loves stats, so here is the breakdown of site traffic for the last week.

Internet Explorer continues to dominate the browser share, with 53%. At least the fairly poor IE7 is gaining against the dreadful IE6.

Safari for Windows doesn't seem to have been very popular, I only seem to get a hit from Safari for Windows once a month, if that. Most Safari users are Mac users sticking to the default browser, much as IE users are for Windows.

I've yet to see a single hit from Google Chrome.

Opera remains a popular choice. Most places I see Opera as listed less than 1%, but I usually see between 10% and 15% here. No doubt it's an excellent browser with strong standards support and wide compatibility. Strange here should get such a large share of Opera users.

Windows is so far ahead it's not even funny, 78% Windows and 5% Mac, leaving 17% others.

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