Bad webmaster!

Our webmaster is planning a trip to Miami, too. He was impressed with the idea of Vizcaya but extremely unimpressed by their website. Mandatory Flash 5, Java and Javascript; click on a thumbnail and you get a slightly larger thumbnail in a popup window; the content is in a fixed-sized frame; the main navigation tool once you're in the site is a Java applet that's hard to spot and displays an ad for its creator in the status bar when you're using it.

Oh, and the menu hurls itself together.

A good site to visit just for a laugh.

Software doesn't get released; it escapes

*gulp* Here goes nothing...

I've 'officially' released the barcodes-on-the-fly helper, version 0.2 under the GPL (source here) and submitted an announcement to Open Source Software for Libraries. I think that's about as official as this stuff gets.

I've also been talking with the Koha GPLed library management system folks about how to make it useful for them.

Anyone got a good idea about how to make PDFs in Perl? I don't understand PDF structure, and the docs for PDF::API2 don't help much. Perhaps I should be using pdflib or making PostScript output, but I know even less about that stuff. I wonder how BookCrossing makes their serial-numbered stickers on the fly... I could try making the entire thing in gd and passing that image to PDF::API2, but then the resulting file would be huge. I'd prefer not to introduce new dependencies outside of CPAN modules, but if I have to, I have to.

Laying out the living room tonight, taking the train tomorrow morning. *yawn*

Ask and ye shall receive!

The founder of BookCrossing answered my email request almost immediately -- with a snippet of ASP/VB source code! They use HTMLDOC to generate the PDFs. Looks good.

I might also use GraphicsMagick or PDF::API2, which have the benefit of being Perl-friendly, but then again Perl is R2-D2's multipurpose extending arm, so there's not much it can't work with.

Whew. The house finally looks ready for furniture. I think I'll create a soft closet by hanging drapes from ceiling to floor. I can hang my bike on the wall above the catboxes (which now rest on a plastic chair mat I cut to size tonight). When I need to get in there, I can just pull the drapes (and the cats can alk right through or under). Hmm... now I need to find a lightweight, washable material that's opaque or translucent and not so expenive I couldn't buy 5 yards of it. Any ideas?