it’s difficult to believe that another year is drawing to a close. wow!.. it’s going to be 2006 — six whole years since the “Y2K bug” scare! isn’t that funny!?

Well, i just wanted to write this little update so I could look back on my feelings about a few new things which are on the horizon in my world.

I’m most excited about the first one on that list– not because it is any more important to me than the others in terms of content, or my relationship w/ that client– but because it is going to be my first genuine Web Application developed for public use! The Cata “Trip Planner” will be a new, efficient and easy way for CATA’s public bus transportation service patrons to find their way around town on the several bus routes. Once this application is in place and used regularly, I hope to gain more Web Application clients as the development of this type of web service is my true passion in terms of Web Services in general.

I’m also very excited to design the web site for Galaxy, the Arts division of IU10 of State College. As an Educator, Private Music Tutor, and an Artist (musician: guitarist), this project is special to me because, when I was in high-school, I was in a special education program for the “gifted” which was administered by the Intermediate Unit 1 of my home-town, I am inspired to do a really good job on the design / creativity end of this project.

The skydivers web site will be a unique project for me in that it will be the first web site I’ll develop for a client whose web site content will be largely of a subject matter with which i have no real-world experience. I hope to make this web site also a web application site, like the CATA site, to use PHP and a MySQL database for storing this tandem skydiving company’s client info, periodic updates, and also to provide a place for their clients to schedule tandem jumps and process credit cards and other payment methods for the purpose of purchasing those scheduled jumps.

Once I have sucessfully completed these projects, I’ll be ready to advertise my services– and that’s a very exciting step for me!

Come back in a few weeks from this date to check for updates on my progress!

There are so many vast capabilities of this blog software, and yet I’ve wasted a ton of time editing and configuring only the style. I believe it is time now to begin investigating the many different possiblities for syndicated content, not to mention to explore some other experimental content by modeling the very clean, consice code which comprises the WordPress application.

I would like to add to the meta section, a link to one of my favorite internet / Winamp radio stations. I’d like to do so in very much the same way as is done w/ the Firefox or Atom icons there (as displayed in certain themes installed here). I discovered on this particular radio station’s web site, a file named /scxml.php, which i assume must contain XML data. I’d like to extract that data, if possible, and display it in some sort of custom-formatted area of this site.

This of course could be considered yet another waste of valuable time which could be spent elsewhere, working on some of the other projects I have in the works, but I like to think of it rather as valuable learning; experience which i can later apply to those other projects. It’s all a matter of gaining mastery over the technology. It has never been about specific customization of a specific document, such as this one.