Michael Fogleman

If you are familiar with Google's new G-Mail, you'll know that they have introduced a new method of sorting e-mails. Instead of using traditional folders, you can add "labels" to your e-mails. While an e-mail can only belong to a single folder, an e-mail can be marked with any number of labels. So, for example, you might mark an important e-mail from your professor with "Important" and "School" labels. Then, when you need to see what important stuff is happening that is school related, you just do a search specifying those two labels as criteria.

Intrigued, I began to ponder where else this idea could be used. Ah ha! I could use this for sorting pictures on my website! Typically I just sort my photos into folders based on event or location. As with e-mails, I have been limited to one folder per picture. If I implemented a label-based sorting web servlet, I could take advantage of better searching and sorting. For example, a picture might be marked with labels "Duke Gardens", "2004", "Outdoors", "Michael", "Dan". A search for all Outdoors pictures in 2004 would include this photo!

As an administrator to my photo website, I could add/remove photos, add/remove labels, and change what labels are on what photos. Instead of displaying a list of folders on the main page, I (as an admin) would add a list of PRE-DETERMINED SEARCH FILTERS, given a title and description. This would be awesome!

You see, it takes ideas like these to get me motivated. This is exciting to me, and as such I might actually get it done. Hopefully I'll have a new photo servlet implemented in the next week or two!

posted by Michael  # 5/28/2004 10:45:00 AM 0 Comments

Here's an e-mail I sent to my best buddy today...

To: Donkey Kong Arneman
From: Fogle Monster

So I did a bunch of online shopping today for my new laptop!!

First, I got the mini-PCI internal wireless card for the laptop. Being the frugal guy that I am, I bought it at IBM's Employment Purchasing Program and got a 10% employee discount. So that was $89 instead of $99.

Thumbing through the website, something stood out at me. "Free Wireless Mobility Kit" What's this? It's a bundle of three items... 1) a wi-fi network finder (the thing with lights on it that tell you if there's a wireless network available), 2) a wireless optical USB mouse, and 3) a nice laptop bag. All worth $175 to a normal schmuck... for FREE! So I ordered that too! Didn't even have to pay tax or shipping. The only downside is it said it'd wouldn't ship for about 2 weeks. No biggie!

Then I went to crucial.com to get an extra 512MB for the laptop. This would've been like $175 on IBM's site, even with discount. I got it for $125 at Crucial. (512MB PC2700 200-pin SO-DIMM)

Finally, after lunch, I went to New Egg to buy us a new wireless router. I went for one that supports 802.11g to take full advantage of the mini-PCI card I got. Again, I was economic! Regularly priced at $70, I'll have it for $50 after rebate.

Total Worth of Items: about $475
Total Spent: about $275

Yay!! Combined with my free laptop... this is all a steal! =)

Okay. I couldn't contain myself. Hope you're having fun in the lab!

Fogle

posted by Michael  # 5/17/2004 03:00:00 PM 0 Comments

We have a chipmunk living somewhere in our backyard, most likely under the deck. But he ventures out of his den often enough for us to see him. Dan named him Rosco. We've seen quite a bit of Rosco the past couple days and I managed to take quite a few pictures of the little guy.

I've seen him hopping through the grass, drinking water from our flower pots, and just hanging out in the sun on the deck. Apparently Dan spotted a chipmunk here last summer, too. I wonder if it's the same one. If so I'm glad he's found a comfortable home here!

posted by Michael  # 5/16/2004 03:30:00 PM 0 Comments