Tic Tac Toe

This week’s assignment was to create a Tic Tac Toe game using jQuery. Creating this game was definitely the trickiest and most complicated assignment of the semester. Since this was the last assignment it stands to reason that it would be the hardest. One of my problems, when working through an exercise such as this, is that I tend to want to skip some of the learning steps. I watched the video provided by the instructor and then wanted to skip the steps where I would test to make sure that jQuery was working. Then when I tried to make the program I created interactive, it didn’t work and I had to start all over again. But once I forced myself to go through all the steps I didn’t have a problem getting it to render correctly.

I also had to figure out how to get back to the index page with the clickable link. I knew how to move up one directory (because the professor had shown us,) but didn’t know how to move up the second directory. Moving up one directory looked like this: “../”  while , after a little research, I found that moving up two directories needed to be rendered like this: “../../” I tried to write it with four periods and one backslash and that wasn’t working. Once I figured that out it was very easy to load and get up and running.

If you’re dying to play Tic Tac Toe you can check it out here. 

Web Application: RPM?

If you’ve read my blog you’ve probably noticed I’m big into goal setting and achievement. I’ve tried many time/life management software programs and none have really worked for me. Probably the best piece of software for the desktop is Plan Plus by Franklin Covey. I was going to write about turning the Covey software into a Web application, even through his time management system doesn’t work well for me. But after some research I found that there was, in fact, a version created for the Web. In lieu of talking about Plan Plus, I am instead going to discuss the Rapid Planning Method (RPM) from the Anthony Robbins Companies. 

Anthony Robbins (Yes, the big guy with the teeth from the infomercials) has probably created the best time/life management system on the planet. Although, the introduction to his system is much more complex than Coveys, but is well worth the effort to learn. Recorded on 16 CD’s (in the audio program Time of Your Life), Anthony Robbins guides you step by step through his RPM system. To provide a tool for users, he originally created a paper planner to go with it. Later, he also put out at least two versions of a software program that most users, including this blogger, found useless. Users couldn’t believe that such a powerful system of life management wouldn’t translate into a powerful software program to assist the user in the management of their life. 

Currently, the software has been discontinued, though if you still use paper planners they’re still available from the company website. Talk on the company message board seems to indicate that software for both desktop and mobile apps are in production, but most RPM users are not holding their breath.

This brings us to the idea of turning the RPM desktop planner into a Web application. A Web application could be a remedy to any memory or size constraints that would also provide a steady stream of income for the company, since a Web site like this would be subscription based. 

With a Website like this, the user could plan their whole life in one location and access it from anywhere (as long as they had an Internet connection). Also, just like the software program was supposed to do, the user would be able to plan out their year and then move the goal and action item(s) to the correct month, week, and day, that the user scheduled for it to be worked on (saving a ton of retyping), something the software program was never able to accomplish. Additionally, on the daily plan, especially if JavaScript were utilized, the user would be able to take a goal for the day with its action items under it and move the entire block, depending on what order they wanted to accomplish their goals, without the need to rewrite. 

jQuery

JavaScript and HTML can get very complicated, especially to beginners who are trying to create Webpages. Enter jQuery. As it says on jquery.com, “jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.” And it does!

jQuery made it very easy for me to create a paragraph that I or visitors can drag anywhere we want in the blog. My paragraph is set up so that once you navigate away from the page or reload, the paragraph goes back to its original location. There is so much you can do with jQuery that you’ll need to set aside some time to really get used to the coding, but once you do, you’ll find that it’s a very powerful tool.

Luckily for me, this is an intro class and I was able to have a teacher show me step by step how to create a basic draggable paragraph. Since I understand the process now, (and I already have the coding added to the default HTML) I should have no problem at least adding that basic feature to my blog when it’s appropriate. You can check out my draggable paragraph here.

Draggable Elements

this paragraph is draggable

This one is not

Launch Party

I wanted to let everyone know that I made a story sale. My short story "The Language of Ice" is included in the  Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever anthology, put out by Dare to Dream Press.

Everyone is welcome to go to the Launch Party  (this will be held at the editors blog) where you'll have a chance to win a copy of the anthology and possibly other prizes. Stop on by between the hours of 8a.m. EST March 23rd 2011 to 8.am. EST March 24th 2011. Launch Party

Introduction to JavaScript

This week we worked with JavaScript for the first time. This was also my first time working with JavaScript. JavaScript allows for interactive functionality, something that can’t be done with HTML coding. As you can probably tell from my interactive Website idea post, JavaScript works very well with math calculation Websites. This year I’ve used sites like this a lot for my Introduction to Statistics class. JavaScript also works well for time stamping, where time and date need to change depending on, well, the current time date when the site has been accessed.

Learning HTML or JavaScript is like learning another language, because it is—it’s a computer language. I’ve found that the lessons in this class are made more efficient by the use of videos that have been created by the professor (I wish other classes like Statistics would follow suit). We’re able to follow along and learn by example. This makes learning the basics of these languages much easier. Once we’re complete, we have a template that we can examine and learn from. It gives us a great framework and foundation.

We also mixed HTML and JavaScript, working with the strengths of each language. I particularly liked being able to create a pop-up button that could display a welcome message and the name of the website visitor.

Check out my Javascript page here.

Interactive Website Idea

This week one of our assignments is to come up with an interactive website idea that we haven't seen on the internet. Here it is: 


I’ve been taking statistics this year and have used some interactive Web pages to make some calculations. The problem is, everything I use is spread out over many different websites. I would love to see an interactive Web page or complete website that included all calculations for statistics in an easy and accessible format. 

Ideally, a site like this would include statistical calculators that would be easier to use than the physical calculators currently available. Needing to learn statistics while also learning how to use one of these complicated calculators is a little much—especially when the class is accelerated. I’m also utilizing a program called CrunchIT, but even that program doesn’t provide everything I need. A Web site like this could be set up so that a student could go step by step through a calculation, making it easier to learn. The student could enter in the numbers they have available and the Web site would not only do the calculation but show and explained why the program came to that conclusion. 

Another concept would be to have pages set up so that the student could go through a complete calculations or an abridged version more in line for passing a statistics for social scientist class. 

After completing the homework for this class this week, it appears that JavaScript would be the ideal programming language to set up this type of page.