Forza Motorsport 2...Almost Here
XboxI haven't talked about it to much here yet, but I love my Microsoft Xbox 360. I had the original Xbox, and loved it, so last year for Christmas my wife and kids got me a Xbox 360 Premium.
Microsoft catches alot of crap for some of the goofy things they do on with their software, but I've gotta say, they hit a home run with the Xbox and a Grand Slam with the Xbox360. I love that thing. I could rant on and on about why I like it, but I'll save that for another slow blogging day.
Anyway, one of the best games for Xbox is Forza Motorsport. I love racing, any kind of racing, but espcially auto racing. I was a big Gran Turismo fan on the Playstation 2, but once I played Forza, I was hooked. It's a blast, the graphic's are amazing, and the physics of the car's are dead on.
The origianal Forza for Xbox works fine on my 360, but it's only displayed at 480P resolution. On May 29th, Forza Motorsport 2 is due to be released. I looks like it will do 720P resoution. Based on the trailers, it's going to be awesome. I pre-ordered my copy a couple of months ago so I should be the first to get my copy from GameCrazy.
If you like racing simulations, you have to check out Forza. You won't be sorry...
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NYC bike race
CyclingOne of the my long time loves is Mountain Biking. I don't get to do it as often as I like, but I do love cycling. Here's a cool video I found on Google Video of a bike race through New York City.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3123908086916868348&hl=en
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How to convert date format's in MySQL.
DatabasesAs you can see in my Blog entry on how to import a Microsoft Access Database to MySQL , I ran into a small problem on converting all the dates from the format of mm/dd/yyyy to MySQL Date Format of yyyy-mm-dd.
Thanks to all the help I recieved from Guelphad on the MySQL Newbie forum in this post, I got all the dates converted and am good shape.
Here's how I converted the date formats on Guedlphad's Advice.
In my table(misequip) , I created a new column with a data type of DATE with a name (dt_deployed) similar to the column that contained my dates imported from Access (date_deployed) in string format. If you'll remember, I imported all the dates as a datatype of VARCHAR just to get them into the database.
I then ran this command:
mysql> UPDATE misequip SET dt_deployed = str_to_date(date_deployed, '%m/%d/%Y');
What that command does is UPDATE's the misequip table, SET's the new column dt_deployed to equal the out put of the MySQL function STR_TO_DATE that converts Strings to Dates.
Once I ran this command, I looked at the my database and all the dates were converted. Worked like a champ. I then dropped my original column, then renamed my new column to match the old name, date_deployed.
We will now be albe to do calculations on these dates now since they are in DATE format to figure out when warranties expire and stuff like that.
Hope this help some of you newbieMySQL guys out there,
Mark
How to import Microsoft Access database into MySql
DatabasesI'm working on web enabling my inventory of IT Equipment with ColdFusion and MySql. The database is an Access database that is pretty simple, just name, model number, date of purchase, blah, blah, blah.
The first thing I've had to do to get this accomplished is to export my Access database as a tab delimited text file. In Access, under the File menu, I went to Export. That opened the Export Wizard. I gave the file a name "inv.tab", then on the first screen of that Wizard I choose delimited, on the second screen of the wizard choose "Tab", then set the "Text Qualifier" option to "None". Set a location for the exported file to reside, then clicked the Finish button. Upon confirmation of the successful export, I opened the text file I created with Access with a text editor (gEdit in Linux, Notepad in Windows) and looked at the file to make sure that all the columns and data looked ok. I've got 3 date columns in the database, and noticed that behind each date was a time and that the date format was wrong and wouldn't work in MySql. (We'll tackle the date problem in another post as I haven't figure out how to convert them all to the proper date format for MySql without touching each date by hand) Anyway, I did a find and replace and replaced all the times in the file with a space. This application I only need the dates. I verified that all the times were gone, then saved the file.
Then I connected to MySql via the command line client and create my database and created my tables to include all the columns to match the columns in my Access database. On the three date fields, I set them up with data types of VARCHAR(20). For now as I'm just wanting to get the data in the database. I also made all the columns to allow NULL's except the Primary Key. I'm working with some people on the MySql newbie forum to get help on converting the dates to the correct format. There is a MySql function STR_TO_DATE that will convert strings to dates in the correct format. I'm hoping that will help me convert all the dates at once.
Once the table was created, and the export files was checked, I started my first import by using the LOAD command in MySql.
I copied one record from the export file (inv.tab) into a new file (test.tab) and ran a test on it to make sure it would import the file in the correct columns.
Then, in the MySQL Command line client, I imported my test file (test.tab) with this command
mysql>LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE '/home/mbrown/test.tab' INTO TABLE misequip;
Much to my amazement it ran without error.
so I did a mysql>SELECT * FROM misequip;
Sure enough, there was my data. Cool. So, now I tried the big file.
I opened the inv.tab export file, made sure the line I already imported was gone, then type this:
mysql>LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE '/home/mbrown/inv.tab' INTO TABLE misequip;
No errors again. Cool!
Then I did a mysql>SELECT * from misequip; and BOOM, there's all my data! SWEEETTTT! I love MySql! LOL
Now I'm going to tackle the date convert thing. I'll keep you posted.
Web Site color calculators
Web DesignI'll be the first to admit that I'm not creative at all. My wife practically has to dress me in the mornings... I really have no eye for colors at all. In an effort to make my web site colors “pretty”, I had to find something to help me with the colors.
Of course, when designing web pages, colors aren't as simple as just Red, White or blue. You've got to know the either the HEX, RGB, or HSV values to really get the colors you want. CSS does allow for general colors to be named, but how many of you use just the general colors?
I found a couple of web sites that are helpful when picking colors or color schemes for web pages.
http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html
http://www.drpeterjones.com/colorcalc/
http://www.pitt.edu/~nisg/cis/web/cgi/rgb.html
Fell free to add to the list if you have other you like.
Later,
Mark
I'm running naked today...
Web DesignI removed all the CSS from my Spot today, just playing around, but it's kinda cool. Kinda reminds me of the vintage Internet days. Lots of text with one or two pictures....
I think I'll run naked (css-less) for a day, unless it'll cause a problem with Instantspot. Dave or Aaron?
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