spcrnr Open Thread for the Week of April 19 pdf
by matthew on Sun Apr 19 00:00:00 CDT 2009
Some of our most productive and interesting conversations have come from open threads where almost anything goes. Speaker's Corner is a topic that is dedicated to open-conversation about almost anything that's on your mind.
The real Speaker's Corner is located in the north-east corner of London's Hyde Park where public speaking is allowed. There is no immunity from the law at speaker's corner, and while the police tend to be tolerant, they do not allow profanity or unlawful behavior. You may be jeered, ridiculed, enthusiastically supported, or completely ignored. Now, what's on your mind?
by matthew on Tue Apr 21 15:19:52 CDT 2009
I’m very busy at work this week…How’s the real world? The CC meeting was surprisingly short considering the number of items on the agenda, and oddly enough, attendance seems to have already fallen to pre-election levels…
 
Lol – Geek shot in the dark…Anyone out there have any experience with Apache Jackrabbit or the H2 Database?
by vineseeker2 on Tue Apr 21 16:29:59 CDT 2009
Matt, do you know anything about the old arbys/colonial pancake location in south shores? anything come before your committee?
by matthew on Tue Apr 21 20:59:27 CDT 2009
Hey Steve!


 

As a matter of fact, something did come before the Plan Commission on that location... Interesting that you mention that, since I thought it was a little unusual at the time...I'm pulling from memory of reading the the plan commission document here (sorry, I didn't re-read it for the council meeting), but I believe the owners wanted permission to have two drive-troughs (two separate businesses?) in one building. One was a short three-or-four (if I recall) spot window, and the other was quite a bit bigger (10 or 11?). There was no mention in the plan commission meeting of what kind of businesses the tenants the owner had in mind...


 

We approved it since it's consistent with the lots zoning and the other properties in the area (a gas station on one side, a grocery store on the other, and Dairy Queen/Hardware Store across the street). Again, I'm pulling from memory, but I think the nearest residences are behind the property in question – at the top of a hill, and well separated...


 

Have you heard anything?

by matthew on Tue Apr 21 21:05:33 CDT 2009
Kris!  What's up with the Decatur Navigator site?  The "under construction" page is up!!! 
by haydiz on Wed Apr 22 07:19:39 CDT 2009
Matthew,

I'm redoing some parts of the site and weeding out some of the old articles, I don't care for.  I'm trying to set it up more like a newspaper/magazine style layout.  I want to separate the city, national and humor articles into different sections on the home page.  It's all lumped together now and it's kind of annoying that way.   If someone goes to the site wanting to read city council news, or about community events, and one of my goofy humor articles is listed first, they probably wonder, "What the heck is this site about?"  ;-)

I'm working with a Wordpress theme and digging through all that code is SO much fun!  I would just code it all myself but I'm working on three other sites right now too - and plus, why reinvent the wheel?  Wordpress works very good as a content management system.  I want to get a photo gallery up, expand the links section and maybe add a section for guest writers - if there would be any interest in the community for that.  I've got some other ideas too but I'll wait to see if I can get them to work before promising anything.   Hopefully in a few days, the site will be presentable.

Kris
by vineseeker2 on Wed Apr 22 08:56:11 CDT 2009
Matt, hadn't heard anything just saw a sign for a public meeting and that someone was removing the old signs that were left when the old building was torn down.

Thats very interesting the lot is small, I remember when they built the kroger (formerly Eagle) there they had to get permission to slice off the west end of the old Colonial pancake House parking lot. Two drive throughs is interesting and drive through types indicate different things, a short drive through indicates either drop off or fast service a longer drive through gives the inside staff more time between order and pick up during peak business period
Steve
by vineseeker2 on Wed Apr 22 09:13:54 CDT 2009
Matt, I have heard from another source. The short drive through is for a Southlake Pharmacy pick up location and the longer one for a Taco Bell. They needed to go in front of your committee to get zoned for multiple businesses in a single lot.
Steve Payton
by matthew on Wed Apr 22 22:44:35 CDT 2009
 Steve – That's a bit of a relief! We didn't know exactly what was going in there in the plan commission meeting.... Hey!

While I'm at it I'd like to welcome (re-welcome is more appropriate!) the newest appointee to the Plan Commission – some guy named Shad Edwards...Hmmm...Name sounds kind of familiar...I think we were in the same class in the '80's back at Millikin! ;-)
 

Anyway – Kris – I applaud you for being patient enough to mess with wordpress. I fiddled with Scoop (based on a collection of perl scripts) and related goofyness for a couple of years (pre-wordpress!), and finally lost patience and decided it was less painful to write my own system (Spring MVC backed by a Firebird database using a Tomcat server, hosted in the basement – as I've stated a thousand times before (like the proud parent-of-a-software-system I am!!! :-))). I don't know what kind of hosting/backing-database you've got available, but I know you play with the web/presentation side for fun-and-profit too, so I'll ask: Have you looked at Apache Velocity at all? It looks like an interesting free templating engine.

by haydiz on Thu Apr 23 07:43:27 CDT 2009
Matthew, I think I'm finally getting used to Wordpress.  It wasn't nearly as bad to customize as I thought it would be.  I'm getting used to the CSS too!  I've used CSS for quite a while but not to the degree it's commonly used in web development now.  I'm not finished with the site yet but I'm on my way. 

I use an outside hosting company.  They manage the servers in a high-tech facility, do daily backups, hardware upgrades, etc.  I stick more to the design and development side and leave the server maintenance to someone else.  My basement gets too much water in it for a server.  I'd shortwire the entire neighborhood if I tried to run one.

I haven't heard of Apache Velocity but I love open-source software!  It's the way to go.

Kris
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