Evan has been horribly miserable for the last week. We started him on some Enfelac formula just to top him up before bed, and that seems to have backfired. He appears to have reacted badly to the formula - no bowel movements for a week, followed by an explosive (less than a second long, diaper exploding, ick...) one.

Good news is, he seemed a bit happier after, well, relieving himself...

I need to be able to present a (potentially interactive) HTML page that is created from an XML file (such as an IMS, DublinCore, METS...). The way I had been doing it was with object modelling - convert the XML file into a set of objects, similar to EOs - relations and all - and then feeding those objects into custom WOComponents for display.

Turns out, there is a much better way. Simply create an .xsl file that contains the logic for each schema (or set of schemas, if similar enough), and just feed the results of the XSLT transformation into a single WOComponent. Very cool stuff.

So, I've been working on a way for the repository application to have customized "look and feel" - theming or branding - for various users. Turns out that the best way to do this totally destroys the Model/View/Controller design pattern. I'm basically mashing Model and View together, and using a single Controller for the combo.

Works great, though. I take the .html and .wod files and merge them together into a single .html string, which is associated with a component. This merged .html is then stored in a database, and called up when an appropriate request is made (theme matches, and component name matches). This .html string is then deconstructed into freshly minted .html and .wod files and fed into the standard WebObjects component handling mechanism, and a response is fed back to the user.

Spent much of the last few weeks researching new vehicles. At first, we were trying to be all responsible and realistic and had pretty much settled on a minivan... Big, cheap(er) and holds lots of crap.

Then, we went to the showrooms. So much for the minivan. We jumped up to the Light SUV category.

Started with the Trailblazer, since it was big enough, and looked cool. Sales slime was really disgusting, and the Trailblazer was a little more expensive than we thought. Turns out that it wouldn't keep its value very long, either. So much for that one.

I came up with a way to track navigation through hierarchies of content packages today. The goal of this method is to track position/path within a nested set of content packages, without modifying the content packages themselves. MVC... The content package becomes M, and my method becomes C. Now, to build a way to V the two...

I think it might be a nice way to abstract the packages, and provide some handy convenience methods to navigate through the packages, and track current status/position. I'll know more when I can play around with the live webservice connection to the Our Roots repository. Should know more on Monday.

Pictures online here.

Janice and I took a brief weekend trip to Kootenay Park Lodge. It's about an hour past Banff on highway 93, in Kootenay National Park. Beautiful around there (although I prefer the more rugged "real mountain" look of the Bow Valley around Banff...).

Odd thing with the water there, though. The creeks on the west side of the Continental Divide all had a white chalky appearance, while the ones on the east side (even like 100m apart) are perfectly clear... Very odd. Took some pictures, and it really does look like milk.

I got an updated version of a generic XML document displayer working in WebObjects this morning. Takes an XML document (source as a String) and parses it into a DOM Document.

Then, I have a recursive WOComponent that accepts a Node (say, the root node of the Document, perhaps?) and displays all Elements and Attributes in the hierarchy starting at that Node.

Works pretty well, and is reasonably fast. Once the classes are "warmed up", parsing a big document takes 50-100ms, with more time for display. Not too bad, but there's probably lots of room for improvement.

Well, no stopping it now...

We had the official groundbreaking ceremony today. Ceremonial shovels and hardhats, to boot! Even got/had to keep the shovel... Might wind up on eBay. or not.

It's going to be cool watching this thing be built, and knowing that I had a part in it happening. Sure, if it wasn't me, someone else would have done it, but in the end it was just Leo and me on the loan agreement...

Watched the G8 leaders arrive last night. In a wee bit of a potential security breach, the departure of the leaders from the airport (en route to Kananaskis) was broadcast live, so we could all see which helicopter they got in, and exactly when they lifted off...

They all flew directly over my house, so we got to see an airshow up close and personal. The American helicopters are a wee bit nicer than the Canadian ones that everyone else had to use...

Went to the WWDC2002 bash at the Apple campus in Cupertino last night. That is one AMAZING campus! I'd been there once before, but never made it into the inner quad. They have a BUILT IN stage, and the place looks like a park. Very cool.

If anyone from Apple ever comes across this... Wouldn't mind an office with a view of the quad...

Bumped into Ted again last night. Great guy. Very smart, and understands a LOT of what's going on. That's going to be a great relationship.

This is One Cool Conference. And, lotsa really interesting sessions, too. Just sat in on the first part of the Java Web Services session (room was packed, had to stand at the back). This stuff is going to be pervasive in the OS, both SOAP and XML-RPC. Great stuff.

But, more importantly, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is awesome! They have a 10-station gaming LAN here with RtCW on all, decked out, very cool... LOVE the sniper rifle with adjustable scope zoom (tied to scroll wheel...)

Getting ready to leave Calgary, the snow started falling, along with the temperature. Had to de-ice the plane prior to take-off.

Arrive in Seattle, and it's dry but overcast. Not bad. Definitely warmer.

Arrive in San Jose and it's like August in Calgary. Sunny, about 20C, just plain nice.

Cab driver tells us that there isn't anything exciting to do in San Jose, but that doesn't really bother me... Saw a bunch of freakin' PALM TREES from the air. It's nice out, sunny, and warm.