Time Tracking Project: Version 0.5
January 27th, 2011Just over a year ago I finished the first version of my time tracking application, which I created for my own personal use. The idea at the time was simple, I wanted an easy way to keep track of the time that I spent working on different projects, as well as a way to further develop my understanding of pylons; and more specifically a new library called FormAlchemy. Shortly after developing a draft of the code, my colleagues saw the concept and thought it would be great to use it within the company to help everyone get feedback on time taken to do specific work, compared to the amount of time that had been quoted for the work. This is of particular interest within our company, since everyone works at a different rate, which is based on previous experience and general aptitude for any given task. As an example, I know that I generally code faster in pylons than Ed and Tavo, but somewhere about the same as Damian. However, Tavo is faster at styling using CSS than all of us. This is not to say that the others can’t do a particular job, but that certain members of the team have honed certain skills within particular areas than others. So with needing more quantitative data on this to help with our quotations and billing, my application was deployed to the company server.
At the start this was great, everyone was entering their information and reports were being generated for both our clients and our own use. However, some time last year the use of the time tracker dwindled significantly, as the novelty worn off. Since it was only the first version of the application, I knew there were going to be some rough corners that needed some attention, which included the input method which became a bit cumbersome if you needed to enter lots of information (i.e. you had forgotten to enter your records at the end of several days).
With some free time at the weekend, I went back to code and started on modifying the system to make things more easier for users. Since I already had a user base, which were familiar of the basic system, I pushed the new updates to the company server, and waited. To my delight the new modifications have been a hit with the users, and people are again entering their information. One of the major modifications that I made was to provide a short cut for users when entering their records. This short cut pre-populates half of the form with information, which cuts down on the amount of time it takes for a user to create a record. To achieve this, I created a simple calendar display, which allowed the user to add an entry to a specific date. This means when clicking on the add button, the system can pre-populate the date field with the selected date, but still gives the user the ability to change it if they require. In addition, the system now pre-populates the project and the activity with the last used values. After talking with colleagues and looking at their entries it became clear that most of them work on a single project for a couple of days in a row, and if not work on a specific activity across multiple projects. So I’ve changed the code to pre-populate any new record with the last used activity and project. The reasoning here is that in many cases the user wouldn’t have to change anything, but if so the majority would only have to change either the project or the activity. I know for some people, which at the moment is only me, this is not ideal. As I am generally switching between various different projects, which also tends to mean different activities, but as I said at the moment I’m the minority with the current user pool, which means I need to make the software work for the majority first and then see if it can be modified for the corner cases like myself.
I still have more planned improvements, which will hopefully bring the application to a point were I can offer it for download.
Not bad for an old man
November 25th, 2010At least those were words from our club chairman after I attempted and achieved both of the National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ) time swims.
For those of you that know me, you might think this isn’t anything out of the blue since I teach life saving virtually ever Wednesday. However, what you might not realise is that because I generally teach the higher awards, I’m teaching for the whole session and therefore unable to actually train myself. I think it would be fair to say that I have not managed to do any serious water based training for well over two years now, so to be suddenly told to attempt what could be argued as two of the hardest time swims in all of the life saving awards we teach, was a bit shock to the system. What added to the pressure was that one of my group who has just passed here Bronze Medallion; well done again Sophie, was also attempting the swims at the same time and was eager to beat me. Well I’m happy to report that I managed to put the young whipper snapper in her place (sorry Sophie, maybe next time), by beating her in the first time swim and coming in at the same time on the second. I do think I could have beaten her on both but I had a really poor start on the second and also I was towing the brick that is Alan, rather than the feather that is Katy. Anyway, as you might guess I’m rather chuffed with myself, though I do feel being called an old man by a woman that is older than me was rather rich 
Moved
November 9th, 2010No for those of you that know us, no we have not managed to move house yet. However, I have just finished migrating all the functionality from the server in the US to my own box in the UK. This was something that I had been meaning to do for a while, but kept put it off until another day. That was until I received a message from my old friends Matt and Christian saying that they were going to shut down hosting server in a couple of weeks times. Apparently, they no longer have time to maintain the box. So now I have moved to my own server in the UK, and think I have everything setup correctly. So please accept my apologies if you had any problems accessing the site in the last couple of days, or if you had any problems with emails, these should all be sorted now. If you notice any problems then please let me know via the comments.
Day five and six
February 19th, 2010
The fifth day we had a really late start due to the three ladies in the apartment over sleeping. However, no-one wants to ski with tired and thus potentially volatile women, so I left them to there slumber. They finally managed to stir around eleven o’clock to yet more brilliant sunshine. Have to say that we were all hoping for some fresh snow, but alas we were not in luck. Anyway the rest of the day was pretty uneventful with Katy and Cara going off to do their own thing and Mrs F and I enjoying some runs on our own.
The final day, and we awoke to a misty outlook. Katy and I had decided that we would go for a couple of early morning runs, whilst Mrs F and Cara were still trying to rouse themselves from the land of slumber. Whilst traveling up the first of two gondolas to our start point, we slowly watched as the mist draw closer and closer in. We both hoped that we would rise above this mist, but were greeted at the top by only more mist and a light snow shower.
Having travelled all this way we decided to make the best of the current situation and headed down the other side of the mountain, to see if it was better the other side. The weather didn’t clear much, but the fresh snow was as Katy put it “awesome” to ski on. We took the chair lift back up and even though the visibility hadn’t improved a great deal decided to make another couple of runs before heading off to meet up with Mrs F and Cara.
We just had time to hit the green run we did earlier in the week and managed to complete the whole run in 15 minutes flat. I think this was due to the fact that Katy had the bit between her teeth and managed to get some good run ups to the flat parts. Anyway, after finishing that run we were just in time to meet up with Mrs F and Cara. As the snow fall was getting heavier we decided that we would call it a day and instead release the inner child and headed over to the an empty field to try out the new bum boards.
As you can see the inner child in each of us came out to play, and much fun was had by all. In addition to simply sliding down on these boards, we made a train linking legs around the person in front, and also made snow angels in the fresh powder. However, once you get these boards going there is much control on them, and several times we all ended up in a heap, but it was great fun.
Day three and four
February 18th, 2010Well after the long drive down and the first two days of skiing, tiredness has finally set. On the third day we all slept in longer than we planned. So whilst Mrs F and Cara decided to head into town to do some sightseeing and shopping, Katy and I headed for the slopes.
We decided to start the day with a speedy run down a particular green run in the resort. Last year at the end of the week here in Saint Gervais (before Katy hurt her knee), we managed to complete the run in about eighteen minutes. We thought we would be able to match this time, but not beat it considering Katy still was not back up to full speed on her board. However we managed to set a new speed for our run of around fifteen minutes. Though at the bottom I have to admit my legs were burning. I wasn’t sure how much the lack of exercise would really affect me, but now I know. It has been nearly ten months since I have done any form of karate training, or indeed any other regular sports, and boy was I feeling it in my legs. After that run we just explored a number of runs at a more gentle speed and ended up skiing to the very last minute of the day.
Yesterday was pretty gentle day. Mrs F and I flew down a run and then sat peacefully in the baking sun whilst we waited for Katy and Cara to catch up. It’s another one of those surprising things about ski/snowboarding holidays. Even when the slopes are busy, they are still pretty quiet and you can easily sit there and just enjoy the peace and quiet. That is unless you find yourself next to a French man who has decided to scream his head off to talk to his family who are just behind him. Anyway, after a late lunch, we all decided that we were still pretty tired and ended up heading back to the apartment.
I’ll post some pictures later from these two days.
Day one and two of skiing
February 15th, 2010
Well we arrived safely at the hotel after driving through the night. There was a small mess up with the room that we booked, however, the room we have is ok for us, as the real reason we are here is not to spend hours in the hotel, but to spend hours playing in the snow half way up the mountain.
The first day of skiing was a pretty relaxed affair, morning coffee and croissants (pan-au-chocolate for Mrs F). Finally rolled out of the apartment around eleven and headed up the hill to the ski hire shop where a nice surprise was waiting for us. Instead of the normal nightmare of having to tell everyone your shoe size and weight again, plus the endless queue of screaming kids and harassed parents, we were told that all our equipment had been sorted, adjusted and put into a locker for us. All we had to do was sign some papers, pick up the key and leave. Ten minutes flat from entering to exiting the store instead of the normal half hour of wishing you had got there before those damn kids had. After that it was pack lunch on the side of the piste in the baking sun (Mrs F, especially happy about the baking sun part). I think it’s one of those misunderstanding about ski holidays. Unless you’ve been you think of them as cold holidays. Whilst it can get cold like any normal holiday, the majority of the time the sun is blazing away and it’s actually very hot.
Second day the morning started pretty much the same. Up early for stroll in town for an emergency pair of salopettes for Katy. Only problem was that the only ski shops that were open at 0830, didn’t sell clothes. Anyway, the day’s skiing went pretty well, with the odd fall by everyone.
Time Tracking Project: Draft
January 14th, 2010The first version of the time tracking software for the company is up and running, well it has been for a while now. The basic structure and functionality of the system is there, but there is still plenty more to do. However, this will have to wait until we have some more time as new projects are just starting which demand my attention.
Having said this the system can perform all the basic operations, which include the following:
- Allow users to add and edit time records
- Allow users to generate reports for any particular month of a year from the current year back to 2006
- Manage and create new system users, projects, clients and activities
I would not call this an alpha release or even pre-alpha as it’s very sketchy in some areas. For example some of the forms controls are not in a human readable format, although all the people that are using know what these magic values mean which is why it has been left for later. Plus I’m still not sure about FormAlchemy, it seems it does the basic stuff really nicely, but when you want to do something more complex then it goes a little mad on the coding front. I think using the old method was better, but as this is my first pass at using it, I will give it another go and see what happens.
Hopefully in a month or so I’ll be able to spend some time with this project and develop it further. Ideally, I need to re-style the layout, which whilst completely functional and user friendly, it wouldn’t wow anyone (also why there are no screen shots of it here )
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