James Wynn

I recently visited the website for the Oklahoma City Gun Club and upon visiting the map section of the page realized they were using some "old tech" that was hardly descriptive enough. In order to even find out where the map was oriented, I first had to find a map with the roads on it. I decided this just would not do, so I created a new Google Maps version. Hopefully, this will replace the version on their website and people will have an easier time finding the place.

Just for good measure, here is the embedded version:

View Larger Map

After being very irritated for some time at the lack of support for videos inside wordpress, I finally stumbled upon a plugin that makes it seamless. It supports YouTube, Google Video, IFilm, .mov, .mpg, and .wmv and it integrates it all right into the graphical editor. It allows you to post a movie to wordpress with just a single click. Viper007bond is a genius. Track down Video QuickTags over at geeklimit.

Since returning from Japan I've had terrible jet lag; stay up till 1am only to wake at 4am followed by an energy crash at 3pm. Luckily the crash is short lived. This insomniatic state has given a chance to work on things though.

For instance, this morning I added OpenID to my blog so that people from livejournal, deadjournal, or any other OpenID enabled blog can comment more easily. This also allowed me to comment on any of those blogs without having to be added to their communities. Few things irritate me as much as having to sign up to new networks every time I want to comment on a blog. So instead of spending 5 minutes creating a new account this morning, I spent 30 minutes implementing OpenID on my server. Hooray for wasting time.

My morning have also given me a chance to get to know my new BlackBerry a bit better. Its nice being able to read the morning mail and news from bed, or anywhere else for that matter. I was totally psyched when I finally got a phone with AIM, email, and a decent keyboard, but my head exploded when I realized that I could use Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Maps on it. Handiest damned phone I've ever used. Now I just need to get one of those nice bluetooth earbuds so I can talk without holding it. And yes, I promise not to wear it in public, that's just creepy looking.

Aside from the mid-afternoon energy crash, the only other downside to this new allotment of morning is having much more time to think about D.C. Just being on the same continent as Jessie makes it so unbearably tempting to jump in the car and drive to her. But I will be visiting soon enough... well not soon ENOUGH, but soon...

I need more distractions... Please people, send me your blogs so that I may be entertained by your drivel.

It appears that there has recently been a leak of a new version of Google Talk.  This new version doesnt seem to have a lot of new features, which is probably why it isnt a public release.  The new version sports support for avatars and a little icon at the bottom that displays the number of unread emails you have.  This is kinda cool in itself, but I wish they would spend their time working on other things.

It seems I'm not the only one that thinks Google's time could be better spent.  Some people at Festoon have released a plugin for gTalk that adds support for video chat.   And I've heard from over at Reseize.com that there is a company making a VOIP plugin called Talqer that allows you to make outgoing and incoming calls similar to Skype's and Yahoo's services, albiet at a cheaper rate.