Recently in Project Ideas Category

So, I had an idea and wanted to capture it before I forget.  A relatively simple tool to graph a floor plan map of office cubicles with info about each cube- person who sits there, department, extension, and any other info about them.  It could be done really easily with the right database structure and using the Javascript graphing library wz_jsgraphics.js (http://www.walterzorn.com/jsgraphics/jsgraphics_e.htm).

That way, all you would need is to maintain the data through an easy management tool, then your map is updated realtime online.  And anyone can go to the map in their browser and mouse over a cube and get info, or do a search and get a highlighted cube within the map of what they are looking for.

So I have an idea that I think would be really interesting.  I like music.  I like to listen to music.  I like hearing new songs and discovering new artists.  I also have a weird desire to hear the same song done in different ways by different people- covers.

I stumbled across SecondHandSongs.com and found that there is a database of cover songs (it only lists covers that were recorded and put out by a record label, no do-it-yourself or amateur covers allowed).  Fascinating.

Now I come to the idea part.  I think it would be cool to have a plugin for your favorite music player (Banshee, iTunes, WInamp, etc) that looks up the song from your play list and lists covers of that song, with other info perhaps or links to find more info.  It would be really cool to see a list of others that did that song and be able to click on them to hear a sample of their version, or a link to a music service (or store) to buy/download the other version(s).  And perhaps a way to rate them too?  Not sure about that one.

Finally a way to build my own collection of nothing but covers of the song "Moon River"! (this is a joke, I actually hate that song).

So there is a wide world of tools and methods for "web 2.0", and for developers it is hard to know which one to chose to use and support.  I have tinkered with two AJAX toolkits and found things that I liked and disliked with them.  But overall I found that they were both too big and too feature rich for simple use.

So it occured to me that for some of my simple projects all I needed was bare-bone functionality, meaning the ability to fetch the contents of a given url.  Beyond that I can do what I need in small simple javascript.  I didn't need fancy event handling, or animation, or auto-complete drop downs, or such.  And if I did, then I could probably do that my self later, as long as I had the ability to easily fetch a URL.