softcoded.net

Welcome to softcoded.net

Welcome to Softcoded.net, the personal programming website of Dieter Leibold. Here you will find my pet programming projects, past, present and future (things I’d like to do if I find the time).

This site is still pretty new, so check back regularly as I get time to update contents.

Personal Links

dieter.leibold.cc: My Personal Blog (limited access) and Photo Galleries.

Who am I?

I am a fresh graduate (May 2005) from the University of Maryland, with a B.S. in Computer Science and Economics. Having lived all over the world, I recently moved to San Jose, California, where I've managed to find a nice job as a field engineer for a small Silicon Valley based company.

I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, where I completed high school. After high school I moved to London, England, where I spent two years working as a Network Security Engineer. For the last four years I’ve been living in College Park, Maryland, as I completed my degree. Over the summer I took saw a lot of the US as I moved to Lakeland, Florida, and from there continued my US exploration by driving cross country twice, seeing all the southern states (and visiting New Orleans three days before the Hurricane hit).

I kept a detailed photo journal of all my adventures, which can be found here.

Introduction

Since my girlfriend is a Mac user, she felt a bit left out with all my Picasa scripts, so I wrote a little XML reader which takes XML albums exported from iPhoto using Well-Formed and generates a nice online album. This is a simple, yet completely free, solution to publishing iPhoto Albums online. View an online example of what this script looks like.

Download and Installation

Note: This script requires PHP 5 to work
Download iPhotoViewer .ZIP

Installation:

Extract Zip file and Upload to your server
Make a "galleries" directory in the same directory as the uploaded files
Make the "galleries" directory readable by the public
All done!

Adding Albums:

Export Album (example "mytrip") from iPhoto using the Well Formed plugin. Make sure you name the xml file "index.xml"
Upload the Album to the Gallery directory (keeping the directory stucture of the exported Gallery), so it should have something like this:
```
http://domain.com/galleries/mytrip/index.xml
```
Link to script using
```
http://domain.com/view.php?gallery=mytrip&num=index
```
where "mytrip" is the gallery dir name on the server and "num=index" shows the index, or "num=0" shows the first image in the album.

iPhoto XML Viewer

iPhoto XML Viewer allows you to generate online galleries of your iPhoto Albums by reading XML files generated by Well Formed. This is a completely free solution to putting all your iPhoto Albums online. This script is written in PHP5. Find out more.

Version and Comments

Current Version:
0.5 - July 14, 2005 - First Public Release

Planned Features:
- Would anyone like it to scan for galleris automatically?

Comments:
For feedback, comments and questions, please use the comments link on this post.

TripMapper

TripMapper is a script which uses the Google Maps API to allow you to easily generate your own Google Map with specific Markers with info balloons, and optionally connecting the Markers to form a Trip Route. Ideal if you want to show off where your recent travels took you, with information / photos for each location. This is a JavaScript, reading all location information from a data XML file. Find out more.

Introduction

Google released their API for Google Maps not too long ago, so I've been keen to have a look at it, especially after they added Satellite Maps for the entire world. I use Google Maps exclusively for all my mapping needs, and based on extentions/hacks other people have written for it, I decided to play around with it.

The Goal of this script is to Plot a Trip using markers on a specified Google Map. Personally I wanted to show family and friends the route I took, and placed I visited on a recent roadtrip. The problem was that google doesn't allow you to specify your own markers, and you can't connect more than two points (using their directions creator).

This script allows you to create as many markers as you want, each with their own balloon popup (which allows for html text, images and links), then linking them together to show the path taken.

To fully understand the purpose, an example is needed:
Online Example of Script:
My recent roadtrip to the Florida Keys

Download and Installation

Note: This script uses JavaScript tied into Google Maps
Download TripMapper.ZIP

Installation

Extract ZIP
Edit index.html and insert your Google Maps Key. This is available for free on Google's Website.
Create your own XML file with information required. Use location.xml, which is included in the ZIP, as a template for how it should look. Please be very careful when writing and checking this file, since any mistakes in here will corrupt your Map display.
Upload all files to your server, and point your browser to the index.html file. Note that by default the script loads "locations.xml" however you can use any other name and simply link to the script using http://map.yourhost.com/index.html?datafilename (no .xml extension needed).

Version and Comments

Current Version:
0.5 - July 9, 2005 - First Public Release

Planned Features:
- Not sure, any ideas?

Comments:
For feedback, comments and questions, please use the comments link on this post.

Programming Projects

Current or Recent Programming Projects:

Movie Quiz - Multiple Choice invisibles (filmwise.com) quiz - v0.01 August 21
PicaViewer - a hassle free complete Picasa Online Gallery - v0.95 August 15
iPhoto XML Viewer - a free and simple solution to publishing your iPhoto Albums - v0.5 July 14
TripMapper - Create your own Google Map Trip - v0.5 July 9
Movable Type Picasa Plugin - v0.1 July 3
Wordpress Picasa Photo Viewer Plugin and PHP script - v0.95 July 2
Modded Picasa XML Template

For a complete list of projects, jump to the projects section.

PicaView

PicaView is a PHP 5 script which automatically detects when you upload new Picasa Albums to your Gallery directory, and creates index pages automatically. It is a complete Picasa Online Photo Gallery with easy setup and no configuration needed to operate or add albums! Find out more

Introduction

After writing a MT and WP plugin for Picasa, I realized that a lot of people don't use a CMS, so I wrote this Php script to simplify the task of putting a Photo Gallery online.

Not only is the installation simple (you just upload a couple of files and create a gallery directory), but adding new Albums to the Gallery is done by simply uploading them to your gallery directory. Absolutely no updating or editing of config files needed! Everything is automatic.

This script automatically scans your gallery directory, and creates an index page for all your galleries. When clicking on a specific gallery, it will open a index page with all the thumbnails from that Album. Individual photos can then be viewed and there is easy navigation between photos, and back to the different index pages.

New Online Example:
I'm currently using this script for my main photo album, which you can find here: http://photos.leibold.cc/ - usually running the latest version of PicaViewer (you can verify by looking at version number when you view source on any page. I use this for testing before releasing a new version, so sometimes this might be slightly newer than what is available below)
Older Example:
View online example of script in action. This is just a basic example with 2 albums.

Download and Installation

Note:This script requires PHP 5 to work
Download PicaView .ZIP

Installation:

Extract Zip file and Upload to your server
Make a "galleries" directory in the same directory as the uploaded files
Make the "galleries" directory readable by the public
All done!

Adding Albums:

Export Album from Picasa 2 using Export to Web and then the XML small thumbnail template (read Picasa Settings below for more info).
Upload the Album to the Gallery directory (keeping the directory stucture of the exported Gallery), so it should have something like this:
```
http://domain.com/galleries/mytrip/index.xml
```
All done, the script will automatically add the new Album to the list of Albums!

Picasa Settings:

For best results, use my Picasa XML Small Thumbs Template for exporting albums from Picasa.
Export images at 640 resolution
Add Captions and a Description to Albums in Picasa before exporting
Thumbnails will automatically be set at 40x40 pixels using XML small thumbs export option.