Join our Premium Membership now and save with Xpres, Listawood, Ink Experts, Ink Express and more! Just £10 per year.....Click the Membership link above.....

User Tag List

Results 1 to 9 of 9
  1. #1
    Senior Member webtrekker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    Northumberland
    Posts
    2,413
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Mentioned
    14 Post(s)
    Tagged
    3 Thread(s)

    One of my little 'retirement' pastimes ...

    Now that I've reached the s0-called 'twilight years,' (I'll be 68 next week! ), I'm returning to one of my favourite pastimes to, well, ... pass the time!

    I've always loved programming, even in my school days, where we had a very basic machine built from relays and lights. Later on I 'progressed' to a shiny new ZX81 and taught myself BASIC and Z80 machine code and assembly language.

    Nowadays though, there are a plethora of computer languages so it's a bit mind-boggling what to concentrate on, however they all do basically the same job, just with different syntax and methods.

    So, I try to stick to PHP, plain old vanilla JavaScript and HTML to produce my wonderful? creations. This is the latest effort and is very much work-in-progress. It's a Weather Station which, when completed, will display the weather for any town or city in the world on a few nice gauges.

    At the moment though, I've just got it pulling in weather data for a single location from the OpenWeatherMap API and displaying it on some gauges. Eventually, I'll have dropdowns to select the location and the page will be updated automatically every 10 minutes. I have it running on the web and it can be displayed in any computer browser, on a tablet or phone browser, or as an Android APK. I particularly like the APK (Android app) as I have made an app and installed it on my Amazon Firestick so that I can have a full screen display of the current weather on my TV set.

    weather_station_scrn1.jpg


    All of the gauge needles are fully animated and spring to life as soon as the page is loaded. The Wind Direction indicator has a static needle but the whole dial rotates like a compass. The gauge backgrounds were done in Photoshop, with a brushed aluminium texture and some icons for the barometer.

    Obviously, there's alot more work to do yet, mainly cosmetic, but it's getting there.

    What do any of you fellow wrinklies do to fill in your retirement? I bet there are some wonderful answers!
    Last edited by webtrekker; 03-01-2020 at 01:30 AM.

  2. The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to webtrekker For This Useful Post:

    GermanDyeSub (03-01-2020), GoonerGary (03-01-2020), Justin (03-01-2020)

  3. #2
    Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2019
    Location
    Berlin
    Posts
    109
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Mentioned
    1 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Hope you will enjoy your 'twilight years' fully and have a nice birthday next week :)

    Programming is really interesting and should be a splendid 'retirement' pastime.

  4. The Following User Says Thank You to GermanDyeSub For This Useful Post:

    webtrekker (03-01-2020)

  5. #3
    Senior Member logobear's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Newcastle upon tyne. UK
    Posts
    1,669
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Mentioned
    4 Post(s)
    Tagged
    1 Thread(s)
    wow ..........
    1 Hour T-shirt printing shop in Newcastle upon Tyne.

    To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

    Logobear t-shirt print and embroidery. 74 Clayton Street. Newcastle. NE1 5PG. UK

  6. The Following User Says Thank You to logobear For This Useful Post:

    webtrekker (06-01-2020)

  7. #4
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    Germany-NRW
    Posts
    1,281
    Downloads
    2
    Uploads
    0
    Mentioned
    5 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Amazing that you can do this stuff.
    I had to learn German to a certain standard so I could get my German citizenship and stay living in the EU. My head is full of languages as I learnt Spanish as well. Your level of mathematics is way over my head. Respect that you can do it, especially at your age. :-)
    Ive just turned 65 (yesterday) and Im carrying on working. Wont get my pension until next year but I like the work what I do. Brings in the money and keeps me active. Plus I get to meet lots of interesting people.
    This year Im looking to learn how to sail. I know the basics as we go sailing every summer on the seas around Greece. We are a small group of 8 and the co-pilot is dropping out next year so we need a replacement.

  8. The Following User Says Thank You to Earl Smith For This Useful Post:

    webtrekker (07-01-2020)

  9. #5
    Senior Member webtrekker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    Northumberland
    Posts
    2,413
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Mentioned
    14 Post(s)
    Tagged
    3 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Earl Smith View Post
    Amazing that you can do this stuff.
    I had to learn German to a certain standard so I could get my German citizenship and stay living in the EU. My head is full of languages as I learnt Spanish as well. Your level of mathematics is way over my head. Respect that you can do it, especially at your age. :-)
    Ive just turned 65 (yesterday) and Im carrying on working. Wont get my pension until next year but I like the work what I do. Brings in the money and keeps me active. Plus I get to meet lots of interesting people.
    This year Im looking to learn how to sail. I know the basics as we go sailing every summer on the seas around Greece. We are a small group of 8 and the co-pilot is dropping out next year so we need a replacement.
    Hi Earl. I'm no sailor myself, but my wife and I went on a RYA dinghy sailing course set over one week while we were on holiday in Torquay many moons ago. We learned the ropes in a Wayfarer dinghy and we both thoroughly enjoyed it and would have continued, but skiing was our pastime at the time, so a lot of our cash went on skiing equipment and holidays. I'd definitely say go for it, life is what you make of it, after all.

    As for the Weather Station, I've been slowed down by ebay orders coming in, but I managed to improve the graphics a bit. The gauges now have nicer metallic bezels and a glass effect overlaid on them to make them a bit more photorealistic ...



    weather_gauges_new.jpg

    You can check out the 'real deal' on my site, [User Deleted] but note that things may change drastically as I plod on with my updates! :D

    The gauges can be updated by clicking the buttons, but I'll be changing this so that they are all automatically updated every 10 minutes. As they are all in separate iframes, there's a flicker as each gauge reloads it's page. Again, this flicker will be eliminated when I use JavaScript to reload the gauges without reloading the page.



    I'll get back to coding when things quieten down a bit.
    Last edited by webtrekker; 04-07-2021 at 04:34 PM.

  10. #6
    Premium Member UK Printed Mugs's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2014
    Location
    Poole, Dorset
    Posts
    2,110
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Mentioned
    4 Post(s)
    Tagged
    1 Thread(s)
    Great work. I spent 20 years as a software engineer and now past four years printing. Perhaps i did that the wrong way round damn it.

  11. The Following User Says Thank You to UK Printed Mugs For This Useful Post:

    webtrekker (08-01-2020)

  12. #7
    Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Oxfordshire
    Posts
    532
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    One of my little 'retirement' pastimes ...

    Who says you cant teach an old dog new tricks! Seems to be a pattern emerging here as I worked as a systems programmer, in the later eighties and nineties within Oxford University doing things with languages from BBC Basic to Informix 4GL, used micros to mainframes before freelancing in the naughties as an IT consultant implementing ERP and other things but got diverted into various other interests when my fascination with IT wained. Last stint was with Security Clearance at a particular Airbase with a certain plane that was new at the time implementing new systems but if I told you more I’d have to kill you (okay so I’m no James Bond,,, aside from in my imagination). Got sick of ever the reinventing IT wheel though and found it a chore keeping up, okay so it’s called progress but I’d had enough. Rose tinted glasses make me think I should have stayed in it but grass greener and all that. I should add however I’m still a good way off retirement age, the burden of starting work so young ;)

    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
    Last edited by mr-gobby; 07-01-2020 at 10:36 PM.

  13. The Following User Says Thank You to mr-gobby For This Useful Post:

    webtrekker (08-01-2020)

  14. #8
    Senior Member webtrekker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    Northumberland
    Posts
    2,413
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Mentioned
    14 Post(s)
    Tagged
    3 Thread(s)
    Some great stories here!

    Personally, although programming has been a fascination for a good part of my life, I've never fancied the 'business' side of it.

    When I was in my early twenties and out of work I applied for a job as a trainee programmer for ICL, which involved programming computers at the Federation Brewey, just outside of Newcastle, mainly using COBOL to manage wages, etc.

    I attended an interview at a Newcastle hotel ................ along with over 400 others, mainly University students! So here ws I, an out of work factory worker pitting my brains with the best of the bunch (or so I thought). It turned out that, after an extensive written test involving a lot of logic, flow diagrams, etc, it was narrowed down to four contenders from whom only two would be picked by ICL. I was one of the four.

    The second, face-to-face interview took place, at which I told them, in no uncertain terms, that a proposed move to London didn't appeal to me (me being a died-in-the-wool Geordie!). So that kind of determined the outcome and two others were offered the job.

    I've often thought back on that moment and never regretted it. You see, for me, spending my life programming business machines would never have held my interest. I much preferred doing a physical job and keeping my computing interests as a means of escape, where I could code many wonderful projects of my own, not boring old wages. In many ways, this would also explain my interests in sublimation. I'd not like to be doing it as a 9 to 5 job, but love experimenting and dreaming up other uses for it, whether they bring in any money, or not.
    Last edited by webtrekker; 08-01-2020 at 01:54 AM.

  15. #9
    Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Oxfordshire
    Posts
    532
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Similarly I started with cobol and an entrance process to a national computing centre run college course advertised in the local paper, I was a teenage car mechanic at the time and though I loved cars I wasn’t enjoying working 9-5 on them, like you and your hobby approach I wanted to see them as enjoyment not work. There were 250 applicants and 18 places and like you I secured mine through the logic process. When I eventually went freelance in IT it was because I was facing redundancy after 13 years with options of Cambridge or Birmingham as alternative moves within the business and didn’t want to move from Oxfordshire, like you I’m a geordie however our family moved here when I was about 3. I think if you work on your hobbies they can become less appealing but I still like my work and the creativity required and though often decisions are financially driven I’ll still experiment out of the appeal of achievement rather than financial reward so you can develop new hobbies through work and if I retired I’d probably still want to keep a hand in with garment decoration and sublimation


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  16. The Following User Says Thank You to mr-gobby For This Useful Post:

    webtrekker (08-01-2020)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •