New Web Host

I'm transferring BrickBuildr to a new web host today.  Shouldn't take longer than a few hours, so please hold off on updating the Pick-a-Brick wall until I'm finished.  We should be back on-line soon.  :)

Changes

Just a heads up, now that the move to the new server is complete, I'll be making some changes to web site to make it more mobile device friendly.  The changes will probably take a few days, so I apologise in advance if the web-site appears broken.

There's a few changes I need to implement over the next few weeks, each requiring time and planning.  Here's some of the changes on my TO DO list:

• Redesign the web-site to be more clean looking and mobile friendly.
• Changes to the database to allow for user profile integration with Facebook, Google, OpenID, etc.
• Write code to manage your profile.
• Allow for updating a stores PaB via a spreadsheet.
• Create an API to update PaB information, to allow integration with other applications/web-sites.

That's only the ones I can talk about for now.  :)

A Quick Update

Just a quick update -- I've been working on creating an web service API for BrickBuildr, similar in spirit to the BrickSet web service... It still a work in progress, for now.  I've added Elisabeth, NJ store to iPaB; I ended up getting the size of the wall from some pictures on the Brick Update blog.  And based on a suggestion, I've changed the way you select a part, when you edit a store's PaB wall -- you should be able to type in a few letters within the drop down boxes, and you narrow down you selections.  Try it out and let me know what you think!

If the new way is too annoying, I have the old page saved off...

228 Web-Sites Added

I have added about 228 web-sites to BrickBuildr -- look for them under the 'sites' menu on the web-site.  I feel this is still the tip of the iceberg in terms of the on-line LEGO Community.  This list doesn't include Facebook fan sites and Twitter accounts (which I don't feel inclined to add those at the moment, maybe as additional links down the road), or related Flickr groups... I'm trying to build the web-site/Flickr group relationship in the database -- this will take some time to accomplish.

The biggest challenge to creating a list of web-sites, is how to display information in a useful and easy to access... On one hand, I know our group's GFLUG 'brand' is a nightmare of web-sites where our club disseminates information -- we have information on Twitter, a Facebook fan of GFLUG page, a public/private Facebook groups, a public/private Yahoo Groups, on our main web-site, etc.  With some of those web-site have more up-to-date information than others...  Now multiply this by about by 50 LEGO clubs world-wide...

On one hand, I like some of the tools social media gives you... but on the other hand, it's made getting information out a chore -- multiple sign-ins, different user interfaces, no fine-grain control on how information is shared between sites, no concept of public/private information within groups...

AN ASIDE: If you haven't seen it, check out the web-site Swooshable.  It maps LUGs, LTC, LEGO Events, location of LEGO Stores and theme parks onto a interactive Google map.  It's a great resource of information... just needs a little updating.

Thinking down the road, this information is very dynamic; it's constantly changing.  A web-site here today is gone tomorrow... Groups change names and directions... Funding and hosting costs are factors... Lost of interest in the hobby... Blogs change hands from Wordpress to Blogger... Thinking about an interface, information needs to be easily updated without too much hassle.  "Brands" are no longer one web-site, but a whole string of URLs... calendars, event schedule, photos, discussions both public/private, sharing of documents & layouts... Then thinking about information from another perspective, once a new LEGO product is released, or somebody builds an interesting MOC, it's blasted across 20-30 blogs and personal fan web-site... And getting this information from one web-site to another means more data entry -- this no common language for sharing/exchanging these types of complex data relationships with other web-sites...

I'm over simplifying this, but a few years ago at Brickworld, there was a workshop, asking AFOLs what they think the biggest problems facing the LEGO Community; there was talks of fragmentation, lack of a central source for information... From what I gathered afterwards, people wanted a AFOL version of Facebook, thinking this would help.  I thought it was naive.. the real issues is this lack of a common language for sharing multi-dimensional  ideas related to our hobby -- be it information about our MOCs (where you can find pictures of it, textual inspiration, where it can be seen/shown, etc.), to LUGs (pictures at events, where our discussion go on, information about us, etc.), to news affecting our community.

...to be continued...

More Updates

One of my ideas for BrickBuildr is to (down the road) better integrate the web-site with Flickr, Facebook, Google+, and Open ID.  I honestly don't want to store any passwords on BrickBuildr; so you'd simply log into one of the partner services, and if BrickBuildr is an authorized web-site, you'll be redirected back as being logged in, with access to your information... Since most of the 'accounts' on BrickBuildr originate from Flickr, Flickr integration is easy enough to do; so as of last Friday, if you sign into the web-site via Flickr (instead of using the 'join' button), you can by-pass reCaptcha...  

You'll also noticed on the web-site that I removed the list of 'friends' web-site from the left hand side, and I added a drop down item called 'sites' -- all of that information have been moved there.  In it's place, I've added a few images with links to web-sites I enjoy and a few up-coming LEGO (US) conventions.

There are a large number of LEGO fan sites.  If you read through my On-Line LEGO Community presentation, you see I only touch the tip of the iceberg.  The decision to move the list of web-site it's partly spurred by my desire to expand upon that list.  And somehow figure out a way to organize the list... and somehow pull out/highlight some of those web-sites in a better fashion.  For right now, the list is crude -- just the web-site name and URL.  But that should change over the next few weeks.

The Stock Room

So this feature probably shouldn't have taken this long to implement, but I got a request to add the Saarbrücken, Germany store (a 8x6 wall) with a few extra columns to indicate parts the store might have in the back room.  After thinking about it, it really wasn't that hard to make that happen.  I have gotten some requests in the past to do this for stores that combine similar parts into the same container, but how to solve the problem just didn't "click" until now.   *smack head*

Anyway, I'll probably start adding a 'stock room' column(s) to some of the German stores first.  If you think your neighborhood store needs a stock room column, let me know.

I've also gotten a few other great suggestions to show some basic PaB statistics, but I'm also pondering a upgrade to the web-site's look-n-feel... I'm hoping to get to both soon.

BruickBuildr & Twitter

I've had a personal Twitter account for a few years now.  And in those years, I've micro-blogged about LEGO and my other personal interests, about life, work, and random ideas.  And if you don't mind that, add me as a friend.  But the spirit behind BrickBuildr was to build a web-site, using current social technologies -- Flickr in this case, to be very fan-of-LEGO-centric.

And over the past few years, I've collected personal blogs (like collecting e-mail addresses in the 90's).  There are features that I like/dislike about each & I would talk about things on that new blog until I got bored or frustrated, then move on.  A few months ago, I decided to move all of my fan-of-LEGO-centric blog entries to one location -- this blog.  There, you will see blog entries dating back to 1998 where I announced that I was getting back in to playing with LEGO.  Not that I feel that Blogger is the best blogging solution, but it's been the most convenient.

And everywhere you look, almost every solcial networking site has some type of micro-blog.  And like a creature of habit, I experiement looking for the the best one, but sometimes the best one isn't the most popular one (see Betamax vs. VHS debate) and the most poplular one wins out -- Twitter.  Love it or hate it, it's part of our technology zeitgeist.

So I set up a Twitter account for BrickBuildr and my fan-of-LEGO-centric thoughts.  I also created this Twitter account because of something happening over on Brickworld.  And this got me thinking, like watching an Apple press release/announcements via Twitter, you'll be able to follow BrickBuildr's Twitter account for similar information when my wife and I attend Brickworld.  And I'm sure that my comments will be just as unfiltered & snarky.  :)

But the real reason why I'm setting up the Twitter account is every day LEGO-centric things happen that I find interesting, everywhere.  Some are noteworthy, but I try to keep the chatter down on the blog to an entry every other day at the most.  I figured that on Twitter, I can post daily some of the interesting stories I run across, but for editorial reasons or time, don't want to post it to the blog.  And I promise not to tweet about "I'm off to work" or other stupid chatter that's not LEGO-centric meaningful... and we'll see how long that lasts.  :)

My LEGO Network

*rant-on*

Okay... One of the members of GFLUG is big into My LEGO Network (or MLN for short). It's a social network filled with games, quests, building friends & objects, trading objects, etc. aimed at kids (the GFLUG member has a 9 year old son). So I tried it out. It's Flash based. It's cool. But under Safari on my iMac, it runs soo ssslllooowww; almost to the point of being unusable. When you're doing a quest and have to click in several places to build objects, or flip from building objects to trading them with Networkers... It's just painful!

And another thing I find annoying? The LEGO Universe Creation Lab... where people take a building challenge, then show off their creations. Flipping through creations 9 at a time, with so much extra Flash crap on the page just makes it painful to paginate through!

Don't get me wrong, I love Flash and can see some of the potential benefits of it. But LEGO get a fraking UI designer to help out with your web-site pages. Either find a way to optimize your pages or replace some of the Flash with JavaScript. Bottom line, thinking about he people using your web-site & make them want to keep coming back to it, not making them die from a slow page load!

*rant-off*

...I return you to your normal LEGO broadcast & I'm sorry for the interruption...