Sunday, June 06, 2021
QiSoftware uses Thingamablog as the content management system (CMS) for most of the site's active blogs. That includes, this blog (Remix), and It's Personal.
This entry provides a "howto" on adding comments and "read more" options to Thingamablog posts.
Friday, May 07, 2021
Occupation wage data for 2020 is now available from the U.S. Department of Labor through their CareerOneStop site.
The illustration below provides salary data for lawyers in the Washington, DC area for the years 2017, 2019 and 2020.
The newly updated information, is provided via the Occupation Wage Data resource found on the WiredPages Employment page. The tool which was developed and installed on WiredPages in 2018, is powered by the CareerOneStop API.
More about the WiredPages offering can be found in this earlier post.
Sunday, March 14, 2021
Recent, major updates to the WiredPages Employment page, provided an opportunity to recheck other tools and data sources already available on the page.
It turns out, the Department of Labor has updated many of the occupational titles and their associated codes, so the Occupation Wage Data, research tool, developed using a CareerOneStop API, made requests of the resource that were no longer valid.
This discovery, made only today, was an easy fix (used Excel to massage the data, for inclusion in the program), however other updates I wanted to make to the table, I felt were a little more time consuming.
Mainly, the color scheme of the research tool. Illustrations below, show the old table color scheme and the Excel data providing the updated list of occupational titles and codes.
The image below shows the new color scheme as well as some of the other widgets and graphs recently added to the page.
It is a busy time, and I really wanted more time to adjust new color options for the research tool. This to explain why more updates may be in the works at a later date. Currently, enrolled in a class and have a final exam at the end of the month.
Also note, some of the new codes, Military, etc. are not yet providing results via the API. New wage data for 2020 will be available shortly, though I am not sure if this is the reason the new occupational titles and codes are returning invalid results responses from the API.
Tuesday, December 08, 2020
The Department of Labor (DOL) provides a lot of employment data and statistics as related to US job markets.
The WiredPages Employment page attempts to encapsulate the data for quick retrieval and presentation for those researching the US job market in general or job seekers looking for specific data.
WiredPages retrieves US employment data mainly through API access to DOL databases.
To stay current with trends, new tools are being researched and developed for WiredPages, in hopes of providing the type of data that will assist many with the current employment situation.
The latest tool, presents the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) in the form of a statistical bug as shown in the illustration below.
The JOLTS tool will be installed early next year, if not before.
Friday, June 12, 2020
Development efforts for WiredPages have been ongoing for awhile. A recent post on It's Personal outlines some of the new tools that are ready for installation.
Provided below, a quick summary:
WirefPages Home page -Market Indices bug |
WiredPages Real Estate page -Mortgage Calculator. |
WiredPages Business & Markets page -Market Indices bug & Biz Zip Search tool. |
WiredPages Style & Events page- "This Day In History Calendar".  |
The WiredPages Media page -NPR One StationFinder interface. |
The WiredPages Health & Wellness page -FatSecret Nutrition Information Search tool. |
The WiredPages Arts & Entertainment page -Youtube Music Video Search & Playback tool. |
The WiredPages Reference page
-World Factbook interface. |
The WiredPages Technology page -Alexa Site
Rank tool. |
Also in the works, the FCC Station Licensing Information Search Tool. The screen grabs below, show json results provided by the service for several stations.
The FCC Search tool has been in the works for some time. Just getting around to completing this development effort because of local environment SSL resource limitations. Those issues were corrected in December 2019 (acquisition of new hardware and updated Java JDK). Most projects put on hold because of the limitations, have now been completed. The FCC development effort- the last of those projects.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
In 2010, I started using the desktop blogging platform, Thingamablog. I loved the idea that the entire database for my blog (this blog) was located on my personal computer, at the time- the 2008 Macbook.
In that, when I develop new software applications, I also write about the new tools, having a blogging platform on the same system as the software development environment, makes it easier to screen grab and post about the new tools in real time.
This worked for years, however earlier this year, new frontiers with SSL protocols left me in a lurch, in that my older Macbook and the Java JDK could no longer handle the newer security rules. I needed new hardware to handle the latest releases of the Java JDK.
I went with a Windows 10 Pro Mini that was easy to afford on the heels of the holidays.
So lately, I have been in software development mode and posting to my personal blog about new programs. Not because I develop software on the Windows XP system where my personal blog is maintained (also a Thingamablog), but more because that platform is always "on".
Long story, short-- earlier today, I decided to move this blog (Remix) to
the new Windows 10 Pro Mini.
First, I had to export the posts from Macbook version to an XML file, and then import the XML file to the new blog on the Windows 10 Pro Mini.
There were several problems with this process, however in my opinion, all minor in nature.
- For each post imported, the author (Q...) was not automatically inserted, however if I copy the contents of each post file to the corresponding entry while in edit mode, the modification process updates the author field.
- The second issue, the Macbook posts were not sequentially numbered, while the Windows 10 Pro Mini Thingamablog software imported the entries sequentially. This will not hurt too much in that the old blog entries are still in place, and though I do link to my own posts, can easily search on the original files and make quick changes. This I have started, however the task is not complete.
- I also had to manually reset all of my custom tags, however this simply meant cutting and pasting the same tags from the old to the new blog.
I have to admit, moving a Thingamablog was something I worried about. Happy to report this was a lot easier than I thought it would be.
