Up ahead

Plotting out your course is probably the most important thing you can do, probably more important than making sure your shoes are tied ( I've seen runners make state qualifying times with one shoe, it probably just slowed him down ). Plan ahead, take mental notes, and always avoid the angry dogs.

For this page I think what I am going to do is chronologically add to it, the latest will be on the top so here's what's "Up ahead"

September 12th, 2019

You could easily use what is called "screen scraping" to do what I have done to get the stats into your own data storage, but that would require a bit of work. If you do not want to that I have a couple of stat dumps available for you to get at with what I have stored for career stats. This is not a comprehensive complete source to get stats from so start your own data collecting if I do not have all you need. BUT have at it here is the page.

NFL Career Stats



August 20th, 2019

I added a SOAP based service to the Sports Ticker API. Some people like SOAP, some people prefer REST, well now you have both. Take your pick use the one that meets your needs. I will update the Sports Ticker API page later but for now if you want the WSDL for the service it is here. You will still need a key to use the service so sign up.

April 18th, 2019

Well it's been awhile since I have posted any news to the web site, I thought I would put something out there. What have I been working on? Most of my changes have been to the Sports Ticker application.

Heres the deal, this site can be something. It really can. I am dependent on you people. See this whole thing falls on community participation.

Now I can automate the scores and eventually I will get the stats to be automated too, but before I take that stab I want to introduce my new addition to the Sports Ticker, Fantasy Football.

There is no governance on this application, but when who truly wins comes to what is really correct, I am sure that hubris will have to fall on something and well if there is a bunch of garbage supporting a false winner well at least the false winner was fudging the stats and using the app.

What am I talking about? Well we all know how Fantasy Football works, you pick the players the players who make the most points score the most points for your league. Well the stats that fill your bucket need good ole stats providers like yourselves. So get out there and do it I will do the rest. This site is really not hard to figure out, I promise you.

Fantasy Football

December 13th, 2018

It's been awhile since my last update, there is a lot going on for the Sports Ticker application. I have devoted a lot of my time trying to make this application a real player in the sports scores realm, well for NFL games anyway. The main problem that I have is that I am the only one using the API to update NFL scores ( if I had a clone I could do play by play and everything else ). I have had a couple people sign up, and they may be like me wanting a service to get updates without having to do any work ( come on watching football games is not work ). That's ok, so I put on my hat of automating this sort of thing by writing a parser to go after web sites that update scores and stats and the problem I run into is that parsing results is always going to be behind.

We don't want that, not at all. Getting the info last is worse than being wrong. So once again I implore you to use the API. If you don't well the automated parser I will write will suck.

June 10th, 2018

I have been getting ready for the kickoff for the 2018 NFL Regular Season. I have been busy keeping the rosters current with all the latest aquisitions. I have a CSV export available for the 2018 NFL Regular Season games below. All the times are in Mountain Standard Time.

One of the biggest changes for the sports ticker application is the automatic refresh feature. Before to get the latest score you would have to refresh the page, now this will be automatically done for you when the score changes. So you can spend more time munching on pizza, or drinking beer.

There are other changes, but these are still works in progress. So check it out.

2018 Regular Season



April 16th, 2018

What has been going on? Where are the shirts man? Well let me tell you that I have been busy and I have looked extensively on coming up with a cost effective way to deliver jog logger swag with a merchant account, but it is going to cost me about 60 bucks a month to sell maybe one or two shirts to some endearing fans. I am flattered that you care enough to be like "Josh, I want my shirt dude" but I have to keep that on the backburner for a little while longer.

However the SportsTicker application has received a lot of love lately. I have been working on several new additions and I will document them all in due time. The biggest addition is the ability to obtain a roster export for all 32 NFL Teams. Yay!! I am saying this because I looked for the same thing, and it was NOT AVAILABLE, so I have done the work for you, just click the link below and poof an updated NFL Roster list, you're welcome.

NFL Rosters



November 5th, 2017

I went to high school with some pretty smart people. I think my high school was one of the first schools to have someone score a perfect SAT score, I was definitely not one of those people. Mine was high enough to get into college, yeah baby.

One of the kids I used to hang out with, Fong Chi, was really smart. When I needed help with Calculus he was my go to.

Fong was the kid who told me about emulators and how you could play pretty much any game on a PC as long as you had this mystical thing called an emulator. Sounded pretty cool to me. He would give me hints on how to get secret items in Resident Evil 2, and how there were secret characters that you could unlock. He said that there was a secret character called Tofu, but only crazy Japanese gamers are able to unlock him, because you basically have to beat the game with only the knife.

The emulator I have on my website is really hard to play. The UI is difficult, touchscreen interfaces are crappy, and usually not great for playing fast pace games that were originally designed around the usage of a controller. But I now added the ability to move diagonally. This helps out immensely in Super C, you still have no chance unless you are an insane Japanese gamer, but at least you have a fighting chance. This comes in very handy in one of my favorite games for Nintendo ever, Dick Tracy. With this added UI I think despite how hard the UI is on my page, I could probably beat it.

If you have not checked out the emulator, check it out here



October 21st, 2017

Still working on getting a merchant set up. This is taking longer than I thought, but one step at a time, it'll get there. I made a couple different changes. On the Sports Ticker application I added an indicater for ball possession. This makes the ticker much more exciting, the score is great, but WHO HAS the ball?

This is documented on the API page for the sports ticker. If you are using JSON to get the score information you will get the ball possession details as well. This will only be available on Monday and Thursday night games. I have a hard enough time relaying the scores on Sunday, I can't do the play by play on all the games on Sunday, it's just not possible by myself.

( Yes sadly no one has signed up )

The logo that I was using for the Jog Logger was found on the interwebs. I figured it would be appropriate to have a shoe as the icon for the website. I did not draw the shoe, it was not mine, and I would feel bad slapping that on a shirt and selling it. I did draw up a real basic logo ( I am not an artist, artists I admire your skills ) to replace the "borrowed" icon.

Here is the new Jog Logger icon, hey I tried ok.





October 7th, 2017

The Sports Ticker has been modified with the ability to get NFL Standings by Division. Check out the API here

If you would rather parse out HTML code and not sign up for a key you can check out the latest NFL standings here

This will be updated after all games have been completed, so it may not be accurate to the minute. There will be no API method to update the standings, this will be a GET only and for now just NFL. The play by play is just about completed, this is still on the way.

I have not forgot about the JogLogger swag either. I am starting to think that perhaps I do not need a merchant account, this is a Brave New World where we can pay with paypal, and if you really want a shirt, well paypal will work for me.

This is still on my radar I promise.



September 27th, 2017

The next phase for the Sports Ticker is coming along nicely. The next addition will allow for play by play descriptions for NFL Games. Now on a personal note with the latest news regarding the protest that has been conducted with the National Anthem, I have to say that personally I will stand and honor those who have sacrificed their lives for mine, and I agree this may not be the best platform for such protest.

However I do believe that the voices of the protesters should be heard, because they are full-filling their rights as Americans to protest within their right of free speech. The alternative to silence their voices is not a place that I want to live in. So with that being said with free speech not always protected speech, let's consider that perhaps we should listen.



September 3rd, 2017

Ok so I said that you needed to know javascript to participate, well you don't really need to what you need to do is get a key. If you do not want to roll your own update script you can use what I have here.

Keep in mind that this is very basic, just the score. If you look at your local newspapers web site chances are that they do not provide up to the minute score updates. They will give you the final score but that is not what we are after. Now keep in mind this service will be providing more stats, and it will be as good as the participants make it. SO PARTICIPATE, sign up.

August 26th, 2017

I have been working on putting together a Sports Ticker. I looked around for a free web service that provides sports scores to no avail. In fact if you want to get real-time updates via web service you better be prepared to pay a lot of money because these services are not cheap. The Sports Ticker I have put together is very basic, and not done, but it will grow. Like Audrey II, this application is going to grow all we have to do is feed it.

The idea is to have a community of avid sports fans doing what we do best, watch sports, and since we are watching the game anyway, why not update everyone else?

Your updates will be monitored so don't post false information or your key will be blocked. I applogize once more for not providing a simple interface to contribute, you will have to know a bit of javascript or knowledge of Fiddler.

At this time the web site is half-baked, but I think this is going to be a gold mine eventually.

So check it out here



August 11th, 2017

I noticed that the Find Races functionality was not finding any races. That's odd, it's summer going into fall season, this is the best time to have a race. Cross country season is starting up and there surely has to be something out there. Well turns out the URL changed from Runner's World, no biggie, I changed that out and we are still trucking. You can find races now once again.

So where's the swag? Well before I put up the swag I got some work to do on implementing a shopping cart and picking up a merchant for processesing payments. This is probably going to take a while, but I will get some available. They will be nice shirts too, great for running and being outside when it's hot. In the mean time I have a side project that I am working on. Like I mentioned once before huge fan of n-tier development and web services, and I am working on a sports score ticker. It is coming along nicely, got most of the plumbing done, and I may be a bit behind because it is already pre-season, but this is more of a beta at the moment until I can iron out the kinks. Anyways..run till the wheels fall off.

July 15th, 2017

I finished up the GPS logger and added it to the menu. You can get to it by going to the GPS Logger here. Location services must be turned on for the browser on your device, otherwise the GPS capabilities will not work. It would also be a good idea to turn off sleep mode, interruptions cause the geolocation services to act really strange.

Unfortunately a phone call will not only ruin your run, but also the log of it using Jog Logger. I know there are already a ton of devices out there that will measure your walk, steps, run etc, but the problem with those sorts of devices is that they require you to step. Sounds silly but you don't step on a bike, or a kayak, in the water ( please use water-resistant devices ), or on the 4-wheeler but you do often want to measure how far you went. Jog Logger won't let you down, it will eat your battery, but it won't let you down. Try it out. Once you finish your activity tap the Finish button and an image will show your route, from there you can share it on FaceBook.

With that all wrapped up what's next? I was thinking of putting some apparel together, you know some Jog Logger swag. Mainly t-shirts, but I was thinking about putting shoes on the site as well. No swag on the shoes, just ones that are really great for running.

I'll leave you with this:

"So, uh, you still haven't figured out what riding waves is all about, have you? It's a state of mind. It's that place where you lose yourself and find yourself."

July 2nd, 2017

I spent quite a bit of time trying to get a mapper for Nintendo's MMC2 cartridge to work for JSNES. I did the best I could, and its playable, it's not very pretty. I threw on a basic UI for a controller, use landscape mode on your phone, it will be next to impossible on portrait. The sound works, you will have to plug in your headphones. I only tested the emulator on my iPhone6, if the emulator does not work on your phone, I believe you and I feel for you.

If you are curious about Memory Management Controllers take a look at NES Dev this is real cool stuff. I made the mistake of not taking digital logic as a CS major, and I really didn't dive into the hardware side of computers too much, but this is great stuff. For all you geeky people out there savvy with a soldering iron, this is up your alley. Anyways...

Check out the emulator here



June 20th, 2017

As promised I got the sound to work on iOS for the javascript emulator. The caveat is that you have to use your headphones to hear the sound, this may or may not be the case for every iOS device, it was for my iphone6.

So this issue is partly solved. However if you want a GUI for interaction with the emulator, Joe has already got something for you, check out his mod here, I haven't got around to make a UI for mobile devices, but I will continue to work on it.

So stay tuned. Check out what I have thus far, not very playable yet, but there is sound at Retrocade for mobile devices, if you are savvy you will have all you need to make a great NES emulator, without all the nonsense of jailbreaking.



June 17th, 2017

So I broke open the Piggie Bank, scrounged up all the loose change that I could, and bought an SSL certificate for my web site. Woo hoo!! I have a real basic GPS logger for you to demo. Keep in mind this page will eat your battery, because I am using high accuracy GPS, however this means that the mileage is highly accurate within a couple of feet.

If the page is not working you will receive error messages probably telling you to turn on location services or allow them for your web browser. The HTML5 Geolocation Services require your permission to use the GPS capability of your device, and the page isn't all that exciting without GPS enabled, so if you want to experience the logger please enable the location services.

Polling for position causes some wonkiness, you may notice that when you hit the Start button the map has already plotted some lines, if you encounter this hit the Stop button and then the Reset button and try hitting Start once more to have a clean slate.

The next goal is to tie this functionality into the Jog logger, and provide the ability to share your results. Those are in the works at the moment, in the meantime here is a link to the GPS Enabled logger.

Check it out.



June 11th, 2017

I don't like to go out of order, I promised to provide a GPS enabled log next, but in order for the GPS service to work I have to install an SSL certificate on my website. The GPS-enabled log does work, and I will roll that out as soon as I get the SSL installed on my website. I didn't realize these certificates were so expensive, 70 bucks for the year, and I will be completely honest here, the SSL provides an illusion of safety.

Traffic going over 443 is encrypted, but that doesn't mean it can't be unencrypted, Fiddler can do it. It's just another one of those things like warranties, fees, taxes and insurance that are made-up concepts that makes lots of money for very little or no effort.

Anyway so I found this really cool embedded emulator that I am going to tinker around with until I save up the money to buy a certificate, Check it out here

June 5th, 2017

All wrapped up with a bow, the SOAP service is all done. Yay!!! Keep in mind that this does not provide everything available by using the jog logger application at joshuadahl.net, but it is a good baseline. So if you speak SOAP here is the WSDL for the service.

To be brief what you can do:

  • Register new users
  • Add courses, add logs, remove logs/courses, check month totals, check all time totals
  • Reset users passwords

Things you cannot do with the SOAP service

  • Add images of courses
  • Share your courses on Facebook
  • Login using your Facebook account

June 3rd, 2017

Just about done writing the SOAP service, I am not quite done so I won't show the WSDL just yet. What I have in line next is a GPS enabled log. You will be able to plot out your course using Google Maps, and eventually I will add the functionality to share your courses as well. This is really easy to do, so don't buy any app if you haven't already. The only catch is that you have to be in service range cellular data is required or else, well it won't work, but coverage is really good and unless you are running in areas that don't have cell coverage, the jog logger will work for you. Sign up, I am just about healed up and will start myself.

Run untill the wheels come off.

May 30th, 2017

The next addition that I am going to be adding to my site will be a SOAP Service. For those who know what SOAP is, you know this is the meat and potatoes of any developing API on the Cloud. The Object-Oriented model is dying or at least on life-support, replacing it is the SOA model, or Service-Oriented-Architecture.

I am not a huge crazy fan of iDesign, some people go to that class and never come back the same. I personally think it's a bit overkill, and is a good fit for certain applications mainly platforms that are Microsoft Windows based I don't see this working outside of that technology stack, and not a "one fits all" solution, so don't drink the Kool-aide if you're not forced to. I do however love n-tier development. Presentation - Web-Service(s) - Database. Period. No managers, no goofy engines, no complicated wedges or stacks, just re-usable code, and that is what we want.

Sorry for the tangeant, what does this mean for you? Well at the moment not a whole lot, but eventually this will be your tie in to the "system" ( that is such a stupid word, it means nothing ). So you can make your own jogloggers ( or what is to come ) on your domain.

Question: I get it, sounds good. Sooooo, what happened to the movies?

Answer: Nothing, they never went anywhere. The page is named the same. You do have to login to get to them.