Techiness

I'll clump web design talk and gadget talk here, I guess.

  • On Life and Love

    Granny Squares, Now in Color

    Many moons ago, I debuted my Granny Squares Color Pattern Generator, a utility to help crocheters randomize their blankets, which can be a daunting task. I recently got a request for a way to help visualize the blanket that’s generated. It’s hard to work from a list of “r/h/p”-type entries. Not very user-friendly. So I added in a color picker today, and the generator now shows the colors of the squares. As a warning, if you have a lot of very similar colors, the generated image may be difficult to work from. Then again, if your blanket’s in 15 shades of purple (yes, please!), you may not need this utility.

  • Uncategorized

    eTapestry API: Recurring Donations

    I spent long enough trying to puzzle out whether I should use Recurring Gifts vs. Recurring Gift Schedules in the eTapestry API that I figured it was worth a short post. The goal was to handle recurring donations. Every month, Suzy wants to donate $10 to Cool NPO. It’s not a pledge, in that she’s not dedicating herself to $120 for one year. Just $10/month. (Forever! Bwua-ha-ha!)

  • Uncategorized

    Blackbaud Merchant Services: No Sandbox Account

    A word to anyone doing an eTapestry API integration for a client who uses Blackbaud Merchant Services: you may have an eTapestry sandbox, but you don’t (and can’t) get a BMS sandbox account. So how do developers test their API interactions? According to the BMS account rep I spoke to, they do it on the live system. With live credit cards. From the get-go.

  • On Life and Love

    d20 3.5 SRD Spell Lists: First Beta

    So I’m in a D&D 3.5 campaign now. And I’m playing a Druid, which is kinda exciting–it’s the first time I’ve played a Druid at a high enough level that I can shapeshift, and I just tipped 5th level on Sunday. (Campaigns always fizzle out early…) Anyway, the campaign is a hodgepodge of standard D&D and Sandstorm, and summoning restrictions by the GM mean that my spell list involves a fair bit of swapping out that’s a little annoying to manage. For instance, I’m using Sandstorm’s “Desiccate” instead of “Summon Nature’s Ally II”, since I can’t summon. Since Druids are the type to prepare a few spells per day from…