Hello!

The purpose of this page is simply to let you all know what I’ve been working on! :) Enjoy!

June 2025

  • I redid the URL Extractor on the new look and feel
  • I tried putting Google Ads on my website to try and get a bit of revenue. Unfortunately the ads were really bizarre and I decided to remove them after all.
  • Up until this point, some images on the home page were not consistent. It was probably driving some people crazy haha. Worry not, as of June 3, it is now resolved :)
  • For a few evenings, I’ve been working on a Python tool to extract content from Government of Canada Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports (the idea was that someone could see on one web page the same section from 80+ different plans). It isn’t working super well and I’m considering giving up. I will give it a few days to think about it.
  • Added a “Copy” button to the Email extractor tool so that people can easily copy and paste the output (not sure why I didn’t do that earlier haha)
  • Released a new project! A list of all the wading pools in Ottawa. At first there was a bug when filtering the table but I (or I should say ChatGPT haha) managed to fix it. I used my lat-long tool (I will add the link once it’s properly published) to figure out the latitude and longitude of the wading pools so I could place them all on a map
  • Using the map, I figured out the area of the city for each wading pool and added that information to my dataset. I also added a washroom column which I’m hoping fellow Moms will help me complete eventually :)
  • I gave a talk at the Busy Moms Expo which was super fun!
  • Added a “report a data problem” column to the wading pools page. I also hid all days of the week aside from today by default.
  • I emailed the city of Ottawa to confirm the opening date of the wading pools. They have not responded :(
  • A friend informed me that some of the wading pools are now open during the weekend. So I actually updated the wading pool listing so that it shows exactly which pool is open on the weekend and what time, and I changed the data to mark everything else as “closed”. I also added some logic in the Javascript code so that the map icon shows as red when the pool is closed that day and green when it’s open.
  • Spent an entire evening cleaning up the City of Ottawa Playgrounds dataset, and I’m only about 1/10th of the way there :( This is a bigger project than I anticipated! (the reason there is so much cleanup needed is because the city included things that are not particularly important, and then there were lots of parks listed multiple times, probably because they have multiple structures. Personally I think each park should only be listed once.)
  • Oopsie! Back in February, someone had filled my “Report a data problem” form for the City of Ottawa drop-in page to say that this activity shouldn’t be tagged to preschool: “Ottawa Drop-Ins: Saturday, 16:45 - 18:15, Minto Recreation Complex - Barrhaven, 3500 Cambrian Road, Open gym - family (children ages 6 to 12)”. I had missed that message entirely. Whoever they are, they are absolutely correct so finally, 4 months later, I fixed the data (better late than never lol)

May 2025

  • Created the change log page!
  • Added css code for Bootstrap buttons
  • The City of Ottawa Library website was changed. All events are now starting with https://booking.biblioottawalibrary.ca/ whereas before they were under https://biblioottawalibrary.ca/ I had to change my CSV file where all the data is located, and also the Python script that I run weekly to update the data. Thankfully the whole exercise took only about 5 minutes, phew! :)
  • Added some more stuff to my media page, including some images. I decided to fix the CSS to make the image appear on the left instead of in the middle of the screen :)
  • Added more social links in the footer
  • Created a Free Agent page
  • I recently changed how my website is built. It used to be built with custom HTML and Javascript, but I started using an open-source site generator called Jekyll (thank you ChatGPT for explaining to me how to migrate my website). This allows me to have “reusable components” for similar pages so that I don’t have to constantly copy-paste the same code everywhere (and if that code changes, then I only change it in one spot instead of 17 locations haha). Anyways, long story short, I now have to change all my projects to adopt the new look, so I’ve been slowly working on that.
  • Oops, I suddenly realized that during the migration to Jekyll, I somehow lost my Efficient Public Servant link on the home page, so I added it back :) While I was at it, I gave it the new look and feel
  • On my Library Programs page, the time of day now appears in 24 hour clock instead of 12 hour clock. It’s a bit harder for people not familiar with the 24-hour clock, however it means that I am able to sort the events (otherwise it looked like 1 PM came before 9 AM because 1 comes before 9 in alphabetical order). It’s not perfect though, there are still 3 events showing up in 12 hour clock (probably because they are missing the AM or PM marker on the source website).
  • I decided to create a separate page for Kindergym. And then on each City of Ottawa drop-in page I have, I added a mini menu to go from one to the other (currently, the options are: all drop-ins, skating, swimming, kindergym). I think I should rearrange my home page to put all the City of Ottawa Drop-Ins subprojects within one category. I also think I should maybe create more specialized pages like Badminton, Basketball, Pickleball, etc. Maybe a task for June haha.
  • The 4 City of Ottawa drop-in pages are now coded using “components” instead of HTML code within the page.
  • Darn the library website changed again! I had to fix my Python script
  • A few days later, I realized I had a bunch of duplicate events in my library data. So I opened the dataset in Notepad++ to do Edit > Line Operation > Remove duplicate, then I re-uploaded the dataset to Github where my website is hosted. I updated my list of instructions to update the data so that I won’t forget to remove duplicates every week.
  • I decided to change host! I am now using Netlify instead of Github Pages. For now, I am using the free version. The reason for the switch is that I want to be able to eventually sell something / add ads, which was not really allowed on Github Pages.
  • I added “Select All” and “Unselect All” buttons on the filters for the library programs page and all the City of Ottawa drop-ins pages (All drop-ins, skating, swimming, kindergym)
  • I created a simple Contact page
  • Added a spot on the City of Ottawa drop-in pages for a message to appear on top of every page (useful for example when a special holiday is affecting the schedule, like the Victoria Day weekend for example)
  • I moved my repository of adult dance classes to the new look and feel. While I was at it, I changed the code so that if there are multiple addresses for one school, they all get their individual Google Maps link.
  • There are a few new drop-in activities that the City of Ottawa added that didn’t exist before, so I had to update my code to ensure they were correctly categorized on my City of Ottawa drop-in pages. The new activities are: Billiards, Ukulele, Open Paint Studio, Geriatric Jazz Band and Sport Conditioning
  • Created a separate page for all my work projects and one separate page for my personal projects, and then I updated the website menu. Now that I’m using Jekyll, the whole thing took only about 3 seconds it was awesome :) I love Jekyll!!
  • Moved the email address extractor to the new look and feel
  • I received questions about how reservations work with the City of Ottawa drop-ins, so I added a note to explain that on all the City of Ottawa drop-in pages.
  • I did a presentation at the Civic Tech Ottawa Meetup, so I added a few pictures of the event to the media page
  • OMG! On May 23, 2025, I received my VERY FIRST coffee (there’s a link to buy me a coffee in the footer of my website). I am super excited!
  • I redid my time difference tool on the new look and feel (and actually fixed a few bugs while I was at it)
  • (before that I did tons of stuff but I didn’t keep track sorry! ;)