FreeTideTables.com - Host your website's Tides Page - Download Tide Scripts - Login/Join?
Tide Graph
Tide Stations
What's New?
Site Relaunched
- Visitors feel they're still in your website
- Tides in your website - just one line of javascript.
Strange Data
- Perhaps 100-foot tides make sense?
Strange Data - My bad
- Things stay up for more than a day?
- Things stay down for more than a day?
Got Ideas?
Website Design
New Features? -
- Tell me what's on your mind.
Found Errors? -
- Please let me know A.S.A.P.
Tide Scripts
Custom Scripts? -
- Sorry. My plate is pretty full.
A New Script? -
- I'm always open to suggestions.
Tide Stations
Missing Station? -
- Was probably dropped or corrupt.
Add a New Station? -
- Sorry. Feature currrently unavailable.
History of Free Tide Tables - Part 1 (A.D. 2002)
The day
I learned domains were relatively inexpensive to register, I decided I wanted one. But which one? I mean, all the good ones were taken. Right?
I got to thinking
about what people liked, what was popular these days, what was politically correct. I Decided upon dolphins. Naturally Dolphins.com was taken, and dolphins this and dolphins that. I tried DolphinLand, DolphinWorld, DolphinIsland, DolphinKey... "Congratulations - That domain is available," the message on the screen read.
DolphinKey.com
Was it a good name? Who knew, but I rather liked it. So, after saying it over and over in my mind, out loud, writing it down a few times, playing with logos and the likes, I bought it.
DolphinKey.com was born.
But what about a website?
My first idea
was to take it rather literally: Dolphin Key, somewhere in the tropics, beachfront property with a scattering of thatch-roofed shops offering a variety of goods. Did I have a variety of goods to offer? No. DolphinKey.com languished...
Sometime later
I was hanging out at the local marina--naturally not actually out in my boat--when I noticed there was no longer a Tide Tables display on the counter. I was told the provider had split town. Blown the clambake. Left the country. I got to thinking...I was a programmer, after all.
I found a source
of tide data, parsed it, began writing my own tide table generator, the format based loosely on the tide table mine would be replacing. Naturally, I made certain changes, added this, left out that, and voila! I had become the Tide Table provider for that marina.
But the graphics were weak
"connect-the-dots looking"--and the data limited to our local zone. I went onto the web, spent a few minutes in the search engines, and finally found N.O.A.A.!!
I called N.O.A.A. on the phone
and spoke with one of their programmers, who told me, and I nearly quote, "From the sound of what you are writing, you might as well just get the data off of our website." I quickly through together a Java program, then another, then another... Before too long, I had a collection of routines capable of web-walking and data-parsing, which created flat files on my disk. A few changes to the existing Tide Table image generator to handle this new deluge of data...
Suddenly I had a program
capable of producing Tide Tables for over THREE THOUSAND (3000) locations along the U.S. coasts and around some of its holdings.
In the mean time
with the Tide Table looking quite good, if I do say so myself, I figured it was time to make DolphinKey real. SO, I got an occupational license, tax id, et cetera, and was in business as a Desktop Publisher.
Soon I had ads
in my Tide Table brochure, which I named "High Tides & Good Times," and requests for smaller versions for those who were aware of another Tide Table company in the local area. I had never heard of this other company, nor had I seen their version of a tide table. When I was shown an example, I was shocked. It was just a card with columns of times and tide levels, tough to read, without curves to show tide directions and speeds. I figured the card size was ok--I made mine slightly smaller for production reasons--so, I wrote some more Java code, and voila (again). I had a new product to offer: Tide Table Leaflets (now known as Tide Table Cards).
The rest of the story
is future history, yet to be written. I am now in my second year licensed, my third calendar year making tide tables...
visit The Free Site for Lots of Freebies  visit The Freebie Directory for tons of free things  visit The Freebie place for tons of Freebies  visit Active Free Stuff for New Free Stuff  visit WeLoveFreebies.com if you Love Free Stuff National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration United States Naval Observatory