June 14th, 2009
In the past 4 months I’ve listened to at least 8 books. I’ve loved them all. I get them from audible.com which used to suck but has gotten much better.
The thing about consuming novels this way is that I wouldn’t be enjoying these great stories because I rarely read for pleasure any more. I typically walk my dogs twice a day for at least 90 minutes in total and I wear my headphones while I do house work so I get about 2 hours a day of listening. This means I get through the average book in less than two weeks.
Some books are so good I get out on foot for an exercise walk or extend the dogs walks just to listen more. I’ve suggested and gifted books to a few friends with long commutes who have also become avid listeners.
Check it out and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s easy and enjoyable. Here are a few picks (in no particular order) to get you started:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Water for Elephants
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Pillars of the Earth
World Without End
The Nine
What is the What
Atlas Shrugged
Three Cups of Tea
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June 8th, 2009
Last night I started a lengthy post weighing the pros and cons of adding Drupal to my mix of tools. In the course of doing that I watched “Why I Hate Drupal” and decided that I do not, in fact want to add Drupal to my mix of tools. One of my main reasons for including Drupal was that Django doesn’t run well on cheap shared hosting but it does and Webfaction is not only cheap but also offers great support to the mix. I’m not a Drupal hater. I just don’t have time for the very steep initial learning curve.
I do think that the Django community could learn a lot from the Drupal community. There’s a huge following, several conferences per year and a vast array of video and audio content out there.
I’m focusing my business on Python based content management systems and Django based custom development. Though I’ve been unsuccessful at installing Pinax in two attempts I’m sure I’ll get it working this week so I can start learning how to use it. I can see it gaining momentum and becoming a huge project. Hopefully someone can step up and become the Lullabot of the Pinax world.
I’m also hoping that all the knowledge I gained working with Ellington won’t go to waste. Ellington is a great product and despite the cost you really get what you pay for. There’s so much good stuff included that you you’ll save an huge amount of money in development by at least starting with the hosted solution.
Time to work!
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May 22nd, 2009
Wow, it’s been more than two months since I posted. I have a LOT to say but I’m preparing for a week in Vancouver BC to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We finished our honeymoon up in Vancouver so it’ll be a nice romantic trip.
We can both use the time off. Susan’s hustling to meet the billable hours minimum and I’m hustling to make my first year as an independent contractor reasonably successful. I can confidently say there has been a steep learning curve we’ve both had to negotiate in our careers. At least my core job skills haven’t changed.
Happy Memorial Day to all.
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March 6th, 2009
Every so often I need to add a string to an integer. In programming that’s easy. int(2) + 17 = 19. Someday soon it seems we may be able to do the same thing with biological cells according to this NY Times article.
Boomers rejoice!
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March 4th, 2009
One of the things I LOVE about the web is that anybody with even a half-baked idea can try out their idea for a fairly low cost. I’m not saying the idea below is half-baked. It’s just a very good example of someone coming up with an idea and hopefully turning it into a pot of gold.
Actual Guru.com project posting:
Title: Online Dance School
Project ID: 491681
Category: Programming / Software / Database Development
Description:
So what I’m looking to do is create an online pole dancing school where once set up, I can manage easily on my own.
It would need to be set up so that one would need to be a member to view the videos. I was thinking of keeping membership simple & making it a monthly membership or a yearly membership @ a discount and both with auto-renew. Obviously the whole point of starting this school is to be able to reach a global client base as opposed to just local, so I need to be able to accept all currencies for membership payment.
I already accept credit cards on my website via paypal and would like to continue using their services if possible.
I also want to add a free sample to the opening page of the online school to help spark the interest in learning more & buying the membership.
The videos would need to be set up so that they couldn’t be saved to the users hard drive and then put out for free on you tube.
It would be important to me that the videos be super clear & expandable and have the capability to be viewed at regular speed as well as slow motion.
It’s stuff like this that really makes me smile.
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March 1st, 2009
So I’ve been doing a TON of coding lately. Almost all of it’s been Django. The more I use Django the more I LOVE it. Every few days I have to switch back to PHP and my appreciation of Django increases exponentially.
So why am I dipping my wick in Drupal? Because Django comes with substantial overhead (kinda like the difference between a pitbull puppy and an alligator, both chomp but one’s chomping at your side 24/7 and the other chomps once or twice a day).
Clients with small budgets or pre-existing code hosted on inexpensive shared hosting may not be able to accommodate Django. That’s a pity because developing in Django is, as Andy McKay would say, “a doddle.” Especially when compared to procedural PHP or Plone. It’s not always possible to convince a client that they can save money on development if they spend more on hosting especially if you may need to move their existing code. So Drupal fits the bill nicely with a “loosely coupled” philosophy similar to Django and a lighter perceived hit on the client.
I’m also dig the Lullabot logo and find the entire Drupal community entirely agreeable so I’m thoroughly looking forward to learning Drupal and adding it to my toolkit.
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February 6th, 2009
I’ve worked on a LOT of crap code in my day and honestly I’ve probably learned as much from the crap as from the best practices and coding style guides.
HOWEVER…
Finding these two functions in the same file of the open source application osDate really has me wondering WTF?
function getOnlineStats($userid) {
global $osDB;
$onl = $osDB->getOne(’SELECT count(*) FROM ! WHERE userid = ?’, array(ONLINE_USERS_TABLE, $userid));
if ($onl > 0) {return true;}
return false;
}
function checkOnlineStats( $userid ) {
global $osDB;
if ( $osDB->getOne( ‘SELECT count(*) as num FROM ! WHERE userid = ?’, array( ONLINE_USERS_TABLE, $userid ) ) ) {
return ‘online’;
}
else {
return ‘offline’;
}
}
Oh, and apologies that the code formatting plugin I spent so much time installing some time ago isn’t working now.
Filed under: Programming | 2 Comments »
January 4th, 2009
FYI design goddess Amy Hoy is offering design audits or “Warm, gooey User Experience audits” “at a totally snackable price.” She’s probably full up by now but I’d take her up if I was you.
Hug Your App: Usability Audit for Christmas
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October 12th, 2008
I feel like I’m at the same place I was when I decided to pass on Ruby on Rails and choose Python and Django. The entire learning process and potential expense of buying flex builder seem pretty off-putting. Especially when the potential options (processing and OpenLazslo) seem so compelling.
The project manager and sales turd in me says the way to approach this decision is to look at the project requirements and use that to determine what platform to use.
Here, in a nutshell, are my requirements:
1) I need to create boxes which contain text and are linked to other boxes.
2) The number of boxes, the text in them and their relationship to other boxes needs to be stored in a database.
3) Auto completion of the text in the boxes needs to be possible.
4) Connecting one box to another sequentially is a requirement as is the the ability to cut a box from one ‘branch’ and paste it to another while maintaining the text.
5) ALL major browsers need to be supported. This is an ‘enterprise’ application which, translated’ means it needs to work on 5-7 year old operating systems and browsers. IE needs to ‘be my friend’.
6) The ‘application’ needs to work in a browser or as a desktop application. If you’re part of the same group you get access to the text in the boxes of others in your group. Or if you pay a subscription fee you have access to some of the content of these boxes.
My impressions are that Flex offers all of these things but with a steep learning curve and a metric buttload of faith based programming where Adobe is my lord and savior.
Having done the “closed source” thang for a while I’m more than a tad averse to hitching entrepreneurial my wagon to a glacial corporate entity like Adobe.
As I type, I’m leaning toward Flex because OpenLaszlo, processing, etc. all appear to meet some but not all of my requirements.
So sell my soul it is. Stay tuned…
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October 2nd, 2008
I’ve been practicing GVIM by using it every day at work but I’m far from perfect. This reminds me of learning to surf. It was SO frustrating. I knew eventually it’d be fun but the learning curve was long and steep.
I truly admire people who are fluent in VIM. Jealous even…
There are tons of options and just figuring out how to set them and then how to make them persist is a challenge. I’m getting there though and my work is only about 5 times slower then when I do it in TextPad – a huge improvement from the 20 times slower of early last week.
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