trisweb.com

After a long time “waiting” (I really didn’t care that much) Wordpress 2.5 is out and trisweb.com is running it. The upgrade went as smooth as any previous one and it’s been very nice to use so far. The admin redesign is beautiful (surprised me, even) and all is working well.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted anything here, but I’ve been very busy with my startup and everything else. I’m currently in Boston with my business partner coding away, we’re making huge progress, and I’m more and more confident that it’s going to be the ‘next big thing’ for our market, and indeed maybe a paradigm shift for enterprise software in general. Time will tell, but it takes a lot for me to be confident in an implementation, and I’m finally seeing it come together.

Other things that have been going on… hmm. Zenphoto development is as hot as ever. If you haven’t checked out the latest versions or the new site, now’s the time to upgrade.

Speaking of Zenphoto and Wordpress, despite Wordpress’ having some decent new photo management features in 2.5, I think a Wordpress+Zenphoto plugin to integrate with the new “Add image” pane would be great. I’ll look into it and see if it’s plausible.

Well, this is my april fool’s post then I suppose. I’m not really posting, it’s just a joke. Happy Spring!

I’ve had an on-and-off relationship with Linux for the past 10 years. It all started with RedHat 5.2, which I got on a CD that came with a book (because it would have taken 3 days to download on the old 56k modem, and I thought the book was a good way to start). Now, just to clarify, I was thirteen at the time.
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Every good programmer probably has to write about their opinion on this subject once in their lifetime, so here’s my take

As part of my consulting gig I work on “Enterprise Java” code. I just had to write this line after receiving two separate exceptions on the matter (types obfuscated to protect the guilty (and they are oh so guilty… I won’t get into that)):

String somenumber = (String) ((TypeAttribute) TypeCache.getTypeFromCache("Thingie") .getAttribute("someNumber")).getValue((Thingie) object);

You’re a freaking computer! Figure it out for me!

Also, xkcd, as always, says it the best.

It’s revealing to be a Java programmer every 2 weeks, and a Ruby and Flex developer the next 2 weeks, with PHP and JavaScript by night. I understand everything about why static typing is good and proper, but today, when computers (and compilers especially) are powerful and intelligent, I think the computer should do what a computer is great for, namely figuring out extremely complex yet orderly relationships between types of things, leaving the programmer to focus on much more important stuff.

When I’m coding in Java, it takes me 50 lines of rudimentary logic and typecasting muck in a new inline comparator class to do something as simple as sorting custom objects.

In Ruby it’s a one-liner. I don’t care how much less efficient that is for the computer (and it’s not), that is worth its weight in gold in programmer time and code elegance.

I enjoy dynamically typed languages, and any good programmer knows that it’s programmers having fun that makes good software, not programmers spending 50% of their time dealing with code that gets in their way. What kills me most is that computers are really good at automatically doing the stuff that’s not fun—that is in fact what they’re designed to do—and there are people who have fun making that stuff fast, so why don’t we just let them?

Most artists or bands today barely manage three or four good songs on an album, so it’s quite a feat when a musician puts out a full EP of six songs that are each as good as the next and impossible to stop listening to. Especially when that musician is someone who has a degree in composition and orchestration, and lists Chopin as one of her influences.

I haven’t had a favorite album in a few months, but I like this one a lot. If you’re into good music you should definitely give Brooke Waggoner a listen. The EP “Fresh Pair of Eyes” is 100% free as a download from her web site right now, so you have no excuse not to. Her style is sort of piano folk/singer-songwriter with classical influences and an incredible skill and sense of music and sonority. She can go from some slow quiet notes and speed up and build to an expansive full-orchestra climax in the span of a single song, and her lyrics are intelligent and interesting to match. The music feels extremely natural and easy to listen to and matches so well with what she’s trying to convey, like she was somehow able to pull the emotions out of her heart and place them straight into your ears.

Give it a listen at her myspace page or go to her site to grab the totally free download.

Ever gone in a public restroom and seen one of those new-fangled sensor-activated automatic devices? They range from toilet flushing to soap dispensing and everything in-between these days, but some of them make more sense than others. Here’s my analysis.

1. Automatic Sinks – Marginal Usefulness. People touch the sink fixtures before and after hand washing. Before doesn’t matter, because you wash your hands just after turning on the sink, but generally having to turn off the water means there’s risk of post-washing contamination. There are ways to turn off most normal sinks after hands-washing by means of arms, elbows, or feet, so this isn’t a complete necessity, but is still very useful. Also, these save water by only being on when used. Kudos.
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2007 ended today on a high note!

• The Cal Bears won the Armed Forces bowl in Texas, after putting “2nd string” quarterback Kevin Riley in the game in the 2nd quarter. He did an amazing job with a very consistent two touchdowns per quarter thereafter, and the team came back from a 21-nothing start to win the game 42-36. Go Bears!


• I got back from a great winter vacation in Tahoe, which involved my first day cross-country skiing ever, and two good days of regular skiing at Sugar Bowl and Alpine Meadows. Also, lots of scrabble, a puzzle, and yummy food. Sweet!


• Great homemade Thai food and good company!

That’s pretty much it. Just a good day and a nice evening. Here’s wishing everyone a happy new year, and best of luck and skill in 2008. I think it’s going to be a good year!

I’m about to go have breakfast at my Grandma’s house this morning after Christmas. It’s nice to go back to something that’s been the same as long as I remember, even if it’s only for a few days. It’s good to know it’s always there, and I know I’m lucky to have such a great family.

I’m going skiing in Tahoe now, leaving today! Woo! Should be lots of fun, two or three days skiing, two or three days relaxing and then back home (nor-cal home) for New Years.

Ok, well I just wanted to give a short update. My brother just came in and threw a pillow at me telling me to get downstairs for breakfast. Hahaha.

Best wishes to everyone, happy holidays and merry winter, and enjoy the last few days of 2007! Go Bears (please)!

To all Zenphoto users – Zenphoto has a new release out yet again, 1.1.3! This version has much improved setup, which now does a systems check and lets you know if anything needs to be fixed before installation. It’s much easier and more intuitive than before, so it should help anyone get started easily. There are many other improvements and bugfixes as well, but instead of talking about them here, I’m going to direct you to the release entry on the new Zenphoto.org web site!

That’s right, Zenphoto.org has a new design and new useful features, like a blog, theme browser, and showcase gallery that shows off some great Zenphoto installations from around the web. The new site was designed and developed by Malte (acrylian) and Mark (aitf311) and looks excellent! Make sure to go check it out.

Since Zenphoto has a new blog, the release announcements will now be made there instead of here. I’ll keep making entries here for each release right now, but please switch your RSS feeds to the new one, located here: http://www.zenphoto.org/category/release/feed/. It should be the main source for Zenphoto information from now on. The main blog can also be found at http://www.zenphoto.org/category/News/.

Congratulations yet again to the Zenphoto team for the new site and another great release. We hope you enjoy it. Happy holidays!