December 2009
114 posts
clientsfromhell:
Client: We are not moving forward with the project, the shopping cart doesn’t meet our needs.
Me: Ok there is still a balance due on the project that needs to be paid.
Client: We don’t see it that way, so we aren’t going to pay.
Me: Completed work does need to be paid for.
Client: Again, we don’t see it that way.
3 tags
Wacom Intuos Tablet
Got my hands on a Wacom Intuos4 Small Tablet. Took a day to get used to (and since its a small I restricted the pen to two of my four screens) but playing around with it as a standard input device is really cool. I am not a designer but I do have uses for it in photoshop, pdfs and some other apps. I am very impressed with the amount of customization that can be applied to both the pen and mouse...
3 tags
Power to the new Rails Router →
Routing has always been easy in rails but it could have been easier. In rails 3 it will be.
4 tags
More on ORM, Schema-less DBs, NOSQL
About a week back or so I posted this about ORMs, and more specifically my grievances with NOSQL and schema-less databases. I found this article today on railstips.org that provided one argument for the other side. I do not fully agree with the article but I did ask for some answers and this is one. Its not really an argument for the technical aspects of NOSQL but more about breaking out of the...
Thank you bears D for making it a little easier. Lovie, Turner still no points earned.
2 tags
Oh its heard to be a bears fan right now. I can tell you two things: I am no longer a Lovie fan and have never been a fan of Ron Turner.
FBFR Update
If you do not respond and simply leave it one your notifications page she cannot re-request. Don’t click either button.
smnhm:
I’ve now been friend requested 7 times in 3 days by that silly, little lady. Her 6th request came with a message, “Long time no see…”, as did her 7th, “Are we not friends?…” Two things bother me:
Her excessive use of ellipses.
That she thinks we are friends.
...
2 tags
“I’m not paying you anything extra to do the website because it is simply a...”
– (via clientsfromhell)
Song of the Day →
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Breakdown (live)
Single Barrel Jack. Merry Christmas to me.
3 tags
Fuck Health Care, Fuck you Health Care Reform.
So I have now been at the hospital with my dad since a little after my first post around 12p. For those who have asked he will be ok. A scare with his heart has landed him in the emergency room overnight.
But that is not why I am here to rant. I am here to rant because today’s experience has opened by eyes to how fucked up our health care system is in this country (an no I am not saying...
At the hospital with my father on christmas eve. Dad not feeling right but I’m hoping it’s nothing too serious.
2 tags
Jailbreak fugitive updates Facebook page →
Classic use of social media.
3 tags
10 Web trends to watch in 2010 →
(via iyom)
1 tag
Balloon Boy's Parents are Sick
No I didn’t follow it that much but I am going to assume this is not good parenting:
“Court documents released in October said the couple hatched the plan about two weeks before the incident and ‘instructed their three children to lie to authorities as well as the media regarding this hoax.’”
“Their motive was to ‘make the Heene family more marketable...
Song of the Day →
Wolfmother - Woman
5 tags
Hail WebSockets: Please Say No More Ajax →
Before I become a hardcore server-side(ist) my old job had me doing a lot of frontend work, which I continue to do. I enjoy laying out pages (HTML I mean, I am graphically inept) and CSS is always fun. I became fascinated with Javascript, learned every in and out in every browser. After developing several applications including a live, moderated chat system and some other doo-dads I began to hate...
2 tags
3 tags
How to Pass Healthcare (The Democrat Way)
1. Decide yet again that we need to take on too much too soon
2. Start doing everything you bash republicans for
3. Set a stupid deadline for when this bill needs be done. Its not about people its about elections and maintaining majority in 2010.
4. Don’t listen to the public and instead get votes for your bill by bribing other democrats (who dont agree) with special deals. THIS...
3 tags
Pregnancy in the Military
So by now you have had to hear of the women’s rights debacle going on the Army. If not, in short, an order has come down the wire telling women soldiers they will be Court Marshaled if they get pregnant and men can be for getting a female soldier pregnant.
Of course, people are up in arms about this. I am not. I have several female friends in the military. I can’t even begin to...
6 tags
ORM, Schema-less DB, NoSQL, MongoDB, Document...
I love using ORMs. ActiveRecord makes getting up and running with our without rails easy. We all know how much it sucks to interleave SQL through our code over and over. The other day I need to quickly access a dimensional model stored in PostgreSQL. I used ActiveRecord and set everything up in under a few minutes. ORMs have their issues, though.
First, I do NOT use migrations for the same...
2 tags
Report: Twitter Made a Profit in 2009 →
technicallypolitics:
According to a report by Bloomberg’s Spencer E. Ante, Twitter’s search deals with Google and Microsoft made the company about $25 million - enough to turn Twitter into a profitable business in 2009.
3 tags
“I ended up giving you a C+; there was a 5% jump from the B- grades down to the...”
– My vector calc professor.
2 tags
Popeye is about Sex, Alice in Wonderland about... →
Alice and Wonderland may have been a commentary of then modern mathematics. The author was a mathematician. As it so happens I am taking a course in elementary complex numbers next. Sorta part of this article.
Song of the Day →
Wolfgang Gartner - Push and Rise
2 tags
Problem with Grade Distributions
Well at least one of the reasons why:
So first grade is in. In my vector calc class there were 5 sections that contributed to my grade:
Homework - 15%
Quizzes - 15%
Midterm 1 - 20%
Midterm 2- 20%
Final Exam - 30%
I don’t turn in homework much. I do homework, especially when warranted in a math class, but as a by product of my infrequent attendance to lecture it is rarely submitted....
2 tags
Generic Actions in Rails 3 →
Gah Rails 3 is going to be like learning a whole new bag of tricks
“I’d like an email designed and sent to the internet.”
– (via clientsfromhell)
Song of the Day →
Thrice - Deadbolt
Old school Thrice, great song.
Remember Which Goals are Important
scottbarr:
John Nunemaker made an excellent comment which reminds us of the value of setting goals. In the “crazy” world of software development, we are often pushed to make software the best, the biggest, or the option with the most features. But…
When Boeing prepared to launch the design of the 727 passenger plain in the 1960s, its managers set a goal that was deliberately concrete:...
Song of the Day →
Velvet Revolver - Get Out the Door
4 tags
More On the Git Bandwagon
So I have been playing with Git all day today. Once I got GitX installed on both my Mac Pro and Macbook I fell in love. I had perviously been using Versions on OS X for SVN and all of my linux boxes are servers so CLI is what I use there for either VCS. Any way GitX makes it super easy to stage only parts of files which is one of my favorite Git features. It is really awesome that the working copy...
4 tags
On The Git Bandwangon
For the years I have used version control its been a necessary evil. One that has some well known advantages that made it purposeful but was always just missing something or caused one more problem than it solved. At my old job (this was 4 years ago now things may have changed), where we used SourceSafe, it was impossible to manage a workflow for everyone because of different preferences, personal...
Song of the Day →
Stevie Ray Vaughn - Pride & Joy
3 tags
File Encryption and Decryption in Ruby
Was reading a book that had a nice little script for encrypting and decrypting files. Wrote it as it stood then rewrote it to tidy it up a bit and make it more CLI friendly. Script shows examples of how to use blowfish to encrypt/decrypt files, use GetoptLong to read command line arguments, reopening classes and RDoc::usage for command line documentation. The script was tossed together in about 5...
The case of the 500-mile email.
nirum:
Here's a problem that *sounded* impossible... I almost regret posting the
story to a wide audience, because it makes a great tale over drinks at a
conference. :-) The story is slightly altered in order to protect the
guilty, elide over irrelevant and boring details, and generally make the
whole thing more entertaining.
I was working in a job running the campus email system some years...
