Category Archives: Blog

Whirlwind = Conferences, Live Radio Shows, etc

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So this has been a really crazy time for me.  A fun time, but crazy none the less.  Here is a quick recap.

First – Bucky, Ben, and I pulled off the first two live shows of Runtime Expectations (our live tech talk show with attitude) on CodeBassRadio.net.

Second – Preparing to head to 360|Flex in Denver this week.  I will be presenting the “Athletic Guide to Agile”, and hopefully broadcasting a little bit from the conference.  This conference is going to be killer.  Lots of great presentations and the atmosphere is always very cool.

Third – Trying to figure out the next Runtime Expectations broadcast on the 24th of the month. As well as getting my regular radio show off the ground.  There is so much to learn in the radio world.  Glad I have a lot of great friends and support from people like Vicky Ryder and Ben Farrell, Bucky is more of pain.

Fourth – Getting work done at my actual job.  Lots of great stuff going on at the office and it’s fun to be a part of it all.  We just wrapped up our teams innovation challenge presentation too.  We will find out how we did in the upcoming weeks.

Fifth – Finishing off my final version of “Building HTML5 Applications” presentation for cfObjective in May.  This will be a two hour presentation on all the new stuff with HTML5 and CSS3 as well as building an application with the technologies.  I will also be part of a live broadcast of Runtime Expectations at the conference.  Which should be pretty killer!

Oh yeah, spending time with the family, but that isn’t stressful at all.

 

My Ruby and Rails Journey – Part 1

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DISCLAIMER –  I want to clarify the title that I will be using for this series of posts.  I know what Ruby on Rails is, but I am taking a different approach.  I am learning Ruby, the language, while also working with Rails, the framework.  So I am digging through the famous Pickaxe book to learn about the language of Ruby and I am also working through Rails3 in Action. This is the story of my journey.

Most of my “career” as a developer has been focused on the frontend (e.g. JavaScript, CSS, HTML, ActionScript and Flex).  But I have also been working with many different backend technologies (e.g. Coldfusion, PHP, Java, Groovy/Grails).  The reason I am always looking at backend technologies is to improve my efficiency in proving out frontend solutions.  After all, a UI with no backend is about as useful as a Powerpoint or Photoshop file, which makes it hard to drive technical change with decision makers.  Trust me, if you are a frontend developer or designer, and all you ever do is create pictures and never implement; no one will care about your technical opinion.  You will fail.  Time to get on with the post..

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Passion and Drive = Codebass Radio

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Here is my Doogie Howser moment.  I recently had a conversation with a few friends regarding “passion for what you do” and I couldn’t help but think about Codebassradio.net, in particular the founder Vicky Ryder.  Codebassradio.net is an online radio station that has grown from once a day hourly windows to pretty much jamming all the time, every day.  Their official vision statement is:

CodeBass serves to showcase the fine folks among the Adobe community who share in a love of music. It’s all about getting to know YOU and what you have to offer. CodeBass loves to promote community awareness and serves as a conduit for connecting kindred souls, especially across platforms that do not typically interact.

But I don’t think this really tells the whole story.  So let me elaborate based on my perspective…

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