Ruby at the Beach

So, I got a video camera for my birthday and I've been taking some video lately; mostly of Ruby. Here's a sampling. Watch for more to come.

Lauri McDonnell Single Handedly Brings Parties Together

Thanks for Lauri's Mom, Beth, for bringing to light Lauri's incredible accomplishment. In a display of partisan cooperation, Lauri brought the two candidates together recently for a commercial real-estate summit. Of course, we're all very proud.

Bryce Versus the Squirrel

My life with Squirrels has not always been so harmonious. As I was returning home one day many years ago I saw a squirrel that has gotten itself trapped in our garage.

To the squirrel, the garage was pay dirt. My parents (I was still living with my parents at the time) had just bought a ton of birdseed and they kept it in a cardboard box on the floor of the garage. To a young squirrel, this was dinner served on a silver platter. Ten seconds of chewing was all it took to get through the box into the yummy birdseed.

When I got home and saw the squirrel, I didn't think much. I had spent the last four years of my life at Whitworth amongst the small gray vermin and knew they were scared of people. To get rid of this infestation was going to be simple. I charged at it.

At their quarterly meetings, squirrels get together and decide what they will be collectively afraid of. Humans charging at them is something they agreed would scare the piss out of them which can only be followed by running up the nearest tree as fast as possible.

This squirrel missed that meeting. Rather than run away, which you recall they are supposed to do, this one charged back. I didn't know what to do. All of a sudden, I had a squirrel running up my leg in an obvious attempt to protect the enormous box of birdseed. This was not going well. I did the only thing a grown man could which was to scream like a little girl, prance around trying to shake it off, and jump in the back of my truck once it fell off my leg.

What an experience.

Ruby, our new puppy, love her new chew toy my sister got her: a squirrel.

DOH! Missed One Yesterday

I was getting back into the swing of things really slowly and missed the blog a day yesterday. Sorry about that.

Monday, Lauri and I volunteered to get bumped from our flight out of Oakland and opted instead to fly out of San Jose. In exchange, we got some great incentives from the airline and have most of our next vacation paid for. How sweet it is.

It wasn't an easy decision however as we were in possession of our three year old nephew. We were scheduled to fly out of Oakland and land by 7pm in Portland. Plenty of time to make it home, have a cold one, and head to bed. The flight was oversold by six though and they were willing to make it worth our while to stay later. We took the bait.

They shuttled us from Oakland to San Jose airport where we played with Landon (the three year old) for a couple of hours. We had dinner at the terminal and he started to get groggy! Perfect! We made it back to town by 11 that night after Landon slept the whole flight.

Thanks Southwest for the great service and free stuff! I have to ask though: what's been your most frusterating or best experience flying?

Just Made It!

We just landed in SF and are at Lauri's parent's house. I was really worried I wasn't going to make it in time to do this post. Blog a day is still going strong!

We're in Napa Valley for a wedding this weekend should be a good time. CA is WAY different that Oregon even though it's a bordering state.

We were on a plane today with our nephew. We were his transporters from Portland to San Francisco. He was really good though it was an experience being in charge of a three year old. Everywhere we went, people thought he was our son. What a sobering experience. We have no business being totally in charge of another human being :)

All for now, be back soon.
Bryce

Gas Prices Fun?

I've been noodling about an online program I've been wanting to write but haven't yet had the time. Since a lot of people are reading this lately, I was thinking I'd ask for some input.

I want to create a game where we find the lowest gas prices in town. I can create a map where you enter your zip code. The map will show you local gas stations and the current prices they're offering. You can enter your address and your work address and see gas prices on your route home. That would be kinda cool right? The one thing is that it would have to depend on people entering the prices they see. There's no place that publishes such information.

This is still just kind of an idea that's floating around my head. Let me know if you think this would be fun/useful.

I'm a social networking whore

Did a really warm place just freeze?

Today, I joined Facebook and Twitter. Two of the latest social networking phenomena to sweep the online world. A client of mine asked if I could write an interface for these two applications so I took the plunge. Crap.

I think everyone knows what facebook is. Twitter, though, is a small application that you can update your friends with. With a limit of 140 characters, you post small messages to a website about what you're up to. Best of all, it's written in my favorite programming language: Ruby on Rails.

Soooooo check me out on Twitter and Facebook!

Ever Heard of Hulu?

Hulu is this great place on the Internet that you can watch all sorts of full length TV shows and movies. There are a bunch of networks and movie studios that post content the day after it airs. I caught up on Earl and The Office and we don't have to tape these shows anymore.

Another show we've been going through is It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. It's a really coarse show but hillarious nonetheless.

Happy Monday!

Bryce

Sleep Deprivation

I'm sensing a trend in these posts...

In my quest to not to talk about the dog everyday, I'm going to speak on a related subject: sleep deprivation. Last night, was one of three consecutive nights that Lauri and I both got about three hours of sleep. Tons of fun. It made me start to think though, how long have I gone without sleep in one stretch?

Recentlty, it's a toss up. When Lauri's appendix went on strike and had to be removed from the picket line (her cecum) it was my job to make all those important medical decisions. I think, when we tallied it up, that I went without any sort of rest for 36 hours straight. So that was a fun night. I think I recently did another 36'er when I went out to Ohio in April. I caught a red eye flight out there and had to change planes in Chicago. I left on Friday night and got in on Saturday morning. The woman who picked me up asked if I had eaten breakfast yet and I remember thinking "I just had dinner..... 16 hours ago". That was about 40 hours of awake time but I cheated and tried to sleep on a bench in O'Hare.

Question of the day: what's the longest you've ever been up?

Day two with the puppy

This post almost didn't make it for the "blog a day" promise. Having a new puppy must be similar to having a new child: We haven't slept at all and it doesn't know when it's done something wrong.

I promise this won't become a daily account of the new dog in our life, but as it took up most of my day today I felt it important to share a couple of thoughts. Today's highs and lows were on two of my favorite things: potty and sleep.

We made it through the day with no accidents while I was home. That's a big accomplishment since she can't really tell when she has to go. But, we're working on getting her on a schedule so every hour I took her outside and she did her thing. Worked like a charm. It was especially gratifying since Lauri was up most of the night last night. Like I said before, we haven't slept.

The pup spent a good majority of the day sleeping. We played so hard during lunch that she just fell over asleep once. I tried to move her to a good spot where she could get comfortable, but she didn't want any of that; just shut eye. That was funny because I've been in that situation before and just had to fight through it. Oh to be a dog.

Tomorrow's blog a day shall be earlier... I hope.

We just got a puppy

Yup, it's true. Last night Lauri came home with a puppy. She's a border collie/ golden retriever mix. She's about 5 pounds of black fluff :)

So far today, she's been really good. She's been helping me with my programming work by sleeping under my desk and keeping me company.

Look for more dog stories to come. Right now, we're calling her all sorts of names. I like Slagathor while Lauri wants to call her Ruby. We're open for suggestions so please weigh in if you have any good dog names.

A blog a day for the rest of may

It's May 13th today. That's almost halfway. I can't believe how fast this year is going. I thought it would be fun to write something here each day for the rest of May.

So, from now until June 1st, please check back each day and see what the happy haps are. One condition though: I'd really like to have a party with the comments section. Part of the fun of blogging is to have the interaction with readers. So, I'll post new content each day and you post comments. Post comments about what you'd like to read about too. I'll take that to mind.

Without further ado... A blog a day for the rest of may

Five Useful Rails Tips

Five useful ruby on rails tips for the contest at railscasts.com

Download the Undo Generator rake task

1. ToDo in TextMate



2. Store data as an array or hash in the database



3. Fun with Rake Tasks

Please note I made an error with the rake command. It should be rake db:migrate:redo not rake db:redo.



4. custom generator to move your often used custom rake tasks



5. Rake Undo Scaffold Generator
   

Great Video of a Bowdy Dude

I saw this video on Diggnation and just had to share it. This guy gets owned! How bowdy do you have to be to get hit like this and then finish off your segment!

Where I'm At

I haven't been able to get out much, so I'll show y'all where I'm staying:


View Larger Map

My 36 hour Saturday

Well, for those that haven't heard, I'm in Ohio for the next couple of weeks working on a web project. I was contracted to help a company in Ohio with the final coding and deployment of their website. I think it will be a great and exciting trip.

To get here however has been a trip. I started Saturday morning at 9am. We had a fun day and then went to my cousin's house where they were having a party. We left for the airport from the party at around 10pm. I jumped on the plane and have been traveling until just now when I landed in my hotel room.

Man, it's been a long day. It still feels like Saturday night to me even though it's well into Sunday afternoon. My trip was mostly uneventful. I flew from Portland to Chicago, Chicago to Columbus Ohio. The first part of the trip was fine except for the violent kid behind me who was having a fist fight with his tray table. That made it hard to sleep. I landed in Chicago with a three hour layover. O'Hare is a really loud airport. CNN was going loud in the terminal. This combined with the janitor with a really squeaky garbage can wheel made it really hard to sleep again. I managed an hour. The 45 minute trip to Columbus was great, quiet and bright. I landed and a woman from the agency in Ohio picked me up and took me to lunch to this great restaurant where I had some great corned beef hash. Yummy.

I'm now in my hotel room (where I'll be for the next 19 days) going over some code and waiting until a decent hour to go to sleep. I'm afraid that if I go now, I'll wake up at 2am local time and just be bored until work starts at eight. I'd rather just kick it until around 8 and hit the hay.

It's been a long Saturday today and I'm pretty sure I'll miss Sunday. But, I'm looking forward to these next three weeks of getting a lot of work done and having fun in Ohio.

Peace,
B

Airplane Landing

I've seen this a lot on the news lately and you probably have too. I just can't stop watching it.

"Well folks, Capt. Whatever here from the flight deck. We tried parrellel parking but it was just too tight a fit. We'll try it again head in."

HOW-TO: Compile PHP/Apache2.2 on OS X Leopard

I've been fighting my Leopard installation recently with getting the IMAP libraries compiled correctly. I wanted the IMAP features so that I could use my sugarCRM application better. After a lot of fighting, compiling and adjusting, I finally got a stable installation of Apache 2.2 and PHP-5.2.5 with IMAP. Here's how I did it:


I didn't want to ruin the installation of Apache2.2 that comes native on Leopard, so I started from scratch:

cd /usr/local
mkdir src
curl -O http://www.mirrorgeek.com/apache.org/httpd/httpd-2.2.8.tar.gz
tar -zxvf httpd-2.2.8.tar.gz # a bunch of output will fly by; that's normal
cd httpd-2.2.8
./compile --enable-so --prefix=/usr/local/apache2 # a ton more output will fly by
make
sudo make install

Now we have a new apache install in your /usr/local directory. If you want to connect this installation to your usual web directory on your mac, you need to edit your httpd.conf to direct your web root folder to /Library/WebServer/Documents. You do this by executing the following commands:

sudo vi /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf
Change DocumentRoot "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs" to: DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents"
Next, change to
issue the vi command :wq

Your Apache Installation should be set to go now.

Before we can install php, we need to cimpile the IMAP c libraries. Go to and download these libraries at ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/imap/ . Then, move them to your source directory with the following command:

mv ~/Downloads/[your-imap-download] /usr/local/src
./compile --prefix=/usr/local/imap
make
sudo make install

When this finishes, you can install php

PHP Installation:

Go to http://us3.php.net/get/php-5.2.5.tar.gz/from/a/mirror and download a package
On Leopard, you would issue the following command to move the package to our source directory:

mv ~/Downloads/php-5.2.5.tar.gz /usr/local/src

Now, we compile:

tar -zcvf php-5.2.5.tar.gz
cd php-5.2.5
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache2/php --with-apx2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs --with-imap=/usr/local/imap --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql
make
sudo make install

Following the completion of this install, you should be able to issue the command:

sudo /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start

and your installation is complete. SugarCRM should recognize the imap libraries and php should run smoothly.

Please note that this is not a particularly secure installation, but will work great for local intranets to keep your users involved with the crm.

Please post comments if you run into trouble.

Babysitting Bruno

I blame my sister in law Kate. She wanted me to watch her son. I told her that I was totally inept, lazy and probably less mature than her 3 year old Landon (whom I call Bruno).

He has so much energy it's hard to keep up. Thankfully, we were also watching our favorite dog Duck and had his leash.
After a while, he got bored just "hanging out" and wanted to run around. No problem.

Cinematics Rule!

I've been listening to the Cinematics now for the last several months and had to make public how much I enjoy this band. They've got a fresh sound that is just alternative enough to be interesting and just pop enough to give their sound energy.

Some notable tracks: A strange education, Break and Rise and Fall. These are songs that keep me going during a long day.

The band's whole album is a great departure from the rest of the industry that all too often is over produced and under talented. These guys rock and I'd suggest giving them a listen

From Ali, Too Funny

This was sent to me via email from Ali Palmer. It was too funny not to pass along. It truly reminds us of the dangers of chewing gum:

Do Not Swallow Chewing Gum!

HOWTO: Rip DVDs to Your iPod or Zune

I have some friends that got new iPods (and one Zune) for Christmas. This short video shows you how to take DVDs you have and turn them into iPod compatible videos. Leave comments if you run into trouble.

Enjoy!

How Skype Can Help You Save Money on Phones

I've been using Skype now for quite awhile. It's an excellent way to keep in touch with others without using your cell phone minutes. It's also a free way to video conference, chat and make voice calls.

Lauri's parents live in California and Skype makes it really easy to video conference with them. We did this during the Christmas of 2006. It was great because we couldn't make it down to California, but the video quality and voice clarity allowed us to communicate as if we were there in the room with them.

Wanna try it out just for fun? It's free forever. Just go to www.skype.com and click the download button. Once you get it downloaded, click on my "Call Me" button at the top of this page. It will automatically connect your skype account to mine and we can have a little chat.

This is a great way to keep in touch with distant relatives and friends. My friend Jeremy is in the Marines and will be stationed in Japan soon. We'll use Skype to keep in touch and make free international calls to each other. It's great for Mac and PC.

Dog Sitting Part IV

We tend to get picked for dog sitting. It's kinda like baby sitting: really fun and you get to give them back when the novelty wears off :) Today we're dog sitting for our friend's Jared and Ali Palmer who are dog sitting for Ali's sister Lindsey (who is married to another Bryce. I'm sure he's a stud).

You might say the Palmer's sub-let their dog sitting leash?

Here's a couple of pics:




Funny anecdote: We were just wrestling. I totally pinned her in 9 seconds. I was doing something in the kitchen and had to get back to it. The dog went around the corner and I thought she lost interest. Then, I'm pouring boiling water into my coffee cup and she comes flying around the corner and does a flying-mouth-wide-open-leap at my junk yard. If only America's Funniest Home Videos was here.

Where Microsoft Lost its Way

Microsoft has pioneered a software revolution that has forever changed the face of business. Millions of workers can now do more each day and stay in closer contact as a direct result of the innovations by Bill Gates. All this said, I am a mac user. Microsoft, despite its celebrity status as a great company has wavered in recent years to the point where PC World, a popular PC users magazine, has named Vista the biggest disappointment of 2007. Ouch. Here's a video clip from YouTube:

While so popular in the early 80's and 90's where did Microsoft go wrong? I submit that they quit KISSing. Keeping It Simple Stupid is the shortest business philosophy I've heard so far. As I've learned in my most recent venture, Lab Coat Innovations, businesses succeed when they remain focused on their core competencies and earn more than they spend.

Microsoft has been playing in too many sandboxes for too long. Their venture into gaming and search, for example, are illustrative of distractions preventing their core business of operating systems and office suites from more frequent releases and value added services. Xbox the original has still not broken even on the balance sheet and their search product holds only single digit market share points. Both of these ventures require programmers and product managers that could have been used on operating systems.

Narrowing the focus does not sacrifice the growth potential Microsoft has been aiming at. Contrastingly, consider Google and their business model. As I've said before, I'm usually impressed with their work. Their business model is simple: sell advertising by coupling it with what people want to do. They used this model to grow into a search giant quickly. They expanded this model not by offering a gaming console or an expensive computer surface no one can afford but by providing us with more online content we want. We look at email a lot every day. They put adds there and we click on them. We like watching video's online. They bought YouTube and put adds there too. Soon, they will expand their product to handheld phones. I wrote about that too. Google's business has been growing with the narrow focus of getting us to click on adds. Microsoft is reacting to new trends hoping to make some "me-too" dollars.

Here is Google's market value compared with the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Microsoft. Microsoft is the green line below all the others:

graph

Microsoft, for all their recent negative press, is an excellent company that could be even better if they subscribed to the KISS philosophy and kept constant focus on operating system, server and business application software.