Postcards From My Life

Dear Reader,

I’m really curious about the origins of the Seven Things Meme. Anybody know where it started? Anyhow, I’ve been tagged by my friend Matthew Weier O’Phinney so I’ll play along. (It forces me to blog, something I’ve not done a lot of in the past 6 months)

• My super power is thinking up titles for things
  Everybody has a super power, some of us just have to look harder than others to find them. Luckily for me, mine manifested itself early in life, I am good at making up titles. It doesn’t matter what needs a title, I can look at something or hear an idea and come up with a title for it. (examples would be this blog you are reading, or this one, or this one) Unfortunately for me, it’s not a power I can control. They either come to me, or they don’t. So if you are ever stuck coming up with a title for something, ping me.
• I wrote my own PHP framework.
  Ok, so who hasn’t? The only difference is that I wrote a PHP framework back in 2001. Apparently, SourceForge doesn’t clean out it’s closets often because it’s still there. The name of the project is a good example of how my super power doesn’t always work. (Matthew, you are not allowed to laugh at my code, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel)
• I didn’t have to take English 101 because I wrote a perfect paper
  This one will come as a surprise to anyone who followed DevZone closely. I can’t spell and I regularly butcher the English language. Names are my specialty. Give me a name and I’ll show you at least 3 alternate spellings. However, when I started college at the University of South Alabama, my first class was English 101. The first day, the assignment was to write a paper on what you did that summer. I turned mine in and the next day I was informed that I had passed the class because there were no grammatical or spelling errors in the paper. No one was more surprised than my mother, an English teacher. :)
• I want a tattoo
  I’ve wanted a tattoo for some time to complete my mid-life crisis. Kathy even designed me one but she won’t finish it up. Her design centers around “Property of Kathy” written in Tengwar.) (Do me a favor, drop @kateva a note on twitter and encourage her to finish it.)
• I used to produce live concert videos
  I wore a lot of hats before I donned the battered Fedora and started writing about PHP. A few years ago, that hat was a beret because I was in “the biz”. I produced over 40 live concert videos. Most of them were for Southern Gospel groups but I did a couple of contemporary Christian groups and even two comedy videos. I’ve moved on now and while I love programming computers, I can honestly say that producing videos are some of the most fun and yet the hardest work I’ve ever done in my life.
• I met The Lovely and Talented Kathy while we were both working at Walt Disney World
  The year I graduated high school, Walt Disney World opened EPCOT Center. That summer, they went on a hiring spree to staff up for the fall opening. It was during this spree that I sneaked in, with the help of a couple of nice ladies who went to church with my grandparents. I was hired into “Cash Control”, basically, the bank for all of the stores in the park. (For those that care, it’s in “the tunnel” directly beneath the Carousel.) On my first day in Cash Control, I met The Lovely and Talented Kathy and knew I was going to marry her. Unfortunately, she didn’t quite see it that way. (I was a mere child of 18 at the time and she was…well a year or two older than me) One night, after we closed the park and then closed Bennigin’s, her car wouldn’t start. With a straight face and more than one Banana Banshee in her, she looked at me and said “Hey, my car won’t start, will you ride home under the hood and hold the distributor cap on?” The sad thing is that I was so smitten with her that I would have done it. That’s ok, she eventually came around…or I wore her down, I’m not sure.
• I got my job at Zend quite by accident
  Back when I was at Jupiter Hosting, I actually had time to write some code. I didn’t get to write a lot, but between meetings and other management crap, my team would take pity on me and give me a small project to chew on. One of the projects I wrote (I forget which one) I thought was pretty good. There was this company named Zend that had a code repository (it’s gone now) and I wanted to submit the project to it. I submitted the project and waited…and waited…and waited. After about 2 days of hearing nothing, I started emailing people asking what was up. I ended up talking to Jayons Minard who told me no one was managing the repository anymore, so I volunteered. I ended up managing it for about 4 months while I was working at a small start-up back in Nashville.

  When the start-up went tits-up, I started doing contract work until I found something I liked. One of the contracts I started working on was this new site that Zend was building and Jayson was in charge of, DevZone. One thing led to another and after about 3 months of working on contract for Zend, and constantly asking Jayson if there were any positions open at Zend, I got an email from him. He said that Mark de Visser, his boss, would be in Nashville the next week for a Red Hat conference and wanted to interview me. I had a great interview with him and had an offer letter in my email in box when I got back home.
  
  It was probably the weirdest journey to a job that I’ve ever traveled, but it was worth it. :)

Ok, there are my Seven Things. Now for my Seven People. I think this part may be harder than the seven things.

• The Lovely and Talented Kathy – She will have to post her entry here because she’s yet to join the blogger nation.
• Mark de Visser – The best boss I ever had and the man who taught me the value of a community to an open source project.
• Louis Davidson – My long time friend whom I talk to maybe once a year but think about every day.
• Joe Stagner – Because if more people at Microsoft were like him, it would be a much cooler place.
• Allen Fuller – Who if he doesn’t already know Keith Casey, probably should.
• Sebastian Bergman – the official photographer of the PHP community.
• Christian Flickinger – Spooooooooooooon!

And now, the rules:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

I was playing around with bitstrips.com today and this is what I came up with. Props to Liz Smith for the content.

Not sure how I feel about bitstrips.com. Like a lot of Web 2.0 projects, …it’s cute but what’s the point? (I wasn’t aware that the web needed a youtube for comics)

Until Next Time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

Last night, someone (I’m sorry, I forget your nic) in #phpc posted a link to a site called myminicity.com. I’d never seen this site so I admit I followed the link. What I saw amazed and befuddled me. Basically myminicity.com is SimCity-lite. You get to watch a city grow but you don’t have to do anything to make it grow except visit the page once a day.

I of course setup my own city and I’ve become an over-night metropolis with 19 residence. (We are a small suburb and we like to keep it that way, we are considering making the entire place a gated community)

I’ll be honest, myminicity.com is a strange web play. There are no ads except for other games, presumably run by the same company, you don’t have to download anything, it’s Flash based and you don’t have to register to play. I’m really not sure how they pay the bandwidth bills and I’m going to be watching this for a while just to see how it matures…if it matures.

Anyhow, I thought it may be fun to do a PHP community building instead of real work this close to the holidays, so I set up PHP City. To participate, just click the link to PHP City and you are a resident. If you really want to get involved, pick yourself a title (I’m Mayor McCal) and post a proclamation as a news bulletin.

Either way though PHP City needs your help. For the next two weeks, during the Holiday season, we need to get the word out there that all PHP developers from around the world, need to join PHP City. (Did I mention it was in Jamaica? That’s a bonus for those of you in the northern US that are getting hit pretty hard by the snow!) So, get the word out. No need to link back to this blog. (unless you just want to give the back story) Pass out the link to PHP City. (http://phpcity.myminicity.com/) Blog it, Tweet it, Digg it, FaceBook it, add it to your spock profile, add it to your email signature, post it in PHP forums far and wide…any place you can put a URL, put this one…just till the end of the year.

Get the word out to your PHP brothers and sisters that we have a homeland, even if it is just virtual! Visit PHP City and visit daily!

Be civic minded this Christmas, visit PHP City daily and encourage all your PHP friends to do so as well. Have a little (more) fun this Christmas season!

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Industry UPDATE:
We are a technocracy! Our growing unemployment rate is unacceptable. As Mayor of PHP City I promise you that we CAN end unemployment in PHP City. Get out there and form a start-up! We can make a difference if we all pitch in daily! (Bookmark the link and visit it daily!)

Transportation UPDATE:
Let’s be proactive with the transportation needs of PHP City! As Mayor of PHP City, I ran on a Green platform and now it’s time to buckle down and make public transportation a reality! I’m calling on all citizens of PHP City to revolutionize transportation in PHP City! (Click the link! Click it now, click it every day!)

Security UPDATE:
My friend, and now official Police Chief of PHP City, Padriac Brady put it best, Grab a BFG and fight crime! We must be constantly vigil against those that are trying to tear us down.

Link Love for my friends who are talking about PHP City

• Padriac Brady – Getting tired of Home? Emmigrate to PHP City in Jamaica!
• Chris Cornutt – phpdeveloepr.org
• Nick Halstead – Build a PHP Virtual City
• Felix Geisendörfer – PHP City Needs You!
• PHP Cute – PHP city needs you

Make sure you check out Richard Harrison’s script below…makes playing that much easier!

Dear Reader,

Thanks Terry for tweeting this. It’s just proving my point.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)

=C=

[Disclaimer: Since't it's not immediatly obvious because this is in the "Humor" category, this is tongue-in-cheek. Of course Terry's post doesn't prove my point, quite the opposite, getting all the public cursers in one place is a good thing for the rest of us.] :)

Dear Reader,

I woke up this morning, read my email, found myself on digg.com for some reason and to my great surprise saw this!

Yep, that’s right, Sean is now one of the “Faces of Flex”, joining other PHP luminaries like…me!

Congrats Sean!

Until Next Time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

(Photo by:Sebastian Bergman from ZendCon ’06)

Until next time,
(l)(k)(yar)
=C=

Dear Reader,

A while back a blogger named John wrote a snarky review of my review of Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP. While his review was a bit on the “untrue” side and prompted me to write Just Say No to SEO, his blog was interesting enough to put in my feed reader and follow. Heck, from time to time, I even clicked through and read an entire entry and believe I even commented once.

Sadly, those days are now over. See John feels that just because it is possible for me to block ads from FireFox that I must be a criminal and stealing his content. This, by the way, is the same asinine logic that makes the NAB feel that if we don’t watch each and every commercial in a television show that we are stealing their content. (I’ve got news for you John, for 5 years now, I’ve blocked ads at my router! FireFox, IE, Opera, hell, even Lynx…I don’t read ads unless I want to.)

So yea, by all means please do continue blocking a good chunk of your audience. Maybe, like me they will realize that your content is well, just not that great and move on to things more important…like Lindsy or Paris or even Britteny’s latest escapades. Should you actually produce something compelling enough to warrant an extra 5 seconds of work, we (FireFox users) can always just switch FireFox’s useragent. (yeah, boy, you showed us…)

So thanks John, this is now twice you’ve inspired me to blog and I’m the better for it. Sorry I won’t be reading your blog anymore. Like NBC’s move away from iTunes, the only one you are hurting is yourself. If I can live without NBC’s content, I’m pretty sure I can live without yours.

Just so you know John, I’m not picking on you. I feel the same way about anyone who feels that the content they produce is so damed important that they get to dictate to me how, when or where I consume it. Drop me a line if you drop this idiocy, I’ll add you back into my reader.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

p.s. Just say not to crap like this. My current useragent is “o noes, I haz UR blog wif da fox.” when that gets blocked, I’ll get more creative. I encourage every FireFox user (you thievn’ bastards) to change the useragent string. Get creative, have fun with it.

Dear Reader,

I’m in a discussion over at johnon.com about SEO. The owner of that blog, John, took issue with my review of this book. Even after asking him and receiving his response, I was still not sure why he insisted on talking about the Zend Framework in a post that was obviously about my book review. (Not event loosely related to the Zend Framework) That is till I was explaining the conversation to wife 1.23, the lovely and talented Kathy. She is trained in the black arts of SEO but refuses on moral grounds to call herself a SEO professional. She explained to me that the reason was, he wanted anyone looking for Zend Framework and SEO help to find that article. Hmmmm…..

Ok, this brings up two points that I feel need to be aired.

1) In Google’s history, I’m not sure if there is a search phrase that is less likely to be searched for. It’s not that programmers don’t want to “SEOify” (I’m coining a word here, help me out) their pages. The problem is that there are very few things you can do at the framework level to affect a page’s SEO. You can do SEO friendly URLs but really, at the framework level, that’s about it.

2) My biggest problem with SEO Professionals is that they exist only to gum up the works. For instance, if you happen to be interested in learning what you can do with the Zend Framework and SEO, you can search Google for those terms. Up until John wrote his post about my book review, the top hit was this article about how to build SEO Friendly URLS using the Zend Framework. Now however, the top his is John’s article. An article that does NOT discuss how to do anything SEOish using the Zend Framework and does nothing to increase a reader’s knowledge on the subject.

John’s main bone of contention with my book review seems to be my low opinion of SEO professionals. I’m sure it was not his intent but by using SEO techniques to push an irrelevant article to the top of that search, he has simply validated my opinion. SEO Professionals exist solely to separate web site owners from their money. Their actions reduce the value of search engines like Google and cause Google to have to expend resources combating them.

Web site owners, here’s an important money saving tip.

If you want to rank high, write relevant copy. There’s no real secret in that and any good marketing copywriter can help you with that.

That’s what the search engines want. They want to put to in the search that you are relevant for. It does no one any good for people searching for Zend Framework and SEO to read a negative review of my book review. (Mind you I’m not upset that he doesn’t like the book review, to each his own)

I know this little post won’t do much to change the world but I felt it needed to be said. Who knows, if enough people get interested, I’ll print up some bumperstickers and maybe have a WebAid concert to raise awareness. Since Al invented the web, maybe I can get him on board.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

p.s. The opinions expressed in this post are mine and mine alone. Go get your own.

Dear Reader,

Back from the House of Mouse and a wonderful 4 days spent with my favorite traveling companions. (Oh yea, the family was along also)

What I did on my vacation (Disney, Cirque, Savannah Ghost Tour) is much less interesting than who I traveled with. (BTW, if any of you know someone who actually works at Cirque du Soleil and have the opportunity to watch the show from the booth like we did, I HIGHLY recommend it. Also, see if you can get the back-stage tour) But I digress…

This vacation, I traveled with Scott Sigler and the whole GFL. Scott, WTH? This is the first time since EarthCore that I’m actually having to wait for episodes! Get off your lazy ass and release more than one a week. (Side note: if you’ve not seen the Ionath Krakens’ Jerseys, Scott now has pictures of them and bitchen cool sports cards located here.)

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to resort to my “other podcasts” to stay entertained. Look I pony up the dough like a good junkie now gimmie my damn fix! (Second Side Note: If you’ve not already ordered your print copy of Ancestor then WAIT! Buy it April 1st and buy it by clicking on this link because I’ve gotta pay the bandwidth bills too!

Since Scott is too busy sipping Martinis and counting his royalty checks to feed his junkies, I had to resort to other podcasts to stay amused. (It was that or talk to the family…you do the math) One that I had forgotten about till my recent trip to London was EscapePod.

I first discovered EscapePod soon after it started and quite by accident. I was preparing for a cross-country drive so I was grabbing anything I could to fill-up the old iPod, when I came across this. The first EscapePod I remember listening to was Feng Burger. (It’s still one of my favorites)

EscapePod is a series of Sci-Fi and Fantasy short stories, written by excellent authors, some of which are names you would recognize. From the description that the editor gives at the beginning, it sounds like most of them are reprints (what’s the audio equivalent of a reprint?) from SF magazines and anthologies. None the less they are some of the most entertaining stories and short fiction around.

The editor (his name escapes me and he doesn’t list it on the *&^% web site) does a fantastic job of selecting stories. He does an intro and an outro to each story that gives you a little bit of what’s going on with the feed, listener feedback on stories, etc. Nothing too long and certainly nothing that distracts form the story.

If you have any sort of commute to work you want to subscribe to this podcast! (Monday – Sigler, Tuesday- EscapePod, Wed-Fri stay home and wait for Monday)

Oh, if you do subscribe to EscapePod, make sure you download “Merry Christmas From the Heartbreakers”. I’d list more of the really, really good episodes but there are way too many. Really the only thing I heard from Oct-2006 through Feb-2007 that I DIDN’T like was “The Boy Who Cried Dragon”.

That’s it for now. I’ve got another one brewing in my head but it’ll wait for tomorrow. Thaks to the both of you for stopping by. If you need me, I’ll be sitting in front of iTunes hitting the refresh button on Scott’s feed, jonesing for the next chapter. (Go away, don’t bother me!)

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)

=C=

Dear Reader,

While building a mash-up for an article I’m writing, I came across this little gem.

TV Host Bill Maher Suggests Dick Cheney’s Death Would Save Lives

Actually, the exact quote was:

“I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow.” – Bill Maher.

I’m not sure how serious to take this as he was talking at the moment to the House’s only gay Pimp, Barney Frank. For the moment however, let’s assume that he actually meant it. (because it’s much easier to point and laugh at Bill if he actually was serious.)

Bill, baby, V.P. Cheney didn’t cause 9/11. He didn’t cause terrorists to blow up trains in Spain, the underground in London, the USS Cole, markets in Israeli towns, or any other number of targets. Or did I misunderstand you? When you said “people” do you mean people who blow themselves up for a cause? Or did you mean their innocent victims?

Bill, your an ass. Unfortunately, your an ass with a pulpit so I do the only thing I can do. I continue not watching your show (ok, that’s not really a sacrifice) and every now and then point out to HBO(?) that the reason I don’t watch your show is you just aren’t funny.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)

=C=

Dear Reader,

I get a magazine every month or so. it’s a small magazine and I enjoy reading it. However, their quality control leaves a lot to be desired. Here’s an example.

Here’s the title of the article they printed in the most recent issue.

Here’s what they put on the cover.

:)

(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

I woke up this morning to find this on my screen. I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

(Click on it if it’s not easy to read)

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

As previously described, I’m now at The Ajax Experience. I have to say that I’m very impressed with the professionalism. From the handling of the speakers to the clockwork precision by which each event occurs, it is truly a well run conference.

It’s also a great conference content wise, not because I spoke at it. :) The talks I’ve attended have, for the most part, been very good. There were a couple I sneaked out of because they were not as interesting as I had originally thought. That’s going to happen and shouldn’t be considered a disparaging comment about the conference itself. Overall, the sessions I’ve been to that I’ve stayed in, I’ve really liked. The one I’m in right now, JSON, putting the X in Ajax is has been my favorite so far. (even though he didn’t go near the 90 minute time frame and we were threatened with a severe beating if we didn’t) It’s been a great talk and I’ve learned a lot.

I did meet a couple of cool people. I finally got to meet Dion Almaer of www.ajaxian.com and Tatiana from O’Reilly. (I do hope I spelled your name right.)

The one and ONLY comment I have about The Ajax Experience that is not glowing is that there are no power strips to plug your laptop into. Even though the great company I work for saw fit to get me an extended battery for my T60, it’s still not enough to make it all day. Power strips would have been nice. To end in a compliment though, the WiFi has been great. I think a lot of people tried their best to kill it today downloading FireFox 2.0, but other than that minor glitch it’s been great.

If you get a chance to attend a “The Ajax Experience” conference in the future, make sure you take it. I recommend it for programmers and designers; anyone concerned with UI, either how it looks or how it works. I really appreciate Jay letting me come this time and I hope I get the opportunity to speak in the future.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

I’m not sure why – maybe it’s because it ends with a Truman Capote quote and I’m currently reading one of his books, maybe it’s because the inner theme hits all too close to home – but I found myself reading and re-reading Tony Long’s “You, To, Can Right Like a Blogger”.

It’s a quick read and an interesting one.

The original Truman Capote quote is “That’s Not writing, that’s typing” and is my second favorite Capote quote. The first being:

Writing stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it and true art. And after that, the whip came down.

For a short person, he was pretty deep. One day I want to be able to think as deeply as him…and Fred.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

Ok, it’s been a while since I wrote last and I apologize for my continued absence. Thanks to several friends, some of whom, I’ve known only a month or so, unemployment has been more like a series of short freelance gigs. Guys, I’m truly appreciative.

However, that’s not the subject of tonight’s post. Tonight I want to give props to all my Code Monkey friends out there. Homies, you know who you are.

This was posted on /. yesterday and while it’s one of the greatest songs since ELO broke up, it also made me think. (BTW, none of this should reflect on my current employers. But it could apply to some of my recent employers, you know who you are)

You have to listen to the words of Code Monkey several times before you get the full gist of it. Those of you who are coders have to get past the obvious truths in the first verse and work your way into the song to get the full benefit. (If you don’t understand the first verse then you won’t understand this post because it’s you I’m talking about.)

This song made me remember a truth I had learned a while back and just filed away. (All you Johnny Phoenix fans…raise your toasted Barbie dolls in the air and scream A TRUTH!) There’s an entire group of people out there that make their living off of the work of others. Most of us call them managers, some of us call the PHB’s. (Pointy Headed Bosses, I had to explain it once when I used it in another article, so I’m explaining it here now for you.) Occasionally, we call them worse. Whatever the moniker we place upon them there is one undeniable truth about all middle management, they occupy that position because they can’t or won’t produce. Managers, I don’t care what you say in you defense, I’ve been in both seats. Management rarely produces anything, they manage the production of others.

Here’s a secret that a lot of managers ignore. Most developers are perfectly capable of managing their own production. Heck, I’ve built teams that are perfectly capable of divvying up the management responsibilities amongst themselves and working without a manager. On the other hand, a surprising large number of software development managers cannot code. I had this argument once with the COO of a company I worked for. He proudly proclaimed that “the Sales and the Development departments were the 2 most important departments in the company”. I stared at him blankly. Then I said

“I can pull any one of my developers in here, give them a client list and they can do sales. How many of your salesmen can code?”

(yes, it was a career limiting move, I wasn’t as smart as Code Monkey)

In a software development company, the development department is not one of the most important departments, it is the most important department. It’s not terribly difficult to build a great software development team. Good talented people are out there. The trick is to find them, hire then, then treat them like kings. Once they understand that you respect them and their talents, they will respect you. (Hint: Immediately fire anyone who demands to be treated like a king. Those people will kill a team faster than anything upper management can do.)

So if you are a manager and you’ve made it this far, do me a favor. Go into work tomorrow and personally thank each developer for showing up, as they show up. (Get there before them!) Then, at the end of the day, thank them again when they leave tomorrow night at a reasonable hour. (Yes, that means you are there when they leave!) Let each of them know that you know that they have a choice. They can choose not to work for you. Everybody has a choice. Thank them for choosing to come in; and do it every day. Let them know you respect them, because that’s important to Code Monkeys.

I’ll leave you with this…that again, I’m ashamed to say, I ripped off of /.

“Putt’s Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand.”

Putt was a Code Monkey.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=