Jan 2004
Mon, 26 Jan 2004
Pictures From Vancouver and Redmond
I got back from Seattle this afternoon, all before the big snow started. The Vancouver PHP Conference was a success. Here are the pics from Vancouver and Redmond.
UPDATE: Here are Bryan's pictures.
Posted at: 11:43 | permalink
Thu, 22 Jan 2004
Blogging From Vancouver
We got to Vancouver, BC last night on time, about midnight local time. The most curious part of the trip was the bizarre gauntlet being run by the Washington State Police at the border crossing at Blaine, WA. We approached Blaine on the I-5 running 70 MPH most of the way. When we got to Blaine, the speed limit dropped immediately to 35 MPH, I began slowing when I noticed that there was a strange-looking gauntlet ahead funneling all of the traffic into a single lane, which was full of wacky offset speedbumps. I pulled up to the checkpoint at which point I was informed of my error - 51 MPH in a 35 MPH zone and given a ticket for $173.
Welcome to Washington!
Fortunately, that was the only blip in an otherwise succesful trek. So I am listening to Ilia Alshanetsky talk about SQLite.
In general, the Vancouver PHP Conference seems like a good value with ~150 attendees and a number of luminaries.
I listened to the keynote and an Introduction to PHP by Rasmus Lehrdorf this morning. He was a very funny, entertaining speaker and I learned a lot in the process.
We are enjoying the local scenery and fantastic food. Lunch was an interesting chicken in indonesian peanut sauce with basmati rice.
We're headed to see ActiveState's offices here in Vancouver tonight. One of their developers tells me that it's a very cool office space. I'll get pictures if I can but I don't have any just yet. More later.
Posted at: 16:59 | permalink
Wed, 21 Jan 2004
Off To Vancouver
I'm off to Vancouver, BC today for the Vancouver PHP Conference. Say hello if you're there. Flying into Seatac. It'll be first time I've been back to Seattle since leaving Redmond in 99 - almost 5 years. Weird feeling. I'm sure it'll be even weirder going up i-5. Watch this space for conference notes and pics.
Posted at: 10:25 | permalink
Sun, 18 Jan 2004
Pittsburgh To Auction New Harleys
You too can take advantage of the city of Pittsburgh's dismal financial situation. Seems they bought 13 too many brand new 2003 Harley FLHP-1 1450cc police motorcycles and are offering them up for auction. These are 100th anniversary police special editions. See the PDF here.
Posted at: 23:06 | permalink
Fri, 16 Jan 2004
Emachines Introduces Athlon 64 Laptop
Drool... I've been using my Emachines M5310 laptop since I bought it in august 2003 and it's been fantastic for the money. Now emachines turns around and introduces an M6805 AMD Athlon 64 laptop based on the same basic formula: 15.4 1280x800 widescreen, 60 GB drive and ATI Radeon 9600 64 MB Video. It's retailing for $1549 right now at best buy. There's also an M6807 model that includes a DVD writer combo drive for $100 more. If these new machines run linux as well as the M5310, they'll be hard to beat for cheap, fast, portable linux boxen.
Posted at: 17:57 | permalink
Sat, 03 Jan 2004
Sam Ruby's WxPython Aggregator
I was trying out the python aggregator code tonight and ran into a little hickup:
Traceback (most recent call last): File "agg.py", line 89, in selectFeed if not self.list.GetColumn(0): self.list.InsertColumn(0, 'Title') File "/usr/lib/python2.2/site-packages/wxPython/controls2.py", line 645, in Ge tColumn val = controls2c.wxListCtrl_GetColumn(self, *_args, **_kwargs) wxPython.wxc.wxPyAssertionError: C++ assertion "wxAssertFailure" failed in /usr/ src/redhat/BUILD/wxPythonSrc-2.4.2.4/src/generic/listctrl.cpp(3834): invalid col umn index in GetColumn
I found that this could be eliminated by a slight patch to the code:
89,90c89,90 < if self.list.GetColumnCount() < 1 : self.list.InsertColumn(0, 'Title') < --- > if not self.list.GetColumn(0): self.list.InsertColumn(0, 'Title') >
Not sure whether this was due to python version, wx version, or what, but the fact that they asserted on GetColumn(0) seemed to suggest that this is not the right way to check for a null column list. I've never used wx before, so I'm really naive in this regard.
Thanks for the code. It works great and is easy to grok.
I tried to post this message to sam's comments, but apache generated a 500 internal server error when I hit the submit button and then I couldn't get any of the forms to work, so it becomes a blog entry.
Posted at: 01:04 | permalink
Thu, 01 Jan 2004
Out With The Old, In With The New
Looking back on 2003, I've decided it was the strangest year of my entire life.
It all began with me in the same hideous job I had had since the summer of 2001. I would find out what it was like to lose that job just 4 days before my birthday. At the time, it was a shock. Looking back, I realize it was a necessary catalyst.
I discovered what it was like to be without work, and realized what a huge burden was lifted when the job ended, and how my depression just lifted completely after that. Friends noticed a marked change in my outlook.
After finding the job market about as tough as everybody else in technology, I got a call one day from a local startup. That opportunity would morph into what I now kindly refer to as my accidental entrepreneurism.
And that's what's consumed virtually every waking hour of my life for the last four months. It's been a wild ride so far. New ideas, new products, new colleagues, constant fretting and obsession over all of the details that go into creating a new company from scratch. The words learning organization definitely have meaning to me now.
I bought my first motorcycle just a few weeks before I lost my job. Survived the first six thousand miles on the bike and passed the test to get my motorcycle license. Discovered it was one of those joys I only wish I had pursued when I was younger. My body would have certainly had an easier time with it then. Whether I would have survived is another matter entirely.
On top of all this, my wife graduated from college.
My german shorthaired pointer passed the one year old mark. I've discovered that frisbee is to dogs as crack is to humans. We don't utter the word around here, rather it's F-R-I-S-B-E-E. And we're now convinced that the dog can spell.
I don't know where it's all going to wind up in 2004, but I'll be really surprised if this year's any wierder than last.
Posted at: 23:54 | permalink
