“…Habari mostly lets you concentrate on the ideas and gets out of the way of the code”

— michaeltwofish

Win a house for $100

If you need a house, have 100 dollars and a good story then run, don't click, on this link. Good luck, and good writing!

A good couple of days

Man, it has been a good couple of days for those of us in Habari land.

Yesterday we added two more commiters to the project, Ali Al-Wasity and Michael Heilemann. They both have been doing amazing work on Habari, and it is a real sign of our commitment to the meritocratic model that we extended membership to them.

This brings our commiter pool to 22. Just fantastic. If that wasn't enough to make me smile, I found out this morning that Habari has been added to the FreeBSD Ports Collection, and we are well underway with some of our translations.

Speaking of great work, Owen lit a fire under our collective butts and we are hard at work getting Monolith in shape and ready for release. You won't believe some of the insanely cool things we have coming.

It is safe to say that steam is being picked up and Habari is set to take some major leaps this year. I hope you are all along for the ride.

Long time, no blog.

Don't you just hate it when life sneaks up on you and takes all your free time?

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of work, family, church, more work and fun. Just a little fun in there to keep me from going insane.

I just finished a super fun project with one of my favorite designers, which has put me in a very good mood. I am pretty proud of the code I turned out, and it has given me an idea for a new tutorial for my WordPress friends out there.

Yeah, you know you love me.

“…Habari is object-oriented. Habari supports database independence. Habari uses an MVC model to separate templates from logic. Habari supports multiple template engines. Habari has a database schema that was designed for efficiency from day 1. Habari has a different kind of community supporting it, one where people who show the ability, willingness, and responsibility to act within the community get the power to do so. This is the iceberg tip.”

&mdash Owen Winkler

ikea hacker

For those of us who like to tinker with our stuff and are patrons of IKEA, the world just got a lot more fun. ikea hacker is a site dedicated to tweaking, hacking and moding your IKEA purchases. Fun.

Authentic Jobs

As you can see, I have become an affiliate for Cameron Moll's Authentic Jobs. In the next couple of days I will be playing around with placement and the type of link it is. Needless to say, if you need to post a job for a webby position, please consider going through this site. Thanks.

“…Not because I'm some patchouli-scented, fuzzy-headed, "information wants to be free" info-hippie. I'm at it because I want to fill my bathtub with money and rub my hands and laugh and laugh and laugh.”

— Cory Doctorow, from the forward of "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town"

Worst day of travel, ever

I cannot begin to explain how horrible this day has been.

It began half way decently. I was saved from a cold, lonely walk in the wee hours of the morning by a kind Dutch cabby in Amsterdam, but then was defeated for a time by the closed ticket offices (it was 5 am after all) and the money machines that didn't take the kind of plastic I had on me.

Thankfully I found an open ticket office (didn't take cards!) and an ATM machine that took VISA and I was in business again. A quick train ride to Schipol, and I thought my troubles were over. Man, when I am wrong, I am wrong.

The flight was uneventful, watched some decent movies, didn't sleep per usual of course. A little less than 9 hours later I was in the US again, going through customs in Detroit. All was well until I got to my connecting flight gate. The flight was delayed an hour and 40 minutes, which sucked, but wasn't a complete loss.

Then the great gate shuffle started. By the time I went back and forth from one side of the airport to the other a couple of times, it was close to departure time, so what else could go wrong? Yeah they cancelled the flight. Bugger. Instead of putting me on the flight that was leaving 30 minutes from that moment in time, they push me to a flight at 10 Monday morning.

It was at this moment that my crazy eye started twitching. Bad stuff happens when the crazy eye starts a twitchin'. It was here that a better man would have stoically accepted his fate and found a hotel to check into.

I can be accused of being a great many things, but being that caliber of a human being is not one of them. Also a flaminco dancer. I definitely can't be accused of being one of those. I look horrible in stretchy pants.

And so I bore down on the manager at the counter with the aforementioned crazy eye, now in full twitch mode, and explained that I hadn't seen my wife and 2 year old son in an intolerable amount of time, and I was not... enthused about having to wait another day to see them.

So intolerably long story just long, I got a flight to Cleveland that then connects to Lexington. I should be home by 10:20 this evening. Only 8 hours later than expected.

Sigh, some days it doesn't pay to travel across the pond. Know what I mean?

The end of all things Dutchy

Tonight is my last night in Amsterdam, and I plan on passing it in quiet and reflection.

Mostly due to the fact that I am at the end of the money I budgeted for this trip. This has been one of the more difficult, and most enjoyable trips I have taken. It was difficult because I had to leave my wife and son behind. I have felt their absence very acutely these last few days.

But in many ways it has been one of the best trips I have taken. Amsterdam is a beautiful city full of life, energy and beauty. Walking the streets here one can easily get lost in the hum of the city, the many side streets that bridge wide canals filled with boats, and the smells of a thousand different cuisines. Just don't get too lost and end up in the Red Light district.

But most of all, it was great to be able to spend time with the folks who make Apache so great. I feel privileged to be able to sit and listen to them discuss the future of our industry. Because make no mistake, these people are the ones who made it possible for everything we hold dear on the web. And let me tell you, they aren't going to be sitting on their laurels.

Another highlight for me was the talk I gave this year. I think I have found the topic that I can really own. I am passionate about meritocracy, and the ways it can revolutionize both open source and closed source development. Not to mention that it makes us all better people. Clicking on the cover will take you to an HTML version of the presentation.

When I gave this talk at OLF, one of the audience members asked me if I had this all documented somewhere. They wanted a "manual" that they could download, print out and hand to their employers. I think that after giving the talk again, and again having someone ask this question, I am finally convinced that there is a real need for it.

So yeah, I am going to write a little booklet about meritocracy, the way we use it in Habari, and how it can be applied in businesses to make the world a better place.

Should drive me crazy. We'll see. Oh yeah, and I helped launch a new Apache.org site. Not too shabby for a week in Amsterdam.