Sillyness, werd

Me in the Big Easy

This week my family and I are in New Orleans for ApacheCon US 08.

I didn’t really know what to expect when coming here, other than the stereotypical stuff, the craziness of Bourbon street, good food, street musicians. You know.

I was not prepared for how gracious and warm the people are and how beautiful the city is. Heather, Jakob and I have walked around the French Quarter quite a bit, and sampled various fairs.

First, the food

I have never, without a doubt, had finer food or better service than here in New Orleans.

Most of the restaurants here have 3 servers for each table, one for just your drinks, one for your food orders and one for… well I am not sure what the third one is for, they were just there. At one of the cafe’s, the waiter escorted my wife to the bathroom area. Escorted her there.

The restaurants here pride themselves on fresh ingredients and authentic recipes and man, do they deliver. The best vinaigrette I have ever tasted was on a spinach salad here. I am thinking of going back to the restaurant today for lunch and just getting two of those salads.

Second, the architecture

New Orleans has changed hands 3 times in its history, it was first ruled by the Spanish, then the french and finally it was absorbed into the US via the Louisiana Purchase. Because of this fact the city is resplendent with opposing architectural motifs. Walking down St. Charles or Chartre you can pass from one cultural landscape to another as the architecture changes. There is even a building here that was built during the reign of Napoleon.

I am not sure there is another place in the contiguous states that you can find architecture this old.

Third, the music

I love music. Love it, and one of my favorite genres of music is jazz. New Orleans bleeds jazz. From the clubs along Bourbon street, to the street musicians that dot every corner, this is a city that revels in her musical heritage, as well she should. Most nights I just want to sit outside the hotel and drink in the smells of food and sounds of jazz that waft through the air.

I just got done with my presentation, and it was a great experience again. I am passionate about Meritocracy, and it feels so amazing to see people getting it. For those who would like to see my outline slides, go ahead and take a look see. But remember these are just an outline for my talk, not the talk itself.

Well, time for a nap and then more ApacheCon action.

Coming soon to a blog near you

Well the cat is out of the bag as it were, and that cat is Viewzi Site Search.

That’s right, take all the hotness that is the Viewzi search experience, and drop it right down into your own site. It is now running on Sillyness, go ahead and give it a try, I’ll be here when you get back.

This has been in development for the last couple of months (hence the silence here at the ol’ blog), and man is it ever freaking awesome. So, I am sure you are wondering how exactly you benefit from replacing your busted old site search for the new hotness that is Viewzi Site Search. Well here is a short list for you:

Search your posts/pages and comments in one place.

Search your flickr photos from your site.

Search and display your Viddler videos from your site.

Display your posting activity via an easy to grasp timeline.

And this is just what we are launching with. There is much more to come in the near future. So, if you are as excited about this as I am, and srsly, how could you not be, then tell your friends, add it to digg, go nuts. If you are interested in testing this bad boy out for WordPress or Habari, give Gio a DM.

Its that time of year again

Pink for October has sprung!

It took me longer than I had hoped this year, but Sillyness is sporting pink again to help raise awareness for Breast Cancer. While I haven’t had anyone close to me affected by this disease, I have many friends whose lives have been touched by it.

Check out the links in the featured area, and make sure those you love are informed!

The Road to JS enlightenment

Is littered with the bones of JS frameworks:

Down with stats

That’s right, I said it. Down with stats. Once my contract with the text link advertiser Cyl0n Corp is over (end of this month) I am going to do two things:

1. Write a post about the advertising, aimed at those people out there who decided it would be a good idea to make snarky remarks about it.
2. Cease collecting stats on this site.

I am sure the first point is pretty straightforward, so I will talk about my rationale for point two in this post.

And please understand, this is not a rant about a given stats package, even though I have a snapshot of The Inman’s work of genius Mint. No this is a rant about the mentality that can develop when you put too much (or any at all for that matter) weight on stats.

In the beginning was fun, and lo it was good

When I started this whole blogging thing, it was for one purpose and one purpose alone… to pontificate and pretend that people actually cared about what I was saying. I would post something, usually 2 - 3 times a day, and check back now and again to see if anyone had commented. Life was simple, good and fun.

Then, I got popular

Once I started getting a pretty large audience, stats became interesting. Once I started monetizing my site, they became everything. The moment I knew that money, money I needed to keep my family afloat, was directly affected by how many people thought it would be a good idea to visit my site, well things went downhill fun wise.

As I said at the opening of this little missive, I am not going to be running advertising on the site anymore after this month. Not because I feel bad about it, but because I no longer need the money. Once the current contract is over I am going to be shutting down all my stats collecting efforts and just go back to writing posts that I think are fun.

Start tracking metrics that matter

I think that a lot of us who are looked on as “experts” would do well to stop looking at stats for our sites, and start looking at how many conversations are started by our posts. Stop tracking bounces and referrers and start writing posts that you are proud of, regardless of how many new visitors it brings you.

I guess I just want to get back to when blogging was about pure, unadulterated fun. Anyone care to join me?

Viewzi: week 1

So, what do I think of my decision to move, after a week… basically, of working here? I think it is the best decision I have made in the past 5 years, professionally, and personally.

Personally, we have a winner.

First off, the area (outside Dallas, TX) is wonderful. We have settled in Plano TX for the present and we really love the town. It doesn’t have that “crush of humanity” feeling you get from a city like Dallas, but you still have access to everything you could ever want, either in Plano itself, or just a few miles away in Frisco TX.

We have had a blast traveling around the area, discovering what there is to do. And of course it helps that there is an IKEA less than 10 miles away from our apartment. We’re there a lot. A lot.

Professionally, we have a winner

As for the job, what can I say it’s awesome. I work with great people, trying to bring a seriously cool dream to reality.

It is a dot com startup and its not. We have all the excitement and laid back atmosphere of a pre-bubble startup but beneath it runs this current of business savvy and vision. We are in this to make money as well as do something cool.

To steal a quote from Cory Doctorow, we want to fill our bathtubs with money and laugh, and laugh and laugh. And yes we have a business plan, a very, very nice business plan.

Oh and you can’t beat this kind of team building excersize. Represent!

Alright, I think thats it for now, I still don’t have internets at home, so I am writing this from the clubhouse at the apartment, so I am going to sign off. I need to make an other run to IKEA… to just look at it.

Working hard at Viewzi

Not sure what happened, but I edited this post, and Habari deleted it, so here we go again.

Colin asked me to help test a new service, 15 seconds and so Nathan, Jared and I got together to make a little video. Here it is for everyones amusement:

Things I learned on the trip to Texas

So here is a short list of things that I learned on the way down to our new pad in Plano TX:

1. A 24 foot moving truck is not cool. In fact it is a 24 foot juggernaut of crappiness. I would recommend saving yourself the time and money by just poking yourself in the eye with a pencil instead.
2. If you have a radio show that plays only R&B loves songs, by no means should you name it “sweat hotel”. I can’t stress this enough.
3. Having a petite wife who loves to drive large trucks is awesome. Frickin awesome.
4. Texas has the scariest drivers I have come across thus far. Scariest.

I am still not on the interwebs at home, so my time is rationed in a way I haven’t experienced since the mid 90’s when I was still on dial up. Hopefully this will be remedied soon.

Until then, see you when I see you.

Deploying web apps with SVN

I sat in an interview today where the interviewee lamented the lack of a clearly laid out tutorial on how to deploy web applications with SVN.

Since this is exactly what we do at $work, I thought I would try my hand at hammering something out here. In this little diddy we will cover the the uses of trunk and tags. Also, please understand this is how we do it, not The One True Way^TM.

Here are the terms I will be using, and what I mean when I type them:

Read the rest »