CodeMash 2009 - Day 2

Today was a bit rough after drinking with the geeks and then fighting my bout with insomnia last. I woke up at 7:30 and headed down for breakfast. Eric Meyer gave the keynote this morning about how "Javascript Will Save Us All". It was pretty interesting and he provided a lot of useful information on how people are able to get around various problems faced on the web today with a little bit of Javascript. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open and caught myself dozing off here and there.

I decided to head back to my room for a "quick nap".

About 4 hours later I woke up. I ran down to the lunch hall to see if I could catch a bite to eat real quick, and I did. My lunch consisted of watermelon and cookies. :) After lunch, I went to see "A Programmers Guide to User Experience" by Josh Walsh. It was very informative and it gave me some ideas on how to approach some of the problems I'm currently facing with a project I'm working on. Josh clearly knew what he was talking about.

From there, I attended James session on "Practical Data Visualization", which looked very familiar to say the least. :) James did a great job and I think the others in the room did learn a thing or two on good charts vs. bad charts. Well done sir. :)

After James' session, I v-lined it for Dustin Cambell's session on "Multi-threading Mojo with F#". I've seen Dustin talk about F# in the past and he is a very good speaker. He get's everybody in the crowd involved and has a great sense of humor about what he's teaching. He showed off some pretty amazing stuff with the various asynchronous features that F# has to offer. The amazing thing to see was how much code it took to do the same thing in C#. Crazy difference.

The giveaway session was pretty funny and Joe Wirtly didn't win anything this year! :) He's won the main prize the last two years (of all the people here, he won). Ironically enough, this year the main winner was sitting at his table. I plan to sit next to Joe next year... Save me a seat please Joe. :)

Anyway, after the giveaway, James, Raji, Mike, and I all ate down at the restaurant before they had to all go their separate ways. I came up to my room, researched some stuff, chatted with Jennifer for a while, then did my 4 miler on the dreadmill, and then chilled. That's where I'm at now... TNT has some pretty good movies on and I have all my stuff packed waiting for the morning. CodeMash 2009 is in the books. Great event!!

CodeMash 2009 - Day 1

Well, I arrived at CodeMash last night right before the roads got bad. Found my old DD family immediately as I walked in the door (James, Mike, and Phil). They helped me move my drums in (thanks guys) and then we headed out to get some dinner. I ended up eating WAAAAAY too much and wound up refunding my dinner later that night into the porcellan bucket. I suffered from some insane insomnia well after that ordeal and didn't get to sleep until after 3am.

I wanted to wake up early and get in my 3 miler, but ended up sleeping in til almost 7:30am (alarm clock "am/pm confusion" issues). Since breakfast was almost over, I just grabbed my room key and headed down to the dining area to get in on the feast. Breakfast was excellent and I made sure I didn't over indulge this time. :)

Venkat Subramanium keynoted here at CodeMash this morning and he was a great keynoter, I laughed a lot and learned a lot. The first session I attended after that was 'Introducing Prototype and Scriptaculous" presented by Leon Gersing (aka: FallenRogue). He talked about using Javascript utilities (namely Prototype and Script.aculo.us (as well as various references to JQuery)) and I must say that it was very informative. I couldn't find any gleaming reasons for me to switch from my focus of learning JQuery to using these though (thoughts?)... I think I'm full speed ahead on my endevor to master JQuery. (Sorry Sergey) :)

The next session I attended the "Developing for Microsoft Surface"computing by Jennifer Marsman and... "Joe" from VectorForm (sorry Joe, great job though) :) It was very cool. They showed how all the pieces work together to provide the rich experience, including the way that real world objects can be recognized using a new type (infinitely unique) "bar code" pattern. Jennifer Marsman sat down and even took an old WPF sample app and converted it to a Microsoft Surface app using simple RegEx find/replace in the XAML, and had it running on the Surface in less that 2 minutes (literally). This is not recommended of course, but the fact that they CAN do it says that it should be fairly easy to get geeks using it. After the session, I went out and tinkered on one of them in the hallway. They are very cool to play with, but that's about it for me...

After that, we broke for lunch and then I headed to the "Adobe Flex with MVC Frameworks" session by Robert O'Malley. Unfortunately I thought it was something that it wasn't and I wasn't understanding anything that he was talking about. I think the session assumed that I was familiar with (at least) one of the technologies that he was talking about, and I wasn't. :( I turned to Mike and we went out into the hallway and geeked out on our laptops instead and talked about some programming issues we were both struggling with. Much more funner?? IMO. :)

The next round of sessions, I chose to attend the "Functional Concepts for OOP Developers" session by Brian Webber and it was pretty intense. It was well done, but it covered a lot of different functional syntaxes (namely Haskell) and functional concepts (namely these) that I simply wasn't familiar with (YET). I was able to "keep up" for the most part with my understanding of how implementing the same object oriented concepts would work, but the talk was a little more involved than I thought it would be, to say the least. 

For the last session of the day, I headed over to see the "Microsoft Virtual Earth Now in 3d" session by Aydin Akcasu. The last talk I saw from this guy included a Wii remote sending data to a C# app that (in turn) controlled a robot bird (that flew) the he let people fly over the crowd using bluetooth to send commands to it... again, using a wii remote. Talk about cool!? Anyway, this session Aydin showed people how to EASY it was to embed rich 3d mapping technology into existing apps with absolutely zero effort (3 lines of HTML, that's it); here is the page he built to give his talk with, right click and view source to see what I mean. Basically, Microsoft Live Maps offers a free mapping technology that lets users (ie. anybody that has a web page) expose an interactive 3d world (think Google Earth... but...) inside a web browser. To extend it and make it do things, simply create buttons with javascript to call methods on it. Beautiful! At the end of his talk, I went up to shoot the breeze with him and he showed me this cool 3d mouse called SpaceNavigator that he used to fly around the (virtual) world with. Very slick!

Dinner was damn good, then I hit the gym to get in my 3 miler before attending the jam session. The jam session was really cool! I only played a couple of times, but I did got to rock out with Carl Franklin, Brian , , and . It was a very bluesy mix this year. Last year was mostly acoustic and low key for the most part; whereas this year was ampliphied crowded and bluesy. Carl rocked out like a true entertainer, and I got to see Dustin Cambell jam on a guitar too (that dude is good). Corey Haines brought his harmonica and guitar again this year, and he played some really cool stuff (major talented musician). Surprisingly (maybe not?), there were a lot of poeple playing instruments this year, and it was much more "the norm" this year than last year. This was awesome to see. CodeMash is so cool. Plus I think they're starting bring out the good musicians (marketing ideas guys, Jim, Jason, Jeff,..). :) 

I ended the night with a bunch of geeks down at the bar. We discovered that Raji loves to buy drinks for people, just don't ask him for water... :)

Dark, Wet, and Quiet Long Run

I wanted to wake up and get my run in early today so I could spend my day being productive.As it turned out, I suffered from some pretty bad insomnia last night and we had company most of the day. By the time I was able to get out the door and head to town, it was already 4pm and I had to go to WalMart first. Around 5pm, I got my car parked at the YMCA, put on all my reflective gear, grabbed some drinks and gel packs, and headed down the road. 

It was cold, rainy, getting dark, and I couldn't wait to get started. Turned out to be a great and stress releiving run. I pretty much covered the upper west quadrant of Newark, Ohio. There were a few parts that had me creeped out, but it was my own mind playing tricks on me. :) While I was up in the rural area, it was just black at time and I was running all by myself in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone (again, it was raining). Anyway, it turned out to be a great run and I'm excited to be back to running agian. :) My break from distance running was too long. 

Bush's Gas and Oil Companies Met Their Match

Here is a cool story that someone sent me that I feel deserves being shared: Democracy Now! | "One Man’s Bid to Aid the Environment"

Thank you, Mr. DeChristopher!

JetBrains ReSharper vs. DevExpress Refactor! Pro

My good buddy, Sergey left me some comments on my blog post about Refactor! Pro and that is what finally made me try out ReSharper. I get so comfortable using what works for me that I don't look around to see what might be better... familiar?

Almost everybody I know uses JetBrains ReSharper, and they all give me that confused look when I tell them that I use the DevExpress Refactor! Pro product. I never ventured outside of my bubble of comfort to see what I have been missing until last week. Why fix what isn't broke? So anyway, I finally installed ReSharper and disabled my Refactor! plugin. I'm slowly learning the keystrokes for refactoring and generating code, and it's getting easier. I felt so backwards for the first few hours, and spent a lot of my time inspecting the menu options to see what is available and how to use the features that are available.

There are a LOT of features with this product and I must admit that it's pretty overwhelming at first. It has taken some getting used to, but I'm starting to be productive with it. Rather than remapping the shortcuts to be the same as Refactor!, I'm forcing myself to learn ReSharper shortcuts to give it an honest attempt. So far, my favorite feature of this product is the 'Clean Code...' function (keys: [Ctrl][E],[Ctrl][C]), the 'Refactor' function (key: [Alt][Enter] (equivalent to Refactor! [Alt][~]), and most importantly the feature rich scroll area with warnings and errors.

To be 100% honest though, there is nothing that ReSharper is offering to me yet that I can't do with Refactor! Pro. I probably only used about 40% of Refactor! Pro's featureset, but I used the crap out of them. Plus I really enjoyed the UI experience in Refactor! Pro a hell of a lot more than I do from ReSharper. The guys at DevExpress made sure they didn't bother me with unecessary prompts as I coded and I miss that while I learn ReSharper. Simple things like renaming variables, reorganizing parameters, and auto cleaning my code should not prompt me with wizard dialogs, it should just work.

For now I'm still evaluating and will continue to give ReSharper an honest effort. I'll use it until my evaluation expires then decide. So far Refactor! Pro is still my choice, but ReSharper is creeping up as I use it more and more... :) I'll post more later as I continue to use it.

My Running Resume

I started this crazy running thing as a new years resolution to "get healthy" for 2007. As a result, I found that I love running.

That first year I did a bunch of 5k's and really enjoyed being outside in the elements while I trained for those races. Later in 2007, I ran my first trail race and immediately fell in love with the brutality of trail running. :)

My new years resolution for 2008 was to run a trail marathon, so I did. And then I ran another... and then I ran a trail ultra marathon, just to prove (to myself) that I could. I finished my 2008 year with a great (road) marathon PR of 4:27:31. I would have never guessed that!!!

The the best thing about each race I ran this year was that I outdid myself on each one.

1. My first marathon took me 6:52 minutes to finish.
2. My second marathon took me 4:57 to finish.
3. My ultra marathon took me almost 8:30 to finish.
4. My third marathon took me 4:27 to finish.

I'm setting my sights for farther distances for 2009. This summer, I want to try a 50 miler, and if I survive that, I'll look for a 100k (~62 mile) race in the fall. For now, I'm just building my base back up since I've let is slip since my last marathon. I needed a break honestly, but... 2009, here I come!

My 2008 Review

Well it's here, the last day of 2008 has begun and is about to end. I just wanted to get a quick post out to say that I had a great year!

What cool happened this year?

• I traveled to Siberia (details)
• I turned 30 (details)
• I ran my first marathon (details)
  
• I introduced the world to Data Dynamics Analysis (details)
• I ran my second marathon (details)
  
• Tent camped with my family at Michigan's Upper Penninsula (details)
  
• I changed jobs (details)
• Spent a lot of quality time with my family
  
• I became an ultra marathon runner (details)
  

Now that 2009 is about an hour away, I think it's time to set goals for the year so that I stay happy and driven. I'll post my resolution (merely for my records) shortly...

jQuery

My eyes have been opened!

I've heard a lot about jQuery in the last few years, but was too stubborn to try and figure it out.

I thought it was not for me; I barely did any web development.
I thought it was something that only pertained to elite web developers.
I thought it was probably too complex to learn... let alone use.
I thought it was just a fad.
I thought way too much.
I thought wrong!

Tonight I was chatting with a buddy of Skype and asked him how to get around a problem I was facing in my web app. He turned me onto the jQuery site and praised how useful it was. Of course, my immediate reaction was a cringed and I thought "damn, now I have to try and learn this thing".

Man, was I wrong; there isn't much to learn at all! I simply went through the 5 minute tutorial on how it works and I'm up and running with a killer javascript API.

jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.

If you have ever used javascript (or html even), download this and add it to the top of your page html header section. Period. Thank me later...

Be sure to go through the tutorial: How jQuery Works - jQuery JavaScript Library

Thanks Ivan!

DevExpress Refactor!

As most of my geek friends know, I'm a huge advocate of DevExpress CodeRush with Refactor! Pro add-in for Visual Studio. I honestly feel lost when coding without these two tools and they are the first thing that I install on a new box.

It's a great product. However, I never understood why they named their product "Refactor!" with the exclamation point. I always thought it looked out of place with the exclamation point after it, but they trademarked it and everything... Well, tonight I was going through some nasty code that I'm working through and saw a set of methods that I needed to fix, so I highlighted them and pressed [CTRL]+[3] to create a region and then I typed "Refactor!".

I get it now.

CodeMash 2009

I CaN't WaiT!! Jason just posted his excitement about the session list for CodeMash 2009! I must say that it is very impressive. This event kicks ass! This year will be very different for me, as it's the first time ever that I'm going as an attendee rather than an exhibitor. The first year, I took my family, last year I went with my DD family and had a blast. This year, I'm going solo! No family, no booth, and no last minute presentation changes to worry about with James. I never minded hovering around the booth talking about Data Dynamics great products, but there was that whole "look professional" aspect to it.

This year, InfoPlanIT is sending me and I'm free to not worry about anything for 3 full days. I will be wearing un-tucked street clothes and I'm going this year to just learn, learn, learn. My latest project at InfoPlanIT has got me doing a lot of web development these days. I've been trying to learn the best way to build customizable enterprise business intelligence web portals... from scratch. The session list at CodeMash is very impressive and gives me a lot of different opportunities to learn from (Ruby, Silverlight, Flex, F#, and so on..).

If you are into technology and can talk your employer into sending you to CodeMash, then, by golly, do it! This is the hippest event in the midwest and you will get your money's worth, ten fold! Not only in the value of the sessions, but also in the fun factor, I mean it's an indoor water park!?. When you're not hanging out with geeks talking about code, your jamming out to Rock Band or screamin down the slides at the indoor water park. Oh yeah, you can also learn about the latest and greatest technologies in the industry by some of the smartest people in the industry.

So there it is! Lots of .NET, Silverlight, Flash, Python, Ruby, Java, PHP, F#, you name it... there's even sessions on developing applications for Microsoft Surface computer and the iPhone. Excuse the huge link, but I'm that impressed with where it takes you. :) I'm going with a wide open mind this year and not restrict myself to any one topic. Hope to see you there! Oh yeah, did I mention I'm taking my drumset again!? I told you this event kicks ass!

Recycling

Tonight, Jennifer and I went to town to recycle our cardboard, magazines, newspapers, plastics, and drop off some clothes at the Goodwill. I realized tonight that recycling should be less stressful and made more mainstream and easier. I know this sounds selfish and lazy, but it's true. If you want to recycle, you have to make the conscious effort and either go to some recycling drop off location (like Jen and I do), or get with your trash company and get on a "recycling plan".

Recycling should be a mandatory and free service for every trash company in the US. The ideal solution would be for me to throw all of my trash (milk cartons, newspapers, beer bottles, pop cans, food scraps, etc..) into a single bin, just like I do today. I would take my trash down to the road once a week (again, just like I do today). The trash company comes and puts it in their truck, and compacts it down just like normal. Once all of the garbage gets back to the company, they run the garbage through some magic machine that gets out all of the aluminum, all of the metal, all of the plastics, papers, iron, copper, leaves, grass clippings, clothes, shoes, wood shavings, glass, , etc... Once all of the different materials have been sorted out, there would only be a handful of actual trash that would ever make it to the landfills.

I know it sounds far fetched, because it really is. However, I feel somebody needs to step up with some ideas to start making baby steps with the garbage that people just pitch. I drive by landfills every now and then and just cringe sometimes. Trash companies should try to start thinking of a way to (somehow) sort out what is recyclable vs. what is trash, rather than just packing it all together and unloading it into the ground. People are lazy by nature; I mean, I know Jennifer and I are. Making recycling an effortless process is key in my opinion.

If a new company came into town claiming they were working to resolve this problem, I would pay 2x more than I do today and make the switch.

Google Maps Update

I logged into Google Maps today and saw that they had subtly changed their UI. I really like the new concept of their navigation controls on the top left, as well as the draggable Google dude. Before I wasn't too keen on the whole "Streets View" button. It felt like I had to make the decision up front as to whether or not I wanted to view peoples houses, etc... It was interfering sitting at the top with the other views (Maps vs. Satellite), but didn't really 'fit'.

The new UI allows the user (ie. Me) to find the address I want as I would normally, then when I get to where I want to go, I can then decide where I would like to see 'Street View' simply by dragging the little Google dude onto the map. If there is no image available for that area, it will show up, "Image not available" and that's it. It's simple and elegant.

Eventually, I could see Google integrating Google Earth functionality on their site (using Flash or something) and I can't wait for that day! Until then, I'll just keep checking their site, recommending it to everybody I know, and wait impatiently for more updates. If you haven't checked it out, be sure to do so.

Thanksgiving 2008

I ate. A lot.

Guitar Hero: Tool - Vicarious Drum Off

Too cool not to share!

GO BUCKS!!

This is how I picture it all going down today. Notice that Ohio St. is on top of Michigan St...

This picture was taken in Chicago where Michigan Avenue crosses Ohio Street.

View Larger Map

I just had to take the picture because IDOT put Ohio Street is on top of Michigan Avenue. :) PRICELESS!!

YellowPageGoesGreen.org

YellowPageGoesGreen.org: "Movement Against Unsolicited Phone Book Delivery"

Movement: ...stopping the madness.

Ok, who's idea was it to print a 1,000 page book and send it to every American whether they wanted it or not? Jennifer and I get 2 or 3 a year and we end up throwing them away or giving them to people that need one. Back in the day, it may have made sense. However, today most of us use the internet, or our iPhones, or some digital address book to keep track of phone numbers. I know 95% of the time whenever I need to find a phone number for "donatos near newark, ohio" or some random company, I just Google it! I get the number in sub seconds. Honestly, I haven't used the phone book in quite a while because I'm usually near the internet. Besides, everybody that is "in the book", can be found "on the web" anyway (duh).

I've decided that Jen and I can live without the book; I haven't told her yet though... so. (?) I'll just explain that I "did it for the children", and it'll be cool. :)

I'm anxious to see how it will all play out:

• Will I be able to keep a comfortable lifestyle without the book?
• When I tell Jen about the big news, will I get the "you did what" w/ complimentary eye roll?

and (most importantly)

• Will my effort really help save our planet?

I guess the reason for my post is to say this: If you get the Yellow Pages and/or White Pages, then please know that they have websites. You can take advantage of technology, de-clutter your house, and save a tree. I took the plunge. Stop relying on "the book" and just use "the web".

Thank you Corey Haines (aka: Trucker Dude) for the tweet!

Oh yeah, another way everybody can help save the planet is by switching to your 'trees' theme in Gmail. :)

My Stellar Funk

Stellar Work
I'm kicking ass at my new job and I've just recently (last week) began implementing Data Dynamics Analysis into our product suite at InfoPlanIT. It's very exciting and everybody seems to really like it. I'm learning a lot in the mean time as the requirements are forcing me to really focus on the "architecture" of the solution rather than just the end result. I learned my lesson the hard way when the last version got convoluted with "quick fix" code everywhere. We decided to just hold off on refactoring the old solution and give 100% focus to the new (DDA) solution instead. I'm pumped about getting this into the customers hands; they're gonna flip out when they see this new pivoting chart thing! :)

Stellar Side Project
Ben and I are still grinding away on the BuckeyeOutdoors plugin for SportTracks as well (details). This thing is turning out to be really slick and our beta testers are real excited about it. Even Steve Runner is using it and rumor has it that he loves it! :) Ben is great to work with, he takes ideas and considerations very well and it's been a pleasure to work with him. We've become pretty good buds in the meantime, so it's a win-win-win. We are expecting to release the V1 product of the plugin within the next couple of weeks, so for all my running readers out there stay tuned for a slick plugin!

Funk Running
I've been in a deep funk lately in regards to my health and my passion. I've only been running about 3 times a week and they're not the ones that leave me feeling like I'd gained anything with them (no speed, hills, intervals... just nice jogs). Since my stellar PR @ the Columbus Marathon, I've been lounging around and just "recovering" for the last month. :) Today I got out and did a nice 3 mile trail run in the snow and it rejuvinated me to get back outdoors for the winter. Call me crazy, but I love running in the cold weather.

Funk Blogging
I've also been slipping on my blogging. I've had some people email me to see how I'm doing and I realized that blogging was really the only way that some of you know what I'm up to. :) Even more so now that I never leave the house. I've totally lost touch with reality and society since I'm working from home full time. I actually have a huge backlog of post ideas that I want to blog about, so I may start picking them out one at a time and get back into my groove.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to. Busy, lazy, and happy. :)

SNR Russia Blog

Back in June, I told you about a new blogging buddy of mine, Scott, that was traveling to Novosibirsk for business. He was directed to my blog by a friend of his and he quickly caught up with the blog and became a reader.

Just last week, Scott began his journey over to Russia and he is staying in Akademgorodok (the same place I stayed) while he teaches at the Novosibirsk State University. He has been through the Moscow Airport (though I think he went through a different one than I did). Regardless, he has been blogging about his visit and I must say that it's fun to read about his experiences, and see pictures of buildings and places that I visited.

If you get a chance, head over to the SNRRussiaBlog and read up on his daily experiences.

Remembering Heather Pick

A beautiful young wife and mother died today after a 4 year battle with breast cancer. Heather Pick was a news anchor for Channel 10 News in Columbus, Ohio. Jennifer and I watch the news every night @ 11pm. We switched to Channel 10 News when Chris Bradley transferred from Channel 6 (he's an awesome weather dude) and we quickly got to know all of the Channel 10 News team very well. It is as if we lost a friend too. :( Here is her full story: http://www.10tv.com/live/content/station/stories/2008/11/07/heather_pick.html?sid=102

Today I was outside on the tractor getting ready for our bonfire and I came inside to ask Jennifer a question. I saw that her eyes were filled with tears and she told me that Heather Pick died today. I couldn't believe it! She was so young and pretty and full of life that nobody would ever guess that she was fighting the terrible disease unless she told you. She was a very strong voice for breast cancer awareness and did a lot for the community.

My thoughts are with her family and friends. She has left behind two young children and a loving husband. I didn't know her personally, but I must say that I feel as though I knew her simply from watching her on the news every night for the last few years. We will miss you Heather!!

Channel 10 is dedicating the whole day to her memory and it is very touching... Her early passing makes me (again) realize how short our time is on this planet. :(

Forget the PR 50K

I just signed up for the first ever Forget the PR 50K at Mohican State Park this morning. Today was the first day to sign up and I did it while I was eating my breakfast. Let the training begin! :)

My good buddy, Rob, is the coordinator of this race, and he has put his heart and soul into it. :) Rob grew up running through the Mohican State forest, even as a kid. He's also participated in the Mohican 100 mile race a few years as well. So it's only fitting that he organizes his own race here. If you're into running beautiful trails in the woods for a couple of hours, then go sign up. It's going to be a great trail run!!

Congratulations Rob! I'm looking forward to this race, and can't wait to get my first race buckle.