AlanBarber.Org
Twitter Updates
Rocking out in cubicle land... http://t.co/trOKKOy5
Thu May 17, 2012 12:34 PM
New project to play with for the day. Writing a VS2010 plugin that runs on every build... this should be fun!
Thu May 17, 2012 11:48 AM
Today is *facepalm* day... Dev DB was rolled back without telling any developers. ugg!
Thu May 17, 2012 9:13 AM
Started watching Breaking Bad the other day. Little slow at first but it gets really good. Bryan Cranston turns into one serious badass :)
Wed May 16, 2012 8:52 PM
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
My Weblog’s First Birthday
It was this day a year ago that I began this blogging adventure. Man how time flies! I find it very interesting how much my posting style has changed. When I first started I decided that I didn't want the blog to be some silly diary like many bloggers out there. As a result I tried to post only topics tech geeks would be interested in and I decided outright to be careful about using people's names.
However, around October I switched over to posting more personal topics about myself. It really started after my birthday. I was getting pretty depressed and didn't really care too much about technology. I started using my blog as a soapbox to rant and rave. I mean sure I still post the occasional tech news bit but now I focus more on topics that interests me and I want to talk about.
I guess the major change in posting styles has been because I've had a major change in my life. I've meet the most amazing woman in the world. For the first time I have someone truly special to share my life with. It's been a little over three and a half months since we first started dating. Although, I had feelings for her since November, and she has since admited she had feels too, it took a while for us to get together. It actually happened at CPAC the end of January. We spent almost the entire trip together and have been a couple since then.
I posted this quote before but it just works perfectly to show my feelings so I'll post it again.
"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed."
-J. Krishnamurti
So to celebrate this first birthday I'm switching my blog from MovableType to ExpressionEngine. I'm a bit busy right now with some other projects so I hope to get switched over this weekend or the next. I'll just have to see how time works out.
Although, not all is good in my life right now. Unfortunately, I'm sick. I think I got whatever my girlfriend had like 2 weeks ago. I have a sore throat, tender lymph-nodes, mild fever, etc. It's not strep though, that I'm sure off. I can swallow without major pain. I mean swallowing does feel slight pain in the actual act of swallowing but there isn't the burning in the throat. I can chug down a glass of OJ and eat granola cereal without the sharp pain you would normal have with strep. It just came on rather suddenly Monday. I went running and my throat was a bit sore but it passed by evening. Again on Tuesday when I ran my throat felt sore but this time it didn't go away and by nighttime it felt like it does this morning.
Whatever, I'll live.
However, around October I switched over to posting more personal topics about myself. It really started after my birthday. I was getting pretty depressed and didn't really care too much about technology. I started using my blog as a soapbox to rant and rave. I mean sure I still post the occasional tech news bit but now I focus more on topics that interests me and I want to talk about.
I guess the major change in posting styles has been because I've had a major change in my life. I've meet the most amazing woman in the world. For the first time I have someone truly special to share my life with. It's been a little over three and a half months since we first started dating. Although, I had feelings for her since November, and she has since admited she had feels too, it took a while for us to get together. It actually happened at CPAC the end of January. We spent almost the entire trip together and have been a couple since then.
I posted this quote before but it just works perfectly to show my feelings so I'll post it again.
"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed."
-J. Krishnamurti
So to celebrate this first birthday I'm switching my blog from MovableType to ExpressionEngine. I'm a bit busy right now with some other projects so I hope to get switched over this weekend or the next. I'll just have to see how time works out.
Although, not all is good in my life right now. Unfortunately, I'm sick. I think I got whatever my girlfriend had like 2 weeks ago. I have a sore throat, tender lymph-nodes, mild fever, etc. It's not strep though, that I'm sure off. I can swallow without major pain. I mean swallowing does feel slight pain in the actual act of swallowing but there isn't the burning in the throat. I can chug down a glass of OJ and eat granola cereal without the sharp pain you would normal have with strep. It just came on rather suddenly Monday. I went running and my throat was a bit sore but it passed by evening. Again on Tuesday when I ran my throat felt sore but this time it didn't go away and by nighttime it felt like it does this morning.
Whatever, I'll live.
Monday, May 17, 2004
Week 3 Day 16
I've decided to cover actual topics about my exercise plan to share some of my experiences I've learned. First though I'll give my update.
Well week 2 is over so here is where I stand.
My weight is 173.5 pounds. I'm scheduled to weigh 176 pounds at the end of week 2. Since the plan is to loose two pounds a week I'm still a good week ahead of schedule. This is great news!
I'm doing ok with all my exercises. My only problem spot has been my abs. Doing the ab exercises are just still difficult to do so I've been bad and skipped twice last week. I did make up and do them this weekend because I felt guilty though. I'm doing very well on my running. In fact I ran almost every day last week! I've just had so much pent up energy this last week and running has been one of the ways to help me relax.
Speaking of running I'm suppose to add 5 more minutes to the running portion. That is I do a 10 minute walk to warm up, 15 minute jog/run and a 10 minute walk to cool down now. I don't think it should be too much of a problem to add 5 minutes but I think I might just slow down my pace a bit so I don't kill myself.
So anyways today I wanted to write about the energy I've gained.
You want to start working out and get into shape. You've though about trying to loose a few pounds. You try to run but you're out of breath and feel like you're about to collapse after just five minutes of jogging or you can barely go up a flight of stairs without needing to sit down and rest. I know the feeling!
No matter how much you want to you just don't seem to have the energy to go exercise. Well now that I've been doing this exercise routine for about 4 weeks now I've found out something wonderful. After about 2-3 weeks of exercise you'll actually start gaining energy. Yes that's right! I went through about 2 weeks of just hating to go out to run or do my exercises. It was hard, I would get tired and my whole body just felt like trash afterwards. I pushed through though. There's this first hump of lack of energy. Once you get into the routine you'll find that as your metabolism rises and you start dropping pounds you're energy levels go through the roof.
All of the sudden you can run up and down flights of stairs without being winded. You actually try to run more than you plan to just to see how long you can go now!
That energy follows you all day too. I used to take forever to get out of bed in the mornings. Now I can jump out and get moving as soon as my eyes open. I no longer need shots of caffeine from coffee or tea to wake me up or sodas to keep me going throughout the day.
It's a great feeling. So, just remember though it might be hard to get going once you push through that first hump you'll find your daily life gets easier and easier.
Well week 2 is over so here is where I stand.
My weight is 173.5 pounds. I'm scheduled to weigh 176 pounds at the end of week 2. Since the plan is to loose two pounds a week I'm still a good week ahead of schedule. This is great news!
I'm doing ok with all my exercises. My only problem spot has been my abs. Doing the ab exercises are just still difficult to do so I've been bad and skipped twice last week. I did make up and do them this weekend because I felt guilty though. I'm doing very well on my running. In fact I ran almost every day last week! I've just had so much pent up energy this last week and running has been one of the ways to help me relax.
Speaking of running I'm suppose to add 5 more minutes to the running portion. That is I do a 10 minute walk to warm up, 15 minute jog/run and a 10 minute walk to cool down now. I don't think it should be too much of a problem to add 5 minutes but I think I might just slow down my pace a bit so I don't kill myself.
So anyways today I wanted to write about the energy I've gained.
You want to start working out and get into shape. You've though about trying to loose a few pounds. You try to run but you're out of breath and feel like you're about to collapse after just five minutes of jogging or you can barely go up a flight of stairs without needing to sit down and rest. I know the feeling!
No matter how much you want to you just don't seem to have the energy to go exercise. Well now that I've been doing this exercise routine for about 4 weeks now I've found out something wonderful. After about 2-3 weeks of exercise you'll actually start gaining energy. Yes that's right! I went through about 2 weeks of just hating to go out to run or do my exercises. It was hard, I would get tired and my whole body just felt like trash afterwards. I pushed through though. There's this first hump of lack of energy. Once you get into the routine you'll find that as your metabolism rises and you start dropping pounds you're energy levels go through the roof.
All of the sudden you can run up and down flights of stairs without being winded. You actually try to run more than you plan to just to see how long you can go now!
That energy follows you all day too. I used to take forever to get out of bed in the mornings. Now I can jump out and get moving as soon as my eyes open. I no longer need shots of caffeine from coffee or tea to wake me up or sodas to keep me going throughout the day.
It's a great feeling. So, just remember though it might be hard to get going once you push through that first hump you'll find your daily life gets easier and easier.
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Get a free copy of ExpressionEngine!
pMachines is giving away free copies of their ExpressionEngine web publishing program. Basically, it’s a weblog program. It’s costs $149.00 for a non-commercial license and $199.00 for a commercial license.
In the wake of the MovableType debacle they offered to give away 1000 copies. Long as you have been running a personal blog for more than 6 months you qualify.
Actually it’s a little too late now because they already gave out 1000 copies. However, they are extending the offer so you have until midnight pacific time today to contact them. They’ll pick another 250 random people to get copies. So visit their site to read the rules.
I got lucky and got a copy! So it’s official now. I’m going to switch this blog over to ExpressionEngine.
Now before any of you poo poo me for using a commercial product let me restate the facts. I mean yes I said in my last post that I would look for an open source and free blog program to replace MT but that’s just because I’m a cheap guy. Why pay for something when there are perfectly good free ones out there. I have no problem with the folks at SixApart wanting to charge for MoveableType. I’m no open source, free software zelot. Far from it! My complaint stems from the fact that had promised that MT 3.0 would be free. I quote from a December MT news post.
quote:
we’re focusing on releasing more personal features in the basic Movable Type package, and concentrating features for businesses, organizations, and large content-driven sites into Movable Type Pro (which, needless to say, has been delayed).
The next version of Movable Type will be version 3.0, a significant and free upgrade.
. .
. Movable Type 3.0 will be a free download and upgrade.
Now obviously I summarized but from reading that you get the jist that MT 3 will be just as free, as in price and lack of limitations, to use as MT 2 has been. Some place between December and now they changed their view and they should have had the courtesy to tell everyone.
This is why I’m upset. They didn’t show any support or respect to their users and the community. I mean heck even big bad, evil Microsoft actually talks to their customers and tells them ahead of time that they’re going to change their license schemes and prices of software! Sure the prices and license schemes are still horrible and screw the customers but at least they were given warning.
So anyways I’m going to install the ExpressionEngine on my test server. I’ll spend some time learning how to use it, building templates, etc so I can make the conversion as painless as possible here.
Posted by AlanBarber
on 05/16/2004 at 03:34 PM
Blogging •
ExpressionEngine •
(4) Comments •
Permalink
Blogging •
ExpressionEngine •
(4) Comments •
Permalink Thursday, May 13, 2004
The end of MovableType?
Well the fine folks over at SixApart just completely pulled the rug out from under MovableType users everywhere!
First the good news:
The new version of MovableType has been released. Dubbed MovableType 3.0 Developers Edition. Simply put, it's an extended beta edition of MovableType 3.0. Now that they've cleared out the worst of the bugs they're dumping it out to the public. The idea being that developers of plugins and such can now start working on updating their stuff to work with the new version. That way when they release a "real" version there won't be the lag time between their software being out and the plugins and extensions getting updated.
Now the bad news:
SixApart also released their "new" licensing and pricing structure. What's so bad you might ask? MovableType has just made the switch from being so called "donation-ware" to being a commercial product. Their license and price structures basically screw the pooch for anyone but the bare minimalist MT user.
There are now basically 7 levels of licensing available.
1) Free - Limits you to 1 author and 3 blogs
2) Personal Edition ($99.95) - 3 authors and 5 blogs
3) Personal Edition volume license 1 ($149.95) - 6 authors and 8 blogs
4) Personal Edition volume license 2 ($189.95) - 9 authors and 10 blogs
5) Commercial Edition 1 ($299.95) - 5 authors and 5 blogs
6) Commercial Edition 2 ($699.95) - 20 authors and 15 blogs
7) Custom license (must contact company for prices)
Those prices are outright ludicrous and I know I sure won't be upgrading. Oh sure currently I only have 1 author and 2 blogs so I could get away with the free version. However, I refuse to upgrade on the principal of the situation! Previous versions were free and they asked for donations. I know you can't run a business on donation but at the same time to do a complete 180 turn without warning is horrible. They never even gave warning this would happen.
In the many months they never once mentioned that they planned to start charging for MT. You would think in all the time they had they could at least be nice enough to give everyone a heads up. I suspect they didn't because they knew it would bite them in the backside. Lets be honest here folks. It was the MT user community that helped develop this new version. It was our cries for fixes to problems, out hard work doing alpha and beta testing, our hard work developing plugins to extend the software, and our work in doing the leg work in advertising and converting people to MT. Why did we do all this? Because we loved this wonderful free piece of software. And what is out thanks from SixApart? Getting reamed in the behind!
I guess no one saw it coming. I just always assumed MovableType would remain free since SixApart had their TypePad service. TypePad is a paid hosted blogging service. I just figured that's where they would make their money so they could offer the free version of MT. There had been some talk of a MT Pro version that would cost. The idea being the Pro version would contain many of the features found in TypePad.
So what's the future of this blog? I really don't know yet. For now I'll be sticking with MT 2.661. It works fine for what I need right now. As I've stated in past posts I've done lots of work to automate the backend maintenance of the blog. I really don't want to have to convert to something new and start all over right now. I'll be keeping an eye out for open source and freeware blog software though. If something fancies me I might make the switch over. If not perhaps I'll just create my own system.
So thanks for nothing SixApart! I used to think you were a decent company that actually cared about the blogging community. Boy were we wrong!
First the good news:
The new version of MovableType has been released. Dubbed MovableType 3.0 Developers Edition. Simply put, it's an extended beta edition of MovableType 3.0. Now that they've cleared out the worst of the bugs they're dumping it out to the public. The idea being that developers of plugins and such can now start working on updating their stuff to work with the new version. That way when they release a "real" version there won't be the lag time between their software being out and the plugins and extensions getting updated.
Now the bad news:
SixApart also released their "new" licensing and pricing structure. What's so bad you might ask? MovableType has just made the switch from being so called "donation-ware" to being a commercial product. Their license and price structures basically screw the pooch for anyone but the bare minimalist MT user.
There are now basically 7 levels of licensing available.
1) Free - Limits you to 1 author and 3 blogs
2) Personal Edition ($99.95) - 3 authors and 5 blogs
3) Personal Edition volume license 1 ($149.95) - 6 authors and 8 blogs
4) Personal Edition volume license 2 ($189.95) - 9 authors and 10 blogs
5) Commercial Edition 1 ($299.95) - 5 authors and 5 blogs
6) Commercial Edition 2 ($699.95) - 20 authors and 15 blogs
7) Custom license (must contact company for prices)
Those prices are outright ludicrous and I know I sure won't be upgrading. Oh sure currently I only have 1 author and 2 blogs so I could get away with the free version. However, I refuse to upgrade on the principal of the situation! Previous versions were free and they asked for donations. I know you can't run a business on donation but at the same time to do a complete 180 turn without warning is horrible. They never even gave warning this would happen.
In the many months they never once mentioned that they planned to start charging for MT. You would think in all the time they had they could at least be nice enough to give everyone a heads up. I suspect they didn't because they knew it would bite them in the backside. Lets be honest here folks. It was the MT user community that helped develop this new version. It was our cries for fixes to problems, out hard work doing alpha and beta testing, our hard work developing plugins to extend the software, and our work in doing the leg work in advertising and converting people to MT. Why did we do all this? Because we loved this wonderful free piece of software. And what is out thanks from SixApart? Getting reamed in the behind!
I guess no one saw it coming. I just always assumed MovableType would remain free since SixApart had their TypePad service. TypePad is a paid hosted blogging service. I just figured that's where they would make their money so they could offer the free version of MT. There had been some talk of a MT Pro version that would cost. The idea being the Pro version would contain many of the features found in TypePad.
So what's the future of this blog? I really don't know yet. For now I'll be sticking with MT 2.661. It works fine for what I need right now. As I've stated in past posts I've done lots of work to automate the backend maintenance of the blog. I really don't want to have to convert to something new and start all over right now. I'll be keeping an eye out for open source and freeware blog software though. If something fancies me I might make the switch over. If not perhaps I'll just create my own system.
So thanks for nothing SixApart! I used to think you were a decent company that actually cared about the blogging community. Boy were we wrong!
Monday, May 10, 2004
Week 2 Day 8: Reloaded
Ok, The last two week I basically fell off the exercise program. I know I'm not suppose to make excuses but with the big projects in my computer classes, finals week and graduation I just sort of slipped up bad.
This should be the start of week 4 actually. However, I've decided to roll back two weeks and so this is now week 2 day 9.
There's nothing to report since I'm just starting the week. My weight is 176 pounds so I'm now actually at my target weight for the end of this week. That's at least one good thing is that I'll now be a week ahead on my weight loss.
So, anyways I just wanted to get this put up so everyone knows where I am on the exercise plan. Now that school is done I'll try my hardest to keep on schedule.
Oh yea, I took some pictures yesterday so I can see how much I improved since I began. No, I'm not going to post them publicly. I'm way to self conscience to do that. Besides who really wants to see pictures of a fat hairy guy like me? That's a rhetorical question because the only answer is that no one does!
Ok, I'm off to do my abdominal exercises and run. Yes I know it's my off day but they're talking about storms all week so I might as well get my running in any chance I can incase I get stuck inside for the next few days. That is the one downfall to not exercising at a gym. You're a slave to the whims of Mother Nature.
This should be the start of week 4 actually. However, I've decided to roll back two weeks and so this is now week 2 day 9.
There's nothing to report since I'm just starting the week. My weight is 176 pounds so I'm now actually at my target weight for the end of this week. That's at least one good thing is that I'll now be a week ahead on my weight loss.
So, anyways I just wanted to get this put up so everyone knows where I am on the exercise plan. Now that school is done I'll try my hardest to keep on schedule.
Oh yea, I took some pictures yesterday so I can see how much I improved since I began. No, I'm not going to post them publicly. I'm way to self conscience to do that. Besides who really wants to see pictures of a fat hairy guy like me? That's a rhetorical question because the only answer is that no one does!
Ok, I'm off to do my abdominal exercises and run. Yes I know it's my off day but they're talking about storms all week so I might as well get my running in any chance I can incase I get stuck inside for the next few days. That is the one downfall to not exercising at a gym. You're a slave to the whims of Mother Nature.
Sunday, May 09, 2004
I graduated!
Naa naa naa naa, naa naa naa naa, hey hey hey, good-bye!
Ahh, yesterday was an amazingly marvelous day! I graduated!
The ceremony started at 9:30am and was over by 11:00am. I have to hand it to the school for running a quick ceremony. They wisely split up graduation into several smaller ceremonies instead of just a giant single ceremony. The Arts and Sciences ceremony was at 9:30am. The Business Admin, Health and Human Services, and Technology ceremony was at 1:00pm. The Education and Human Development and Musical Arts ceremony was at 4:30pm.
There's limited seating so it was just the immediate family plus my girlfriend. So we ran though the ceremony very quickly and were back home prepping for the party. I didn't want to have a real fancy party. I told the family lets just have a little backyard BBQ picnic type of party. We grilled steaks and chicken breasts. My mother made potato salad, bean salad, etc. Plus we had a cake.
It was pretty stressful for mother I guess but then she always gets worked up over these things. The rest of us just relaxed and had a nice time. I did some socializing with everyone that came. You know the usual small talk type stuff. I talked over and over with everyone about what my plans for the future were. I must have said I didn't have a job yet but am going to start looking in another week or two once I've had a chance to unwind about 30 times yesterday.
My girlfriend was great and stayed the whole day there. I figured she wouldn't want to be around my family all day and only stop by for a while. I would totally understand it and not hold it against her. To my surprise she ended up staying to after everyone left. She's so amazing and such a trooper. Thank you so much sweetie!
So, yes I'm now done with school. Well at least for a while. I'll go find a job and once I'm settled in I think I'll go back to get my masters. We're talking like 2-3 years from now at the earliest and more like 5+ realistically.
I'm just very happy right now.
Ahh, yesterday was an amazingly marvelous day! I graduated!
The ceremony started at 9:30am and was over by 11:00am. I have to hand it to the school for running a quick ceremony. They wisely split up graduation into several smaller ceremonies instead of just a giant single ceremony. The Arts and Sciences ceremony was at 9:30am. The Business Admin, Health and Human Services, and Technology ceremony was at 1:00pm. The Education and Human Development and Musical Arts ceremony was at 4:30pm.
There's limited seating so it was just the immediate family plus my girlfriend. So we ran though the ceremony very quickly and were back home prepping for the party. I didn't want to have a real fancy party. I told the family lets just have a little backyard BBQ picnic type of party. We grilled steaks and chicken breasts. My mother made potato salad, bean salad, etc. Plus we had a cake.
It was pretty stressful for mother I guess but then she always gets worked up over these things. The rest of us just relaxed and had a nice time. I did some socializing with everyone that came. You know the usual small talk type stuff. I talked over and over with everyone about what my plans for the future were. I must have said I didn't have a job yet but am going to start looking in another week or two once I've had a chance to unwind about 30 times yesterday.
My girlfriend was great and stayed the whole day there. I figured she wouldn't want to be around my family all day and only stop by for a while. I would totally understand it and not hold it against her. To my surprise she ended up staying to after everyone left. She's so amazing and such a trooper. Thank you so much sweetie!
So, yes I'm now done with school. Well at least for a while. I'll go find a job and once I'm settled in I think I'll go back to get my masters. We're talking like 2-3 years from now at the earliest and more like 5+ realistically.
I'm just very happy right now.