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Entries Tagged as Misc

Who's in your Tweetdeck "misc" column?

I'm not married to Tweetdeck. I find myself going back and forth between it and Twhirl. Both have features I wish the other did, and I haven't been able to strike up the right balance. I wish Tweetdeck felt as polished as Twhirl. I wish Twhirl showed groups like Tweetdeck. And so on.

Anyway, the other day it occurred to me that most people that use Tweetdeck probably have a Misc column -- I do. I thought it might be fun to put up a list of people you follow that don't fit into some major category that gets its own group. For example, I have groups for CF Community, and IRL (In Real Life -- aka Meatspace), so you won't see any ColdFusion people or family memebrs in my list.

So here, in no particular order, is my Misc group.

Ok, so I lied. That was alphabetical order. I showed you mine, now you show me yours.

Posted in Misc | 1 Response March 04 2009

Graduation

It was with a great deal of fondness and appreciation that I submitted my resignation from Perficient last week.

I started with a small consulting firm by the name of E-Tech Solutions and based in West Chester, PA in December of 2005 -- the 12th, to be exact; that's how fondly I remember it! -- and since then my life has been in a state of constant change and growth (in more dimensions than one!). To be perfectly honest, I thought I was a damn good ColdFusion developer when I applied there -- and it turns out I had a lot to learn.

I had no idea there were ColdFusion conferences, certifications, publications and mailing lists, and an enormous community of bloggers, twitterers, podcasters, and open source developers. That's a lot of media to try and absorb and keep straight, so it's no surprise that about the time I learned about these things is when I became an RSS fiend. I still whip out my iPhone to check up on bloglines at the oddest times...

When I wasn't working on client websites, I attended CFUnited in both 2007 and 2008, learned Model-Glue and ColdSpring in my free time, wrote a few open source projects myself, and got certified for ColdFusion 7. I've had my eyes opened to the beauty and importance of frameworks and design patterns.

... And there's so much more that if I wrote about it all you would drown in a sea of hyperlinks.

And I owe it all to one person: Chuck McElwee.

Chances are you don't know him. He had one article published in the CFDJ back in 2002, and used to chirp in on CF-Talk occasionally, but otherwise isn't really that involved in the ColdFusion community. He was my boss at E-Tech and he showed me that there was so much more to ColdFusion than me and the documentation vs. the world. (Although, for what it's worth, the documentation is so good that I would bet on us. ;)

When E-Tech was purchased by Perficient in early 2007, and with the economy starting its downward spiral, Chuck and I were fortunate enough to keep our jobs and continue working together. A large portion of E-Tech's business was ColdFusion consulting -- and to a lesser extent, hosting our clients. While CF made up roughly half of our business (by my own estimate) the other half was Java, .Net, Sharepoint, and other Microsoft solutions. It was these other competencies that Perficient was most interested in, and so ColdFusion became the proverbial red-headed step child.

ColdFusion consulting gigs continued coming in for a while -- and still do, to some extent -- and I've had plenty to do and lots of opportunities to hone my C# skills, but as I'm sure many consulting firms are dealing with right now, billable hours are a little bit scarce no matter what technology you're talking about.

Consulting has taught me how to work at break-neck speed and how to help a client find a cost effective compromise between the solution they want and what they want to pay for it. But most of all, consulting has taught me that consulting is not a business I want to be in if I can help it.

I will always look back and remember E-Tech and Perficient as the true foundation of my career in web development. I only wish I could bring some of the excellent people I had the opportunity to work with along the way with me.

So where am I going? What does the future hold for me?

I have accepted a position at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

I'm excited about the opportunity to work in an environment where extra time spent learning something new is considered a valuable effort; where opportunities exist for me to learn Flex, AIR, and other related technologies; and to work with some great minds (Sorry if there are others I didn't link... I just don't know about your blogs yet!) in what I'm told by many is a great program.

I am not taking Terrance Ryan's vacant position, but he did mention to me who he's pulling for as his replacement. ;)

I see so many opportunities and things I want to take advantage of in my future, and this job feels like the right way to start. Here's to the next step.

Posted in ColdFusion | Misc | 4 Responses February 16 2009

Skype Hates the Elderly

A couple of days ago I got a call from my dad. He was at my grandfather's house, working on the laptop he and my mom gave him for Christmas. One of the primary reasons for giving him the laptop was that it had a webcam, and they were setting him up on Skype to be able to video-chat with our enormous and widespread family. But now there was a problem. He wasn't seeing any video -- mine or his -- on his end, even though I could see him when we would call each other. Days before this, we had tested everything and it was working perfectly.

So what changed between the passed test and the failed test?

  1. New location, ISP (Grandpa's house)
  2. Installed Microsoft Office
  3. Turned on Windows "Large Fonts"

My grandfather, like so many older people, doesn't have the greatest eye-sight, even with his glasses; and the Large Fonts feature of Windows really helps him use the computer.

As it turns out, this was the culprit. Changing back to "Normal" fixed the video problem. And through some clever tuning in the dialog found by clicking the "Advanced" button in that screenshot, you can make the fonts larger without using "Large Fonts," if necessary. I know Skype hasn't done this intentionally, and I've sent them a bug report via their suggestion form.

In the meantime, I hope this helps someone else out there trying to fix their grandparents' video problems.

Posted in Misc | 1 Response December 26 2008

Windows Tip: No to All

Everyone agrees that Microsoft is not the really best when it comes to usability, right?

We've probably all looked at this dialogue at some point during our lives and said, "How about a No to All button, Microsoft?"

No To All, where are you?

But did you know it's possible? Hold the shift key while you click the "No" button, and Windows will act as if there were a "No to All" button and you clicked it.

You're welcome.

Posted in Misc | 4 Responses September 20 2008