I think my comment problems are related to my crusty install of Movable Type. I’m going to re-install Movable Type, and slowly re-add plugins. Things may be funky around here for a little while.\
Update – I think it’s OK now. I deleted a bunch of old plugins I wasn’t actually using, and gave up on using FastCGI. I’ve posted some test comments and things seem at least a little faster, and no errors so far. If you notice anything completely borked, let me know.
Category: development
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The Big Blog Re-Install
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OK, Who Else Twitters Around Here?
Twitter was my only real “connection” to the online world while I was in Mississippi (no EVDO, no wi-fi, don’t like sharing other peoples’ computers unless I have to, etc), and I keep slowly finding other pals who’re on it. I like the immediacy of updates and how easy it is to turn them off when I don’t need the interruptions. I like the simplicity of the interface, and it’s just a fun way to keep up with what everyone’s doing and write really short stupid things while in between things (waiting rooms, stop lights, elevators, etc).\
So… do you Twitter? I do. What I’m really asking, if I’m not bein’ too forward, is will you be my twitter friend? -
The Big 2k
This is the 2000th post on this blog. I wish I could write this to coincide with some big redesign, a switch to a cool new blogging platform or have some cool techno-geeky thing to show off. But, I don’t. I just have this measly little entry. This entry is mostly here so I get over the fact that there are two thousand entries, most of them by me, but a bunch by Jen now too.\
The first entry was way back in July of 2000 and it says nothing at all important, just like the vast majority of other posts here where I rambled about nothing and posted anyway.\
Two thousand posts in, what have I learned and what has it done for me? Here you go:- Blogging changes everything. If you get into the habit of doing it, it opens up a new world of people, experiences and possibilities. Maybe it’s because I started blogging before there were millions of people doing it, but I’ve made connections with so many different people through my blog and reading others. Blogging is a great way to get a glimpse into other peoples’ worlds, to walk a little bit in their shoes and get a perspective you wouldn’t have otherwise had into someone else’s experience.
- Blogging has changed how I communicate with everyone. My family reads my blog. A lot of people at work read my blog. A lot of my friends read my blog. When there’s a topic I’m not comfortable talking about in person (like religion, politics, etc). Writing about it here makes it easier to talk about it in person, and has led to some very interesting conversations I wouldn’t have otherwise had. Giving myself an “opening” here creates an opportunity for discussion in the “real” world.
- Blogging has made work better. I used to religiously not talk about work here, because I didn’t want to get dooced (I read her blog before she became a verb and loved it – still love it). I still have a hard time talking about work (habits die hard), but it’s made my work easier. I used this space to experiment with web standards, and that bled into work. Being one of the first bloggers at AOL (at least one of the first who would admit it), I got to help with the initial thinking behind AOL Journals and go on a couple trips to talk about it.
- Blogging is more fun with a partner. Jen jumping in and blogging here has been a lot of fun, especially the unspoken game of keeping up with her. Sharing the front page has removed some of the pressure of posting all the time, and I can’t tell you how many times people have caught me at work and told me how much they enjoy her posts.\
It took five and a half years to get to two thousand. Hopefully, it won’t take another five and a half to get to ten.
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Digging the Twitter
Because I’m a big Odeo fan, I heard about Twitter through their RSS feed. I checked it out, and it seemed like a nice diversion but I didn’t really get it. Now I do. Since I have friends that have started using it (thanks Cindy and Jason), it’s become a lot more fun. I post updates all the time (well, now that I’m on vacation, what else do I have to do?), and keep the chat window open all the time.\
If you’re online all the time, and have friends who are too, it’s a fun toy. It’s not going to help you get any work done, but sometimes that’s a good thing. It’s a good way to keep track of what your friends are doing in whatever “medium” you want – IM, SMS, RSS, or on the web page.\
They even have a nice little JSON interface! If you go to the home page, and look at the bottom of the page, that’s pulled in from Twitter and shows my last three updates. Neat, huh? -
Bye, Jason
It’s not as if 99.999% of the world cares, but Jason Calacanis is leaving AOL, and I can’t say I’m upset in the least about it. He’s a voracious self-promoter and polarizing force. Everything he says has to be viewed through the “how does this make Jason look better” lens. He somehow became the “voice of AOL” in Silicon Valley, and that always bothered me. He hadn’t put in the time inside the company, and he took credit for a lot of new features and products here that he had absolutely nothing to do with.\
For example, he responded to a comment on that same post with this:\
bq. “…Blogsmith is the best piece of technology inside TW/AOL.”\
Excuse me? It’s a blogging tool, and not even done yet. He doesn’t know about all the other technology at AOL or what we’ve done, and people believe that he somehow knows what he’s talking about. Jason was never the face or voice of anything but Jason Calacanis.\
He was the wrong voice at the wrong time for AOL. We’ve still got a lot of work to regain standing in the technology world, in web development in particular, and that takes humility and earnest effort, not grand standing and self-promotion – the two things Jason’s best at.\
Update: In response to Jason’s comment, I do have to give him credit for one very important thing. He did a great job of opening up the internal debate about the direction of the company and of products. It’s one of the good things about being controversial and polarizing is that you get people talking, which he certainly did, inside and outside the company. If that’s Jason’s legacy at AOL, that’s something to be proud of. Unfortunately, that legacy is tainted by what I felt (and a lot of people who will never say it publicly) was way too much self-promotion along the way. -
AIM Pages
We launched a metric ton of new stuff for AIM Pages yesterday morning (started at 2AM and finishing up around 10:30 with tweaks and mad dashes throughout and after). The changes are definitely noticable. If you go to aimcreate.com, you’ll no longer see the super sexy drag and drop editing interface, although it’s still available. The “wizard”, as I like to call it, is a ummm… wizard. So, if you’re not into the drag and droppyness of the other interface, you can fill out this big form, hit Save Changes and voila, you’ve got an AIM Page like mine (well, not like mine exactly, because yours should be like your page and be about you: if it was about me too, that would be creepy).\
We had no time to completely rebuild the product, faced innumerable technical problems, questions and challenges, and yet we still launched on time. The product included more than twenty-seven individual pieces of software to install, groups on three continents, in four time zones and more moving pieces than I want to remember (although I have to, because I was the tech lead for this round). So, if you were wondering why I haven’t slept in six weeks (five eighty hour weeks in a row, y’all), seemed kind of stressed out and irritable, now you know!\
It continues to amaze me that we’ve launched this product all based around a microformat, and that it works so well. There are still challenges, but everything around the microformat has been relatively smooth and stable. We even have a cool web service built around it that anyone can use to mash up their own page or other pages. More cool stuff is afoot, so keep your eyes peeled.\
It’s launched, it’s cool, there are still some issues that we’re working on, but it’s out there and I can get some sleep now.\
Oh yeah, and this year has been so crazy that I’ve only taken three vacation days so far this year. Yes, three. Since I’ve been at AOL so long, that means I have several weeks of vacation time to use up by the end of the year. Yeah, I won’t be at work much in December. -
Top Coder
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AOL is sponsoring the Top Coder Collegiate Challenge this year as part of the new Developer Network. I’ve been involved in the discussion about the network since the beginning, and it’s gratifying to see it finally bearing fruit. There is still a ton of work to do to make it into something we can all be proud of, but the seed is there, and it’s off to a good start.\
So, if you’re into watching geeks under pressure (if you live with me, you’ve seen this already this month with AIM Pages), you can watch the live cast this Friday at 4:30EST over on the Developer Network. -
Web AIM and the Amazing Mr. Chipman
The Amazing Mr. Chipman has been hard at work on this for the past couple months, and I’ve had a lot of fun walking past his desk and looking over his shoulder at the sheer awesomeness of it. What is it? It’s AIM on the Web! Web AIM allows you to drop visitors’ buddy lists in your site and use it and messaging in all sort of neat mashed up sort of ways. I’m sure we haven’t thought of all of them yet, but I foresee some very interesting applications in the next couple months. Once I get some sleep, look for some fun with it on this site as well.\
Check it out, let me know what you think, and bow down before the sheer awesomeness of Mr. Chipman! -
EVDO is OK
Instead of paying for the hotel’s network connection, I decided to give my brand new EVDO card a shot. I was talking to one of AOL’s VP’s about my presentation and trying to find the time to write demos and she asked what I would do if I had a budget. Of course, I told her I’d get an EVDO card so I wasn’t held hostage to crappy hotel networks. Well, here we are, and I’ve got one, and it works!\
I checked my mail at the airport, worked on my presentation and fixed a couple bugs in the demos last night in the hotel, am uploading pictures to Flickr and it’s going OK. It’s not as fast as a wired connection, or even a solid wi-fi connection, but it’s fast enough to get things done. E-mail’s no problem, and even uploading photos is going smoothly. Connecting using Verizon’s expresscard modem is pretty seamless as long as you remember that it’s more modem than wi-fi card (and remember to disconnect before you put your machine to sleep.\
If you can get work to pay for it, I’d do it. If you work for yourself and are on the road all the time, I’d do it. It made the flight delay bearable because I could get work done while sitting in the terminal, and it gave me an option when the hotel network was unacceptable. I would bet that I’ll probably use it to give a presentation here at some point (hopefully not today, my demos are kind of bandwidth intensive).\
I woke up at 4AM, probably because I didn’t eat dinner last night and I’m hungry. Unfortunately, the restaurant doesn’t open till 6. So, I took some pictures in the bathroom. Enjoy. -
The Evils of document.write
As a developer who works on a site where users can paste in all manner of crappy code from all corners of the web, I’m here to beg. Please, for the love of all that is holy, it’s time to stop using
document.write. Yes, I know that it’s being used in the header and footer on AIM Pages, but we own that page (and we’re not going to be doing it for long). Your code has to live all over the web, if say, you’re the Flickr badge. There are so many other, better, ways to do the same thing, there’s no reason to usedocument.write.\
It’s old and evil, a lot like Dick Cheney. Yes, it will shoot your friend in the face and sneer all the time. You don’t want to code like Dick Cheney, do you?