Ultranormal

Category: development

  • So, it’s time to redesign

    So, it’s time to redesign because I’m tired of the white, and well, I kind of half-assed it this morning while I was waiting for an e-mail. Trust me, it won’t stay like this for long.

    It must be a slow news day, cuz I have nothing to talk about…

  • There are tons of beautiful

    There are tons of beautiful colors that fall outside of the web-safe palette. I can’t wait for the day when I can use them all. I found a great orange today that I’d love to use, but alas, we must remain members of the Web-Safe Army and only use the approved colors!! Let’s all march to the tune of 216 colors of happiness and long for the days of many colors, when it will be safe to come up with fabulous designs that use colors that no one’s discovered, lying under hats in the closet to the left of the old shoes we never wear and should probably give to charity. Yes, I’m talking about THOSE colors!! Aahhhh, what a nice dream, maybe some day.

  • I’ve realized that there are

    I’ve realized that there are two types of people in the world – target=_new people and who don’t mind if someone else comes in and talks for awhile. Unfortunately, I’m a target=_new person…

  • So, what am I doing?

    So, what am I doing? I think next week, I’ll start posting a bunch of the cool AOLserver stuff I’ve done on my own, like the adp-tag db call, the calendar and my instructions on how to install AOLserver and Postgres in Linux. How does that sound? It’ll be nice to have some content up here other than my ramblings and Max’s pics (which are cool and need to be updated).

    I’m also thinking of building a search engine into AOLserver. There used to be this cool text indexing stuff built right in back in 2.1 when Illustra was still the primary db (and which I still have running somewhere on my O2). I’d love to see it come back. Why, you ask? Because I’ve been doing Search stuff for two years and think I can do it. So there.

    What has to go into a search engine? Here’s what I’ve got so far:

    • Indexing: There has to be a way to get content, and it has to be fast. Also, it has to be able to index parsed content from ADP’s, which means lots of http gets, or ns_adp_parses (which would be cool but cumbersome).
    • Searching: I have to find some way to search other than tacking SQL wildcards on either side of the query. It just doesn’t produce good results. That means cool meta searching stuff which I know nothing about.
    • Results: I’ve used lots of API’s, and I don’t really like any of them. This isn’t a knock against the people who wrote them, it’s just the way it is. They’re usually written by people who do all backend stuff and don’t take the pains of UI development into consideration. I do some of both, so hopefully I can do it the way I wanna do it.
      Ok, I think that’s it… Wow, what a geeky post.

  • So now I have a

    So now I have a Linux box on (under) my desk. It’s nice to sit here and look at a lovely GNOME desktop while doing my work. Linux is fun. Linux is groovy if you want to run a website on it. Linux isn’t so hot when it comes to working in a company that’s 100% windows-centric. So, I’ve got Win2k in the middle, a Sun box to the right of me, my RedHat box to the left, and my Powerbook in a drawer. Does it get any better than that?

  • You know what sucks about

    You know what sucks about having a job? I have to do stuff even when I’m uninspired. On most of the stuff I build, I find some way to get there. I find some new trick, or concept and blow it out in whatever the project is. Now, I’m working on something I’ve already done once, and I’m just not there. I don’t feel like rebuilding the wheel. I don’t feel like hours and hours of pushing pixels around, squashing bugs and answering the inevitable “That’s not like what I sent you.”, “Why does it do that?” questions. Maybe it’s time for another vacation, or at least, a donut.

    Unfortunately, I have no donuts. I only have my Powerbook. My PC at work fried somehow this weekend. I came in yesterday morning, and the video card is all messed up. It’s bleeding all over the screen so everything looks like it’s behind chifon venetian blinds, and semi-distorted. I called our help desk people, and am still waiting for them to come fix it. So, I’m uninspired on a computer I’m not used to using for code, and tired of sitting here. Maybe I’ll go work in the cafe or something.

    It’s times like these that I miss working in Tucson. When I was uninspired, I could stop. The stuff I built didn’t have deadlines or money attached to them. They were for fun. Now, everything has to be done now. It has to get out the door yesterday or I get calls from people all over. It’s fun to live a stress-free life, only it doesn’t pay so well. Ok, enough rambling… lunch is over and I have work to do.

  • I get so tired of

    I get so tired of talking. I get tired of communication. I’m tired of sitting in meetings that feel pointless and stupid. These meetings have no real point other than making people feel like they’re doing something. They sit around saying the same things over and over again, deciding things that have already been decided and giving me a headache. Why not just send e-mail? Why not just tell me what you’ve decided, because it’s obvious you don’t really want to know what I think. I know I’m switching person here, and I don’t care. Anger = bad grammer. Boredom = frustration. Ugh, I’d love to work on something that was built because it was cool and did something important instead of something that someone thinks will look cool, but that they have no idea how it’s supposed to work. I’m tired of madlib products where someone gives me a flat piece of paper and tells me to fill in the blanks of functionality with no real understanding of what that means, or appreciation for how difficult it can be. Oh forget it… let’s just build crap and let the users sort it out.

  • I’ve been reading a lot

    I’ve been reading a lot of blogs by people who’ve been around a loooooong time. Like Zeldman. His site’s been online for 6 years. That seems like a long time. How could anyone have been online that long? Then I remember… I’ve been online for 6 years too.

    I haven’t had a site that whole time, but I’ve been building sites for four, and have had my own site off and on since I started my members.aol.com collection of animated gifs (why do I even admit that?).

    When I started with AOL, we were doing the final beta tests of AOL 2.5, the first client with a web browser. 14.4 modems were brand new, and faaaa-aaaast. We worked on 486/66 machines with 16 megs of RAM and Windows 3.11. I used Netscape 2.0. A SoundBlaster 16 was the cutting edge. SGI was still the king. I had never heard of Linux. Windows 95 was in the future.

    I remember when Win95 was released, I ran to Egghead (they used to have real stores, you know), bought it and Pittfall and spent the weekend installing and breaking it on my Pentium 60.

    I remember the first site I built for anyone other than myself. I built a site for the Volunteer Center of Tucson. It had a FORM on it that sent mail. I thought I was SO cool, and what’s funny, so did they.

    1995 is when it all really started happening. I’m glad I’ve been around this long and can’t wait to see what happens next. You know what’s funny… this makes me sound and feel old. I’m only 26. Go figure.

  • Ok, I almost forgot today.

    Ok, I almost forgot today. This is a process, of course; one which I’ll soon memorize and do daily. Today is an unpaid plug for my favorite OpenSource/Free software. What do I use everyday? A bunch of free stuff. I work for one of the largest companies on the planet, and my favorite toys are free. Is that ironic (or is it just funny?)? So, here’s a list of the stuff you should use if you want to be a cool corporate rebel like me:

    • AOLserver: This is the coolest. I work with AOLserver everyday, and find new reasons to love it all the time. It’s fast, uses Tcl (my favorite language, after English), is threaded, and allows me to create some really cool stuff (like the stuff in the list on the right).
    • Arachnophilia: This is my Windows text editor. It does awesome find-replaces and has cool customizable tool bars. I love it!
    • LinuxPPC: I have this Powerbook on my desk. It’s my “other” computer that I was having a hard time coming up with a use for other than watching DVD’s (a bad thing to do at work while anyone’s watching). So, I figured hey, Linux is fun, let’s try that. LinuxPPC is cool. It’s easy to install and configure, and it rock-solid. It sits on my desk as a glowing testament to cool free stuff (although I paid for my copy).
    • Ximian GNOME: For a comparative newbie like myself, Ximian GNOME is a lifesaver. It provided me with a cool interface, all the programs I wanted, and an easy-to-use updater. And, soon, it will provide a really cool e-mail client (doesn’t currently work with my mail, but I trust it will shortly).
    • Mozilla: Mozilla, how do I love thee? This would be farther up the list if it work work on my Windows machine. But, it’s the best browser Linux has ever seen, and they keep building a LinuxPPC version. How cool is that? I can now get my mail with it, and my pages look almost the same as they do in Windows. Yummy.

    And, as I think about it, I’d switch to Linux altogether if I didn’t have to keep using Office for work stuff. I love the idea of it; that something done by thousands of different people, all for different reasons, actually works. Linux competes with operating systems built by gigantic corporations, and wins in a lot of cases. I just love the thought of it (actually, sometimes more than the reality of it… Linux still pisses me off too often). But, ok, that’s enough for today. Time to get back to work.

  • I’m going to start keeping

    I’m going to start keeping this thing up-to-date, promise. It will be my lunchtime habit from now on. I will post something, ANYTHING. I’ve been writing code too long. I’ve forgotten how to communicate with people, and how to write. I can’t even spell anymore. It’s sad sad sad. So, here we go… whooooopie!