Once I realized my article on linking your resume in multiple formats with google docs had a fatal flaw, I figured how to really do it with zoho viewer. Yay Zoho, Boo Google!
Monthly Archives: August 2007
PDF Wallet Generator
I’ve completed work on the pdf wallet generator and put up some notes on the work under projects.
This week in review
So much happened this week, without even getting into the tornado that hit Bay Ridge.
On Saturday I met with my ex-neighbor Gina Mauro – she needs a better website for her art. I think Sam and I should be able to provide one. The big part of the project is taking her requirements and picking a Content Management System off the shelf that she can use. I was playing around with Drupal and Mambo, but I think she basically just needs a styled and themed version of Gallery2, plus a contact and about page. That’s it. My biggest worry is making sure that I don’t underestimate the work involved.
Started learning to use VIM again on Monday. I just think I can get more done with it. I need to get better at it. So I’ve started trying to use it for all my basic text editing needs. Within one week of use, I’m getting pretty decent at using VIM. It seems like it encourages you to write text like a programmer, thinking about how to minimize steps as you take them.
Sent out an improved ipc batch script to my coworkers and introduced them to the wonders of autohotkey. No one really seems all that enthused by the possibility of saving some time, but we’ll see if a little prodding helps it catch on. Next week I may tell them about launchy!
The big news is that I managed to reform Ryan Stewart’s PDF Wallet into a class and an edited version of ezpdf. I’ve got the first wallet from this new page in my pocket right now and I’ll be working to migrate Ryan’s stuff with him this weekend. Most of the work was done on the subway to and from my job. All of the work was done in Vim. More on that next week!
Next week I plan to put more effort into getting Gina an estimate for her website and then trying to knock it out in my spare time.
No progress on Spanish. I haven’t given up on it yet, but if I don’t do some more learning, I’ll start forgetting.
Sam and I took out the stitches in my foot together. I’m walking fine and everything seems to be working.
Next week I plan to put more effort into getting Gina an estimate for her website and then trying to knock it out in my spare time.
Work next week should be much quieter, one of the louder folks here has gone on to a new job. I wish him luck and more happiness!
Paper Wallet Generator
I was very excited to see Ryan Stewart’s paper wallet pdf generator a while ago. Excited, but frustrated. It was good, but had some flaws. I got in contact with Ryan, and he invited me to help out with fixing the problems.
Some of the issues are in the underlying ezpdf code for PHP, so I thought I’d go over them. Ezpdf and the pdf class underlying it have some bugs with handling rotated text, which I think I’ve fixed. It’s rough, but I’ll be putting it up soon, and then I’ll submit the changes to R&OS for inclusion into ezpdf.
Should be going up sometime this week.
This week in review
Not much went on this week. I’ve been hobbled a bit (pardon the pun) by my recent ax injury. Working from home agrees with me, though.
I’ve gotten everything building on our build server, deployments made to our client machine, etc. From here on out, it’s just iterative refinements. I’m very pleasantly surprised by the performance improvements we’ve achieved.  Thanks merely to a few design choices, we’ve got things that used to take 5 minutes happening in seconds. Lots of this improvement is due to our removing all the string manipulation and business logic from the database. We now deliver all of the data that the client is entitled to down the wire and let the client’s pc do all of the manipulation needed. Our clients can scale their hardware to the perfomance needs that they have.
My new hire showed up – he seems bright and eager to work. I’ve got high hopes for him.
So far I’ve gotten through the tutorial section of Agile Web Development with Rails and am plowing through the active record sections. I’m feeling like I should start playing around with a sample project. Time to dust off the dive website idea and start implementing. I’ve also finished this week reading Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby and started reading an online copy of the Pickaxe.
I think that next week I’m coming up on a month straight of no meat. I really need to nail down the last time I ate it.
Spanish: No progress. I’ve been naughty and haven’t done any learning there. I’ll need to put the easy spanish reader back in my bag to finish. Also, start trying to do simple conversations at work. Because I’m used to having the gift of gab, I get easily embarassed by not knowing how to say things. Too bad, I need to crawl so I can walk.
Next week, projects at work begin simple end to end testing and integration testing with other systems. We have to train up our new guy, get auto upgrading working, get the build server to make our install package. We also need to refactor a bit to treat the UI of Excel 2007 differently from the UI of Excel 2005, though I don’t know if we will get to that for next week. Learn some spanish. Buy a domain for my dive website.