Vancouver Tech Guy

New exciting blog about Weddings

2008-01-28T12:19:58-08:00

Just wanted to do a quick post re: our very own Madame Strut, Maura Rodgers, and her dirty little secret blog about her upcoming wedding. We're all very excited here in Struttaland for the upcoming nuptials, so it's great to see her blogging the process. Plus, it's a pretty fantastic resource for anyone interested in doing a wedding on Vancouver island. I think we can all agree that we need a little Maura This kind of transparent blogging.

Here ya go:

Maura Rodgers

Free Willy, The Internet

2007-09-14T15:54:23-07:00

Information without a price barrier is essential for the operation of a democratic society. Publicly-funded dailies are one remnant of old-world media that I fully back as solving (partially) this problem.

As we start to rely on the internet, in a non-centralized manner (see NowPublic's coverage of the Boxing Day tsunami as an example of grassroots citizen journalism), it's fairly obvious that newsprint isn't going to keep up with the pace of our world.

How do we address this problem? Enter the geek-cool minds around the Bryght space, and we have affordable (for businesses) mesh networking being made publicly available all over Gastown for consumers (for free).

The magical devices powering this overnight transformation are from a company called Meraki. The secret sauce is in how easy they are to deploy; plug them in (or run powered ethernet), and they deploy. It took literally a minute for Outcome3 to get setup. This means that coffee shops, bars, and convienence stores now have a way of deploying low cost wifi without requiring an IT department. Score!

As an aside, they have a really cool pay-as-you go option that lets businesses charge for wifi access. It's great to see a packaged service-on-device that gets the needs of small business.

Afterwards, the devices all ping home with usage stats, maps, and other cool tools that make observing this new network being formed fun.

The implications extend beyond free net access for all. While Tor is one solution to anonymous surfing, by leveraging cloud-connectivity we can bring anonymity back to the online space.

Glad we can be a part of this little experiment. Special thanks to Boris Mann and Kris Krug for publicizing all of this. HUGE thanks to Mike West for importing a bunch of the devices.

Vancouver Barcamp 2007 Wrap-up

2007-08-21T00:45:58-07:00

Vancouver Barcamp 2007 went over without a hitch this year. With some last minute planning, we threw an impromptu keg and pizza party that was well attended. Thanks to everyone who came by!

Transparency and You(tube)

2007-08-03T16:52:03-07:00

Let's face it – everything we do is out there, somewhere. Our search histories are in corporate hands. Our Facebook profiles are at the very least scanned daily by our friends (likely some that we haven't seen since grade school!). Emails and blog posts are forever. We can't escape the reality that soon all of our behavior, good and bad, is out there for good.

There's an entire generation growing up now where access to these technologies is as unremarkable as having a conversation. Suddenly what used to be whispered is now posted.

As a result, MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook busts for offline behavior (ranging from drug stings to expulsions for underage drinking at prominent Universities) are obviously here to stay. It seems every MySpace page has a picture of a teen drinking. Every LiveJournal has someone talking about suicide. Companies exist purely to erase these online admissions to save future face. My response: why?

Lately, I've had conversations (or arguments) with people questioning the wisdom of hanging your dirty laundry out to air. Should we use the web as an anonymous shield, never placing our names next to our thoughts or actions? The fear is of future careers, affiliations, and relationships being wiped out by one thoughtless post.

If we want (and respect) corporations that admit to mistakes when they make them, how can we ask for anything else from each other? Honesty is powerful. I'm particularly proud of some things that I have done in my life, ashamed of others. Personally I can do without any group that would reject me for either. I'd rather they knew up front and saved us both the hassle.

Don't get me wrong. I use Facebook, MySpace, and Google to look into new hires. I use it for finding out more about pretty much everyone I meet. I think it's a great way to see into who someone is – and I want that view to be as authentic and honest as possible.

Every person has youthful indiscretions. And adult indiscretions. I have daily ones. As a society, I wish we'd have the maturity to accept these "mistakes" - and realize that we've all made them. How better than making them ubiquitous and permanent. Viva the tech revolution!

At the end of the day, we're all responsible for how much or little we share with each other. My hope is that sharing more, en masse, we'll create something amazing. I think it's an unfortunate scenario that young people could possibly be rejected or channeled in a certain direction based on the fact that they did things previous generations have done since time incarnate (albeit sans camera).

Take the case of political ambition. Should a teen who posted a picture to MySpace of doing jello shots at an underage party in 2007 be eliminated from running for office in 2037? I'd rather have a running tally of who this person really is. Inhale away – if you regret it later, just come out and say it – I'm sure there's a ton of people in 30 years who'll wholeheartedly understand. After all, every politician did the same things, only they're not quite ready to own up to them. I'm talking to you, Bill, Steven, and George.

Does this mean I'm about to post the video of me singing "Dancing Queen"? Nope. But I'd bet we'd all have a laugh if I didn't have to worry about being the only one admitting to having one. Or to the copious shooters it took to produce.

Fun with Blip.tv and Drupal

2007-05-22T17:29:48-07:00

One of the things keeping me busy periodically over the last few weeks has been integrating blip.tv with the embedded CCK video module. There's already a submitted patch for a basic version of the modules' output and blip.tv, but it ignores some of the best functionality that blip.tv has to offer (thumbnail generation and original file hosting).

I've been conspiring with Roland and the rest of the folks on Bryght on the best way to make this happen. One of the distinct advantages that blip.tv offers over its competitors is that they host your original media file, as well as generating a flash file for you to host on your page.
Having access to the original file has some really awesome advantages - original filesize + enclosures in rss = itunes feed. Want to push to feedburner? Include a link to the original file, and get an automatic videocast listing.
The big problem is getting this data out. Enter the blip.tv API.. a fantastic tool, but only fully defined in their wiki (the other references on the main site refer to a buggy import feature). They offer a wide variety of data formats for export (off the top of my head: RSS, OPML, Atom, JSON, and probably some others).
Now we hit the gotcha - out of the box, their RSS feed has enclosure, thumbnail, flash and original file info; their JSON format only has thumbnail and flash version. JSON is a lot more fun to play with within Drupal, so my biggest gripe is that they don't send the same information out in all the formats.
I'm just about done a hackish version of bliptv.inc, but it would be great to get a fully featured version (meaning I either have to restart with the RSS feed, resort to having the original file url/information entered by the user, or wait for them to upgrade).

I'll post the file as soon as we're done QA, and we've settled on using a custom solution for our particular client, but I hope that bliptv accepts my feedback and we can expand the base functionality.

Drupal Search - New Firefox Extension

2007-04-29T04:11:50-07:00

The biggest gripe my team has about the drupal APIs is that once you're inside a tree, you can't search easily. I've always wanted to try making my own Firefox extension - this seemed like an ideal starter project.

Initial specs were much larger; I built a section to let you add new Drupal sites to search on. We really wanted to get this out, so I removed those bits.

The result? You can quite easily search drupal.org, and all the trees of api.drupal.org . Not the most robust module, but it sure was fun to figure out how it all works. Most of the code was based on the Search Bar tutorial from borngeek.com.

Our next extension for release is much more ambitious. We've designed a UI for phptemplating theming xhtml/css pages within Firefox. Let me know if there are any features you think would be killer.

Download DrupalSearch here.

Drupal Module Review #6 - Panels

2007-04-28T21:49:02-07:00

Project Name:

Panels (http://drupal.org/project/panels)

Project Maintainer:

merlinofchaos

Module Description:

I was inspired by a client (Lee LeFever of CommonCraft) to give this module a shot. As a developer, the temptation is often to create something from scratch - Lee has done a great job in showing the power and flexibility that Drupal offers from administration alone. Commoncraft has a zeitgeist based on the Panels module that aggregates a bunch of web account feeds in one place (you can see it in action here). To familarize myself with this module, I'm going to try to copy what Lee has done (sorry Lee!)

The module installation is straight forward. Panels does not create a new content type, instead opting to add a new section under Site Building. Internet Explorer can have problems with the CSS styling of Panels pages. If your theme is having trouble in IE, a helpful fix is included in the README.TXT file for making sure that panels stack properly.

Because Panels are added and configured through their own handler, creating Panels pages could be confusing to end users. After selecting a layout, we're taken to a page that allows you to add content to the resulting page. On my installation, blocks, nodes, and views are all available for addition.

For demonstration purposes, I've created a panel "zeitgeist" for myself (available here: Vancouver Tech Guy's Zeitgeist). I inserted the "About Me" node to put all the streaming data in context. I added a tag cloud block to show which types of content I'm currently writing about. To round things out, I added a block containing code from wholinked.com. Total time was 4 minutes (most of which was finding the snippet from wholinked.com). Speedy.

A great module, Panels lets those without coding experience create very interesting pages. You can combine multiple nodes, show a bunch of views, or create a "zeitgeist" page filled with your favorite javascript snippets.

Drupal Module Review #5 - Scheduler

2007-04-26T00:36:12-07:00

Project Name:

Scheduler (http://drupal.org/project/scheduler)

Project Maintainer:

AjK

Module Description:

This is a fantastic module. Very lightweight, easy to install. After a normal install procedure, enable scheduling for the role types you want, and then simply go to every content type that you want to enable scheduling for. Have a promotional piece that you want up for 2 weeks and then unpublished? Want to be an uber blogger who posts regularly? This'll do 'er.

Woops! Added the proper URL

Drupal Module Review #4 - Technorati

2007-04-26T00:07:15-07:00

Project Name:

Technorati (http://drupal.org/project/technorati)

Project Maintainer:

kbahey

Module Description:

This is a really simple module that works pretty well. Technorati, a well known blog aggregator, can easily drive traffic to a modest size blog. This module integrates the Drupal tagging system with Technorati's tagging system, ensuring that posts get added to the right categories on technorati.com. The only confusing aspect of the configuration of the module is the options for tagging. The settings page lets you define which content types to turn Technorati tagging on, with two options: Drupal default or manual entry. Manual entry adds another form to the node creation page to set in custom tags (different than your internal posting taxonomy). This is useful if you have internal tags that you are posting to that might not make sense on an external site like Technorati (for instance, "About Me").

Once you've tagged your content, Technorati needs to be informed that it actually exists. This is accomplished through the cron hook - if you've turned on this module, and discover that you're not getting updated, make sure your site is running cron!

I think this is a great module - the vast number of services for blog promotion can be daunting, but this module makes it really easy to ensure that at least one service is finding your site correctly.

Back to business...

2007-04-24T05:54:29-07:00

Sorry about that folks. My posting schedule was hit hard by an exciting new project at Outcome3. Things should be back on track now.

It's also my pleasure to announce a new addition Outcome3, Alexa Booth. She brings much needed design talent to our team - we're very excited about working with her.

Drupal Module Review #3 - Digg This

2007-04-13T02:14:47-07:00

Project Name:

Digg this (http://drupal.org/project/diggthis)

Project Maintainer:

yaph

Module Description:

I'm the first to admit that I don't have a lot of geek cred. My flickr account is empty. I updated twitter... once. So it's with great reservation that I bring VTG right up to 2005. That's right: a digg count icon on every page. This is another simple, useful module. Load it up, check the admin settings, and enjoy a digg counter of your very own. Now if only I could remember my login so I could dig this page....

Drupal Module Review #2 - Clone Node Module

2007-04-11T02:05:44-07:00

Project Name:

Node Clone (http://drupal.org/project/node_clone)

Project Maintainer:

pwolanin

Module Description:

Now, I could create a new module (or use CCK) to create a template for these reviews. Instead, I can clone the original node, allowing me to keep all of the same publishing options (taxonomy tags, etc). Pretty nifty. Install is very straightforward, as is the configuration. The only possible changes are overriding the publishing options on node types, and in removing confirmation for cloning a node. Once the module is installed, on every created node you now have a tab marked "Clone". Cool!

Drupal Module Review #1 - Node As Block

2007-04-10T02:00:53-07:00

Project Name:

Node as Block (http://drupal.org/project/nodeasblock)

Project Maintainer:

mfredrickson

Module Description:

A nice, simple module to begin our reviewing adventures. Node as Block is a cool little idea to embed node contents in blocks on a site. The teaser of the node is displayed. The default action is to display the header as a link to the actual node body. Want a completely custom user registration form? Create a full node (with descriptions, etc), with a compact teaser with the necessary form elements. The user sees the registration form on all pages (you have the same control over block visibility as with normal blocks, so you can hide this block to logged in users). It doesn't get any simpler.

Module hints:

The documentation shipped with the module is fairly sparse, and its effects may not be obvious without looking at the code - a confusing situation for inexperienced users. The two significant changes are actually minor, and I'll walk you through them. Under content types administration, for each type of node there is now a checkbox titled Enable blocks from this node type. This checkbox is actually enabled by default, so your only concern is to uncheck all the node types you don't want to see made into blocks. The meat of the action handles during node creation. A new collapsible element on the node form is added titled Provide A Block. Click to expand this element if it isn't already visible. Select the region you want the new node-block creation to be in. You can modify the weight. Make sure to tick "Visible" if you want to actually see your new creation.

A New Vantech Guy Project (Hopefully)

2007-04-10T01:09:12-07:00

A local venerable technology evangelist inspired me by actively trying out every contributed module in the Drupal project. While this task is probably out of the reach of any individual user, I'd like to make the attempt. At present, I count over 250 individual modules ready for the 5.x platform. I'm starting the month of Drupal module reviews tonight. I will try one module that I have little or no experience with, write up a review on their functionality, point out any gotchas, and (hopefully) provide some insight into using them to their fullest.

Unlocking Hidden Value in Best Practices

2007-04-09T01:55:31-07:00

Best practices. For many, a four letter word followed by "change." Recently, best practices got full press with standard-compliant HTML and CSS webpages. Presto chango, a one click validator later, and best practices became the norm. Anyone trying to debug an AJAX widget can tell you, the best practices described by the W3C just works. Unfortunately, the same diligence is often ignored in areas outside of HTML, which is a big shame. Best practices evolve, and all areas of a business need to be actively assessing their own procedures for optimization. Best practices, from human resources to software development, need to be analyzed and implemented correctly. Partially adopting best practices in some areas while ignoring others can lead to the depreciation of whatever value was gained, or worse, an overall detriment to efficiency.
An example of this happening every day is a concept so beleaguered it can now be called mainstream: Agile development. For those outside of a development team, Agile development is the process of rapid prototyping and integration, without the formal project life-cycle typified by other project management methodologies. The benefits of this are immense; constant integration streamlines dependency and integration issues that are often underestimated, and result in a project timeline grinding to a halt. Rapid prototyping leads to problem-focused development. However, many times a project comes off the rails by ignoring best practices in favour of the rapid on nature of Agile development. This is a huge mistake.
Agile development, when used responsibly, can be an incredible boon to a team's productivity. To see this happen however, all of the best practices related to Agile development must be used. Rapid prototyping is excellent, but you have to follow it with frequent end user review (doubly important in an Agile project because more upfront formal sign-off may be ignored to get to the prototype). Every member of the team must understand why best practices are important to follow.
"How we do it here" is a common notion at a company. It's inevitable, and every company will have its own particular flavour. However, this is no excuse to deviate from the best practices established in particular fields. After-all, there's no cheaper way to get rid of kinks in process than to build on the distilled knowledge of other professionals in the same situation as you!

This best analogy (as always) comes to us from cars. Hooking up all sorts of improvements to a '92 Dodge Colt will never make it a showstopper. The same incremental improvements, when combined with a piece of great engineering, results in a Enzo Ferrari. Not to put down the mighty Colt, but I want every one of my projects to be of the "supercar" variety.