April 04th, 2008
I haven’t written here in a while, and I’m feeling pretty guilty about it. I’ve been focusing all my time on programming, and just haven’t been exploring “interesting” things as much as I usually do, so therefore not much to write about. Anyhow, that’s going to change. In the next little while I’ll be producing a few more video casts focused on CodeIgniter and ExpressionEngine. I’m going to start from the perspective of how I set things up, and then expand from there, hopefully spanning a few videos to finish everything off as I need to.
I’m also about a week away from getting to re-visit some of the core functionality of CodeIgniter. We want to reconsider paging, validation, and a few little things here and there. But that doesn’t mean we’ve been sitting still! Since the release of CodeIgniter 1.6.1, there have been 56 updates to the svn. 18 of them were documentation fixes - I often hear criticism along the lines of “I checked the CodeIgniter svn, but its mostly documentation fixes”; and while I know where this is coming from (as developers we want shiny new features), the documentation is among the biggest “features” of the framework. But there were also many important security fixes, enhancements and other nice-ities in there. Check it out (what a clever play on words).
Also, as of right now this second, nobody has been hired into the 2 positions available at EllisLab, and if you’ve been sitting on the fence, get your name in there.
Continue reading “Video-casts coming”. Posted in
CodeIgniter, Noteworthy with 2 comments 
April 01st, 2008
You know… I thought and thought about this one… and I just can’t think of anything even remotely funny that isn’t either (a) predictable and unoriginal; (b) seething with contempt.
ExpressionEngine 2.0 to be build in .NET
Um… nope, dumb.
DerekAllard.com bought by Google
Gee… I’m probably the first person to think of that idea!
I won’t be posting for the next 3 days because I’m hopped up on goof-balls
A little close to home now isn’t it?
So, I guess there won’t be any clever April Fools post here. Are these still funny? If you see a clever one, please post it in the comments!
Continue reading “April Fools post?”. Posted in
Noteworthy with 4 comments
March 19th, 2008
Exciting news, EllisLab is hiring 2 new technical positions. You can read more on the EllisLab jobs page, so I won’t rehash things here, but they are 2 great opportunities to get in with a cool company, working on exciting stuff, with a bunch of smart, interesting people.
If you’ve been thinking about it, and are interested in working with ExpressionEngine, CodeIgniter, and the amazing communities around each, we’d love to hear from you.
Continue reading “Want to work on at EllisLab?”. Posted in
CodeIgniter, ExpressionEngine with no comments
March 14th, 2008
There’s been much discussion about ExpressionEngine 2.0, and a big part of the excitement is the new CodeIgniter base. I’ve written a bog entry at EllisLab entitled ExpressionEngine 2.0: fully CodeIgnited! that deals with some of the implication of this great news.
I’m closing comments on this thread, but if you’d like to comment, please comment on the blog post itself.
Its a great time to be a nerd!
Continue reading “ExpressionEngine 2.0: fully CodeIgnited!”. Posted in
CodeIgniter, ExpressionEngine with no comments
March 13th, 2008
Strangest thing I’ve read in a week. Could someone tell Yahoo I’m very happily married?
Note: I think this is cute, and a humourous diversion, nothing to get ancy about…
Continue reading “What the heck!?! Psychics DO know everything!”. Posted in
Personal with 6 comments
March 10th, 2008
Three weeks of late nights, (and about 5 days of being extraordinarily ill) have started catching up with me. Catching up with all of us actually. Saturday night was a blast, but it also meant hardly any sleep again ;)
We sponsored a brunch Sunday morning, lots of great casual interaction again, this time without loud music and beer (I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing). In fact, a number of good ideas came out of it, and even though the coffee tasted like burned sawdust, it was worth it just for that.
I had a chance to hit the big trade show. In general, it was a disappointment. A new company tried to sell us on their “mashup” social site… Paul and I sat through about 2 minutes and then excused ourselves, and Paul membled “moblog module” as we were walking away. Yup, EE does everything they were bragging about out of the box. <sarcasim>OHhhhhh…. I can post blog entries from my cell phone. Dude, you just blew my mind</sarcasim>
Also had an odd experience at the booth for the Opera web browser. They had these big posters advertising their “next big thing” called “Dragonfly”. I asked the guy attending the booth what it was, and he said he couldn’t tell me. WTF! The entire point of their display seemed to be to advertise a product that they “couldn’t talk about”. I repeat. WTF. It would be one thing if I asked him, so what’s the next big thing you’re working on? It’s entirely different for him to come to me and do that.
While I’m venting… allow me to indulge for another moment. There was a booth there advertising their new web-framework. Since I’m kinda involved in a round about way (sorta) with a web framework myself, I thought I’d see what they were about. So I asked the guy “so what’s this all about”. The conversation pretty much went like this (note the pattern, I ask a question he gives an answer that doesn’t make sense, or doesn’t make sense without a lot more context):
- ”We’re a web framework that runs on javascript”
- ”oh, so you’re a client side framework?”
- ”No, you need our server.”
- ”So are you a hosted service then?”
- ”No, we run on your server. We’re a web framework that runs on javascript”
- ”So you’re an Apache module?”
- ”We’re built in Java so we work anywhere. You write pages in javascript and we interpret it for you.”
- ”How do I get your interpreter onto my server?”
- ”oh, you’ll need our server.”
- ”Uh huh, how do I get your interpreter onto my server? FTP?”
- ”No, you need our server installed”
- ”OK… buh-bye.”
- ”Want a tshirt!”
Jeez, go sell crazy somewhere else.
The night was spent enjoying some ultra nerding out over a great dinner (Derek and Paul ordered some very fine… very costly, but very fine… wine), and then retired to my room for some fine ale generously sent to us from Steven Hambleton of Hambo Design, and a nice bottle of wine sent from Lee Tengum of Made by Fresh. Thank you both so very much!
I’m returning to Toronto with a renewed sense of excitement and energy and the possibilities before us, and the communities beside us.
Continue reading “South by Southwest 2008 : Day Three”. Posted in
ExpressionEngine, Noteworthy with 5 comments
March 09th, 2008
Last night was a bit of a late night for us, as we polished our message a bit, and tried to make sure we were delivering everything as consistently in real-life as we were in our heads.
We gave the same session three times, which was the presentation of ExpressionEngine 2.0. The big news of the day in my mind, is that ExpressionEngine is now built on CodeIgniter. The implications here, whether you are a CodeIgntier-er, or an ExpressionEngine-er are substantial, and I will write a bit more about these in the upcoming weeks, but sufficed to say that this is very good news for everyone involved; EllisLab, and end-users.
The big “wow” moment, was Derek Jones demo-ing our new control panel. It was inspiring to see the general reaction of the crowd. Frankly, it kicks ass (as I said in my slide-show ;) )
By the afternoon, I was wiped. A single large coffee and a cinnamon bun does not a meal make. Nevin and Neal brought a great lunch around for us at 2:30 (thanks guys!) and I got significantly “picked up” for our afternoon question and answer session. The session was incredible, with many people sharing their stories of how they use ExpressionEngine, and how they use CodeIgniter. Its nice to get perspective from time to time, the tools I help built impact people in a very real way. Very rewarding!
After that, party at the Moonshine grill. Tshirts, booze, music, friends. Is there anything else needed for a great evening? It was a huge success, and I had the opportunity to hang and chat with lots of CodeIgniter and ExpressionEngine users (and now, they are sort of “one and the same” aren’t they).
One of the things that’s really struck me over the past 2 days is how passionate our users are. Interested and involved, and overwhelmingly supportive and positive. Its fantastic getting to put faces to names (and forum names), and I’m glad people had the opportunity to chat with me directly.
One of the things you’ll notice about all of the EllisLab folks is how accessible they really are. When else do you get to walk up to the vice-president and ask him about how the company works? When else do you get to chat with the CTO over a beer? When else do you get to ask the founder of the company what type of motorcycle he rides? A great environment, and a great time.
And the night kept giving! Michell (Solspace) a prolific ExpressionEngine contributor hosted a nightcap, and treated me a few nightcaps.
Day 3 is much less packed, and I’m looking forward to relaxing and nerding out a bit.
Continue reading “South by Southwest 2008 : Day Two”. Posted in
ExpressionEngine, Noteworthy with 4 comments
March 08th, 2008
There’s been a lot of speculation over what our big secret was, and what EE 2.0 would look like.
I’ve very proud to announce that ExpressionEngine is now built on CodeIgniter, and each is able to share resources with the other. You an ExpressionEngine developer? This represents an instant expansion of EE’s capabilities. Faster, easier, more modular code, with a huge number of libraries and functions. You a CodeIgniter user? How about instantly being able to drop ExpressionEngine on top of your codebase, and have fully accessed, fully shared information between each. Instant forums, instant wiki, instant EE - on your existing code… now. Its VERY exciting.
We’re still in development, but I wanted to take a moment to post some “official” screen captures of our new Control Panel. Now I want to make it very clear that this is a work in progress. While things are largely “in play”, its entirely possible that it will undergo so minor, or major, changes between now and release. Oh, and on the topic of release, we haven’t announced a date, and truthfully, I don’t know. We’re working our asses off, and we’ll get it out as soon as we possibly can.
I will write more about the development, and post more information when I find a bit of time. Read the full entry to see the images.
Continue reading “ExpressionEngine 2.0 “official” screenshots”. Posted in
ExpressionEngine with 47 comments
March 08th, 2008
Preamble: Since I had my laptop in front of me all day, I decided on a stream-of-consciousness post. If you’re looking for juicy CodeIgniter or EE news and not interested in my comings and goings then I’d advise you to skip today and read tomorrow. ;)
5:31am
Getting to Austin was much nicer this year. Specifically, customs was much nicer. In fact, it was downright uneventful. I got to the gate uneventfully, and opened up lappy and started hacking away on EE for the demo. A little voice in the back of my head was telling me that its dumb to do that at 5:30am without a full cup of coffee in me… but there’s always work to be done. Duty calls!
7:33am
The little girl beside me has an unhealthy fascination with the glowing apple on my black laptop, demanding that the people around us look at, (at about 260 decibels). All she manages to say to me is “the soap is sticky”. Strange kid.
Keep reading for the full story!
Continue reading “South by Southwest 2008 : Day One”. Posted in
CodeIgniter, ExpressionEngine, Noteworthy with 5 comments
March 06th, 2008
Yes the web is awash with news of Internet Explorer 8. We’re like lemmings that way, it seems like every blog I read (116 says Google Reader) has some news of IE 8. Given the mad dash to the finish line for South by Southwest, I haven’t bothered to download or play yet, but I guess I’ll have to.
For me, the big news is that Internet Explorer 8 will have Firebug. Well, not technically firebug, but pretty much an exact clone. If you visit Microsoft Developer Tools and download their PDF, you’ll see that IE 8 will ship with a near exact clone of Firebug - which is great news if you’re trying to really push IE. I’m also happy that its being produced by the IE team, and not by a third party developer. The reason I’m happy is not because a third party dev couldn’t do an outstanding job (again, hat tip to Firebug), but because so much of the internals of IE is undocumented and secret, that I think the only people who could successfully implement this is the IE team.
If you look carefully, they actually got some really, really nice things in IE 8. For example, window.location.hash. This allows you to use javascript to redirect the user, but the page gets added to the cache and history. This allows the back button to work normally with “Ajax-ed” paged. Nice! There’s also a series of DOM-compliance bugs in there, and while it’ll mean little to me as jQuery shields me from the day to day trivia of that, it’ll mean a huge deal to jQuery itself (and other javascript libraries) and I bet we can expect a nice bump in speed due to native support for things that normally needed to be reconstructed (I’m looking at you CSS selectors and getAttribute/setAttribute).
The good folks over at Digital Web Magazine have more news in IE8 Beta 1 released!, including links to Jonathan Snook‘s smoketests. I’d like to extend my gratitude to the IE development team for its frank and open communication, particularly via the IE blog. While I’ve not dealt with them directly, all accounts are that they’re listening to the geeks.
Continue reading “Internet Explorer 8 will have Firebug”. Posted in
Browsers with 2 comments
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