November 05th, 2009
Last week my good friends over at EE_Insider focused on the imminent release of EE 2.0. If you haven’t read it yet, go read it now. They feature articles, interviews, and news, and always with a bit of humour (yes Kenny…. there’s a “u” in that word). They asked me for an interview, but after EECI2009 my wife and I took a few more days to tour around Holland… and l long story short… the interview only got finished right now :)
Go read EE 2 Week Straggler: The Return of Derek Allard! (Interview) for my thoughts on the future of CodeIgniter, the development of EE 2.0, and what it means to unite CodeIgniter and ExpressionEngine.
We had sent out a set of interview questions that we weren’t sure we would receive for ExpressionEngine 2 Week. Derek Allard, one of EllisLab’s developers, was on vacation. Since he’d been slaving away for years on EE 2, we gave him a free pass. But Derek is what the kids call a “trooper” and he came back to us this week with the answers! It turned out to be a really great interview, timely due to the discussion and popularity of CodeIgniter and EE, and we got permission from the ‘Lab to post it. So, EE denizens, it’s my pleasure to give you our interview with the great Derek Allard
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CodeIgniter, ExpressionEngine, Personal with no comments 
October 23rd, 2009
The last night of EECI2009 is coming to an end. What an amazing time I’ve had. I’ve been under a fair amount of stress prepping for it, getting my speech ready, and getting ExpressionEngine 2 ready for release on December 1(!!). But it was all worth it!
Our fearless President Leslie Camacho gave an amazing speech. As he said, the cone of silence has been lifted! Highlights? Pricing details, licensing details and a release date! Exciting times. Punchline? Non-commercial License, $149. Commercial License,$299. Upgrade, $50. Coming (as stated) December 1.
I also had the opportunity to speak. “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants : How Community Shapes Development in EllisLab” went very well. It was recorded, and I’ll share the video here when its made available. In the meantime, here are my slides. I’ll be out of commission for about a week, but when I find more time I’ll post another blog entry summarizing and complementing the presentation for anyone who couldn’t be there.
Edit: the video is now available. EECI2009 Videos and Slides page, or directly on Vimeo.
I met an amazing group of folks, and this time I had a chance to hang out with some real superstars of the community. Everyone is just as awesome as you might think.
The city that hosted us, Leiden, is of course stunning; and our hosts from Whooz! WebMedia (particularly the eminent Robert Eerhart) made us feel welcome and wanted.
And now, I’m off to enjoy a (frankly, well deserved) few days of R & R with my beautiful wife storming around Europe!
Continue reading “EECI2009 all wrapped up, EE2 details announced”. Posted in
ExpressionEngine, Personal with 10 comments
September 23rd, 2009
In a late-night bout of work, boredom and tiredness crept in. In that magical moment, this seemed incredibly funny. I wish now we’d thought to hashtag it first.
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Personal with 2 comments
December 12th, 2008
Who can this invader be?
Has the spaceship been repaired?
Is it true that they’ve made it out of the fields?
Have they really fought their way into our cities?
How many of them are there?
Can anything stop them?
Can DerekAllard.com survive…
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November 10th, 2008
Thank you for your brave and selfless sacrifice. It means more to me, Canada and the world then we usually say.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— Lt.-Col. John McCrae
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October 03rd, 2008
This is clearly one of the posts I write that belong in the “personal” category (where it is). If you’re looking for nerdly goodness and don’t give a flying-fadoo about my personal life (and honestly, who really does?) then feel free to skip this post and just hang tight watching the RSS feeds for my next post on “liberating” wireless from pretty much any airport in North America. If you want to know what I’ve been up to for a week, well then, by all means keep reading!
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August 15th, 2008
So, its undoubtedly the long nights of coding, and repeated triangle chokes I’ve been enduring, but I’ve had this 80’s song in my head and I can’t get it out. I don’t know the name of the song, or the artist, and I now consider it my personal mission to figure it out. This song is my white whale. Its a poorly rapped song, and between every verse is some dude in the background singing “you got to get up to get down… you got to get up to get down…”
I know that’s not much to go on… but if you’re a child of the 80s, it should be enough. Now I know all you whipper-snappers won’t know it, so if you want to participate, but don’t know the song, then just tell me what song was your white whale. Sharing in my misery will make me feel better ;)
Please, I beg you. If you know this song, throw me a lifeline! If you’ve never commented on a blog ever before in your life, make this a first.
Things are getting scary. A video search for “gotta get up to get down” brought me
this video, which is probably the single most scary thing I’ve ever watched. And yeah… I’m ashamed to say that I did watch nearly all of it. Its like a car accident… you know you shouldn’t look but you can’t avert your eyes..
I hereby pledge that ExpressionEngine 2 will not be released until I have an answer for this. Jones, Ellis, Camacho… you guys listening!
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June 17th, 2008
Time for a little self imposed isolation. For the next 2 weeks, I’m living, breathing, and dreaming ExpressionEngine as me and Derek Jones have left the comfy confines of our homes to drop into the quiet little town of Portland for some serious “think time”. Over the next 14 days I’ll be considerably less active then usual, as I try to put all my energy into developing. Most of the crew live in and around Portland, so I’ll get the opportunity to finally meet our new Code Mechanic Jesse Hurlburt face to face, bring Lisa a big plaque picture of all of us as our superhero selves, and get beaten up by Rick (that’s what you get for working for a bjj expert). Good times.
I’ll try to post images and updates as I go, but I didn’t bring a camera, so I’ll be relying on the charity of strangers, and my macbook’s built in camera.
Continue reading “EllisLab Developer Summit 2008”. Posted in
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June 02nd, 2008
I’ve been pursuing my Master’s of Education part-time since 2003. I took a year and a bit off in the middle of there somewhere, but other then that, I’ve been pretty steadily marching towards it for 5 years. In April I finally finished off the last of my course requirements, and last week I got the official paperwork; I’ve finally finished off the degree. Huzzah! I’m now legally allowed to call myself a “Master”, um… not that I ever would. Oh no wait, I would.
I’ve considered sharing my final thesis with the world but I’ve decided against it. Frankly, its been under enough scrutiny and the truth is that I just don’t want to think about it anymore. It’s basically a theory on how to teach highly technical concepts to a largely untechnical audience. Sort of a theoretical backdrop to the teaching I do. It may undergo a few changes and get resurrected yet. We’ll see.
So would I recommend the process to anyone else? In a word, “maybe”.
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Education, Personal with 20 comments
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