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“You gotta get up to get down” - Name that tune

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..

What a bad… bad… bad song!

I hereby pledge that ExpressionEngine 2 will not be released until I have an answer for this.  Jones, Ellis, Camacho… you guys listening!

EllisLab Developer Summit 2008

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 excellent 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.

Derek Allard, “Master” of Education

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”.

I’m channeling Vanilla Ice to build ExpressionEngine 2

May 22nd, 2008

As proof that my eyes are going bleary and that I'm working really hard on ExpressionEngine 2, I present this little gem. Sometime near the end of yesterday, I started to lose my mind. I had been coding for nearly 2 days straight, and had hit setback after setback (I have very little to show for those 2 days unfortunately). An interesting thing happens to me when I'm stressed and tired and frustrated... my mind wanders. It wanders far. In this case, back to 90s rap (keep reading, I swear I'm going somewhere with this). So I did the only logical thing, I decided to drag Derek Jones into the gutter with me and hit him up over IM. He was having a frustrating moment of his own. I was eager to offer a solution:

Me - I have a solution. extend the magic class...
Jones - ::slaps head:: I forgot about it, as per usual.
Me - here's some code

$this->magic->2_legit_2_quit('hey hey');

Jones - you didn't...

And it goes downhill from here...

New look for EllisLab.com, and the GREATEST about us page of all time

May 20th, 2008

EllisLab.com got a bit of an over-hauling yesterday by Rick.  The new site is much more spacious and clean, and well… sexier.  Now normally a site redesign would be a one line entry, or possibly no entry at all, but this new site brings something very, very cool with it.  It features what I consider (without overstatement) to be the greatest company profile pages of all time. Each of the EllisLab staff have been masterfully illustrated as a super hero.  The results are positively stunning.

Keep reading to see them.

Stupid pet tricks

May 06th, 2008

Ever get so wrapped up in your work that you forgot to eat?  I found an alternate source of sustenance.  My cat.

Mr. Grumpy Pants

April 30th, 2008

  • Rickrolling is funny when its unexpected. If every freakin' link you send me is a link to youtube I'm going to stop thinking its funny I stopped thinking it was funny after the second time you did it.
  • "It doesn't work" is not a valid request for help.
  • Having the solution in front of you, and then rebuilding it is much easier then building something from scratch. When you see a new feature or change in your favourite software, try not to look at the result and think to yourself "that was easy". Definitely don't contact the author of said change and tell him it was easy. That's just "bad form"©.
  • Would somebody from Rogers please come clean and admit that the real reason they want me to switch to e-billing has absolutely nothing to do with the environment? Over the years I've requested (in writing) they stop sending me so much crap many times. How many companies tell us to "consume more because its good for the environment"? Blah.
  • In the vein of real environmentally conscious companies, let me just say that I've been thrilled with Bullfrog Power since the first day I contacted them. If you're in Ontario or Alberta, switch now - you'll be glad you did.
  • Telling someone who's trying to help you with something that they are "selfish" because they won't log into your server and do your work for you is dumb.
  • Webhosts who tell their customers that they've been "hacked" but offer no explanation, evidence, or logs are irresponsible bordering on criminal. Get yourself a real webhost if you've heard this before.

:: deep sigh of relief ::

I feel better now... ;)

What the heck!?!  Psychics DO know everything!

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…

Is it possible to drink too much coffee when programming?

February 26th, 2008

Is it possible to drink too much coffee when programming? My heart tell me no, but the rest of my body twitches disapprovingly.

Next question - beer.

There’s a special seat in Rock and Roll heaven for Tom Petty

February 04th, 2008

This post will constitute the extent to which I’ll talk about the Superbowl (which surprisingly, turned out to be a great game).  Tom Petty is the Man.  Period.  There’s a special seat reserved in Rock and Roll heaven for guys like Tom Petty and Neil Young.

Don’t worry, Elvis is up in Rock and Roll heaven too… someone has to fetch Jimi Hendrix drinks…

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Derek Allard

I'm Derek Allard, a programmer, author, and award-winning instructor. I'm also a Technology Architect at EllisLab, and the programmer behind BambooInvoice, a simple, Open Source, web-based invoicing application. [ more about Derek ]

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