I have been developing web / enterprise software for 15+ years professionally. Starting with ASP / VBScript, JAVA and J2EE, and for the last 8 years, mostly Microsoft .NET c#. The first 6 months of this year, I have been tinkering with various open source platforms and ideologies at night and during my commute to work. The software world has changed in the last 5 years drastically. I like what I have learned.

I started with the tried and true PHP / MySql. Starting first with no framework, and then tinkering with various frameworks. For me, PHP was a quick learn. It reminded me heavily of the ASP world. However, I was amazed with how the PHP platform had changed since I last used it many years ago. Object Orientation has come along way. I was able to build a bicycle library using objects. unit testing has come along way. There are many PHP frameworks, I investigated at least 3. Continuous integration is pretty amazing in PHP now. This really opened my eyes. Why do we pay Microsoft for MSDN and Team System and Sql Server. For large teams, this gets expensive. I started breaking down the stack, and learning all the technologies and there were tons!  Its a huge world of options, like the wine world.  I built a simple web blog with each tool I tried: Blog has Many Posts. A Post has Many Comments. A Post has many Tags. Tags belong to many Posts.

• Web Server:
  • Apache
  • nginix
• Back End: MySql
• Frameworks:
  • CakePHP
  • Zend Framework
  • Symfony
  • CodeIgniter
• ORM tools:
  • Propel
  • Doctrine
• Unit Testing: PHPUnit
• Continuous Integration: phpUnderControl

With PHP there was lots of promise!  Continuing my 2010 quest to open my eyes, I looked at Ruby. I again built my Bicycle library to learn the basics. I really liked Ruby.  I saw lots of promise in the interpreted language, and being able to run it inside of Java.  I liked some of the language constructs.  I liked that it was OO based.  I liked that it had much more consistency than PHP has after years of churn.  Active Record was amazing to me as a built in ORM Framework in Rails.  I spent allot of time learning the basics of the language. I broke down the web stack here too:

• Web Server:
  • Apache
  • nginix
  • http://rubyonrails.org/deploy
• Back End: MySql
• Frameworks:
  • Ruby on Rails
• ORM tools: Active Record
• Unit Testing:
• Continuous Integration:
  • curisecontrol.rb
  • Team City
  • Long List

Amazing again! Lots of options.

Continuing on, I then started talking to a few people about Python. Built my Bicycle object model again. Probably the fastest for me to pick up. Unit testing was great. I really digged it, except for one thing. After 8 years of complex .NET c# OO, I have really begun to like getters and setters and various OO principles for encapsulation. Python trusts that you are good and will do good, you can see every member. It does do some mangling. I liked that term! I tried the frameworks: pylons and django.

So, after 8 months of off and on tinkering, when work and family allowed, its time to do something. I think I will start out with this Web Stack (plus mobile interfaces) and see where it takes me.  I really liked Ruby over Python, can't put my finger on it, but going with it for now. 

Don't get me wrong, I am still a Microsoft .NET c# fan, as it works and it scales!  But I am very curious to learn some new stuff in this changing software world.  

• Document Database: MongoDb
• Ruby on Rails
• Postgres
• Netbeans
• ubuntu server / desktop
• Mac OSx

Next post, the idea for first project.

Are you sick of having to download many players? Many sites like youtube utilize FLASH. I wanted to figure this out for my own site. I have gone the Semi-Free way, which always takes some time… Here are the steps. You will need three pieces of software, that are open source. Start downloading them from the various sites: 1. 7Zip compression software a. A new high compression software to replace zip b. Download this and install it c. 7-Zip Compression 2. FFMPEG – Converts your video file to FLV a. Flash video is the key to the player problem, as it’s installed on 99% of browsers! b. You can read about it here: ffMpeg Converter c. Its very geeky, but ill make it a little easier with a simple Batch file d. Download the file here: FFmPeg download i. Grab the one with the most recent Date e. Unzip it with the 7Zip software above 3. A Web Player – JW FLV Player a. It’s a player that’s free for personal sites and cheap for commercial b. It’s very extensible c. FLV Media Player Download

Lessons learned, and tips for learning to KiteBoard. Buy a trainer kite, and go to the park / beach: First, buy a trainer kite, and get very good at flying it. If you can’t keep it up in the air for an hour, how are you going to stay out on the water for an hour, with a bigger, stronger kite, a board, current and swell? Practice diving the kite from the zenith (neutral), and signing it to 6 o’clock and back up to the top. Work on one side, then the other. Also try to fly the kite toward the “Edge of the wind window”, and hold it there very long without dropping it out of the sky. Very hard to do with a trainer kite, but this is how you launch and land a big kite. And the people who are helping you probably appreciate it if you have good kite control.

Alissa, Danny, and Geoffrey skiing Flatstar (Northstar) Backside in deep and getting deeper snow.

Alissa and I just got back from Costa Rica. What a wonderful country. We were able to do lots of nature hikes. It is a pretty diverse place; we were in rain forest, cloud forest, and beach side forest. All of the places were very exciting and interesting, although it is getting quite touristy. I would highly recommend it for the adventurous couples and families. Kids really like seeing all of the animals, especially the monkeys in Manuel Antonio.

My wife and mother in law said I should begin blogging. I don’t know what they are thinking. Most of my family, friends and co-workers know I am the worst at grammar and spelling. My English teacher would laugh at the thought. Well, ill give it a go, as I do have a bit of insomnia. I should start writing down some of these thoughts. To cut to the chase, what is this blog about? It will be about the Northern California Experience: Work (c# coding), Wine, Adventure, and Travel. Ill post all of our weekend getaways and links to information about the areas. If anything, it will be a diary our kids and family can read.