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Go Midwest, Young Man!

May 14, 2008 – 5:01 pm

Reminiscent of this time almost two years ago, it’s been a busy period so far. I’ve been working on another book, entitled Professional JavaScript Frameworks, and have changed jobs twice since leaving Yahoo! in early April.

I think I’m done bouncing around now, though: As you may or may not already know, I’ve started working for the Mozilla Corporation—I’ve got a username and everything! I’m a little overwhelmed at the moment by changes and drinking from a new firehose, so my enthusiasm may not yet be readily apparent. But, remember that I’m a complete web geek—and it’s hard to get closer to web geekery than this.

But, one of the nicest things about this new Mozilla gig is that I’m going to start telecommuting. And the reason that’s nice is because—and here’s the next big thing—my wife and I have bought a beautiful house in Livonia, Michigan, and we’re moving back to the Midwest in a month and some change.

Why? Because, after almost two years out here in the valley, we’ve discovered that being away from family and old friends while trying to make new friends and adjust to a very different locale was a lot harder than first imagined. And, well, it would’ve been much longer than we’d've liked before we could have afforded a house at all—let alone something anything like what we’ll be enjoying back in Michigan.

The thing is, though, I’ve still got a lot of love for the Bay Area and its goings on—I’ve been pining for this place since at least the age of eight, after all. And, we have made a few good friends out here, despite the difficulties we’ve experienced.

So luckily, this Mozilla gig looks like the ideal thing. I’m hoping it will ensure regular return visits to enjoy SuperHappyDevHouses, the scent of star jasmine in the summer, and amazing cloudless skies lasting for days.

But, on the other hand—although I’m certainly not relishing the thought of readjusting to cold, clouds, and snow in a few months—I’m getting excited about the prospects of being back in southeastern Michigan. Our house will be pretty close to both Ann Arbor and Detroit, and it seems like some interesting things have started warming up since we left. Also, I suspect (and hope) we’ll discover a lot of friends and like-minded associates in short order upon our return.

Lots of change. Very busy. Not a little exciting. But, I’m hopeful that things are going to get a lot better very soon.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in entries | Comments (7)

In retrospect

April 26, 2008 – 1:52 pm

When I first created this blog back in February 2002, I was talking to myself and I knew it. But, that didn’t really matter: Since becoming newly digital in 1983, I’d already spent years plugging away at personal projects big and small, frequently abandoned, talking to myself all the time anyway.

So, blogging, I thought, would give me a real or imagined motivation to finish some projects. The difference between writing a blog and working alone in the basement, is that there’s a chance someone outside my physical neighborhood might catch a few mutterings and knock on my door to have a chat—rather than just walking a little faster and avoiding my house in the future, like the local neighbors usually do when I find myself really going off on a tear.

Thus if someone, somewhere showed interest in things I was doing and describing—then maybe I might just stick with one or two of them long enough to declare a version worthy of a freshmeat.net release. (It’s been awhile, but that used to be my gold standard for Real Software.)

However, I’ve realized that occasional visitors won’t magically help me finish software. I’ve come to accept that I’m far too much a serial enthusiast to release much at v1.0 without a paycheck or some other substantial incentive. But that’s okay, because tinkering with unfinished software still seems to attract occasional visitors. And, where there are visitors, there are contacts and conversations. And, where there are contacts and conversations, there’s learning and fulfillment—two of my favorite things.

Apropos of conversations, though, I’ve gone habitually quiet in the past few years. I’ve gone from claiming that hacking is my World of Warcraft to just getting sucked into WoW proper. It’s gotten to the point that I’ve wondered what I ever talked about here. Yeah, I’ve written this kind of entry many times before—but I don’t feel it’s gotten better.

I’m really out of the flow here, but I don’t think giving it up is the right thing to do. I’ve been doing some retrospection (in volumes one and two), and have been reviewing what I’ve done here. I’m getting some ideas, and hoping I can get myself back into acting on them.

It might be a little while before I produce anything on a regular basis, because I’m currently working on a third book, entitled Professional JavaScript Frameworks. And, on top of that, I’ve got a bit of a transition going on in my life right now.

But, waking things up here is something I’d like to make part of that transition.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in entries | Comments (1)

Greatest Hits Vol. 2, the Babble Bits

April 26, 2008 – 1:21 pm

Following right on the heels of Greatest Hits Vol. 1 is another volume, this time including the entries that were more made of babble or ramble and not so much with code. Again I welcome additions, comments, criticisms, and complaints.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in entries | Comments (1)

Greatest Hits Vol. 1, the Tinkery Bits

April 26, 2008 – 12:53 pm

As you may have noticed, I’ve been shaking things up around here a little. Sorry for turbulence in the feeds! I’ve moved to a new server, and I’ve been trying out Movable Type again, but with mixed luck.

Why? Because I’ve been using WordPress for a few years, and I felt like a change. Maybe in another few months I’ll convert over to Blosxom again, or try ExpressionEngine for the first time. Now, if only I could get all the timestamps right so some of my late-night posts don’t have broken permalinks due to day changes. Maybe I’ll end up just sticking with WordPress after all.

But anyway, I’m also having another bout of periodic existential doubt about what I’m doing here with a blog. So, in navel-gaze mode, I spent time a few nights ago skimming and reading through all 1000 or so entries I’ve written here. I do this periodically with the scores of paper journals I’ve accumulated to recenter and reconnect with myself, but I’ve never done it here.

So, for my own reference more than anything, here’s 0xDECAFBAD Greatest Hits Vol 1, the Tinkery Bits.

It may be presumptuous to ask, but if anyone actually reads through this list and thinks of something worth surfacing that I missed—by all means, let me know. I’m trying to remind myself what I started this thing for.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in entries | Comments (2)

amazing visitors

February 1, 2008 – 12:56 am

And I’m amazed that people seem to still visit this blog, despite the near-complete inactivity. That reminds me, I really should do something with that MyBlogLog API sometime — I’m totally digging what Kent Brewster is doing with it.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in asides | Comments (1)

Metablogging

February 1, 2008 – 12:30 am

Back in November, I built decafbad recaffeinated using Tinderbox. Through it, I wanted to finally get my head around playing with the web publishing features of Tinderbox — and I hoped that after the Yak Shaving, I would enjoy the results enough to be motivated to continue pushing out small particles of thought. That worked for awhile. Thanks to my serial enthusiasm, though, the shine wore off after a month or two and my output has since dwindled. The interface is pretty cool, but there are just enough clunky bits to make me think twice about starting up the app.

In December, I built 0xDECAFBAD accumulator in an attempt to automatically capture and accumulate in one spot all the stuff I leave behind on 15 services or so across the net. A month later, it’s still running. It’s filled with crap day after day. It’s all my crap, and I’m glad to have my crap all in one pile, but it’s very noisy.

Between recaffeination and accumulation, I think I’m bracketing the same issues. On one side, I’ve got John Henry hammering down the microcontent spikes, and on the other I’ve got the machine cronjobbing away. What I really want is something a bit in between: Maybe a crap pile for myself and an easy manual selection method that I’ll remember to use habitually for editorial control. It’s all really just attempts to try to reconstitute the diffuse spew that used to be more or less concentrated into one spot.

Twitter sucked the blogging out of Molly, but I was already well down that path long before I think Twitter was a glimmer in Obvious eyes.

Apropos of that, here I am back at my traditional blog. The blog where I’ve been hoping to get myself writing again. Maybe I’ll swing back this way and not make this the last post for another few months. I’ve certainly got lots in my head, and there’s certainly been lots going on worth thinking about out loud — but I’ve also got plenty I shouldn’t or couldn’t actually babble about in mixed company.

So, what to expect from me, then? Eh, who knows. This might be the last post here for another few months.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (7)

Comments fixed

January 28, 2008 – 1:58 pm

Oh, hey. Nothing like putting out a request for comments and then learning that my comments are broken, and have been since I upgraded to WordPress from SVN.

Not that it’s the fault of WordPress - I renamed my comment form on the filesystem and in my theme to obscure it from spambots, but then blew away the renamed PHP file with the SVN upgrade. Blah.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in asides | Comments (4)

Next serial enthusiasm?

January 28, 2008 – 1:47 am

Update: Yeah - I sent out a request for comments after breaking my comments. Ugh. Thanks if you tried commenting, and I hope you might try again. If not, thanks for stopping by anyway!

So, I’ve been basically hacking on nothing after work for quite some time now. I’ve had a few false starts, but have been finding it hard to get motivated to move on anything. There are a few things I’ve started, though, which might be worth returning to and finishing. If I were to do that - or start something new - which of these do you think might be worth my time?

  • FeedMagick2 - web command-line toolkit for munging and filtering feeds, written in PHP 5
  • XoxoOutliner - a browser-based outliner with a REST API, written in PHP 5
  • Learn Django or Pylons, do social networky stuff and explore OpenID and OAuth?
  • Explore CodeIgniter or Kohana further, do social networky stuff that can ideally be installed alongside WordPress and PHP 5?
  • Something else? OpenSocial? Keep hacking on my Centro’s Blazer browser and do something silly and Web 2.0?
  • Level my troll to 70 and work on getting sweet PvP gear?
By l.m.orchard | Posted in asides | Comments (6)

Got me a Centro

January 3, 2008 – 3:37 pm

So after taking a lazy look at a variety of smartphones and whatnot for my next upgrade, I figured that I just couldn’t beat this cheap Centro, and so far I’ve not been disappointed.

That’s partially because it’s cheap, and partially because Palms and Handsprings have been my main mobile platform for almost a decade now. Seeing as my last one was a Treo 600, this thing is a big upgrade.

Now, let’s see how well this blog-by-email thing works.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

An Accumulator for all my stuff

December 25, 2007 – 12:25 am

No one’s really noticed, but I’ve changed email providers about a dozen times in the past decade. And, that’s because my email address hasn’t changed — thanks very much to the wonderful and awesome Pobox.com.

Likewise, I’ve hopped from platform to platform in blogging and writing and generally emitting memelets from my brain. In contrast to Pobox.com though, anyone who could be bothered to follow me would have had to keep track of every new feed and site which happened to strike my fancy. Knowing myself, I don’t expect that my wandering ways to change — so the number of feeds in which my stuff lands will only increase.

So, I’d like to fix that. In case you haven’t seen it, I’ve started building an Accumulator for all the various feeds and accounts between which I’m distributing my attention and User Generated Content these days.

I’m hoping to make this the definitive one-stop-shop for following me and my crap, eventually offering feeds at the root of decafbad.com with facilities for picking and choosing what to include and what to leave out. Hopefully, this will leave me able to just simply point interested parties at decafbad.com, and let them explore from there — rather than wandering over to this blog that’s mostly quiet these days.

And, of course, if in the end no one actually cares about my spew anyway — at least I’ll have had fun with yet another new project.

Oh, and Happy Holidays to you and yours!

By l.m.orchard | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

wow, eve, and delicious

November 20, 2007 – 11:20 pm

Come see me try to write big words on my new blog about what I hope is not a new MMORPG addiction, while I work through the aftermath of this thing having been hacked.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in asides | Comments (0)

hacked?

November 13, 2007 – 9:52 pm

Crap. Somehow, someone’s gotten access to edit my posts on this blog and have crapped in loads of viagra linkspam. I’ve probably destroyed the evidence already by deleting the spam as soon as I saw it — and as soon as some friendly readers emailed me pointing at more. I’ve done the obvious, changed my password and tried to lock down the admin pages a bit. But, I don’t know who, how, or why. Ugh.

So, my apologies if anyone sees any offers for penis pills around these parts. A heads up would be kindly appreciated as I scour my records and grumble.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in asides | Comments (3)

cheating on my “real” blog

November 12, 2007 – 8:00 pm

decafbad recaffeinated is what I’m so far calling the Tinderbox-built blog with which I’m cheating on both my OPML blog and my “real” blog. Come take a look, if you’re so inclined to watch another of my experiments. (Update: It’s recaffeinated, not recaffinated. I ar gud speler.)

By l.m.orchard | Posted in asides | Comments (0)

Outsourcing creativity via APIs

November 1, 2007 – 2:17 pm

Tim Faulkner at Valleywag: “I blame Twitter. It’s not enough to be a website anymore. Oh no. You must be a platform. Have an API. Court developers. Build an “ecosystem.” Whatever. You know what an application programming interface really is? An admission that you’re too poor, cheap, or uncreative to build all the features your website needs.“

Welcome to Web 2.0, Tim - we’ve been doing this thing for most of a decade or longer now. I know this is coming from Valleywag and fine-tuned as trollbait and all, but this just struck me as particularly dumb.

It’s probably because most of my job right now is working on APIs and feeds for delicious, and I’m partial to the concept in general. Because, yeah, really: An API is an admission that you haven’t the creativity or time to build everything your website needs. No one does. Anyone who doesn’t make (or denies) that admission is either lying, clueless, or sadly mistaken. Anyone who starts with that admission and manages to open up to let users fill in their own gaps has a chance at hosting something really interesting.

And, yeah, thanks to the swooning hype over Facebook and others, it’s a little over-exposed right now and tickling curmudgeonly snark-emitters. But, that doesn’t mean the concept’s a bad one or that it’s going away.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (2)

Twitter’s Mojo Bubble

October 17, 2007 – 10:36 pm

Michael Gartenberg: “First, it’s another queue to check. … It looks like I could add Twitter into the flow of RSS feeds but do I really want to do that?“

No, you don’t want to do that.

If you’re “checking your Twitter queue” - you’re doing it wrong. You should be using something like Twitteriffic or a good IM client that semi-unobtrusively surfaces recent Twitter activity in the periphery of your screen. Things either catch your eye occasionally, or the messages pass you by. It’s okay to miss things. In fact, it’s mandatory to miss lots of things at a fully attentive and conscious level.

And, if you think “I’m going to post to my Twitter Blog now” - you’re doing it wrong in that way too. You should be absentmindedly emitting something barely edited and pondered from your stream of consciousness every now and then. Maybe drop something a little more well-considered every now and then. But, spend any more than 3 seconds or so at a time spewing something into the ether, and you’ve likely missed the Twitter magic.

This stance toward Twitter interaction is where I find the mojo. Outside of those fine lines, the Twitter soap bubble bursts and the magic smoke escapes.

By l.m.orchard | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (6)