Raible Designs

Comments are flakey?

I've gotten several e-mails from readers that they haven't been able to leave comments on this blog. I suspect it has something to do with twisty comments, but I just tried them in Firefox 1.0 on Windows XP and they seem to be working fine. In order to help me track down this problem, try posting a comment to this entry and see if it works. Make sure and copy it before you post it, just in case it doesn't work. Clicking on the "Permalink" or title for this post will take you to a backup comment form that seems to work regardless. Thanks for the help!

Update: From the various comments, there doesn't seem to be a common thread. It seems that half the folks that used Firefox + XP it worked for and the other half it didn't. I doubt it's a caching issue, but I have been seeing a lot of the following in my logs:

ERROR 2005-01-22 19:51:01,944 | RequestProcessor:processMapping | Invalid path /comment was requested

Roller recently changed from using /comment to /comments - so I don't know if it's spammers hitting the old URL or what. My guess is yes since it seems to happening in blocks. I'll try to add a preview button tonight so users will get taken to the permalink form for previewing. Either that or I could just change to always using the permalink form. It's up to you guys - let me know what you prefer.

Riding to Work

One of the reasons I'm jazzed about my new gig is it's within (bike) riding distance from our house. Usually I start riding to work when it gets warm, which is usually in March or April. However, I used to ride to downtown to the Tivoli Theater when I worked there in college. Back then, I'd ride no matter what, and I worked there in the winter. A buddy of mine works downtown and he's been riding to work all winter - even when it was 0°F out. To make a long story short, I got motivated by him this weekend and decided to start riding my bike to work. Today it was 29°F and the ride was beautiful. Riding in the cold is a lot like skiing - you just have to be dressed for it. It only took 30 minutes, which is 5 minutes slower than the Light Rail and the same duration as the bus.

Being in the office is like being on vacation

Ever since June of last year, I've worked out of my house. I had a couple of different clients, but none of them required I go to their office - so all my work was remote. I'd done this before - in fact all of 2002 I worked out of our house in Morrison. Working at home has its perks: no need to get dressed, fast equipment/network, seeing the family more and highly flexible hours. It also has its downsides. The biggest downside I'm finding is you actually have to work all the time. For the most part, when I worked from home, I wrote code 8 hours+ per day. Sure I'd read blogs and have a conference call every now and then, but for the most part, I was working and thinking the entire time.

After being in an office environment for the past 4 days, I'm finding it's like being on vacation. In an office environment, you typically have meetings. In meetings, you don't really need to think - you just sit their and participate. No coding, no problem solving, just good ol' human interaction and communication. Not only that, but the team I'm on is a great group of guys and I feel like I've been working there for years. Stuff that used to take me 2 days to figure out now takes a couple of hours with a team member's help. Furthermore, since we all have similar interests - there's a fair amount of water-cooler talk. The part I really like is the comradery. You know the kind - where guys insult each other to no end and both parties are laughing the whole time. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in my cube and laughed my ass off while these guys take jabs at each other.

Of course, my perspective could be scewed. I've been working on my Mac all week, which Powerbook owners know is a pleasant experience. It may be slow, but I'm paid hourly, so I don't mind too much. Oh yeah, and the best part? I got a window seat. I can see out over the city as well as the mountains. Life is good in downtown Denver these days.

New Gig starts Monday

It's official - I'll be starting a new gig on Monday. I'll be working on a project at Xcel Energy in downtown Denver. I've always wanted to work downtown - so I'm pretty pumped about it. I had internships there in college, but never worked there in the "Real World". I signed a contract through the end of the year, but it sounds like they have a lot of work, so it could be longer. The best part is I'll be working with Bob Johnson and Bruce Snyder - both good friends of mine.

I met Bob while working on a contract in 2003. We didn't work on the same team, but he was the first AppFuse user I'd ever met. I'll also be working with Jeff Genender, who supposedly has the Tomcat integration done for Geronimo.

I'm definitely looking forward to working on a team again, especially with these guys. I'm thinking of riding my bike to work everyday, but that might have to wait until March. I was going to try and raise money for the tsunami victims by riding no matter what (snow, cold or rain), but I don't know if anyone would donate. It should be an easy 20-30 minute ride when the weather gets nice.

It figures...

Today is the first day I've had to go into an office since May of 2004. Today should be a 9" day here at Raible Designs - there's 12" of fresh powder at Vail. However, I managed to get a 3-day architecture-review contract so I'm heading to the client's site downtown. To enhance the commuting experience, it's colder than a witch's tit outside (2°F) and there's a few inches of fresh snow. I think I'll try the Light Rail (there's a station 1 mile from our house) and hope it's not too crowded.

A nice start to the new year

I had a really enjoyable weekend. New Years Eve was spent with my high school buddies Clint and Jess at a local bar. It was low key and fun to hang out with old friends. It was good I didn't drink very much because I went to bed at 3 and Abbie woke us up at 6. Saturday was a pretty lazy day, but I did manage to clean out the garage. Now so we can fit 2 cars in our 2-car garage. This is key for snowy days.

Last night, we went to the DU Hockey game with the kids, Holly (Julie's sister) and our good friend Justin. Everyone had a great time (Abbie loves the games) and DU won 9 to 4. Today, I woke up early and went skiing with Clint and Autumn (his girlfriend) at Copper. We missed all the traffic by leaving at 7 and had a nice breakfast before getting on the slopes at 9. We skied until noon and then went our separate ways and I drove back to Denver. I made it back just in time for the Broncos game. Justin came over and we watched them kill the Colts (let's hope they can do it again next Sunday). After football, we headed to another DU Hockey game tonight and watched them shutout Northeastern 4-0. This time, Tonya and Suzie (friend from college and her sister) joined Justin and I and took Julie and Holly's seats. Again, Abbie and Jack had a good time and it was a nice way to end the weekend.

Life is so much more fulfilling when I get off the computer. Next weekend, a good friend is flying in from New York to do some skiing. Couple that with a Saturday night hockey game and a Sunday morning playoff game and next weekend is looking pretty good too!

Welcome to 2005

Happy New Year y'all! 2004 was a great year for this website. It was also an awesome year personally. I have a new baby, a new house and a new bus. I learned way more than I thought I would about Spring, WebWork, Tapestry and JSF. And I spoke at a couple conferences, which I certainly didn't anticipate. In 2005, I hope to step back a bit and spend less time working and more time being a good father and husband. Restoring the bus is my major goal I hope to accomplish this year.

Here's this site's stats for 2004:

Happy Holidays!

We're heading for the airport in the next hour. I stayed up and tried to finish off Chapter 11. I still have a few more hours to go, but I made a good dent in it. Our flight leaves in 2 hours (6 a.m.) and we'll be in West Palm Beach, FL until the 31st. Should be a fun day - no sleep, 2 kids and we don't arrive until 3 this afternoon.

Enjoy your holidays - I know I will (after today is over with).

Increasing Productivity

I have a new plan for increasing my productivity. With any luck, she'll be writing Java by the time she's 3.

Helluva Week

It's been a rough one this week. Mainly due to AppFuse. This is the 4th (or maybe 5th) night this week I'm up late working on it. Tonight will be an average night, turning in at 5:30 a.m.. Last night was 6:00 a.m. Abbie likes to wake me up at 8.

The good news is that I have the JSF and Tapestry integration done. I just finished up writing all the programmer tests for the beans/pages and tomorrow (today?) I'll work on Canoo WebTests and installation/appgen/documentation. With any luck I'll finish up and release this weekend.

Next week, I get to write a chapter for Spring Live on MVC Framework integration. I'm also talking about Spring at the local Denver JUG on Wednesday night.

I can't wait for Christmas - 2 weeks in Sunny Southern Florida.