Raible Designs

Stomach Flu

Julie and I are sick with the stomach flu - hopefully it's just a 24 hour thing. There's nothing like getting sick to make deadlines even tighter.

Help me rename struts-xdoclet

I've decided that I need a new name for struts-xdoclet. "Struts-XDoclet" is just too hard to say - try it, you'll see. Four syllables is just too many. Since I intend for it to be a Struts/XDoclet Jumpstart Kit, I'd like something that tries to signify that, but then again, I like POGN - Plain Old Good Names. SXJK is just as hard to say as Struts-XDoclet. I was thinking SASSY (Struts App Start ... nothing for S and Y) might be a good one - but doesn't really explain much. It'd be cool to name it Abbie, after my daughter, but I don't think sxd (hey, that might be a good one) will be that earth-shattering, and if I'm going to name something after Abbie - it better be good! I just asked Julie and her idea is to name it "struggle" - that's not bad. It eliminates the struggle in building a new webapp. Please comment your suggestions if you have an opinion.

Bend, Oregon

Russell says he's heading to Bend, Oregon next weekend. Cool! I went to high school in Salem, Oregon and a bunch of my friends lived in Bend after college. Julie and I have visited Bend a few times, and it's a really nice mountain town. It's kinda like Denver, but a lot smaller (but growing rapidly). They get 300 days of sunshine a year (like Denver) and have a great micro-brewery. Everytime I've been there, I've wanted to move there. It's got great skiing too! But then again, Russ may not like it since he hates the cold and it was 15 degrees (F) this morning!

Sun ONE Portal

I'm teaching a Sun ONE Portal/Directory Server class tomorrow night and Thursday at Sun in Broomfield. It should be a fun crowd to teach - a bunch of Sales Engineers from Sun - around 50 of them! Wow, that's a big class. Actually, there's going to be a Sun instructor co-teaching with me, and it'll be split between two classrooms - but still?!

The bad part, Julie has the flu and has had a fever for the better part of a week and my parents are flying in tomorrow afternoon. Since I'm teaching tomorrow night (5-10) and all day Thursday, that leaves less time to spend with them. Oh well, they're not coming to see me anyway. They're Grandma and Grandpa now and I'm willing to bet they won't even know I'm gone!

Apple Store in Cherry Creek

A new Apple Store is opening in Cherry Creek (Denver) this weekend! It's actually further away from us than the Aspen Grove store, but it's in a cool part of town. Cherry Creek is both an area of town and a mall - and the store will be in the mall. The good part, now we can go "shopping" and I can attend all their cool iPhoto and iMovie sessions while Julie and Abbie pal around. Other than the iApps sessions, the Apple stores don't do much for me - while it's cool to look at the new Apples, it gets old after 2 or 3 drool-sessions.

Kurt reveals some Dirt

Kurt finally fessed up and told us a little about himself. Thanks Kurt! He also does a little nudging for us to tell about our first job out of school. I already did one post on this and how I worked for MCI Systemhouse out of school, but I didn't tell you about the project. I started with SHL (another name for Systemhouse, now owned by EDS) on August 4th, 1997. I had a two week project in Fort Collins (75 miles north of Denver) creating a Microsoft Access client to talk to an Oracle backend for Larimer County. I didn't mind the commute and the long hours, but the project was certainly stressfull for it being my first. I was working with one other guy from SHL who didn't know squat and was later canned. After that project, I started on a Y2K inventory and assessment at StorageTek. While this project was a little more fun, and the people were great, SHL had a ridiculous methodology for doing Y2K assessments. So we ended up re-writing most of their methodology and used it pretty successfully. It was a cool project because I was doing presentations to all the head honchos at StorageTek and I felt like I was rubbing shoulders with the elite crowd. I met Julie at MCI new-hire training in January 1998, and doubled my salary in March 1998 by becoming a contractor with IBM. The rest of the story can be found in how I started Raible Designs.

VW Bugs Rule

I don't know if any of you are into Volkswagens - but I've been a huge Bug fan for many years now. I got my first VW Beetle in 1991 - a 1969. I rebuilt the engine (1835), repainted it (hot pink) and thoroughly enjoyed it. In college, I killed it by driving it from Salem, OR (remember the 1993 story) to Denver. So I bought a 1968, in very good condition, for $600 and swapped engines. I drove that for a couple years until I was cut off on the way to the airport on Christmas Eve 1997. It was snowing and slippery roads, so I found myself wrapped around a tree and the victim of a cut-off and run. Luckily, a undercover cop saw the whole thing and busted the guy. It was probably a good think I wrecked my old bug, 'cause I met Julie 3 weeks later, and she would've hated that thing! It was a POS with a nice engine, nice stereo and nice wheels. You know they kind of car I'm talking about - I didn't have any primer on it though. I waited a couple years before buying my next bug - a 2000 Turbo Beetle. It's been a great car, fast and fun and for sale. But that's not the reason for this post - just wanted to share some cool VW desktops I found from one of my favorite magazines - VWTrends.

It's amazing how much more fun it was to write this post than all the other ones today.

How I started Raible Designs

Lance sent me an e-mail and asked, "I've been thinking of asking you about running your own business. How do you find new contracts and manage your time?" I replied to his e-mail and before I knew it, I had a story. I tend to enjoy weblogs that talk about their experiences and history, so here's a little enjoyment.

In the fall of 1998, I was working as a contractor for IBM Global Services at CoBank. I worked with a guy who wanted me to help him write a ASP-based dating application. Since I was fluent in ASP, we negotiated a rate and began moonlighting on the project after work. To facilitate me working on the project, I had to purchase a computer (Compaq Presario 5020, 64MB RAM, 300Mhz Celeron), and after the first few payments rolled in, I figured I'd better start a company for tax purposes. The project ended up fizzling out halfway through when the guy decided to re-write the whole thing in Servlets/JSP - probably a good decision, eh? With the income from the project, I was able to pay for the computer, file the paperwork for the business, and start Raible Designs, LLC.

In the midst of that project ending, someone at CoBank knew someone else that needed a website. So my first website (www.ccasla.org) for hire was born. I left CoBank for eDeploy.com and worked there for 2 years (through May 2001) as Director of Web Development. I kept doing Raible Designs stuff on the side for about 5-10 hours per week. You can find some early examples at Karen's Discount Bridal, Raskin & Makofsky and The Swan Ecosystem Center. In mid-April 2001, on the same day that I received my shiny new Dell P4 8100, the 2nd round of layoffs happened at eDeploy. There were only 3 rounds (of layoffs), and they announced the doors would be closing 2 weeks later.

So after frantically searching for a job for 2 weeks, I met with Chris Buzzetta from ICSynergy. Funny thing is that a co-worker of Julie's actually hooked me up with the interview - and everything went smooth at pie. One of ICSynergy's suggestions was that you have your own company - or at least work as a 1099 - so having Raible Designs was a big bonus at this point. I started a project with ICS at Douglas County and found myself in the world of Ant, CVS, Javadocs, and all kinds of other good stuff. In early June, I was tasked with developing a UI Framework for the County's J2EE projects, and thankfully stumbled upon Struts. In July 2001, I converted Raible Designs to an S Corp because I was now doing it full time and needed to enhance my company benefits. The DC project ended in late October. BTW, if you need a great accountant for your business, I highly recommend Lisa David of L & B Accounting.

After leaving Douglas County, I searched like a madman for weeks, but to no avail. I sent out resumes, attended User Group meetings, and e-mailed all my friends looking for a new client/job. I wanted to stay working for Raible Designs, but also needed to keep the income flowing. After finding virtually nothing, I hunkered down and satisfied a bunch of certifications (MCSE/MCDBA 2000, SCWCD, BEA Developer). In mid-December, my e-mails to friends paid off and the former CEO of eDeploy (Robert Gadd) sent me an e-mail. He said he was starting a new e-Learning company, needed a developer to produce their web-based product, and that he wanted to hire me. So it's been 11 months now, and I'm still working for Robert's company. He's been the best client in the world, and the relationship is half the fun. I've kept a close relationship with ICSynergy in the meantime, and they've helped me to get certified as a J2EE and Portal Instructor for Sun. I talked with Martin (ICS's head honcho) today and they might even have a new project for me soon.

So to make a long story longer, I find new contracts the same way that most folks find new jobs. I send out resumes (this hardly ever works), I talk to friends and I talk to old co-workers. I think the best way is to get your name out and get people familiar with what you do. Hopefully, blogging will help facilitate this even further. My partnership and friendship at ICSynergy have certainly helped a lot, and I'll be very grateful if I get my next project through them. I think more partnerships like this are definitely needed. Attending user group meetings certainly doesn't hurt. I've found that my domain name is too hard to remember though, so I bought javawebapps.com (pointed to raibledesigns.com) today. I doubt it's up yet.

As for managing my time, it's now getting very difficult with Julie and Abbie at home with me. It doesn't help that my office is in one of our common rooms, and privacy is not possible. My father recommended to spend as much time with my kids as possible, so I doubt I'll move out into a real office, but I should get my own room - with a door that closes. For the most part, I've had great success with early mornings (4 a.m.) and late nights before a release. I definitely manage my time best when I'm working on something I really like. Of course, then I work too much, and maybe that's not good time management either.

Hope this helps. Feel free to post comments or ask me any further questions.

Update: One important thing I forgot to mention. While I was working at Douglas Country, the Tech Lead on my project was Brian Boelsterli. Brian was a Principal of ICSynergy at the time, and has always been a great friend. He and I used to carpool to Castle Rock everyday, and I learned a ton from him about being an Independent Consultant, a good programmer and a good father. I eventually asked him to be my Mentor, to which he kindly accepted. I couldn't ask for a more valuable resource - he's always been full of great advice. So I encourage you to get a mentor if you know of one - all you have to do is ask.

Picture of Me

Russell linked to a picture of me this morning. I don't think it does me any justice since I'm run ragged from Abbie's birth and I'm sitting there with 15 pregnancy-pounds. So, in hopes of improving my image (nudge, nudge), here is a picture of Julie and I from March of this year.

Mini-Me has been Revived

I managed to revive Mini-Me this afternoon just after I thought I had lost everything. After running Disk Repair (from both the OS X and OS 9) CDs about 20 times, I tried the Archive and Install again. This time it worked (the disk was recognized) and I get to start re-configuring everything, just like I did one month ago.

Thank goodness - I'd hate to lose all those sweet photos from Abbie's birthday. I'm burning a CD (of all my photos) as I write and backing up everything. I guess this is my monthly almost-hose-the-machine and rebuild sequence. I used to do it on my XP machine, and I do it about every 6 months to Julie's Win2K box. I've gone a couple years now without killing anything completely, but I have re-installed Windows many times - haven't lost any data yet. Must be time to backup everything, now that I've written this, a disk failure is inevitable.