the media and musings of jOE dEVINE

Like many folks with a software background, I’ve developed a few frameworks in my day.  My most recent framework, which I developed for LAMP sites, was the basis for Motosport’s current platform and several of eBags’ marketing websites (though not the main site).  Called iSkins, it was lean, mean and effective.  And I could whip up a marketing site in a day and a commerce site in a few days using it.

But like any other person whose day job is NOT developing frameworks, who has a small child at home and a lake house to take care of on the weekends, it was time to look elsewhere when asked to evaluate frameworks for a new in-house application we are developing here at Enexity.

Enter symfony!  Wow, what a great platform.  Every time I look for a feature that I had in iSkins, it’s there.  But it’s usually better thought out, more extensible, has a way better OO model and generally kicks the crud out of what I developed.

Symfony (from their website) is:

“…a full-stack framework, a library of cohesive classes written in PHP5.

It provides an architecture, components and tools for developers to build complex web applications faster. Choosing symfony allows you to release your applications earlier, host and scale them without problem, and maintain them over time with no surprise…”

 Some of the advantages of symfony, as I see them, include:

• good object model
• MVC separation
• caching
• scaffolding
• Ajax
• ORM
• database abstraction
• a solid plugin architecture
• localization and internationalization
• the admin generator (WOW)
• the routing system
• form development and validation
• debugging

That’s a lot of strengths!

The one big weakness I see is the learning curve – the online symfony book is great, and there are lots of good tutorials floating around, but it’s still one heck of a big framework.

I intend, time willing, to someday write about how I came up to speed on the framework.  Instead of diving in to ORM and CRUD like many of the tutorials want you to do, I started with the site layout so I could understand the DNRY possibilities in the view layer.  In this manner, I was able to really learn about all the parts of the architecture without worry about some of the more esoteric matters – and, when I finally started doing “real” work with it, it looked nice right out of the gate.

Although the project we’re working on won’t be publicly available anytime soon, when I find time I just might upgrade devineville.com, parkeranne.com and a few other sites to symfony.

Ok, so I know they had a well publicized outage last week, but I finally converted my company over to the free version of google apps.  Shared calendar, great email with awesome spam protection, and it’s free.  We’re not an internet company, so having a nice partner like google to “get our back” on a mission critical service (as opposed to paying a ton for it with perhaps not even as much reliability) was a great deal.

 Love it.  Google rocks.

So we’ve been in Austin almost three months now, and every week it seems like I am liking it more.

Yes, it was 106 degrees yesterday.

But other than that, I live close to work, in a great neighborhood, I am loving the job and I am getting in shape.

Part of the reason I am getting in shape is the awesome nature hike right in my neighborhood.  Just walk down the street about ten houses and you’re in a hill country paradise – four plus miles of rocky hills, scrub flats, streams and rivers nestled right up against Lake Austin.

I call the whole loop (about 4.5 miles) the “Death Hike” – the first time I did it I was around 220 pounds, it was 90 degrees, took me pretty much two hours, I had to stop to rest three times and it still almost killed me.  Now I am a little better prepared for what to expect, a little lighter (just under 200 pounds last I checked), and in a little better shape.  A trip around the loop now takes me about eighty five minutes, I don’t have to stop to rest, and I run up most of the hills (the notorious heart rate hill below notwithstanding).

Along the way there are some awesome waterfalls, great hill country views (you can see Mansfield Dam, for example) and lots of sun and shade.

If you look closely, you can spot the heart rate monitor strapped under my shirt – heart rate hill can definitely max out your heart rate if you go fast enough.  For now, I am happy just making it up the hill without stopping.  That picture above is only about 1/3 of the hill, it twists and turns twice more as you make your ascent.  It may not look like much but I assure you it’s a chore.

Come visit and I will take you on the Death Hike in 100 degree weather, and you’ll love Austin!

Ok, so it’s not for kids.  I think there are political, social and moral messages hidden in here somewhere (the not so subtle quote at the end of the movie is a reminder).   And I am not sure that this film portrays America in a great light overall.

But damn was this movie entertaining.   I thought Tom Hanks played his role perfectly, but Philip Seymour Hoffman stole the show.   The scene in which he is arguing with his boss and breaks his window (again) had me laughing out loud.  Later in the film, he again steals the scene from Hanks as he’s ushered in and out of the congressman’s office and ultimately confesses to planting a listening device on the bottle of scotch he brought with him.

The casting overall was excellent – from the girl’s in Wilson’s office, to the other members of congress, to the foreign dignataries – just enough of a real feel while still providing comic sensibility. 

I rarely see movies that I think I probably won’t like and then I do – but this is one of them.  I don’t know why, but this movie never really seemed to interest me.  Perhaps it was the subject matter.  However, after seeing it I can say it will be on my “watch again” list.

4 out of 5 stars.  Check it out.

All of our stuff just got delivered yesterday.  One whole semi-truck full!  This is like my fifth full move, and I hope it is my last.  We got all the boxes inside, but just barely.  Now starts the laborious task of unpacking.

Ever notice that no matter how well you supervise your move, the packers always seem to put that one box you’re looking for somewhere out of sight?

For example, I found ten boxes of wine last night, but not the box with the kitchen gadgets.  No wine without an opener huh?

D’oh!  I hate moving.

Man, I hate spam.  I have an email address that I’ve had for more than ten years, and I would say that 99% of all the email I receive is spam (maybe more).  Of course, I have some programs for filtering out spam, and I have tried them all – white lists, black lists, bayesian, you name it. 

None of them work to my satisfaction.

So, I was dabbling with some of the settings on my gmail account the other day and was musing – “Wouldn’t it be great if google offered their spam filtering technology as an add-on to Thunderbird or even Outlook?”  Realizing the latter would likely never happen, it came to me – google lets me use gmail to check other accounts, and allows POP/IMAP access, so in fact you can use it to filter email, just not the way I thought.

So, I setup google to check my main email account, then setup Thunderbird to check google.  WHAM-O!  I’m in.  What’s even cooler is I can use gmail when I am on the road to check my email account, and not worry about syncing email between my home client and some other account, etc.  I love it!

 Things got a bit squirrely trying to get the authentication setup (you’ve switched over to having google check your account, then they send a verficiation email, and you have to respond to it – but where?  in google?  in your old client?).  Anyway, after getting through that I haven’t received ONE SPAM in days.  Amazing.  And since gmail can check up to five accounts, I have been able to centralize all of my accounts now into one account, it’s super cool.

 Thanks google, you rock!

So I am using VMWare again – this time to test multiple platforms from my new Vista laptop (I don’t have a lot of love for Vista, at least not yet, but my company needs to test on all kinds of platforms).

 VMWare to the rescue!  I’m running multiple OS’s on one laptop and cutting my costs and testing time in half.

 Love it!

Well I finally took the plunge and decided to get my family back to Austin, where my wife is from and where I spent a lot of time in my twenties.

 I have gone to work for a great company – Enexity – that provides on-demand connectivity between secure organizations and their technology vendors and other 3rd parties who need ad-hoc, restricted, auditable network access. Their “SecureLink” Virtual Support Network (VSN) is used by over 10,000 organizations including technology vendors, hospitals, financial institutions, public sector entities and others to replace modems and is an easier, more secure and auditable alternative to VPNs. 

I get to work with the guy that founded the first dot com for which I ever worked, Jeff Swearingen (Co-Founder and CEO) – plus a lot of really smart, fun people who know how to build a great software product.

 If you want to contact me at enexity, just drop me a line joe@enexity.com.

Around The Block.mp3

I added a little instrumentation and remixed this years-old Acid track in Logic Pro.  Used the opportunity to learn about FX automation (note the vocal delays) – so it was a good learning experience. 

How Do I Get Through.mp3

This was an experiment I did last weekend.  Jon Mellen and I modified the lyrics and music to one of his tunes, just coming up with a verse and a chorus.  We then recorded it over a piano and a click.

I then used Logic 8 and an assortment of plugins and virtual instruments to test a full production.  Turned out ok, considering it’s the first time doing this on the Mac and with Logic.

I did get to use some cool tools while doing this, including:

• Softube’s Amp Room (on rhythm guitars) and Acoustic Feedback (on the lead guitar)
• Steinberg’s Virtual Guitarist 2 (acoustic guitars)

If we were going to finish this, we’d obviously write a couple of more verses, but you get the idea.  Repetitive, but hey, it was a test project.