I’ve finally converted my longest running blog - davidchiu.net from MovableType 4.1 to Wordpress 2.5.1. This wasn’t an easy decision since I’ve been using MovableType since 2003 but Wordpress now provides a compelling solution for blogging. One of the deciding factors was the template/styling implementation in Wordpress. If you do quick Google search for Wordpress Themes you will see the amount of support that Wordpress has - granted, most of the Wordpress themes out there are crap, but there is a huge community developing for Wordpress. The same is true for Wordpress plugins. Conversely, MovableType does not have the same amount of community development. The only thing I worry about Wordpress is performance. MovableType has the option to pre-render an entire site and publish static files to the file system, whereas Wordpress dynamically creates pages on the fly. MovableType has the obvious advantage here but there are caching strategies people are using through plugins to overcome this disadvantage. Ultimately, Wordpress is just easier and faster to use than MovableType and with web2.0/syndication plugins such as Wordbook and Twitter-Tools Wordpress is too attractive to pass up. Plus, migrating to Wordpress was painless.
Archive for the 'Stdout' Category
I’m doing a little research into Adobe Flex/AIR for a proposal I’m putting together. Until now I haven’t had the chance to look at Flex or AIR very closely, but now that I’ve watched a couple videos and read a couple articles I’m pretty excited about this technology. What I find even more interesting is that Adobe’s Flex Builder 3 is built on top of Eclipse. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Eclipse platform because of the Java/Hibernate/Spring project I’m managing at work and using Aptana on my Mac for personal projects. I’ve also looked at Zend Studio which is yet another IDE built on top of Eclipse for PHP programming. I just wish there was an easy way to combine all of the different features from each IDE under a single Eclipse installation without causing headaches and conflicts. Plus I want a Textpad “plugin” since Textpad is the best text editor in the world and I couldn’t live without Textpad’s powerful regex search and replace.
Here are the links I’ve used for my research into Flex/AIR/BlazeDS:
Just found an interesting article on using lazy loading techniques in javascript to decrease page weight and page load times. All web developers need to read this because I’ve seen plenty of sites - and know plenty of developers who don’t take into account page weight or load times unless someone complains. This article just takes into account javascript techniques, but developers also need to pay attention to graphics. I’m still surprised that the majority of so called “front-end” web developers I meet and interview don’t know how to optimize graphics or pay attention to load times - especially when it comes to entertainment/rich media sites.
The recession doesn’t seem to be hitting the tech industry very hard in LA since I get called by recruiters twice a week about new job possibilities, or to see if my company is hiring.
If only this was my acting career. But I digress.
These recruiters I’m dealing with nowadays are sleazier than Hollywood agents. I’ve got recruiters cold calling every extension in the company trying to reach the tech department, or recruiters calling saying that they know me. One firm in particular, let’s just call them R.*ton International are so rude, persistent and unprofessional that they keep calling even when everyone in the company has told them never to call again. Now one company is going one step further. I received a mass mailing from a new recruiting company called Rapid Hire Recruiting who is asking people to sell out their friends and colleagues “To earn up to $10,000 as a referral fee” so they can call them and push their candidates. So would you sell out your friends?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about CDNs (content delivery networks) because of the challenges I’ve been dealing with user submitted photos on a highly trafficked site. Most projects I work on use Akamai with great success, but what about alternatives CDNs for personal projects? What first came to mind was Flickr. I mean why not? Flickr was built to serve photos so why couldn’t Flickr serve as a CDN for images on my site? The next thought that came to mind was Google. Google already caches websites and images, so why not use Google as a CDN? So I did a quick search and found a tutorial of how to write a Google Gadget that will cache images. Sounds perfect! Has anyone implemented this across their site? What are the caveats?
I also found this interesting P2P cache/CDN called Coral that is worth looking into.
Multiple outages over a 3 week period, unstable VPN connections, and server configuration problems has plagued a high-traffic/high-profile site I’m managing. Their customer service is responsive, and the staff very knowledgeable, but unfortunately it can’t make up for constant service issues. At this moment, I’m on my 6th attempt to deploy code updates because I keep getting kicked off of OpSource’s VPN.
Dreamhost - my web hosting provider had another hiccup today. A file server crashed and had to be rebooted which resulted in all of my domains displaying a “bad_http_conf” error. They were quick in resolving the issue but I also had to go into each domain configuration and re-save the settings in order to get my domains back up and running. What a pain in the ass. Before Dreamhost I was hosting all of my domains at Aplus.net and never noticed any interruptions in service whatsoever, but they are overly strict with security on their domains and forbid certain things such as cron jobs and outside server connections. They also don’t offer as much as Dreamhost does. But I’m getting sick of all the service problems I’ve had at Dreamhost. I really want to switch to MediaTemple’s (dv) dedicated-virtual hosting plan but it would cost me twice as much and MediaTemple only offers 20gb for the entry level (dv) plan whereas Dreamhost offers 317gb of disc space - not that I even necessarily need all that much storage on my web server, but it’s nice to have. The big advantage of MediaTemple is that their (dv) servers are supposedly rock solid and have plenty of high-profile clients which trust in their uptime. But Dreamhost does offer more options per hosting plan. So for now I’m reluctantly staying at Dreamhost.
I’ve spent the last 16 years working and playing with PCs. I have so much time and knowledge invested in PC’s that I thought I’d never switch to a Mac. But 3 months ago I decided to buy a MacBook Pro and now I’m never going back.
Why? Because it just works.
When I bought my MacBook Pro I also bought Parallels Desktop and Windows Vista Ultimate. Vista was my safety net (don’t laugh). I knew that if I got frustrated with OS/X I could dual-boot into Vista or run Vista in Parallels as a virtual machine (which works awesome, other than the fact that Vista sucks). But the first thing I noticed was just how well everything was designed. Even the packaging for the MacBook Pro is well designed and thought out. Everything is well designed. Even the power adapter converts from a long or short code, has little pullouts to wrap the cord, has a magnetic coupling to the MacBook, and has a charge indicator light on the adapter that plugs into the laptop. The MacBook itself is slim and sleek and has added features such as a back lit keyboard that adjusts to outside light, and a built-in webcam at the top of the screen. OS/X is beautiful and works really well. I thought I’d have trouble adjusting, but I didn’t at all. Vista on the other hand is ugly and a huge pain in the ass to use.
Don’t you hate it when you watch a movie and realize that the only good things about the movie was the trailer you saw for it on tv? Well, that’s Vista. That fancy 3-D window animation they’re always showing - if your computer is powerful enough to show it - that’s the only “good” thing about Vista. Believe me, I know. I use Vista daily and hate every second of it. The Mac - just works. I don’t need to download a bunch of programs and tweak the hell out of it to get it to run the way I want it to. Vista is just an OS/X wannabe anyways.
So like I said. I drank the kool-aid and it tastes good. Hell, I’m even thinking of ditching my Windows Mobile cellphone/device and getting an iPhone.
Sometimes you have to shake things up and try something different. That’s what’s happening on this site right now. A complete overhaul from the ground up starting with my hosting provider. I’ve happily moved to Dreamhost from Aplus.net. I’ve hosted many sites over at Aplus and they have proven to be difficult to work with over the years because of their strict security restrictions. Also, their data center was infected with a Windows virus last weekend and two of the production servers that run the mobile application that I helped develop and deploy was knocked out of commission without any notification. So bye, bye Aplus. I’m loving Dreamhost already with their awesome packaged hosting plans and easy to use control panel.
So this site is under major reconstruction for the next few days. Please ignore the current mess.