From the Digg article description: “Today we’re announcing the launch of Ubiquity, a Mozilla Labs experiment into connecting the Web with language in an attempt to find new user interfaces that could make it possible for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily.”
This looks like a really awesome tool. I hope development continues. I am really interested to see how this could be applied to SugarCRM and other data entry-centric types of applications. It would be nice to create a case as simple as: “sugarcrm new case ‘account_name’ ’subject’”. Then it could bring up SugarCRM with the case edit form already filled out, waiting for the rest of the details to be filled in.
Ubiquity is more or less a command line for everyday web users. It really taps into the Mac OSX way (and Vista as of late) of easily finding files, apps and anything else on your computer. Looking forward to new ways for this idea to be applied.
Digg The Code Artist, Geoff Smith, has a new music video out of his song, Ones and 0s. Ones and 0s is about how people can be very hateful while leaving comments on blogs, YouTube, Digg, etc. Big props to Jonathan Davis for shooting and editing the video.
Well, a lot actually. Most importantly and awesomely is that I am getting married to my best friend since the 1st grade in 12 days! Carla and I will have been officially together for five and a half years once we tie the knot. She has been doing an awesome job with her mom planning out the wedding and taking care of all the details. After we have an awesome time at our Villa wedding and Mexico honeymoon, we will be headed back to Abilene, Texas. That’s right. I never thought I would stay in the dry and windy place after I graduated, but Milsoft has my attention (and revamping Milsoft’s web presence is one of the many top priorities I have. Shield your eyes if you plan on following the previous link.). I accepted a full-time position at Milsoft a few weeks back as the Business Development Web Specialist. Being on the business development team, my job constantly changes, evolves and exposes me to all the different parts of Milsoft. Carla has just recently landed a 1st grade teaching job in Abilene ISD. I am so excited for her. For those of you who don’t know, AISD is not an easy place to land a teaching job your first year out of school. Somehow, I had a feeling she would pull it off. We will be living in a nice town home in south Abilene. Timing worked out just right so we both landed jobs, got the town home and we have everything moved in ready for us to come back to after the festivities. If you can’t tell, I am really excited about the upcoming few weeks and cannot wait for Carla and I to start our new life together. I am getting up early tomorrow to fly to our Pensacola, Florida Milsoft branch. Until next time, take a second to be thankful for all you have. And if you see me, remind me to do the same.
In the process of moving data from my old pc to the new macbook pro, I have had a terrible time trying to get my development environment to run smoothly. After trying to get the apache/mysql/php stack that comes with leopard to work, I scratched it and thought I would try something simpler for time’s sake. I downloaded and used MAMP for a while, but the web app I deal with most of the time, SugarCRM, didn’t like the default ports MAMP ran on, so I tried to change them. This, of course, caused several more conflicts. Tired of dealing with MAMP and with a suggestion from my personal mac genius, Chris Faulkner, I downloaded and installed XAMPP. I have used XAMPP on the Windows side of the virtual pond, so I was pretty comfortable with it. Everything seemed to be running with no problems. Great. Now all I need to do is move over my database. Only problem, the phpMyAdmin version that comes bundled with the Mac XAMPP installer is an older version. Whenever I tried to import my file full of SQL queries, phpMyAdmin would error out with a vague “File could not be read” message. After trying everything to fix the problem, I scratched trying to fix the old version and just downloaded the latest version of phpMyAdmin, dropped it into the XAMPP htdocs folder and it worked like a champ.
Another thing to keep in mind, if your file is too large and cannot be uploaded due to php or phpMyAdmin restrictions, there is a very simple way around it. Open up your phpMyAdmin config.inc.php file. On the Mac, that is found in XAMPP/xamppfiles/phpmyadmin folder. Search that file for “$cfg[’UploadDir’]”. If the quotes are empty, give it a directory name such as ‘upload/import’. Whatever folder you assign the variable, make sure the directory(ies) exist. Place the large file you wish to import into the given directy. Now, go back to phpMyAdmin in the browser and click on the import option. You should see a drop down underneath the place you would usually click to select the file you would upload. Select the file you moved to the given upload directy and press go. That should do it for you. Feel free to leave any questions or comments.
While the majority of people at work are having fun at Milsoft’s annual national users conference in Orlando, Florida, others of us are working hard to keep things afloat. In the process of trying to get a lot of work done while it is relatively quiet in the office, I got distracted with my new work-issued laptop. They got me a brand new MacBook Pro, and I love it. I have never used a mac (minus the Apple Store photo-op) for more than a few minutes at a time, but I have to say, Leopard is awesome. Besides a few Google searches and few questions to macbook pro pros regarding what free software to download, I have adjusted quite smoothly. The new computer is now my primary machine. I gave away the old pc to a co-worker who only had a laptop. In the process of switching machines, I had to move all of my files over. According to Microsoft Vista, I have quite a long time before I will be able to use my new MacBook Pro! Fortunately, it only took a few seconds. Glad to finally be on an Apple computer.
It has been a crazy week and a half. Starting with FOWA, Jon Hinson (code monkey and co-founder of TeacherHubs, sole-developer of Get a Roomy) and I had a great time listening to all of the speakers. We were able to meet Kevin Rose of Digg and Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary TV. The networking opportunities were great. At the FOWA after party, we were able to meet the creator of CakePHP, Blaine Cook the developer of Twitter, one of the Ustream guys and many others.
Being in Miami was a first for me. Missing my flight from Miami to DFW was also a first for me. How in the world do you miss a flight? Well, after a really late night with the Villij and Socialthing! guys. We had to be at Miami International Airport at 4:30am to catch our insanely early flight. Jon and I got back to the hotel around 3am, and somehow I thought I would be a good idea to sleep for an hour. One hour turned into four hours, and it was quickly 7am. So, we hurried to the airport, waited in a few lines, explained our situation, and we were on our way in no time. I have to say, I have been impressed with American Airlines this past week.
Once I got back to Abilene Saturday night, I was able to hang out with Carla for a little while. I can’t wait to take her with me on these trips! Sunday morning, the rest of the TeacherHubs team and I got up and started our journey to Boulder, CO. Arron of villij was a huge help by giving us a few rides and letting us stay at his place for the week. During our stay in Boulder, not only did we crank out a lot of code and get several things lined up for TeacherHubs, we attended Boulder Open Coffee, Boulder New Tech Meetup and most importantly TechStars for a day. I was able to meet so many people. The community in Boulder is quite incredible. It is definitely a future Silicon Valley. I talked to more entrepreneurs and investors during those three days than I have my entire life. Unfortunately, Thursday morning finally came, and I had to head back to the reality of all the school and work I had missed, but hey, I got to see Carla again
For a few more firsts, Jon, Jordan and I left Boulder by bus at 10:30am. Once we arrived at Denver International, we learned that all flights in and out of DFW had been canceled for the rest of the day. Who would have thought a huge snow storm would have rolled through Texas in March?! This was the first time a flight of mine was canceled. So after a couple of hours of being in and out of phone calls with American Airlines, we had all nailed down new flight arrangements. Another first, I would be spending the night in an airport. As the night progressed, Jon left on a lucky route from Denver to Houston to Abilene, and Jordan and I actually found a United Airlines flight from Denver to Dallas at 8:30pm. So we took it. After riding the sky tram at DFW a couple of times and checking out the international hub (which is extremely nice and looks like a mall) of DFW, we headed back to our gate, found a few airport supplied cots, and slept.
The next morning, Jordan flew off to Shreveport where his parents would pick him up, and I had a flight to Abilene at 9:30am. Due to all of the planes needing de-icing and other delays throughout the states, my plan didn’t pull out of DFW until 2:00pm. I finally arrived in Abilene and was picked up by Carla at 3:30pm on Friday.
During all the time at the airport, I did manage to get some work done. I created a simple twitter mashup for a very active web-savvy teacher, who goes by coolcatteacher. She had found Pulse of Open Source one day and thought it would be cool if there was a Pulse of Education. Having stumbled upon her comment, I thought it would be simple enough. So I bought the name and made it happen. Check it out: Pulse of Education.
All of that was a ton a fun, but as I said earlier, I did miss over a week of school and work. It is going to be crazy for the next week.
During FOWA, Emily Boyd of RememberTheMilk.com (RTM) showed an awesome application of their task list web app. First off, RTM allows a user to create different tasks for different categories (personal, study, work, etc.). Tasks may be described with a quick description, given due dates and assigned levels of priority. That is great and all, but it is just another site for me to have to go to, to manage a simple task list. The great thing about RTM is the sweet RTM+Gmail plugin. Normally, my task list would be a series of several emails from myself labeled with a red-colored ToDo label, maybe starred, that would sit in my inbox until I completed them. Having the clean Gmail-like interface with all the functionality of an awesome task list right inside of Gmail makes my life more simple and organized. Great work over at RTM! I highly recommend it.
I am a busy guy. I probably always will be. We all have our own stories of busyness, and since this is my blog, I will tell you about mine: I have a lovely fiance who I love to hang out with! I work 25+ hours a week at Milsoft. I have eight hours of upper level computer science courses at ACU (who randomly made Engadget today), which easily translates to another eight hours of outside homework. I am active in intramurals with my fraternity, Gamma Sigma Phi. I am the acting Treasurer of my fraternity. My business partner, Jon Hinson, and I have been staying up until 2 or 3am every night and getting up at 6am in the morning trying to complete everything that needs to be completed for our various activities we are involved with. (I feel like I have mentioned all this before…) The list goes on…
So how do I make time for the two business ventures I am working on? It is a simple concept, but tough to carry out sometimes. I constantly find ways to combine what I want to do with the work that I have to do. Get creative with it. For example, in two of my computer science courses this semester I have managed to convince the professors that I should be working on my business ventures as the final projects of the classes. TeacherHubs and my other venture happen to work well with the course work, and with a little smooth talking, I am able to be working on what I want, while accomplishing the goals of my classes. There are also plenty of ways this can apply to the jobs you might be working at. I have always wanted to dabble with the Google Maps API. It just so happens Milsoft needs a map-like tool to visualize and interact with their customers. So, I suggested we use Google Maps on the project and away we go. Now, I get to learn something about Google Maps’ API and help out the company. Making time for fun new ventures is all about finding ways to combine what I want to do with the work that I have to do.
You might say, “well my boss/professor would never let me do that.” Have you asked? You don’t know what he/she will say until you ask. You have nothing to lose, only time and freedom to gain. Even if your first time of asking your boss/professor doesn’t work out, shape your idea a little differently to fit more with the goals of your business/class and ask again. It took me three go-arounds to convince my Object-Oriented Design professor to let me work on my own project. Go ahead, give it a try. You won’t know until you ask.
I am tired of homework. I am tired of class breaking my work rhythm. I am tired of working on assignments that have nothing to do with any of my current ventures. I am tired of teachers who won’t look at the bigger picture and let me apply my current ventures to our course topics.
I am ready to graduate. I am ready to get married! I am ready to work full-time on TeacherHubs and another start-up I can’t really talk about at the moment. I am ready to move out of my crappy old house and move somewhere nice, hopefully Boulder working at TechStars (fingers crossed).
I have had these feelings for quite a while now, but they really kicked in beginning with the FOWD conference in New York City in November. I have seen how close I really am to having my own web start-up. I read the blogs of successful entrepreneurs and investors, such as Mark Cuban and the crew at Colorado Startups. At FOWD, Jon (one of my roommates) and I met some awesome guys from Boulder, CO who founded SocialThing! (they are doing some really cool things, head over there to sign up for their private beta). They were one of the companies to benefit from the TechStars program. After attending ACU’s Leadership Summit, Jon, Jordan (a fellow business partner), and I were able to hang out with the SocialThing! guys for a few days. They showed us around the Bunker and introduced us to some really cool people, notably the guys from Villij. Visiting Boulder blew my small-minded outlook that location is irrelevant these days because of the internet. The networking possibilities were infinite. Whether or not our company gets selected by TechStars, Boulder is at the top of my list for where I want to live come May 10th.
I’m sure it seems apparent, but all of this excites me! I want it all, and I want it now. I have to continually remember to slow down. Keep a forward-looking vision, but complete the job that is at hand today. It is going to be a crazy semester. I am headed to San Jose, CA to SugarCon next week for my job that pays the bills at Milsoft. Jon and I will be attending the FOWD conference in Miami towards the end of February. Jon and I (and hopefully Jordan) will be driving (yes, driving. to save a few badly needed bucks) back to Boulder for TechStars for a day. Shortly after that, we are trying to head down to Austin, TX for SXSW to support SocialThing!’s official launch.
It will be an awesome semester, minus the whole school part…
A few hours before writing this post, My lovely face was featured on this article over at www.ValleyWag.com. First off, I thought this was one of the funniest things I have seen of myself. It is an extremely goofy picture, and I am not quite an Apple fanboy. The iPhone is the first Apple product I have purchased. After receiving a Facebook message from Paul, the author, asking permission to use my photo, I did a little searching to see who this guy was. I found his website and noticed he was pretty legit. “Why not,” I thought. After I gave permission and he posted the article, I checked it out and thought it was great. I messaged him back a little later telling him of my laughter, and he made a comment about how “Some people are SO touchy” at times.
You know, I could have easily gotten real upset about it and threw a fit, but who gives? It was laughs all around. More visitors to my content-overloaded personal website (/sarcasm). What’s wrong with that?
