http://qwantify.com/blog/team/ en steve.alvarez@qwantify.com Copyright 2010 2010-02-24T18:19:52-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/dd-wrt-thank-goodness-for-open-source/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/dd-wrt-thank-goodness-for-open-source/#When:19:19:52Z I recently took on a home project of connecting several electronic devices up to the Internet. Unfortunately, none of these devices had built-in wireless connectivity, and my home router was nowhere near these devices. While there are multiple solutions to connecting these devices online (wiring up home, networking over power lines, expensive wireless bridges, etc.), they were all costly, and I wanted to see if I could accomplish this for little to no money. Searching online brought to my attention something I hadn’t heard of before: DD-WRT. What is this you say? Well, it just happens to be free Linux firmware that can be run on many routers to enable them to act as a wireless bridge. I’ll avoid the whole topic here of “what a bridge is”, but I will say that this nifty piece of freeware allows you to use cheap and/or old routers to connect your wireless devices to an existing wireless network. A little bit of research and $20 later, I had installed DD-WRT onto a cheap router and successfully connected all my devices to my wireless network. I had never messed around with router reconfiguration before (well, besides the stock firmware), and reading some of the online posts made it seem like it was a bit risky, but ultimately, it was actually pretty easy and straightforward. While I have downloaded some freeware in the past, I’ve never really used it much or even got much benefit from any of those applications. However, that all changed once I dove into the world of DD-WRT. If you’re interested in finding out more about it, or have a similar dilemma at home of trying to connect Internet-ready devices to your wireless network, but you want to do it for little or no cost, take a look at the Wiki page that’s been created for this piece of freeware and see if it might help you too: DD-WRT Wiki 2010-02-24T19:19:52-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/Lets-make-it-modular/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/Lets-make-it-modular/#When:12:36:12Z “Lets make it modular” has become one of my new most hated phrases. 1) Non-technical people say it to mean do what I want it to do in the future with out me knowing what that is now. 2) Genericises the design which often leads to solutions that don’t fit the problem. 3) Creates lots of unneeded code and tests. (You do test right)     * Overly complex design (more layers)     * More code to learn, understand, and test     * More test cases     * LOT more places for things to go wrong     * Each layer ends up having it’s own DTOs (also known as VOs, DAO, etc) to call it which creates more code and tests 2010-01-31T12:36:12-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/Learning-new-skills/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/Learning-new-skills/#When:16:26:39Z Learning new things One of the topics I have always found interesting is how people learn. I’ve read several books on the subject and really like what the Pragmatic Programmers says about learning. Their book Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware does a great job of explaining this. I highly recommend reading that book and doing the exercises in it. While the book is writen by programmers, anyone can read it and get it. There are a few jokes and references that non programmers may not get, but those do not get in the way. My wife read the book and she loved it. I am always surprised that schools don’t teach kids how to learn. They just cram information into kids and expect them to figure out how to learn. I know I struggled in school until I read my first book on learning. I guess learning skills are not on a standardized test some where. Thus are not taught. Still that doesn’t seem right to me. How do you learn? 2009-12-17T16:26:39-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/on-the-fly-image-generation/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/on-the-fly-image-generation/#When:14:35:06Z While working at my current client, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a dynamic image generation tool from Adobe called Scene7. We had a need to put togther different elements of an image dynamically based on user input and render a final image to the user’s browser. I can’t believe how well and how fast the Scene7 software accomplishes this task. Granted, I have no prior experience with image generation software so I have no baseline with which to compare, but it seems really fast and easy to me. In order to make it all work, all the pieces used to generate the final image are uploaded to the Scene7 server ahead of time and processed (this is where the magic must happen). This processing takes a very long time, but it’s only done once, and it’s done ahead of time so the end user feels none of the pain. To have the Scene7 software generate the final image, we simply construct a URL with a number of parameters telling the system which pieces to pull together and how to put them together. The result is a final image file which is generated in a fraction of a second. As a bonus, it just works and when we’ve had some confusion about how it works, Adobe techincal support has been Johhny-on-the-spot with help. Is it open source? No. Is it expensive? Most likely yes. But it just might be worth the expense if you need the services it offers because it works damn well. P.S. Just in case the FTC comes asking, I was in no way compensated for this article. 2009-12-11T14:35:06-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/Mac-Apache-SSL-Broke-api1/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/Mac-Apache-SSL-Broke-api1/#When:18:37:06Z Well I just spent several hours chasing down a stupid Mac / Apache / SSL update issue. [error] Server should be SSL-aware but has no certificate configured [Hint: SSLCertificateFile] So after a lot of bashing my head into the wall saying, but I didn’t change anything, I noticed the version of Apache was update by the last Apple security update. Apache is now version 2.2.13 which changes how SSL configuration works and finally allows separate SSL Configuration per virtual host. This means you have to put your SSL configuration each virtual host too. So I copied the virtual host config section from my /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-ssl.conf into all of my other virtual hosts that use SSL (aka port 443) and now they all work. -Kevin Runde 2009-11-14T18:37:06-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/in-praise-of-complexity-sort-of/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/in-praise-of-complexity-sort-of/#When:02:23:32Z Having recently worked in two very different development environments (one being very complex, and the other being very simple), I noticed something about myself that really surprised me. I prefer the complex environment. As much as I dislike always having to overcome a challenge in a complex environment when I’m in the thick of things, I have found that I thrive on that challenge and actually NEED it in order to feel successful. It’s true, that I’ve been much more productive in the traditional sense of the word during the time I’ve been working in the simple environment, but I come down more on the quality side of the quantity vs. quality debate. I tend to get much less done in a complex environment, but what does get done, is (IMHO) of a higher quality and I think it has to do with constantly having to be at the top of my ‘game’ in order to overcome the challenges present in a complex environment. 2009-10-21T02:23:32-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/Is-IE-6-a-COBOL-like-legacy-situation/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/Is-IE-6-a-COBOL-like-legacy-situation/#When:14:21:32Z Today I received an email from MSN telling me they now recommend using IE 8. I was shocked when I read that. IE 8 has been out since March 19, 2009 and MSN is finally recommending IE 8. It only took them about 6 months. That got a friend and I thinking about IE 6 and the many issues companies will have MS finally stops supporting IE 6. What do I mean? Many companies have internal “Web Applications” that work only with IE 6. I say “Web Applications” because they are not really a web application. Sure they use the browser, but most were written in ASP and rely on specific IE 6 “functionality” that does not work with other web browsers. A real web app is cross platform compatible in my opinion. This is yet another perfect example of someone trying to take standards and add their own propriety extensions so you have to use their product rather than another standards compliant product (Vendor Lock In). The pragmatic in me hopes these companies will learn from their mistakes when they are finally forced to rewrite all of their IE 6 specific application, but the realist in my realizes they won’t. Worse yet Microsoft will cut support for IE 6 and all of their newer OSes will only support newer versions of IE so eventually companies will have to upgrade or move to a different OS. Unlike COBOL which IBM and others are perfectly willing to still sell you systems to run your legacy COBOL. So in my opinion IE 6 is not a COBOL-like Legacy situation. It is actually much worse. -Kevin 2009-10-01T14:21:32-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/social-media/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/social-media/#When:01:34:14Z Social Media. 203 million hits in .26 seconds is what you’ll find when you Google Social Media. The first link that shows up is a link to Facebook, which has 250 million current users. Social Media is everywhere! Like it or not, my advice is to absorb it, learn about it and use it. I remember when I created my first email account. I believe it was back in 92 or 93 my sophomore/junior year in college. That was crazy! I’ll never forget setting up my first password and exchanging emails electronically with a friend in a different city. That was exciting and it was only email! I also remember the first time I heard of Google in 1996 or 1997. It was a huge hit and was definitely the Facebook of the 90’s. Times have definitely changed since the 90’s in regards to all the avenues that are available through social media. Do you Tweet? Heard of Slideshare, Mybloglog, Dig, or Flickr? Maybe you’re more of a Facebook or Myspace person. What about Technorati, Del.icio.us, or Friendfeed? YouTube is still growing and there’s even tools that track Social Media like Google Alerts, Twilerts, SocialMention, TwitterFall, Google Wave or Addict-o-matic. (I just logged on to TwitterFall for the first time – it’s pretty cool – try it!) Social Media is like anything else. The more you practice, learn, and spend time at, the more confidence you have and the more you’ll use. Knowledge breeds confidence and Social Media takes time and my advice is to use it. It’s here to stay and can actually be a lot fun! In the last 10 minutes alone, I signed up for a Twitter account and completed my first Tweet! It was fun and easy! I told all my Tweeter followers that I’m playing volley ball tonight. Not too exciting, but I’m an official Twitter user for the first time. However, at this time, I don’t have any Twitter followers and the only person I’m following is Lance Armstrong…..need to work on that. This blog has been fun and it’s a perfect example of putting yourself out there in social media. Our team at QWANtify is encouraged to blog once a month and I’m officially getter better at it. This blog will be posted on my Facebook, Twitter account, and also on my LinkedIn page. I’m excited to see what kind of response I get from my 500 plus contacts on LinkedIn and Facebook. I’m creating a Web presence and will soon be a Social Media expert…….well maybe not just yet. Speaking of experts, the majority of the content in this blog comes from a fantastic presentation I heard this morning from Nate Towne, Senior Public Relations and Media Counselor with the Hiebing Group. Nate does a fantastic job and I wanted to take a minute and say “Thank you, Nate!” Your knowledge and presentation on social media was Awesome! One key point I took from the presentation is that social media is branding. The more you and your company are on the Web the more chances people have to notice you, so tell you story, brand yourself, be positive, and become involved. A couple years ago i had a hotmail account and was testing the waters about posting video on YouTube. Now I’m Tweeting, connecting with people all over the world on Facebook, utilizing key business contacts on LinkedIn, and writing blogs! I’m curious to see what kind of response i receive from this posting, so let me know what you think! Tell me your story. Become a fan of something. Take 5 minutes and start a Twitter account. Become involved with Social Media. It’s here to stay and If i can do it – you can too! 2009-10-01T01:34:14-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/LivePipe/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/LivePipe/#When:19:39:45Z I was working on a new Ruby on Rails project and needed some standard JavaScript UI elements like modal windows, tabs, tooltips and such. Until recently I had never found any good library to add on to prototype that handles these. jQuery, EXT JS, YUI and others have these so why doesn’t prototype. Well recently I stumbled across LivePipe. This is exactly what I have been looking for. The documentation is just enough so you can figure things out. There needs to be a better newbie guide. Maybe I’ll start working on one after I have more experience. So if you are using the Prototype JavaScript then take a look at LivePipe. -Kevin Runde 2009-09-27T19:39:45-06:00 http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/facebooks-privacy-issues/ http://qwantify.com/blog/entry/facebooks-privacy-issues/#When:14:52:07Z The next time you take a minute to update your Facebook page, be careful! Most users know the difference between public and private information in their profiles, but making sensitive information private is not as safe as some users may think. Canada’s privacy commissioner has been the latest to put a spotlight on the numerous gaping holes in the security surrounding the most popular social-networking websites. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that almost a million Facebook developers around the globe have unrestricted access to all of the information in your profile. Regardless of the safeguards you think you’ve placed on your personal information, it is all visible and accessible to these users. Further, Facebook never deletes any of this information, even if you cancel your account. Thus, there is currently no way to eliminate the chance that someone could later dig up a potentially sensitive piece of information deleted by a user. Several other privacy risks are outlined in the article linked-to below. This situation is a great example of how important and difficult it is to keep personal information personal. I had thought that I was being paranoid for not getting a Facebook account, but it turns out I was more right than I’d ever thought I would be. As a general rule, I recommend refraining from posting anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t want your mother — or your boss — to read. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/17/facebook-privacy-settlement.html 2009-08-25T14:52:07-06:00