Updates from July, 2008 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • John Congdon 4:57 pm on July 31, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Video Editing   

    Video Editting Is Hard Work 

    I just completed my second editing job for bowlingball.com’s bowling videos. I am an e-commerce programmer for crying out loud, not a video editor… :)

    However, I must say that I am enjoying this very much. Learning something new is extremely exciting. I do not have a lot of artistic ability, but I must say that I am very pleased with the outcome. I know there are some things that I could have done much better, but I was under very intense time constraints.

    We shot the video last night. I didn’t think about editing until this morning. I spent maybe 4-6 hours on the project, so I definitely can not complain.

    Check it out at bowlingball.com’s Bowling Ball Reaction Video of the Smash Zone.

     

  • John Congdon 8:06 pm on July 27, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Bowling Practive, Bowling Wrist Brace   

    Bowling Practice 

    I went to AMF Casselberry Lanes to practice bowling today and was very happy with my results. While I should try and work with a coach or someone that can help me with my game, I have taken it on myself.

    I have been stuck using a [bowlingball value="5160"/] wrist brace for a couple of years now because I have not been throwing my bowling balls correctly. I have been letting my wrist break and I would not follow through.

    I think I have finally had a revelation. I have started using an [bowlingball value="2283"/] Brace which has helped make my wrist not hurt. I have slowed down my approach which has helped my timing. And with my timing under control it helps me aim correctly. It is amazing how all of these pieces kind of inter connect.

    Using the big wrist brace made me feel mentally negative about my game. Changing to the new brace has helped my mental game as well as physical game.

     

    • Kevin 3:19 pm on June 8, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Hey! I love watching the video reviews you guys put out. I also have been using a wrist brace (storm's xf). I am looking to move towards a wrist brace like you are currently using, or something like a wristlet. I am wondering if there is any difference from the 2, or which would help support my wrist from breaking form, but still give me a little mobility. Thanks in advance, hopefully you'll see this!

      • John Congdon 4:48 pm on June 8, 2009 Permalink | Reply

        I actually have a couple that I use depending on how badly my wrist is hurting at the time. I prefer bowling without a wrist support, but as a computer programmer and outright lazy slob, I do not have enough wrist strength.

        For an in between I use an Air Command, it is light weight and has flexibility. I have removed the metal piece that is in the palm because I do not like how it feels. The metal supports are held in by a velcro opening.

        When my wrist is really hurting, I move to a Powerkoil wrist support that really locks me in to a position.

        Let me know if you have any more questions.

  • John Congdon 8:46 am on July 25, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Programming   

    How I Got Started Programming 

    Ok, so I somehow I came across a post by Joe Stump from Digg and I have found this “chain letter” type post. I want to participate, so here goes. :)

    How I got started programming:

    1. How old were you when you started programming? I had a real interest (unexplainably) in computers when I was around the age of 7 even though I had only used one a couple of times. My mom dated a guy when I was about 9 whom had a computer and he had King’s Quest 3 (I fell in love with computers).
    2. How did you get started in programming? My mother met her current husband and he had a Tandy Cocoa Color III.
      He taught me BASIC and I used a reference book that I still have
      today. It had every command on a separate page with a description of
      what it did. I went through the book trying most of the commands.
    3. What was your first language? My first language was BASIC, however I also did quite a bit on the TI-85. I create a Space Invaders type game on the TI-85.
    4. What was the first real program you wrote? My first program was a simple quiz game for my youngest sister, it taught her our address, phone number, etc… I also did some db work in a program called “Q&A” for the company my mom worked for “Connery Concrete”.
    5. What languages have you used since you started programming? I started in BASIC, in high school I became a Pascal user, after college I moved to Perl as I became a “web guy”, and have since changed to PHP. I have dabbled in others, but very limited.
    6. What was your first professional programming gig? My first paid job was for Connery Concrete doing some DB work. They did not store their information in a convenient way to make use of it. I also did similar work for a travel company. Before I started they entered all of their customer data into “Q&A” and then hand wrote all of the information onto forms. What a complete waste of time that was.
    7. If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be? Think outside the box. I can’t tell you how many things I have been able to do because I have thought about the problem and solution a little differently than any of my colleagues. “There is more than one way to skin a cat” is something my mom used to say all the time.
    8. What’s the most fun you’ve ever had programming? I have to say what I am doing now is. I am part of a team that cares where our project is going. Ecommerce is such a competitive field, and selling bowling balls is tricky. Trying to be on the cutting edge and know that you are doing it before the competition can blink is a GREAT feeling. Having a boss that doesn’t just settle on a store bought solution because it may be cheaper makes me feel very appreciated. I have really grown to love the sport and the nuances that go into it. And to be able to spend my day working in this industry is just plain awesome.

    I had to follow suit when I saw this post from Joe Stump. I can’t imaging working with such cutting edge technology persona’s as Kevin Rose, and the old crew from the Tech TV era.

    I wish I had people to tag. The only other programmer that I knew and respected was the best man in my wedding, but he has pretty much cut me out of his life. :( Long story, but I miss his friendship. The long talks we could have. Working together on programming projects. Makes me sad when I think about it.

    Oh well. He knows who he is and if he wants to carry on this type of post, I would be honored.

     

    • Cory 8:52 am on September 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I guess someone has to comment on your ramblings. Things were different then, the future a bit brighter, the path more clear. I am not proud of most of what has happened since then, especially against you personally. I wish I could make sense of it all, but if I wallow in the mistakes of the past, I could easily drown in them.

    • john_congd46001 11:05 am on September 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I do tend to ramble sometimes, that's for damn sure. I appreciate getting a response from you. I see that you knew who I was referring to.

      I don't hate you for the choices that you made. I was disappointed, but I can understand (a little) what you were feeling.

      I started to write a lot more, but it was rambling and I am sure this isn't the right place to air things out. Thank you for commenting.

      I am interested in reading what you have written about so far. It looks like you have moved on to Ruby on Rails. I have considered trying that, but never have grown the balls to try it. Kind of stick with PHP and Perl now.

      I hope to hear from you again. Take care.

    • John Congdon 1:51 am on October 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I personally read the line as you having a smiley face. I could just picture you saying that in your way with a smirk. "well someone has to respond to your ramblings."

      I understand that I will be associated with the incident and I wish that I wasn't. I, we(Charlie and myself) were told that you wanted out and that you sent an email asking to be bought out. What happened from there was between you too.

      I definitely want to stay on the cutting edge and am always trying. I have started looking at Rails in the past and am not sure why I didn't proceed.

      I have tried to stay plugged into this social networking thing, watching tech podcasts and just staying in the loop. Using Twitter I find myself looking at all sorts of fun links that people post. And staying tuned in to the latest things available, like Google Chrome, and other information.

      I will read this PDF for sure. I like the aquasun site. Good job. Do you all of the programming still, or are you part of a team?

    • Cory 3:19 am on October 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      You and Charlie got the correct story, but the devil is in the details. We did 800K in sales in my time there (not counting eBay). Not groundbreaking, but not peanuts. My buyout was done in a exploitative way because I was in no position to do anything about it because signed agreements were always "just around the corner". To me, my deep respect for this person was all the contract I needed. I guess he didn't need to give me anything, but the pittance given was more of an insult than anything. Maybe he didn't see the full potential at the time and was not willing to invest. He could not have gotten where he is today with the site without full-time staff. He wasn't ready to be big yet, maybe I was lazy and did bad work

      Unfortunately, since then I have approached every situation with C.Y.A. in mind and it can really screw with the way you pursue new projects.

      This is the last time I will bring up this topic.

      Feel free to delete this comment as this is a personal/business blog.

    • Cory 3:41 am on October 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Change is hard, especially when you are so familiar with one type of language. It is also harder to find the benefit in migrating to a new platform. It was easier for me because the project was fresh and I wanted to try something new.

      I still haven't really done much with the social network thing. I have a hard
      time seeing these things as a productive use of time (not that I use my time well anyway).

      The PDF is big, but after the first few pages, you will be hooked. I sorta like the site, it is only been launched for a month. There is some AJAX sprinkled in there that Rails makes very accessible. The real magic is in the backend: ebay API, ebay store, google shopping, etc…

      At the end of the day it is still e-commerce. I would rather be writing something else, but it pays the bills.

      I am the only coder, but I have Lee and Charlie on my team. Rails does such a good job separating logic from HTML that designers can write their own views without much help from me. We don't have to code, design, then integrate as much. I can code logic and hand the design off to them for most of the integration.

    • Cory 9:30 am on October 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I should have put a smiley face after my first sentence as I wasn't using "rambling" in a negative light. I had read all your posts and to me blogging is rambling mostly because nobody is really listening; not to little guys like us anyway.

      You have every right to be disappointed or super-pissed. For what I did to you, I am truly sorry and I hope I can make it right one day. This doesn't change my opinion about the other person. Even with many years and a clear head to consider what happened I still feel very wronged. Unfortunately, you were attached to this incident and will forever be associated with it in my mind.

      I know you always wrote good, modular code, so maybe you have found your sweet spot with PHP and Perl, but since you do write good code, trying Rails is a MUST.

      Grab this and soak it in: http://www.rescuenil.com/AWDR.pdf

      Plus, you gotta stay on the cutting edge of this stuff. There is a lot going on out there and learning new stuff keeps you fresh and gives you different ways to look at problems. Finding myspace (bleh!) late is ok, but don't miss Rails

      Current Rails project: http://www.aquasunmotorsports.com/shop/

    • John Congdon 7:00 am on October 5, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      This is my personal blog, through and through. Thank you for sharing your views.

    • John Congdon 7:08 am on October 5, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Have you looked into using Twitter? It really can be addicting. Then there is ping.fm, which lets you post in one place and have it automatically post to a bung of others (Twitter, pownce, plurk, etc…)

      I like the social networking in a sense that I keep up to date. I follow mostly tech people and they are constantly throwing out links to the latest and greatest. I decided to do the social networking thing because of many of the podcasts that I watch/listen to. I started by following the hosts there and have built it up from there. If you don't watch podcasts already, I highly suggest checking out http://www.geekbrief.tv and http://www.revision3.com for some of my favorites.

      I am not sure what your plans for http://www.rescuenil.com are in the long run, but I do have an invite code for Intense Debates if you would like one. I know you are not into social networking, but that is how I have built my little following. I have a couple of people that do come here when I post new topics.

      I started reading the PDF a little. I really want to print it out, but it is so big. But reading print is so much easier.

  • John Congdon 1:37 pm on July 24, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 120Social, , Tony Hall   

    Jeff McCord and Tony C Hall Team Up 

    Today Jeff McCord and Tony Hall announced they are teaming up to do a new Audio Podcast. I have been following both of these men on twitter and it is so great to see that this medium is helping to nourish new partnerships and business.

    The social media explosion is a great thing for everyone. It is allowing for some great collaborations. I can’t wait to see what this podcast is like. 120Social is geared to be all about social media, from Twitter to Pownce (yes Jeff, it is still around) to everything else. Each new concept brings about other great concepts. Ping.fm for example, would not have existed without all of the others. All Ping.fm does is kind of group all of the new technologies together so that you don’t have to post every at one time.

    Keep up the great work guys!

     

  • John Congdon 12:09 pm on July 24, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: browser shots   

    View Your Web Site In Any Browser 

    Thanks to BradwellTV I just learned about a great service that is available to test your web site in just about any browser.

    We all know that it is a pain. You make a minor change on your site and it looks perfect on your Mac in Firefox 3.0. An hour later you hear a co-worker tell you that he can’t navigate because it does not work in Windows Internet Explorer 6.

    You can’t possibly have every type of OS, with every browser and manually test every change. It would take far too long. browsershots.org to the rescue. Simply enter your Web Address and choose all of your preferences. Browsers, OS, Screen Size, Colors, Javascript, Java, and Flash are all configurable.

    Depending on the current queue, you will start to receive results within a minute or two. It can take much longer to get all of the results.

    I can now check to make sure every page of bowling balls on bowlingball.com looks as good as it can. I sure have a lot of work to do now… :(

     

    • Bradleybradwell 2:54 pm on August 22, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Yes, this definitely works. I have now started using it with all of my websites. I'm having a few problems i have to deal with, but over all my site is looking good in all the major browsers.

  • John Congdon 7:37 pm on July 22, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Upgrade   

    Added Memory to My Server 

    I just finished a simple upgrade of my server that hosts “My Life as a Programmer” and Cyborg Computing.

    I only had one(1) gig of ram hosting this site, my mail, and the backup database of bowlingball.com.

    So far I am very pleased with the additional 4 gigs. The response time to my pages appears to have dropped drastically.

     

  • John Congdon 4:38 pm on July 22, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: IE 8, Web Slices   

    Microsoft IE 8 Introduces Web Slices 

    Today I learned about IE 8′s new Web Slices. In concept they may be very useful if web developer implement them.

    In a nutshell, web slices allow a use to “watch” a portion of a web page for changes. Very useful for ecommerce sites when you want to watch a price, or product availability.

    I just finished implementing them on bowlingball.com’s product pages. As a 1st try, I am only including the price area of the page in the content. It appears that the CSS is not included in the web slice, so formatting is an issue.

    If you have IE 8 installed, check it out and let me know your thoughts.

     

  • John Congdon 9:43 am on July 22, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Cleaning our offices for a Thur meeting with a major executive in the bowling industry. :) Gotta love putting on a show.

     

  • John Congdon 11:59 pm on July 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Twitter Updates for 2008-07-21 

    Powered by Twitter Tools.

     

  • John Congdon 9:46 am on July 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    iTunes Needs To Include Comments For WordPress 

    I have been thinking about why some podcasts are not available in iTunes. Are the hosts/creators just too lazy to make their RSS feeds iTunes compliant?

    And then it hit me. Maybe they don’t so that you are forced to watch it in their venue. Be it wordpress, YouTube, etc… If you watch it where they post it, then you are more likely to leave comments.

    Let’s face it. Blogging and Vlogging are all about community involvement. The hosts want and need to see those comments. They strive to get more of them. It helps create content for their site (always good) and gives feedback, good and bad. The only way to get better is by knowing what doesn’t work.

    So I think it should be imperative for Apple to include a couple more RSS tags that you would allow subscribers to post comments. Maybe even read the current comments right from iTunes. Apple should help bolster the whole community idea that surrounds podcasts. After all, they did put the POD in PODcasts.

    Let me know what you think, leave a comment. :)

     

    • Jeff McCord 5:52 am on August 3, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Couldn't agree with you more. As I replied on my blog (to your comment) I never even thought about that. Great points!!! The truth of the matter is I would get a better chance of getting my podcast out to "the masses" via iTunes than just putting it on my site. So I guess you'd have to weigh what's more important – comments or subscribers.

    • John Congdon 1:55 am on August 5, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Yeah, I agree, but I think we could accomplish both with time. PodCasting is obviously a force to be reconned with, and I believe things will change.

      Subscribers are important. You need people to see your message.

← Older posts

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
l
go to login
h
show/hide help
shift + esc
cancel