Skeater On the Loose

So I was glad to hear that Cousin Jewels started blogging a couple of months back. She's got a lot of fun posts on her blog. Check it out I've also added her to my blogroll.

AJAX means we are using Javascript more now than ever

Google has made my life a little more difficult, but in a good way. Now that google has their Gmail and Google Suggest sites up and people are using them and loving them. They’ve become the new standard/model for user interfaces on the web. Till these interfaces things like web mail haven’t advanced very far since 1999–2000 as far as the user interface goes. However with Google proving that application that use AJAX are a very viable method of enhancing a web interface without the use of plug-ins like Flash or Shockwave. The browser support for these applications are wide reaching as is the kind of applications that they can use it.

 For example, we have an employee directory application at work. It’s built the way that you would expect. ASP.NET  for our presentation layer, SQL Database for the data layer and  a business logic middle tier that acts as a transaction broker between the presentation layer and the data layer. Well being a database driven application, you have to have input data, right. So we have a page for inputting employee data. So of these fields are information about the employee. There are of course some fields that while not, duplicates are related to each other. For example, as with most places email addresses and network logins are derived from the users first name and last name. So using some logic on the server side, and the AJAX.NET component, I fill the earlier fields from the later ones. Now we’ve saved people steps, and saved steps are saved mistakes. However you have to know how javascript works to connect these things together.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with javascript, some of the things I don’t like about javascript, just isn’t it’s fault and goes back to my netscape 4.7 days. The fact that the DOM (Document Object Model) is just a little different for each browser is sometimes very hard to deal with. It requires hours of testing on different browsers and different operation systems. Another thing I have a really tough time is with debugging. I wish there was a tool that acted like Visual Studio and would at least give me a hint that something is awry in the code before I try to use it. 

Javascript is a good tool though and something that we are going to use more and more. In web development there use to be more of a line between the front-end logic and the back-end logic. They were written in different languages and didn’t communicate. Well AJAX and the demand for more dynamic user interfaces will demand, that they do communicate, they may not have to be written in the same language, but they are going to have to work together. Which brings me to my next point, I’ve gotten use to writing applications in reusable classes. Javascript doesn’t really work that way, you can create structures that mimic a class, but not very closely. This is going to need to improve, especially if you are going to have more logic in the front-end. 

The brings us to another point, now that the logic is in both the middle tier and the front-end the three-tier architecture gets a little muddy. The dividing lines are harder to see, and for a time like mine, there is more overlap that can be hard to communicate. If I ask my back-end guy to write javascript, he’ll think, that is the front-end guy’s job, if I ask the front-end guy to write a function in C# to handle some front-end process, he will look at me and say C#, that is the back-end guy’s job.

Security is another aspect that has to be considered. There are some real risks having logic in the front-end. Especially with search engines scouring every web page on the Internet. If your a financial institution you have to worry about phish, in fact you have to assume you will be phished. So with those things in mind, having a calculation that is important to your business in a .js file for anyone to find in a browser is like hiding the house keys in the mailbox. Sure it’s out of sight but most people can guess where they are. So anything really and truly important like that needs to be done on the back-end.  This is where AJAX over just javascript definely has an advantage. However it still must be smart enough to be session/context sensitive. AJAX.NET does a good job of this.

In short, I think that AJAX applications are only going to grow in popularity and complexity. Popularity because it provides a user experience closer to a native application. Complexity because the developer is going to be knowing where and where not to use these methods.  With a little forethought by application developer and architects web applications can be dynamic, easy to use and secure, but only if we user AJAX, where it makes sense, not just to use it.

The correct Way to Backup a Truck.

I grew up driving trucks. Being that my family is in construction, and trucks and construction go to hand and hand it make sense that I learned to drive, trucks. In fact the first six months I had my license I would drive a D-50 dodge flatbed through downtown LA every day to pickup one of the guys we worked with and then would drive to Santa Monica. Also being in construction, you are always backing up to drop off or pick up materials. As if that wasn’t enough, my first driving lesson my Dad ever gave me was backing up. He said, if you can back a car up, the rest is easy. So needless to say, I thought I knew how to back a vehicle up till last night.

We are doing some concrete work in the back yard and need to go pick up some more concrete. Of course I can’t put 20 bags of 90lb concrete in the back of the camry, so I borrow brother K’s truck, which use to be Papa’s Truck. So we are at the big orange home store, buying concrete. And as you may know, I can’t borrow a truck without the Little Boy going with me. What can I say the Boy Loves trucks. Anyhow, so I have to back up to get the concrete in the back of the truck. I had to back up around a corner and miss shopping carts, building materials and other vehicles. So I start to back up, and the Little Boy jumps in the back seat of the truck, (its a club cab) and presses his nose right against the glass, and starts saying, “Okay, go left a little bit, right a little bit, stop, go forward Al right you got it, good job, keep going, keep going, you did it!”It was so darn cute. So next time I back up a truck, I’ll need the assistance of our back seat drivin’ Little Boy.

Sis' trip to Indy

Well, Sis is off to Indy for Gencon. It's one of the biggest gaming conventions there is. These people like to dress up for the occasion, which is where she fits in. My Sister makes some of the most beautiful costumes you've ever seen. She is flying over there for the conventions and being the nervous geek I am I had to track her flight. Of course I didn't want to have to hit refresh each time to see how her flight was going so I wrote something to do that for me.

A Few Changes in the Line Up

Okay, well as you can see the blog is looking a little different. I had to revert back to a standard template, because my friends web server that was hosting the images and the style sheets went down for a little bit. So I am using a "standard" template which I have changed to have most of the features I had on the previous version. So I guess this is version 1.52.

Also this morning I added a new link to the link section call "Where are you from?". This is a pretty cool service that tells you where people that visit this blog are coming from. You'll see the first one is from Burbank, CA, which is where I work. It uses google maps API and some geo-coding information form the ISPs to do this.

Hybrid Supercar Build My Highschoolers

This story is definitely refreshing. Instead of youth gone wild, we have youth gone engineering. So innercity high schools students team up with some engineering students and the results are stunning. The results are a Hybrid Supercar can do 0-60 in the low 4-seconds and can get 50mpg. The car is call "The Attack" and looks just as good as it performs. This is a solution better than the big three could come up with. The fueled engine it uses, runs on biodesiel. How brilliant is that!

read more | digg story

Shredding ukulele

You have to see Jake Shimabukuro play to believe your ears. This artist can play things on a ukulele that most guitarist would like to be able to play with 6 strings, and Jake is playing it on 4. You have to see Jake play “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.

Digging Dig

As you know I work in the technology . It’s imperative that I keep up with the latest news on the technology front. If there is a new web browser, I download it and start testing our web site and home banking. Enter digg.com, digg is a social  bookmarking and rating site that is center around technology. One of the nice things about the site is that you can see all of the links/articles you “dugg” as well as being able to see the what your friends are “digging” too. I really like it, check it out.You want to see want to see what I dugg? My username is “o2bjang” Just add me to your friends list.

I've finally found a way to mow the lawn

As you may or may not know, I am very allergic to grass, specifically cut grass. Because of this I am denied the basic male excuse for going to home depot, which is, I need to get something to finish mowing the lawn. General my Beautiful Wife mows the lawn. I try to help get everything ready for her, and then flee the area. There are times with I do get to mow the lawn, however it looks like I’m about to perform surgery with a darth vader mask on. (Which by the way I still think is over at my Folk’s house). I have latex surgical gloves on, and a respirator that makes my breathing sound like darth vader, and is amazingly warm to wear.  Not the most ideal lawn mowing apparel.

That is where the RCLM2006S comes in. A completely remote control lawn mower. I bet if I put a wireless camera on it I could mow the lawn from the living room.

A Word About Phishing

Phishing is a reel pain. (pun intended)  So the phishing I am referring to in the Internet scam kind. I know that my family reads my blog, so this is for you guys. I don’t want you getting ripped off by the evil people out there on the Internet. In 2004, 970,000 people were victims of phishing scams.

So lets talk about what a phishing attack is, and how it starts. Its starts simple enough, you get an email that says it is from your bank or credit union. It usually says something to the effect that they’ve either done some system maintenance or had a system upgrade and need you to log in to the home banking site to verify either your information or your account. Of course for your convenience they’ve added the link to home banking in the email for you, so all you have to do is click the link to login.

See the Evils Phishing Bad Guys or EPBGs for short are very crafty. They will completely copy the look and feel of the website they are trying to imitate. Oh and don’t think because your bank or credit union is small that the EPBGs won’t try to phish it. It’s become a matter of when not if for all banks and credit unions.

So how do you tell the real email from the fake ones? Here is where the details matter. For the most part the EPBGs are launching these attacks from overseas, mostly Eastern Europe and Asia, so improper grammar and spelling are give aways that the email is probably a fake. Take it from me, our marketing people go through at least 5 revisions before an email is sent out.  Another thing to look at is the link in the email, does it look like the right address or is something a little off? If it doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t right. Third call the FI (Financial Institution) that send the email, don’t be afraid to ask them, “Hey did you send me this?”  If they don’t know about it, then they didn’t send it.

Okay now you’ve figured out that the email you got was a phishing scam, don’t delete it just yet, report the email to the company that the email claims to be from. They need to know as soon as possible, to protect themselves and their customers, as well as get the scam site shut down.

I’m not trying to scare you guys, I just want to keep you informed.

Dot.com Survivor

“Hello my name is Russ and I am a Dot.com survivor. I worked for four dot.com. Only one of them is still around. The last dot.com I worked for I survived five rounds of layoffs. By the time it was my turn to get laid off I was even relieved. I even asked my boss if he was okay, because he was more broken up about it then I was.That was in May of 2001.” I heard this monologue in my head as I was reading the article “10 Years That Changed the World” in this months issue of wired. I imagined that I was in a room full of ex-dot.comers as we take turns telling our dot.com survivor stories.

As I continue to read the article, which has a chronological order to it, I read from year to year and I think about where I was working in each of those years. It was the dot.com years so of course you never worked at the same place for more than a year.  A fact that almost played against me when I first interviewed at my current job almost four years ago now.  Of course I used monster.com to find these jobs. Monster being the first dot.com to spend all of their advertising budget on a super bowl add which worked for them. The very next year their were 17 dot.coms doing the same thing, it didn’t work as well for them. Can you remember any of them? Me Neither. 

In 1999 I worked at two dot.coms, the first one moved up north to the silicon valley a month after I started, they moved, I didn’t. The second was a dot.com that had a personalized license plate for a URL.  It was a contract job of course, and we all started with brand new G3 macintosh machines, and 21 inch CRT monitors. We were spoiled right from the get go. When they redesigned the new office space to have a fountain soda machine in the kitchen I should of known things were in trouble. Through giving computer geeks an endless supply of caffeine is a good way to get tons of work out of them, and they did. The deal breaker for me was, we had a huge project to do for the “Folks in New York”, so I worked from 5am and work till 9 pm for a couple months. The Execs saw what they wanted to see and our pleased boss took us out lunch to celebrate. Then he proceeded to congratulate his very attractive secretary whom hand only been there a week for the success. Two weeks later I was working somewhere else. What can I say, all I had to do was post my resume on monster.com and my voicemail would fill up with offers from hunger recruiters (head hunters) who didn’t know what HTML was but they knew they could get a finders fee for bring in someone that did.

2000, another year, two more dot.coms. The first was little startup that had great ideas, and offered me more money than the previous job. So of course that sounded great. However it ended on a Friday three months after I started when the “Big Boss” called us in the the conference room and gave a great speech about being a team and reorganizing for the betterment of the company (his wallet) , after that I was called into my bosses office, and laid off. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”. A month later I finally got my last paycheck from them.

The second dot.com was one that you may have actually heard of , but I’m not going to tell you. This one had music though, and it was a blast, a lot of fun and a lot of work. I’d work till 4am sometimes, in a well designed working space blasting my music as loud as I wanted sitting in my Herman miller chair, and drinking all the free soda/caffeine that was offered. I got to meet quite a few famous people, and didn’t even have to leave the office. This place was the epitome of the rock and roll internet company. Honestly, if I told you that I accidently bumped in to a rock star in the hall, I really did.  I was working here when the dot.com bubble burst. I saw the large offce space shrink. We moved from working in to stories of a completely overpriced building on the Miracle Mile, to everyone fitting on just one floor again. I saw my friends and co-workers get laid off, and waited for my turn. My turn came May in 2001. I called my Beautiful wife, told her the news and bought her some flowers on the way home.

So that is it, those are my dot.com days. I worked in some of the nicest buildings, with the nicest office furniture money could buy. Others had the refigerator in the server room, and would open the frig door every once in a while if the servers got to hot.

I may not work for a dot.com any more, but I am still in web development, Sr. Web Developer in fact. I heard that most the dot.comers became Real Estate Agents. That makes sense, they just traded one comdity for another.

 

new design for the photoblog

Well, I've changed the design for the photoblog again. I like this one better. The "harbor" theme just didn't go, but I really like the simplicity and playfulness of this one.

The Day after London

On the train this morning it's very quiet, with fewer people riding than usual. You'll hear one or two people talking about the "Attack on London" which of course leads to discussions about 9/11, but for the most part people are sitting quietly. The hum of the air conditioning, track noise and engine is interupted by the conductor, who beside making the normal station announcements, is also making a new one every ten minutes or so. "Please keep all personal belongings with you at all times. If you see anything that looks suspious please inform the conductor or a sheriffs officer immediately."  This announcement was put in to circulation after the Madrid attack in march, but had seemingly fallen out of popularity and use. After the announcement is made, people are gathering their things closer to them. I carry a laptop bag and a backpack every day I have them right next to me, as to make sure there is no doubt that their mine. I kind of expect to get stopped and checked just because of their size, and I'll be happy to do so when asked.

It's visible that security is higher. Instead of the normal metrolink marshalls checking for tickets, there are sheriffs offices doing sweeps of the cars after every stop. It's evident that they aren't worried about train ticket infractions. If you punched your ten trip or not seems kind of trivial today. At Union Station the security is even more evident. There are two sheriffs, or police offices at the end of each platform. Since the Madrid attack, there were always two to four on the platforms, but now each platform has it's own pair of officers. Its made even more poingant by the fact that some of them are wearing their tactical uniforms. There is also a K9 Unit, but that isn't exactly new. It's been showing up from time to time for a while now, so I wasn't surprised to see it. On the ride in to work yesterday I saw several police cars driving along the tracks inspecting them.

Talking with my Brother J this morning on the train ride in, he heard one of the "belongings" announcements over the phone and asked what that was about. So I told him about the announcment and the increased security. He said that he had seen that the homeland security warning for public transportation had changed to orange. He said knowing that made me feel better about me taking the train. I know my Beautiful Wife feels the same way. I asked her yesterday if she was nervous about me taking the train. She said "No, I think it will be okay". I think seeing the news this morning that shows all the added security made her feel better too.

It's interesting to look at the faces of my fellow passengers. They are reading and looking around, but you can see that the Attack is somethinng that we are all thinking about. I've talked with a couple people, and it's interesting to see the differences in attitudes. Some people are nervous, but the increased security seems to calm their fears. While other people felt it was there duty to be on the train today. One gentleman I talked with even said "Don't give them an inch, if you die on the train, you die on the train."  He felt that his keeping his normal routine was a personal affront to the people who launched the attacks on London. All I know is I need to get to work on time, and I still rather take the train than drive in L.A. traffic.

Postcards From The Beatles

This morning, I saw a really interesting segment on the CBS News Sunda Morning on Postcards from the Beatles. Ringo has always had a thing for postcards, and all of the "boys" sent him postcards from where ever they were. I enjoyed the fact that it showed "The Beatles" were always friends before they were world famous musicians.

Favorite News Story of the Day

So this has to be my favorite news story of the day. Queen Elizabeth is now the proud owner of a iPod mini. I Love the fact that somehow that is a news worth event. That is almost as bad as the Associated Press marking the story about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes getting engaged as urgent.

AJAX + .NET = AJAX.NET

Well, this will be my first techincal post in a while. I've been studying for my MCAD, and for some reason, that has not made me want to post anything to technical, however this one is too good not to share. Of course I've been reading about AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) for a while and have really loved the concept. The bacis concept is using Javascript and XML to send the data back and forth the the server instead of making a new page request. A new page request forces the page to reload on the users machine, where AJAX does the request in the background and is invisible to the user. You may have already used a web application that uses AJAX, if you've tried Google Suggest, you've used a AJAX enable web application.

Well, of course the idea of doing an application that uses this technology (group of existing technologies actually) has been intriguing to me, but I haven't the time or energy to work out how to implement it in our environment here at work. We are a Microsoft shop working mostly in C# but also doing some VB.NET stuff. Then I came across AJAX.NET. Looking at the documentation, this is going to make it so easy to do a proof of concept. If you have to do a lot of web user interface, check out AJAX.NET, while it isn't a perfect solution to the web user interface problem, it's definitely a step in the right direction.

A little shake

This afternoon there was a 4.9 magnitude earthquake, in the greater Los Angeles area. When it happened all my co-workers and I looked at each other, and just commented on the fact that it wasn't that big of an earthquake, and that it seemed to be a roller. We didn't even get out of our chairs. Then we discussed that the building we worked in is on rollers. If it was our first earthquake I seriously doubt we would of been that calm, or of blown it off like we did.

The Fun of Work

So this weekend the "Boys" got together. While that may sounds like the start of a faternity movie, it was actually, my two brothers, my Dad and I getting together and working on my Aunt's place. I'm not going to get into all that we were doing, but talk about the feeling of it. You see I worked with my Dad and Brothers in construction for ten years, but due to health reasons I needed to find a new line of work. The physical exersion that the job demand is too much for my asthmatic lungs to handle. Never the less, I loved working with my Dad and Brothers. Sometimes the work was very hard, sometimes it was very frustrating, the work and each other, but in the end when it was finished it was something we did and built together. That is the feeling I loved, and still love.

The other thing about working together is well, we are all a bunch of goofs! No one can make me laugh harder than my brothers or my Dad, they are just naturally funny people that are a lot of fun to be around, even when you are working. In fact saturday at lunch they had me laughing so hard, I couldn't breath. Just as brother K would do something so funny, that I'm laughing so hard, that I'm going to turn blue, I look to over at brother J and he is doing the same thing, and of course each time Dad looks at either of them they have a "I have no idea why he is laughing so hard, it wasn't me" look on their faces and that made me laugh even harder. The pure comedic timing my family posses is incredible.

Another thing that I really miss is the feeling like we are all taking care of each other. There is no corporate political games. There is also no clear cut lines, as everyone is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Dad will dig trenches, just like all the rest of us would. There isn't any, oh, that is a different department's job, we were all the deparments wrapped up in one.

The weekend was very hard on me physically, It was dusty, and dirty work, and not all of the work was pleasant, but we had a lot of fun working together.

Chee-toes

The Little Boy has learned a new trick that I must share. It seems that eating with his hands is no longer a challenge to him. So he has decided to come up with a much more interesting way to eat. You see The Little Boy has figured out that if he licks his toes (yes I said licks his toes) that cheerios and cheetoes will stick to his toes. Armed with this knowledge he know licks his toes, sticks his feet in the bowl and lifts his foot to his mouth and eats said cheerio. While this seems to be a particular useful method for him to eat and watch TV at the same time, it does somewhat discourage sharing food with him.

A cubicle with a View

So for the past week or so I haven't been in my usually cubicle at work. My usually cubicle is situated right next to my workmates and the window. So I can look out the window and at least get the feeling like I am close to being outside. It isn't a bad setup at all, and I quite like it. There is a drawback however, rain. For some reason the roof doesn't do quite the job is should of keeping the rain out of the walls. so they've had to remove the drywall above my cubicle, let it dryout and then they will replace it. Well, till they get that all finished I am banished from my cubicle. It fact it is completely covered in plastic. So I had to move to another desk down the hall, one where there are cubicle walls 5 feet high. It is a little bigger than my cube, but it feels really small. So till they get all of the patching done, I am stuck in a gray/blue cube, walled in and waiting for a cubicle with a view.