But it is not very reliable.

As I write this, it is 5:10 in the morning and the internet is down again (I will have to post it later).  I’ve been up for over an hour, and I’ve done the routines of restarting the router and switching the cable modem off and on.  I would be on the phone to tech support if it weren’t so early and I would wake up the rest of the house.

I have times like this every few weeks.  I constantly have to reboot the router.  Sometimes it works, but other times I just have to wait.  I believe in moving everything to the cloud – except for this.  No email, no net, no Spotify.  During baseball season, it means I can’t watch Padre games in the early morning hours (I can watch San Diego night games at 3:30am in England).

I know some people who live in remote areas where they have no internet or very basic dial up service.  It’s almost unthinkable now. 

Even people with 2Mb broadband have a terrible experience.  Back when I had 8Mb Orange broadband, the performance was terrible in the evening.  I don’t get that with Virgin.  I love it.  If only it didn’t go down so often.

If you are considering Virgin Broadband.  This is something you may want to think about.  Of course, it could be a faulty switch in my area or something more local like that.  If you have Virgin, I’d be interested in the experiences you’ve had.

I’m going to a client site today.  Hopefully, it will be running again by the time I get home.

Related posts:

1. Orange broadband – good riddance!
2. Wonderful Broadband

Every so often, I think, I should post something.  I used to post 3-4 times a month on what was on my mind.  I’ve had things on my mind this year, of course, but haven’t felt like posting.

Technology-wise, I’ve been working a lot with Silverlight and jQuery this year.  I love Silverlight since everything is so easy (once you get around the async issues), but jQuery has helped me see how powerful HTML5 will be.  Silverlight is a nice corporate technology (meaning, you can get a good contract working in an investment bank with it) but it will never be a good internet tool because it is not on tablets.  jQuery simplifies javascript and makes cross-browser a snap.

I’ve been given an opportunity to do some work in Sharepoint.  I’ve read a lot about it and played with some code, but . . . yawn!  Just because it’s a MS technology doesn’t mean it’s great.  I hear things like “It’s so powerful. . . you can create a new site in seconds”.  But, I can create a better one in Joomla and full control over the html that is output.  I’ve seen too many Sharepoint 2010 features work in IE9, but not in Firefox or Chrome.  No problem if you are in a bank, but not out in the wild.  So, I wont’ be working with Sharepoint anytime soon.  It bothers me how much time I’ve spent on it already.

So, I would like to get more of my opinions expressed here.  I’m still up at 4:30—but most of that time now goes to working on pet projects or running. 

Related posts:

1. Another update
2. An update
3. Looking forward to Silverlight 5

So, I started using DNN for a job recently.  It’s on version 5 now (version 6 is very soon to be released), and I have to say—it shows its age.  I’m not a fan.  When the web is trying to go very mvc, ajaxy, and rest-y, DotNetNuke is stuck in 2006.  It’s as if web 2.0 left it behind.

There are a lot of great things going on the web development arena, even for Microsoft developers.  The MVC framework is elegant and fantastic.  Silverlight is very cool.  HTML5 and jquery make cross-browser more fun than ever.  It makes you want to forget all that messy webform code with its code-behind and postbacks.  So, DNN just feels old.

I never really liked the way Microsoft abandoned classic ASP, which was not all that different from php.  It encouraged developers to think about session state and requests and responses.  It focused more on the html that was delivered to the browser.  You could view the source of any page you wrote in classic asp and recognize the html as the markup you had written. 

When MS moved to ASP.Net webforms, they tried to let desktop developers feel comfortable with web development.  You could drag a button on a page, double-click it, and write some code for it.  You didn’t even have to worry about what kind of tag it would produce.  Who wants to use HTML anyway, right?  It was awful.  You got a new breed of web developers who didn’t know any html or javascript—only .net. 

I’m glad Microsoft is really pushing the MVC framework, which gives developers more control over the HTML that is produced.

DNN is a good platform, but written with a bad technology.  I hope someone notices the writing on the wall for .net webforms and starts a massive rewrite into a more current language.

Related posts:

1. PHP with Visual Studio

First, I ran the Reading Half Marathon in March for the third straight year.  This year, my time was 1 hour, 53 minutes and some odd seconds.  I’ve been training a lot, but it wasn’t a tremendous improvement.

I finished the London Marathon in April with a time of 4:35:58.  My only goal on the run was to keep from walking.  I didn’t care what my time was—as long as I didn’t walk.  I walked in the 1994 Honolulu Marathon and I didn’t want to walk in this one.  Well, despite my 21.8 mile training runs, I did succumb to walking after the twenty-first mile.  It was a pretty warm day and I just couldn’t keep it up.  I finished the marathon with a new personal-best (since my 1994 marathon was over five hours), but couldn’t keep running.  Oh well—if it was easy, everyone would do it.  Still, I’m proud of myself.

I’ve been working a Silverlight job for the past six months.  I’m enjoying it. 

I’ve really fallen off the social networking band-wagon.  I’ve tweeted like one thing this year and haven’t posted here, either.  Despite not tweeting anything, I still get new followers every day—this just goes to show how many people are trying to game the system and collect followers by following as many people as they can no matter how active they are.  And I haven’t been on Facebook much, either.  Sometimes it just feels nice to (as they say in the spy movies) go dark and just disappear for a while. 

So, that’s what I’ve been up to—running, working, and not much else.  I’m trying to keep things simple.  I’m happy.

Related posts:

1. Another update

We had to read Huckleberry Finn in high school.  It had the n-word.  We had to know that “that’s how people talked back then.” 

There’s a big controversy over removing the word in newer editions of the book.  It is being held as political correctness gone amok.  I know the book is often banned because of that word.

But, to be honest, I don’t see the problem changing it.  That word is not what made the book a success.  If it makes it easier for the single black child in an all-white suburban classroom to get through his day, then great.

As a teenager, I also read the “Count of Monte Cristo” and I’m pretty sure the language of that book was changed too (out of sensitivity to the fact that I don’t speak French).  It was still a great book.

Related posts:

1. The Books Store Support Group
2. One day we will will tell our grandchildren . . .
3. Swimming With Sharks

I have a habit of buying myself things before Christmas.  This makes shopping for me pretty difficult.  If there is something I really really want, I will usually just buy it.  The only time I wouldn’t just buy it, would be if it was too expensive.  In this case, it would definitely be too expensive for someone else to get it for me for Christmas.

I found myself more jaded about Christmas shopping this year.  My entire life, I’ve heard the same complaints about Christmas—it’s too commercial.  I never understood this as a kid, but when you grow up it’s hard to avoid.  As a kid, the more stuff the better.  As an adult, you start to look at how much clutter you have in your life and get tired of being marketed to.

I refuse to shop for presents before December.  This often means a lot of panic at weekends leading up to the big day.  I walk down a high street—my feet shuffling and trudging forward aimlessly—without a clue about what to buy other people.  Other members of my family are shuffling around with no idea what to buy me.  I found myself thinking this year: “Didn’t we just have Christmas?”

There is so much tat and junk at Christmas that it is actually an economy in itself. There is an entire product range that should be called “We know you would never buy this normally, but since it is Christmas and you have no idea what to get him—we know you’ll buy it now”.  The ads are all filled with perfume, celebrity autobiographies, and Jeremy Clarkson DVDs at Christmas time.  There’s no chance you would buy any of this junk if you didn’t feel you absolutely had to fill that gap in your Christmas list.

Christmas is funny this way.  There is such a build up for the big day and everyone wants to capture the magic of their childhood once again with it.  As a parent, I’m very conscious of the fact that those magical moments are happening now for my kids, so I want the holiday to be as perfect as it can be.  But, after New Years Day, you are left with lots of extra baggage and a tree in your living room.

I started writing this to say how cool my new Kindle is and ended with a rant about Christmas.  Well, I’ll talk about the Kindle another time.

No related posts.

I shook Bill Clinton’s hand once.

It was in 93 or 94 at Hickam Air Field while President Clinton was taking a vacation in Hawaii. Air Force One was on an air strip about a mile away from where we lived. When word came that he was flying out, I went to see what was going on. There was a huge crowd at the airstrip already when I arrived and the Secret Service had corralled everyone into a little fenced off area.  One agent (I assume that’s what he was) told us that the president probably would just get straight on the plane from his car and not greet the crowd. However, Clinton is very good about pleasing voters and, when the motorcade showed up, he did approach the rope line and shook everyone’s hand and talk to the people for about 20 minutes before boarding the plane. Hillary did too. I was eager to see him in person.  He was the President of the United States and had been my Commander in Chief for two of my four years in the Army.

When he got close to where I was standing in the rope-line, I could hear what he was saying to everyone else as he shook hands. It was polite stuff – “Hi, where you from? That’s great, that’s great.” It was hard not to like him. He’s a very likeable guy. He shook my hand and looked me in the eye and said hello. It was pretty cool. The entire time, a Secret Service agent stood behind him whispering stuff in his ear like “Theres a curb right behind you, watch your step.”

It was a nice experience, but I hated seeing how everyone in the crowd gushed and how he put on that politician smile and he spoke to everyone.  He wasn’t royalty, after all.

I’ve never been a Bill Clinton fan. After moving to England in 98, I found out how popular he was overseas. So many people over here absolutely loved him in England. I came out here just before the impeachment, so there was a lot of discussions about how up-tight Americans are to impeach him for something so personal. I explained that he was being impeached for perjury, but you can’t disuade fans that easily.

Clinton did a lot of good, don’t get me wrong. In retrospect, he wasn’t all that bad. George W. Bush made him look like a genius. But, like all former presidents, he looks a lot better giving a 5-minute speech at a party convention than he did giving a press conference as president.

What really bothered me most about him was the phoniness. I hated when he told voters at a town hall meeting “I feel your pain.” I hated it when he bit his lip and got all misty-eyed during the national anthem.  He never seemed genuine to me, and he still doesn’t.

When I think about Clinton, I think about the phoniness and the career politician. I find Obama to much more authentic and genuinely believe he is doing his best. When I hear pundits say that he can learn from Clinton the politician, I cringe.

But he’s a vegan now, and it’s big news. I wonder if it wasn’t big news, if he would have bothered at all.

No related posts.

It seems silly when you think of places where they really get snow, but England doesn’t have the infrastructure for this type of weather. 

On Saturday morning, we woke up to a Winter Wonderland outside.  I was going to do a 10-mile run as I’ve done the last few Saturdays.  Instead, I ran about a half a mile until I came to a road with cars trying to drive up a snowy road and getting nowhere.  So, I spent a while helping people by pushing their cars uphill.  Then, I ran the short distance back home and got into a snowball fight with my kids.

Every night since Saturday, the news has had one story—“Why can’t England handle snow?”  Why is there such chaos on the roads?  Why is transportation so affected?  We got the same story last year when we had a surprising amount of snow—and the year before that.

Actually, I think England is perfect for snowy weather.  Although I grew up in San Diego, where we never got snow, I have lived for a few years in Missouri where it snowed a lot.  On the first snowfall day, I made a snowman (I was like 24, but it was a novelty to me), but then the snow stayed for months.  Toward the end, you get so sick of snow and ice and cold.  In England, you have to take advantage and enjoy it because it will be gone in a few days.

I’m sitting here in the early morning getting ready for my last day of work for the year an it’s snowing again outside.  That means more weather warnings and traffic chaos.  But all in all, I love these snowy days.

Related posts:

1. Snow in England this morning
2. Heavy snow in London

One of my goals in finding a contract this time was to stay out of London.  I’ve had enough of the London commute with its delayed trains and crowded tubes.  So, in my new job I commute three days a week (working from home two days) on my motorbike.  I’m working in two different locations about an hour away—but on country roads.  Each morning, I pack up my laptop, strap it to my back, and ride to one of the client offices.

My work has been all Silverlight so far.  I love getting stuck in a new language.  I’m having flashes of insight as to how to do cool things while I’m out running or taking a shower.  It’s a novelty and heavy on the brain. 

I still wake up early, but my morning time is spent with meditation and running (and surfing around reading up on technology). 

Life is going well.

Related posts:

1. Windows Mobile Device Center on Vista
2. New Contract
3. The lone developer is dangerous.

It’s been fun.  I’ve met a lot of great developers, been to China a few times to meet with software companies, and have worked on projects for small companies here and there.  But my skills as a salesman are terrible—and I hate cold-calling more than anything.  So, it’s time to change direction and get back to doing what I do well.

Even while trying to run my own software business, I’ve continued to code—learning technologies like Silverlight and NHibernate.  The nice thing about taking time off from contracting is that you get to build the skills you want to have, instead of the skills people will hire you for.  I’m my own DIY project and I can never stop learning the new skills.

Getting back to contracting is a big relief to me.  Selling myself (as a developer) has never been difficult, but selling the skills of other developers is tough.

On Monday I start a new contract in Basingstoke.  I’m very excited about it.  My main goal while looking for a contract was to stay out of London.  London’s a great place but I want to get familiar with more of England.  If I can stay away from the crowded trains and tubes, all the better.  I’m starting a four-month contract with a company that looks like it will be a lot of fun.  It also gives me the chance to work from home a few days a week.

It’s a good solid coding job—no offshoring at all.  Also, no mentoring, no team leading, and no budgeting.  It’s going to be great.

Overpass will continue to be a company, but it will be a company of one.

Is this a failure?  Um. . . not yet.

I’m thirty-eight—I probably haven’t even reached this life’s half-way point.  I’m looking forward to the future and am very optimistic about it.  Seven years ago, I was a permanent employee for a tiny company in Reading.  Thirteen years ago, I was a substitute teacher in Missouri and became a qualified to teach high school.  Twenty years ago, I was a soldier learning to speak Chinese.  Who knows what the future will bring?

Related posts:

1. Moving On . . . Again
2. Perks of being a IT Contractor