Seems that instead of posting actual events as they happen, I'm resorting more and more to posting summaries of the stuff that has happened since the last summary. Is one still a blogger if one posts only once a quarter? Or is it more existential than that? Like: I'm still here, so I'm still blogging. Or is it other way around?
Anyway, things have been way to busy:
- Got the big 3-0 coming up soon. Looks like world+dog will come over to DK to celebrate. This'll be good. Very good.
- At work we are increasingly using Ruby and Ruby on Rails for stuff. Beyond all the hype, it really does deliver.
- We've also spent serious time with Adobe Flex. If you use REST with Ruby on Rails, you get all these XML-serving controllers for free with your Rails model. It turns out that these can very easily be consumed by Flex's mx:HTTPService component. These Adobe/Macromedia guys really thought of just about everything. There is stuff in there to solve almost all common programming problems.
Once you get your head around the concept of databinding, development goes very fast indeed. One of my guys took 2 days to build a fully fledged dynamic UI for relatively large Rails-based document processing system. Very, very, cool.
- Went to AIIM in Boston (big document/imaging tradeshow). Was able to take the girl too. And a truckload of customers. Spend some time in New York before it, which unfortunately was exactly when this happened. We had a good time anyway though.
- Another upshot of that trip is that the girl now has a Canon 400D (incl. crappy kit lens). She's already making some really good shots. Because it is so light and includes an on-camera flash, the kids have an easier time messing around with it too. The 5D is really too heavy for them to handhold inside.
- Finally had some time to play with studio-lighting. Hope to post some results soon. For now I'll say it involved a mountain of icecubes and a polar bear.
- The new site is still coming, but high pressure at work needs to drop first...
That about wraps it up for now...
