Guide to pants off living
July 2006
Takin' some small steps and learning .NET
Monday, 31 July 2006
Late last week and today I've been working on my .NET chops - reading, experimenting, failing, reading... repeat, adjust paradigm, rinse.
I got a whiff of the IHttpHandler and it smelt as if it could be massaged into acting like a servlet. Fortunately there are a few other morons out there who would rather make ASP.NET behave like Java Servlets so they don't have to completely adjust their reality.
Servlets rule; especially in a MVC configuration. Happy days. It's an arragement (perhaps framework?) that I comprehend well. If I can transfer that comprehension across to another language, well - the rest is furniture.
Today, it was this page simply entitled 'Java Servlets' which really helped to crack the nut I'd be gnawing at since last week. Believe me, the key learning new things is really shoving the right keywords into a Google search, if you're lucky you'll click on the right page that digests this information in the best way for you to understand.
So what does this mean? - well, I can now build you a .NET application if prodded and in time I'll learn some of the nifty techniques and stuff that can be implemented with form controls and such. For now though, it'll be a relief to be able to explore this a little further and get some bits and bobs up and running. Database connection here, form on a webpage there, animated flaming logo over there...
Posted by travo at 4:17:00 PM
A-1 Lebanese Bakery
Thursday, 20 July 2006
Best cheese pies on Sydney Road.
The A-1 Bakery is an amazing place and clearly a hub for the Lebanese / Middle Eastern community in Brunswick and Coburg. The pastries here are the business. You can also purchase bulk supplies of nuts, flour, sugar and a whole gammut of other cooking ingredients normally found in the fertile crescent.
Posted by travo at 11:34:05 AM | Comments (2)
Kaleidoscope
Thursday, 20 July 2006
This is a great place to go for breakfast - especially with a larger crowd. It is a huge place with plenty of room to move and the food is super-tasty and fresh. Pretty nice coffee too.
Posted by travo at 11:29:52 AM
The Green Refectory
Thursday, 20 July 2006
This is one of our favourite places for breakfast - the Stack is still the best and most amazing meal on Sydney Road.
Posted by travo at 11:23:13 AM | Comments (1)
Hands on people who become managers.
Wednesday, 19 July 2006
This a fab discussion by Jeffery Veen and Khoi Vinh both of whom are recognised as fantastic designers. Both now have killer leadership roles at Google (Jeff) and the New York Times (Khoi), what's recorded here is a great discussion about the difficulties faced by people who are typically very hands on as they move towards roles which require a greater degree of leadership.
I'm hearing very similar things from developers who have been required to make similar transistions. Especially those comments that relate to influencing organisational change and hearing Jeff talk about giving design a voice in (what I think sounds like) an agile environment.
Posted by travo at 11:36:45 AM
Launching Pants Off Places
Monday, 17 July 2006
You may have noticed a couple of weird posts in your RSS feeds, these are the first in what I hope to be a large collection of landmarks - cafe's, restaurants, shops, parks, whatever - I'm going to record in my blog. I'm calling it Pants Off Places.
This is a bit of a Google Maps API mashup with Movable Type. It's probably not the most complete and integrated mashup of it's kind available for MT but at this stage - it'll do nicely. For now I'm also using this clunky example map to help get the co-ordinates for each of these locations as the Google location search for Australia isn't all that complete.
I'd like to have a template for these entries, so that you also see a map shown on the individual archive entry, I'll try to get around to that when I can. Let me know what you think.
Posted by travo at 11:06:05 AM
Tom Phat
Sunday, 16 July 2006
This is one of our favourite breakfast places of all time.
Posted by travo at 5:17:04 PM
CERES Community Centre
Sunday, 16 July 2006
CERES is a brilliant place to go and explore, we love to go there to collect local native plants for our garden.
Posted by travo at 4:45:24 PM
Is Gibson Guitars effectively hamstrung by their own legacy?
Monday, 10 July 2006
There's a really interesting article over at Wired today reporting on the result of an appeal by Paul Reed Smith Guitars against the ruling that their single cut-away electric guitar was designed too similarly to Gibson's famous Les Paul.
And I suggest 'designed too similarly..' because I think that those in the know would agree that there is a great deal about the PRS that attempts to mimic in the Les Paul beyond the look. Selection and position of pickups, selection of woods and neck shape, the list goes on; all in a valid attempt to re-imagine a legend.
Really, though - that's the point. I think the legacy of the Les Paul has effectively bound Gibson into a position where they are unable to develop that instrument beyond it's current format. They have tried; unfortunately those instruments were regarded as poor cariactures of their flagship instrument. There is a long list of discontinued models which suggest Gibson have attempted to design an instrument which unshackles them from the constraints of the Les Paul, but there is little that they can do.
Strangely though, I don't think of this kind of constraint when I consider the Fender Stratocaster - a guitar just as old as the Les Paul, but somehow unfettered. Sure, Fender have experimented wildy with a huge number of variables on the ol' Strat, and the initial design lend itself well to redevelopment, tweaking, hot-rodding.
Why isn't Gibson as lucky? Is it Gibson themselves? Is it the Les Paul? Strange.
Posted by travo at 1:25:09 PM
So, has she missed anything?
Sunday, 09 July 2006
Mel spent about two hours the other night slaving over the notebook, pouring over our Basecamp website getting our wedding plans in order. Here is the result - sorry if it's a little long it's just my To Do list.
It begs the question though - has she missed anything? - please post your replies and suggestions to me and I'll shove them online here and who knows, they may find there way on to the genuine article.
Mind you though, this list doesn't include our combined tasks, which add at least another fifteen or so to the list. The cutest one is in the 'After the Wedding' To Do : Trav + Mel - Live happily ever after. What a sweetheart.
Posted by travo at 9:43:42 PM
Bourdain tells it like it is - if you can't stomach this, look away.
Friday, 07 July 2006
Oh this is just great! Chef Anthony Bourdain responds in chorus to a guest post by Chef Michael Ruhlman on Megnut.com who is outraged by "those knuckleheads in Chicago and those sensitivos in California" who are fighting for the ethical treatment of molluscs... before they have a 20cm chef's knife shoved through their crusty exterior.
That he uses the expression 'fucktard' only makes me realise more that sooner or later Chef Jon Eaves will find himself right at home in a kitchen : he has the passion for food, and the intollerance of sensitivos who can't tolerate the environs that these kind of working conditions are reality to.
Posted by travo at 10:29:02 AM
Oh Helen, how could you get it so wrong?
Thursday, 06 July 2006
Seems our current Communications Minister, Helen Coonan is all twitchy after the Big Brother incident. Unfortunately she's mistaken "the community outrage about this matter"; thinking that people are upset upon finding that this incident was broadcast at all. Rightly, the public outrage was about the behaviour itself and if Big Brother is to have any real purpose it is to hold up a mirror - via all channels - of our own society.
Big Brother should be allowed to show this behaviour no matter how disturbing (or mundane) that behaviour is.
The ACMA though, has no business monitoring, regulating, reviewing or classifying Australian web based content. What content I place on my website is at my own disgression and will be policed and restricted under many other legislation.
The irony is that if the ACMA were to even attempt this, they'd become more like Big Brother than Big Brother.
Posted by travo at 9:12:07 AM
Doppleganger - perhaps, maybe. At least in name...
Wednesday, 05 July 2006
I have just received the coolest email. Steve, from the Mac And Travis radio show has dropped me a line to let me know that they've discovered our cool tunes. And - they want to play them on their show.
It get's better.
I've googled my own name at least a couple of times (okay, maybe a dozen times) but I've not seen this Travis Winters before! I know that there is a dirt track racing Travis Winters, a black student politician Travis Winters and I also think there is a university wrestler called Travis Winters. But now a internet radio DJ Travis Winters - how fucking interesting is that!?
Posted by travo at 10:14:51 PM | Comments (1)