All posts by warwick

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About warwick

I manage a team of professional technical consultants for a Fortune 100 company. I like clever uses of technology whether it's in a data center or the kitchen of my house.

Gettting Fit on a Bike

Running

I rode my bike today. Not bad if I was say 12 years old, but it’s the distance that made the difference. Here’s the breakdown of an hour’s worth of bike exercise:

* 1 mile to the Signal gas station to get air for the tires. It’s free, not like the brand new place across the street which wants 75¢. I didn’t buy water here and it would come back to haunt me later.
* 2 miles to the point of no return “Eastgate and Catalpa” on the map linked above.
* 3 miles to from the point of no return to the Royal Bend on the map. That was the point where I realized I was tired, hungry and needed water very badly. I’d left the house without water or eating breakfast, intending the workout to go 25 minutes.
* 2 miles from Royal Bend to the Kum and Go convenience store where I got Gatorade, water, a banana and a Snickers bar. I finished them all before heading on. My legs felt like they were filled with lead but in 10 minutes, the electrolytes and sugar kicked in and I started the trip home.
* 1 mile to Eastgate and Catalpa a second time.
* 3 miles later and I’m home

That was 12 miles in a little more than an hour. Fun but it sure seemed longer than 12 miles.

The next ride is Tuesday and it’s supposed to be 30 minutes. We’ll see how far I can get.

42 revisions of the same old thing

Uncategorized

So it’s 4:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday and I’m working on my wife’s website. I’ve made *huge changes*. [Take a look.](http://redbeedesigns.com)

So what do you think?

Same old thing you say? You’re almost right. All of the changes were under the hood. All of the code is managed with software that will help me keep track of revisions. I can revert to an old version of the site with a few simple commands. There are three working databases: test, development and production. All of the databases run from a single server and I can tell the application which database to use at any given moment. I’ve redesigned the server software so it now uses Ruby on Rails which makes dynamic web programming easier and faster not to mention more powerful.

Most of all, I’ve spent the time getting the infrastructure right so the rest is just programming. And isn’t that the fun part?

🙂

The Joys of Subversion for Web Development

Uncategorized

So I’ve been using Subversion for a safe repository for my wife’s website. I started with an import of everything, created a trunk and branch folder and then started moving things around. So far I’m doing well with the basic commands, moving things around and deleting old content. I’m using Coda for the front-end editing and but not to upload files. I’ve got a local copy checked out and that’s what I’m editing.

Today’s changes were minor: stylesheet changes, page size reduction and a link to her weblog.

This weekend: Add the scaffolding of a Rails app and start work on a database-driven version of a gallery, store and inventory system.

Chrysler's "Highway Hi-Fi Phonograph"

Uncategorized

For Valerie…

Boing Boing: “Back when I was working at Cutler’s Records in New Haven, CT in the late (or was it mid?) 1970’s my manager Barry told me about these things and how they used to sell ’em like hot cakes back in the 50’s. He wasn’t the kind of guy to make shit up but I still found it kinda hard to believe that you could have a record player in your car. For some odd reason I was just thinking about it and managed to google up this article.”