Music

I loves my music I does, and 2011 was another corking year. Far from the madd(en)ing crowd, there’s always plenty of good stuff out there being made and re-discovered. The year started off with my continued rediscovery of Frank Zappa (one of my early music loves), and a special new liking for the 1981 album, You Are What You Is, which is as good an introduction to his music as any I reckon. Album of the year? I have two, both of which came out towards the end of 2011: 50 Words For Snow from my all-time favourite Kate Bush, and Grace For Drowning, a wonderful double album from Steven Wilson. About a month after Wilson’s album came out, I got to see him and his band live in London, and will be seeing him again in 2012: an absolutely stunning show—go and see him if you get the chance! Finally, honourable mention again for Kate Bush, this time with her May release (yes, two albums in 2011), Director’s Cut.

Work

Funny old year. In November 2010 I finished a long-term assignment in London, and decided not to jump back on the contract wagon straight away. Instead I opted for the freelance life for the next eleven months, working on all manner of projects and technologies. This has been absolutely fantastic in many regards: lots of mobile web development, some work with IBM Connections, and so on. There was some XPages action, but 2011 was really the year that Domino dropped off the radar for me, with a lot of Java, PHP, HTML5, Javascript and Ruby instead. I am now working on another contract assignment, this time in MediaCityUK, doing lots of new (and high profile) stuff, which has been a tremendous learning experience thus far.

This site

The aforementioned work events have thus left me with a wee dilemma when it comes to this site; I’m not really sure in which direction to take it. Earlier in the year I experimented with some Ruby-themed posts, and also some HTML5 and Javascript how-tos, but neither “series” made much of an impression. I guess I still get a lot of Domino people here maybe ;-) Anyway, I have a back-log of tech stuff to write about, some of which should be of interest to the yellow world, so stay tuned!

Enough navel-gazing. I wish you and yours all the very best for 2012: here’s hoping it’s better than 2011 for all of us (it’s already looking good, as Daniel Lieske has released the next chapter of his Wormworld Saga!)

Almost three weeks ago I started a new full-time contract, unusual for me in that it is based miles away from home in Manchester (MediaCityUK to be precise). I’m working as a mobile web developer, using technologies such as HTML, CSS3, Javascript, Linux and PHP (Zend framework, amongst other things). All very interesting, and with a very pleasant team in delightful offices. The downside of the job is that I’m away from home Monday - Friday, spend a lot of time on trains, and eat peculiar meals at strange times of the day :-).

So, more content as and when, but I felt I owed some sort of explanation for my absence here!

• Big-ish project customising IdeaJam for a major global financial customer. Gave me a chance to really dig in to Matt White’s code and find out that, you know, it’s good.
• Two projects for some smaller companies, dealing with greenfield IBM Connections / Domino integration for one, and modernising some exceptionally well-coded Lotusscript for another.
• Dealing with many many recruitment agents (sad face).
• A six day contract building an HTML5 iPad application from excellent Photoshop designs. The main challenge with this project (aside from time) was building an HTML / Javascript-rendered 360° model which needed to rotate when swiped, but which also needed to have an overlay of links (twelve in total) which appeared/ disappeared as the model rotated through 75 frames. The rotation came courtesy of Petr Vostřel and his jQuery Reel plug-in. The links overlay took some actual work ;-)
• Coding some bits n pieces for the upcoming MyMusicRX app, which Bruce describes in more detail here. Good fun!

Who knows what October will bring?

In recent months I’ve enjoyed working on very interesting projects courtesy of some people out there in the wider community, and also thanks to previous clients and network contacts. You may have seen (from all the tweetin’ and wot-not) that we have started publishing case studies over on the London Developer Co-op site. The first one relates to a rush project I worked on in May and June, which was an off-line capable HTML5 mobile web application. All sorts of tricks in this one, and you can read about some of them in the case study (some pretty pictures too).

My particular thanks go to our splendid partners at Elguji Software for picking the post up in their blog.

Future case studies will focus on some other projects and technologies—look out for musings on things as varied as Flex application development, XPages, Javascript and more. For these and other updates be sure to follow us on twitter or visit our news page.

What else? Well, preparations are ramping-up in LDC Towers for Lotusphere 2012 (or whatever it will be called!) In years past we’ve set a standard with our t-shirts, and this of course must be maintained. Look out for plenty of give-aways when the time comes. Look out too for more training opportunities with our very own Dr. XPages, Matt White! Matt is running a four day course in Vienna next month (seats still available here), and of course XPages101 continues from strength-to-strength, with the latest video all about the new Dojo Mobile Controls in 8.5.3. Matt will of course be in attendance in Orlando, as will Messrs Myers and Woodward (yes, Julian’s even worse than me at keeping his blog up-to-date), all things being equal.

Finally, the LDC servers are steeling themselves for this weekend, when a certain young man by the name of John Wilding will be auditioning on that staple of Saturday night entertainment, The X-Factor. Why? Well, we host his website don’t you know!

If you have web, web application, mobile web or XPages work that needs doing, you know where to come.

You know, I hate to start things on a downer, but first Pete Postlethwaite and now Mick Karn? (Not to mention Gerry Rafferty). This is a terrible start to the year: three extremely talented men, with a lot more to give us. R.I.P. each of you. :-(

Please head on over to Bruce’s site to read the full story, and for details about the piece of “isometric pixel art” we commissioned as the prize in our charity draw! Here’s a sneak preview:

As implied in the name, the drawing will take place at Lotusphere—specifically during UK Night on Monday 31st January, 2011. All monies collected will go directly to the CCA in honour of Danielle Elgort who lost her battle with cancer in 2003.

Read more: the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (they even have an iPhone app now).

Whilst this book is most definitely of use to anyone in business, some of the lessons do still resonate most in the world of software. Ahem:

When you stick with your current customers come hell or high water, you wind up cutting yourself off from new ones. Your product or service becomes so tailored to your current customers that it stops appealing to fresh blood. And that’s how your company starts to die.

Oh ho!

Cheap shots aside, this book—and the tips therein—are probably more important than ever in these trying times. It is my hope that companies start to abandon “toxic meetings”, recognise that “ASAP is poison” and that they truly seek to simplify their offerings and provide good service. Hope springs eternal eh? So, if you haven’t already, read this book.

(Hey, talking of corporate suicide, check out m’colleague’s post today, terrorists or freedom fighters in corporations?)

Further reading

• REWORK: Change The Way You Work Forever (official site)
• REWORK: Change The Way You Work Forever (Amazon UK link)
• Getting Real (official site): the original 37signals text that REWORK expands upon
• Signal vs. Noise

So it was that time of year again: another dander! After the success of Malham last September, we opted for an August jaunt around the Yorkshire Three Peaks, a somewhat more challenging trot.

Once assembled at Kings Cross, your intrepid danderers (Matt White, the brave / crazy Alison, The Wookiee (plus his long-suffering wife Aliki), and yours truly) were good to go. We grabbed a train to Leeds, and then met up with Eileen Fitzgerald for the branch line out to our destination, Horton-in-Ribblesdale. I should note now that we travelled last Friday. Yes, Friday the 13th. Hmm.

Once in Horton, our accommodation was but a five minute walk from the picturesque railway station, so we settled in for a few drinky-poos and a nice big meal, storing up energy for the weekend’s shenanigans. For those interested, we stayed at The Crown Hotel, a fine pub with comfortable rooms, splendid food, and wonderful beer. What more could the unflinching traveller ask?

Saturday started early. We were punching our cards at the Pen-y-ghent Café a little after seven thirty, in readiness for a full day’s dander. The Yorkshire Three Peaks walk takes in, as you might guess, three peaks. These are (in order of ascent), Pen-y-ghent, Whernside (the tallest, at 2,415 feet) and Ingleborough. There’s a fair amount of trekking between these three little hummocks: road, bog, grassland and limestone slopes. All in all, a challenging walk, with the aim being completion within twelve hours.

Photo courtesy of Eileen Fitzgerald

Wisely, Mr. White and his good lady opted for an earlier finish after Pen-y-ghent, taking in some of the local sights instead of slaving up mountains. Grand notion, and what’s more, they were on hand come the end of the day to furnish us with much-desired refreshments outside the Crown! Thus it was that the Wookiee, Eileen and m’self soldiered on with the dander.

It was one hell of a walk, but most rewarding (especially when the ibuprofen kicked in, and I could stop malingering down the slope of Whernside). We finally punched in at the café a wee bit before 7pm, bringing our walk to eleven and a quarter hours. Not bad at all, and probably could have been quicker if it hadn’t been for my gimping on Whernside, and the general congestion around Pen-y-ghent (we walked on a very busy Saturday).

That first pint after such an endeavour is the sweetest thing, ambrosial one might say…

So, a recommended dander! If you want to know more, read Eileen’s take on it in her post,

One of the more out-spoken (and frankly, interesting) characters in the ’80s Zappa band was Scott Thunes, the bass player. Listening to Broadway piqued my interest, and I ended up reading an abridged interview with Thunes, by Thomas Wictor (as an aside, I believe the interview excerpt came from Wictor’s book, In Cold Sweat: Interviews with Really Scary Musicians which looks to be well worth picking up). Here’s what Thunes had to say about his work as a bass player:

But I never thought of myself as a bass player; I was a musician. The actual role of the bassist does not interest me, and I don’t know how it could interest anybody else. It’s the ultimate non-glory position. Singers, guitar players, drummers, bass players-that’s how it goes, in order of importance. Though the function of the bass is very important in a rock band, I’ve never ever been able to perform that function without irony.
[…]
The joy of playing the bass is having my voice come out on an instrument; I don’t understand how that makes me a bass player. I also can’t understand how that makes me a chosen role model, because it’s the voice that’s important, not the instrument.

You can read more in the article, Scott Thunes: Requiem For a Heavyweight?

Now, what I wanted to highlight—hence the emphasis—is his outlook on music and his role in it: he came to the bass by default, and found his expression that way. Thunes’ words resonate when I read about the various language / platform / other wars that plague our wonderful world of IT: none of that crap matters, it’s the applications, stupid!

OK, so back to the Thunes website: one of his front-page posts links to an excellent article about life as a software developer, and it’s this link I want to finish with. In Thunes’ words, This article states my understanding of what I said way better than I could ever do. I guess I should have stayed in computers longer.—it is one hell of a read:

So you’ve just been hired by an IT department…