@dangayle

Deskgig.com web operations gig

May 19, 2013

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be running all the web operations for DeskGig.com, an American only freelancer website.

Screen Shot 2013-05-19 at 11.03.11 PM

I’m not political or nationalistic at all, but it makes sense to try to capitalize on trying to capture the American freelancer market, and I’ll tell you why. As a freelancer, I cannot compete with Pakastanis or Filipinos on price. I might be as good as they are, but they will beat me on price every time. That means that I don’t even bother with looking for gigs on oDesk or elance. Am I the only American freelancer who doesn’t bother with those sites? I have my doubts.

Also, as someone who has used an offshore development center in the past, I can tell you that the issue of communication is a big one. I’m on Pacific Standard Time (UTC-08:00) and dealing with someone on Philippine Time (UTC+08:00) is a super pain in the tucus. As a business, I would much rather prefer dealing with someone who I can communicate with during regular US business hours.

So yeah, 9 hours to go before I start my new job running the website for a new startup in Spokane, Wa. Good times!

SpoCode Hackathon

February 9, 2013

spocode hackathon poster

I’m only just now getting around to writing about this, but I was one of the organizers of last week’s 24-hour SpoCode Hackathon. As the moderator, it was my duty to make sure that all of the participants were on task and staying awake. We drank massive quantities of Mountain Dew, watched the cougars at the bar across the street try to pick up one of our unsuspecting programmers, and had a great time.

Thanks again to our sponsors 10gen, Github, and OpenShift!

P.S. The Anonymous Rosy the Riveter is my design. Everyone loved it!

VentureLeap

January 26, 2013

EDIT: It is unfortunate, but due to circumstances, I ended my relationship with VentureLeap, along with the rest of the team. I hope all of the individuals involved in the development are able to pick up the pieces and move on. No hard feelings.

Yo, dawg. We heard you liked startups, so we started a startup that helps startups start up.

ventureleaplogo

The website is mine, designed with the assistance of the lovely Stephanie Guerra and the less lovely but equally helpful Cameron Spear.

Everyone on the VentureLeap team has contributed an immense amount of time and energy on getting this startup going, and we’re hoping to make something of it.

Misc. coding adventures

December 29, 2012

Here’s what I’ve been up to recently:

Moved all my websites off of Hostgator

I’ve used Hostgator for a long time now, circa 2005, and they’ve never done me wrong. Even when I worked at Adworkz, we hosted a bunch of stuff on them. Their service has always been top-notch, and I have very few complaints.

hostgator logo

However, most of my “professional” sites are hosted on one of my Linode VPS’s. My Linode is fast fast fast, due to my NGINX/PHP-FPM/microcaching setup. For the price, you can’t beat a Linode if you need a VPS. Anyway, my Hostgator account has been redundant for almost a year now, so it was time for it to go.

Github action

Perhaps just to prove that I actually do code things, I just put up three new Github repos. They might not be the greatest things ever created, but I’m proud of all of them, since I’ve had to learn quite a bit of stuff just to get them to work. I coded them from scratch, I did. They’re also part of my systematic approach to mastering Python and/or Devops.

Github Social Coding

In particular, the fabfile I put together was a major lifesaver when it came to moving all of the stuff off of my Hostgator account. Setting up the new databases, configuring NGINX, and installing WordPress was a cinch, thanks to Fabric.

If you’re of the programming persuasion, I’d love it if you took a peek at them and tell me what you think.

Adventures in MongoDB

December 11, 2012

I’ve started a new MongoDB Tumblr over at Tumblr. Does that even make sense? Whatevs.

Anyway, check it out: http://oplog.tumblr.com/

I’ll try to keep it updated with the latest MongoDB stuff as I learn it/discover it. I could just blog aboot it here, I suppose, but I like the idea of keeping that particular thing separate.

Also, check out the new Spokane MongoDB User Group that I’m a co-organizer of. If you’re interested in MongoDB and live in Spokane, join up!

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HTML Build Command for Sublime Text 2

December 7, 2012

So, I love Sublime Text 2. It’s got all/most of the features of Textmate, with a better designed scripting and module system. Every config file is an easily read and modified JSON file, and the built in Python console is awesome. (I’m biased as a recently converted Pythonista, but it’s still pretty cool for people of other persuasions)

Previewing an HTML document isn’t built-in out of the box, like Textmate, and there are a few different packages available in the Sublime Package Control system, but I wanted the preview function mapped to the build system, ALA Python or Ruby.

When you code a Python script, you hit cmd-b and it runs the script right then and there and shows you the results in the built-in command console. You get so used to it, that you think “Hey, why doesn’t previewing an HTML file work this well?”

Well, here’s how to do it: In the menubar go to

Tools->Build System->New Build System...

Then copy and paste this code into the resulting file:

Save the file as html.sublime-build and you’re done!

In whatever html file you’re working on, hit cmd-b and it will open the file in your default browser.

Easy peasey.

The Hukilau Song

November 13, 2012

If anyone says that the Hukilau Song isn’t one of the greatest songs ever written, then that person needs to find an active volcano and dump themselves into it.

I first heard the song a few years ago at a talent show, where my friend Ron (from Hawaii) played it on his obviously well-loved ukelele. It’s not an overly exciting song, but waves of warmth and happiness simply flowed into my earholes as Ron played it.

And now you too can recall to your friends and family how happy you felt when you heard this song.

You’d better, or I’ll find a suitable lava pit to dump you in myself :)

Bob Newhart on Mad TV

November 6, 2012

If you haven’t seen Bob Newhart’s cameo sketch on Mad TV, you haven’t lived:

Free MongoDB course from 10Gen

November 6, 2012

I’ve been taking the free M101 MongoDB for Developers class offered by 10Gen, and I gotta say, it’s awesome.

mongodb courses

There are a few things that I love about the M101 course:

10Gen goes through MongoDB step by step, without any assumption of prior knowledge (although, you’re hopefully proficient at using the terminal on your computer.) The lessons are clear and simple, with a short quiz after each lecture.

Python and the Bottle microframework were chosen as the app development platform for demonstrating MongoDB. I couldn’t ask for more than this, since I’m currently learning Python also, and I’ve been using Bottle for a few things like a Google App Engine API that I developed for him. This will round out my knowledge of these components without distracting from learning MongoDB.

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