jdhunt.net

Outside Magazine’s Best Places to Live, 2009

Jon — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:57:02 GMT

So Outside Magazine ranked Cincinnati #9 in it’s 2009 best places to live list. I found that interesting, to say the least. Not that I entirely disagree, because I do live here and like where I live (particularly East side – much better than North side). But, I have lived here pretty much my entire life and I do know that the adventurous types might find the area a bit lacking. Sure, as the article does say – we do have fairly easy access to the mountains and rivers of Kentucky and West Virginia, but they aren’t here. And we do have some pretty nice urban parks in close proximity, but they certainly aren’t national park caliber. If you compare the city to some of the mountain or beach towns, it simply doesn’t measure up when it comes to outdoor-oriented adventures. I suppose the economic factors helped – this area truly does have a low cost of living and fairly diverse industries. Although the local economy isn’t great, it does seem to be doing better than many of the other rust-belt cities. All in all, the list is subjective (although several entrants always seem to be on those “great places to live” lists), and I can’t really argue with the choice based on the total picture. Hey, at least I like it here!

Career.Refactor()

Jon — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:12:00 GMT

Just about a month ago I worked my last day at Strategic Data Systems (SDS), and in turn, I started my first non-consulting job ever since I graduated from Miami University in May of 1998. That's right, I was a software consultant (mostly as a developer) for the first 11 years of my career. Truth be told, consulting fit me well - I liked the variety in work, the challenging and interesting projects, and working with many different people (technical and non-technical). However, this past winter I was informed about a position with a great local company. Considering the life changes that I was facing in my life, I looked into it further. After several interviews and a bit of a waiting period, I accepted an offer to work with dunnhumby USA. I always stated that if I left consulting to work full time with a company, it would have to be at a position where software development was an essential part of the business, not a place where it is considered a necessary evil (ie, a bank or some other monolithic organization). I felt throughout the interview process that dunnhumby seemed to be this kind of company. Even though they aren't explicitly a software company, software is an essential part of their offerings to their clients. And, it helped that the company has been considered one of the best places to work in Cincinnati for the past few years.

I've been at dunnhumby for about a month now, and I am nothing short of impressed. The project work has been a bit slow right now, but this has left me ample time to learn more about the company and the business they are in. One of the biggest parts of their business is to help their clients become customer centric, but it is apparent that the company is also employee-centric. It is obvious to me that they want to foster a place where employees can build a great career and feel that their contributions are valued. I haven't always gotten that with some of the consulting companies I worked with, several of them cared about nothing more than how many billable hours that we worked.

I can't really go into too much detail of what I will be working on at dunnhumby, but I will state that I am part of a development team for a new software product line. I am used to going from project to project, so it will be a change to be part of a project and to continue to work on it after the initial release is done. However, I am excited about this new part of my career. I'm still at a technology-focused company, the team I will be working with seems like a great bunch of guys, and my new company is clearly a great place to work. I did enjoy my time at SDS, and I still think that it is a good place to work if you want to stay in consulting. However, I truly believe that this is the right move for myself and my family at this time, and am looking forward to the upcoming challenges!

Windows 7 - first impressions

Jon — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:07:17 GMT

A few days ago I decided to take the plunge and install Windows 7 RC 1 as the main operating system on my laptop. I had heard from quite a few people on twitter that had done so, and decided that I was feeling just crazy enough to do it myself. I was due for an OS refresh anyway, so why not roll the dice and go with the well-reviewed Windows 7? Although I was actually pretty happy with Vista (as opposed to some out there), there were a few quirks that I was hoping Windows 7 would address. And after using the new OS for the past few days, I am happy to see improvements on the issues I have had!

Now, I'm not going to write a long rambling review here, you can find such things from much more reliable sources. However, I do want to record my first impressions after using Windows 7 for the past few days.

User Account Control (UAC): The UAC is well-known as a Windows Vista annoyance. It was introduced as a mechanism for increased security in Vista, but it also successfully annoyed users left and right. Windows 7 made this much less annoying, I no longer get prompts to run IIS or other administrative tools. Sure, I could have just disabled UAC in Vista, but with Windows 7 I haven't had to even consider that.
Wireless access: I don't know if this was just a problem with my computer, but there were times that connecting to wireless would take 10 minutes or more after coming out of standby. With Windows 7, connecting to the wireless is almost immediate every time. That, my friends, is a win.
Performance: Vista performed ok for the most part, but of course it lagged at times also. So far, Windows 7 has felt "snappier". I haven't really quantified this with real numbers, but perception is often reality in computing.
User Experience: Windows 7's biggest UI change has been the taskbar. The quick launch toolbar is gone and replaced with the option to pin applications to the taskbar. Also, by default it looks like multiple instances of a running application are collapsed into one icon on the taskbar (IE, multiple Windows Explorer instances). At first I wasn't sure that I liked this feature, but it is growing on me. Outside of the taskbar, documents and short-cuts have been re-arranged a bit in Explorer. I liked the way it was in Vista, but I think Windows 7 has made some subtle improvements here.

That is all of my impressions so far. Overall, I absolutely love Windows 7, and I can certainly see why it is gaining accolades over the 'net. As opposed to Windows Vista (versus XP), I can't see why anyone would doubt that Windows 7 is Microsoft's best operating system to date. The release candidate has been very stable and, well, awesome! I'm certainly looking forward to the full version when it is released!

Introducing Emilia Ruth

Jon — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:39:58 GMT

The question is do I want to be a typical geek in this announcement. Do I want to say "A new process has spawned." Or, do I want to state "Version 2 has been released". Any of those phrases are kind of cliche when we developer types have a new baby. So, I decided to forgo that and just announce that she is here. I know, very "edgy".

Without much ado... our daughter, Emilia Ruth, was born on Thursday, May 28th at 6:53 PM. She weighed 6 pounds, 3 ounces at birth, and was 20 inches long. The past few days have been quite busy getting used to having her in our lives and attending to her needs, but we are certainly getting to know her and her little habits. So far she has been a lot of work, but not as much work as I had feared when reading up on how newborns can behave. More pictures can be found on Flickr.

Conclusion of the 2008 – 2009 season

Jon — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:31:00 GMT

Monday night we had our annual end of the year banquet for the bowling league. As usual, it consisted of a steak or chicken dinner and drinks, followed by the awarding of prize money. The Lebowskis finished in 14th place this season, out of 22 teams. It was the same as last season, although I would consider it a slight fall since there were 24 teams then. We started off this season quite well, finishing in the top 10 during the first half. However, we fell apart during the second half, which concluded in the 14th place finish. Like I did last year, I will examine how each bowler finished.

Tony ended the season with a 170 average, a 7 pin improvement over the 2007 - 2008 season. He threw the ball much better, particularly on the first ball as was shown by his greater striking ability. I’m not certain he really improved on his spare-making, but this season was proof that the new grip he adapted last season has been a big help.

Nick ended the season with a 167 average, a fall from his solid 2007 – 2008 season when he averaged 183. He was pretty consistent most of the season, keeping pace with last season. However, right around the time of the city tournament he started bombing. He started throwing many more gutter balls and open frames, and simply couldn’t get it going. It does look like he was dropping the ball often, and his grip needs some serious work. He may need to clear his head and practice a few times later in the summer to figure out what he’s doing wrong.

Ray ended the season with a 160 average, which is an improvement over the 155 he had during the 2007 – 2008 campaign. He started off the season where he left off last year, however around the time of the city tournament he talked to a guy at the pro shop and figured some things out with the way he was throwing. Some things that he tried worked almost immediately, and he had an improved last couple of months of bowling. He still doesn’t bowl as well as he did during the 2004 – 2006 seasons, but at least he made some strides on improving his game and getting it back to where he wants it to be.

I ended the season with a 216 average. It was an improvement over the 213 I had over the past two seasons, but not quite as good as my best two seasons before that. Overall, I felt that I picked up my spares a little more consistently than last year, and that may have been the difference maker. Overall, though, my game didn’t improve that much. Honestly, I may have reached a plateau. I’m not sure I will bowl much better than the 215 – 220 range unless I start bowling more often than once a week. Yeah, I enjoy bowling… but I’m not one of those multiple-league bowlers, though.

Dad ended the season with a 196 average, which is an improvement over the 192 he sported during the 2007 – 2008 season. His average had been over 200 most of the season, until he fell apart near the end. As usual, he threw consistently, he just had trouble stringing together a lot of strikes. He probably led the team in 10-pins, and his inability to pick them up at times cost him.

As a team, it does look like we improved. We just didn’t throw the ball very well the last couple of months of the season, which led to many losses during that stretch of time. Hey, we’re the Lebowskis, we will never be in the top tier of teams. We can only hope to improve some and perhaps get back to the top half of the teams. We have proven that it is possible. Then again, we have proven that we can flail with the best of them.

First week of softball

Jon — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:04:00 GMT

Last night was the first week of the spring softball session, 2009. I am on two teams for the spring session, and both teams play on Friday nights. Apparently the schedule makers at Rumpke were able to accommodate teams who are in two leagues on the same night, so there we are. It was a pretty good first night - we lost the first game and won the second. The first game we were decent on defense, other than one inning where we just had a breakdown. We started strong at the plate, but failed to generate offense the second half of the game. The final score was 8 - 7, which is sad because we were up 7 - 0 at one point.

The second game was much easier, we won that one 16 - 4 in five innings. It did help that our opponent's first pitcher had extreme control problems - he must have had at least 10 walks. Other than that gift, we did hit well and fielded much better than in the first game.

As for me, I had a really good day in the field. I played third base both games and fielded everything that came my way. It felt really good to be able to field so well considering that I hadn't even touched my glove since last September. At the plate, I was 2 for 4 the first game, and 1 for 4 the second game. Although I didn't get as many hits as I would have liked, I did hit the ball solidly for the most part. I hit the ball hard everytime in the second game, I just lined out to left field 3 times. I certainly didn't challenge the left fielder, I hit right at the guy. Regardless, I was quite happy with my (and the teams') performance for week 1.

Not quite dead yet

Jon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:54:00 GMT

It appears that Graffiti, like this blog, isn’t quite dead yet. Sure, the coroner knocks on the door from time to time trying to drum up business, but both seem to be hanging on. After Telligent had layoffs in February, there was much speculation on the Graffiti Forums that perhaps Telligent was about to jettison Graffiti. I still have some doubt until the next version is released, and I had been considering alternatives based on the lack of information - but for now I will be able to hold off. There are several reasons why Graffiti has worked so well for this site:

It is written in .NET
It is freakin’ easy to theme
Extensionless URL’s

Honestly, I get everything I want with the current version of Graffiti. My biggest concern was support – dead products tend not to have support for infinite amounts of time. Just see the support forum for Windows 3.1! Anyway, all is well here in jdhunt land… for now.

My experience at Central Ohio Day of .NET 2009

Jon — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:25:00 GMT

Over the last year or so I have tried to make a better effort at getting more involved with the developer community. Although I have been developing software professionally for 10 years, and I have done a fairly good job of keeping my skills updated, I had been amiss in keeping up with other professionals outside of my usual crowd. I’ve been going to the Cincinnati .NET User Group (CINNUG) meetings, but on Saturday I went to my first event – the Central Ohio Day of .NET (CODODN). I didn’t fully know what to expect of CODODN. I knew that there would be presentations on various topics, much like we have at CINNUG. And I did expect to run into people that I knew. Other than that, I had no expectations.

First off, it was great to see a lot of guys from our GA Sullivan days – Mike Wood, Mike Levy, Nino, Ben, Dave, Tim, Parag, and Keith. A couple of those guys I hadn’t seen since I had left Avanade – and I was thrilled to be able to catch up with them! Working with those guys and others from GAS still remains one of my fondest professional memories. I do work with a couple of the guys with my current employer, but it isn’t quite the same as it was at GAS.

What struck me most about the event is how many passionate and intelligent people there are in the community. Sure, I attended a couple of talks that I felt weren’t that great and didn’t offer me very much new information. However, it was still awesome to see other people who were there during their own time on a beautiful day just to learn and meet other people who share their interest in .NET and associated technologies. That is probably what I got most out of the event. Sure, I do usually learn a new thing or two from presented topics; but in all honesty I can read around blogs or other technical sites to get that information. But, meeting with people who have actual real-life experience on different projects and companies than where I have worked is what I gain most from CINNUG and now CODODN. It was, dare I say it, the “professional networking” that made it a worthwhile. I hope to attend more of these events in the future!

2009 softball season

Jon — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:08:43 GMT

I found out from my brother that we are playing softball on Friday nights again, our first game will be on April 24th. We will still be playing at Rumpke Ballpark, which is a bit longer of a drive than I would like, but at least I do get to play with both of my brothers again. Luckily that gives me a couple of weeks to hit the batting cages and get in a “softball frame of mind”, whatever that means. Let’s play ball!

This blog will self-destruct

Jon — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:52:09 GMT

in 10 hours. Or maybe it won’t, considering the day…