Friend One

I’ve got a friend who’s in a tough place right now.
He’s got some issues at work that are really irritating for him, and I feel
bad for him.
I’m grateful that he’s got Christ to cling to for comfort, and for direction.
The one thing I’m grateful for at Alt-N is my sense of being comfortable.
Jerry and Arvel make it easy to communicate with them and they’re not shifty.
Having had a shifty boss before, I don’t envy this friend’s position, but
he’s in my prayers.

Friend Two

I have added a list of XFN
is a use of the HTML
anchor tag’s “rel” attribute to explain my connection (however ambiguous)
with other people in a URL
to their website.
The new section of the site is just a
link to the site and a description of the person as I know them (or
perceive them to be).

Resting in Him,

Randy “Friendly” Peterman

SXSW is now over, and I have
to say it was a good time.
It was great to go and see and learn from various folks, in fact, as I
mentioned before, I met Eric Meyer and Nick Bradbury.
In fact, Nick stopped me as I was leaving the second morning session today and said hi again.
Made me feel good since yesterday was so brief.
Unfortunately, this too was brief, but I hope to get to spend more time with he and maybe get some time with some of the other web gurus.
That may be in the future some time.

Other Happenings

Last night Tony and I discussed further some server side code and testing, which was good.
That lead to discussing programming over dinner with Erin and Jessica at Bahama Breeze.
Great food and great fun!

Jessica took Abby to The Little Gym this morning with Erin and Davis.
Fabulous fun was had and Abby apparently enjoyed the balance beam.
This little girl is so neat, I’m glad to be her dad!

Resting in Him,

Randy “web nut” Peterman

I met David
Shea and chatted with him briefly.
Tony and I are going to start
www.csssingarden.com.
This site will be dedicated to examples of bad code, CSS or not.
David Shea’s
CSS Zen Garden is an
incredible example of using CSS
to make a sleek looking site.

I’m finding
SXSW to be an
interesting mix of technology, social networking, and uber-geekdom.
I’ve not learned new things as much as I’d have liked to, but I think that is
due to the fact that I am so well educated ;).
Unfortunately I keep up with trends and technology too well.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Net Trendy” Peterman

Nick writes the software I use for work on a daily basis.
I use TopStyle every day, almost literally (at home, work and on the road).
I use FeedDemon to read RSS and Atom feeds – it keeps me informed, quickly.
Nick walked by while I was sitting in one of the SXSW conferences – he shook
my hand and then sat down.

I’m not going to wash my hand 😉

Thanks again Nick for making such great software.

Resting in Him,

Randy “SXSW” Peterman

It was evident to me that I use the wrong computer type today.
Every single person on a panel about CSS design had a Mac laptop.
I discovered that if you want to look cool here, you must use a Mac.
I like Mac, I love how it looks and feels, but I just don’t have the money to buy it myself (now).
I wouldn’t expect Alt-N to purchase me a Mac, and I really just can’t see buying the software for Mac either.

It’s been fun though, really learning a lot!

Resting in Him,

Randy Peterman

Dude!
How cool.
SXSW has proven to be very cool.
I sat in on two accessibility sessions and am ready to rework a few parts of this site and majorly rework WorldClient – say good-bye to frames!

Of course my desire to work on that will not equate to the bosses being behind the work.
However, future work that I do will attempt to fulfill this need.
Tony and I were blown away by one session talking about graphic design & work.
We saw two very skilled graphic artists explain some things that they did or used.
I need to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop much better.

The only thing that is bad about this is that I don’t get much time with family today, and tomorrow the morning sessions will be blocked by my going to church (which is a higher priority).
I’ll miss Nick Bradbury speaking on RSS, which I’m interested in, I’m hoping he’ll post some notes of the event soon.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Web Dev” Peterman

Registration is this afternoon, and the fun begins!
South By South-West will go all weekend and run until next Tuesday.
Tony and I made our schedule out last night.
It looks like we’re going to have some fun and learn.
Fun and learning.
It’s edutainment… not!

I think edutainment is a gimmick, but there’s going to be a session on it, if I wasn’t going to something more useful at the time.
I’m very excited about the navigation classes being offered.

I can tell you the worst thing for the weekend is this: Zeldman won’t be there, and
Nick Bradbury will be on a panel discussion that I’ll miss because frankly, Sunday morning is my church time!
However, it promises to be a productive weekend either way.
I think that gals and kids are going to have fun too because they’ll be going to Sea World.

Resting in Him,

Randy “datahead” Peterman

As I mentioned earlier this week, we installed Linux at work.
Redhat 9 is incredibly intuitive and gave me options that I was totally impressed with.
It appears to be smarter than Windows in a lot of areas.
I think Windows is great in many ways, but having now seen the latest Redhat installation, I’d say Microsoft is getting a run for their money with Apple OSX and Linux Redhat.

While many commercial applications are not available on Linux yet, I hope that there will be a drift in that direction.
I’d love to see us port some of our software (particularly the web based software) over to Linux versions.
Maybe when my C++ skills are better I can give that a shot.
However, I’m not so sure that’ll be easy… it sounds good though.

Tomorrow I’m going to help the Cobb’s move into their new place, go to a
lunch meeting at work and then head to Austin to get ready for
SXSW (South By South-West).
I’m looking forward to SXSW, and hope that I learn a lot.
There’s a lot of opportunities to network with people there and promote WorldClient – I’m hoping to get a chance to tell the World about Alt-N.

Randy “No Hat” Peterman

We installed Redhat 9, a Linux OS, on a machine at work today.
Wow!
I was blown away by the installer, it made Windows XP look wimpy, and I had a lot more control over what was installed, how, and what security options I wanted.
I love that I can set up security features when I install the operating system, and not have to trust Microsoft to make the right choices for me.
Of course I understand why the lay person may not want this hassle, but as a technology person, I like to know what’s being turned on and off.

I’ll probably make some more reports on this as I get a chance to play with this new toy.
I’ve been a windows user only for most of my life.
Periodically I’ve lusted after the sleek cases and interfaces of Macintosh, and now I’m impressed with Redhat’s installer.
Maybe some day I’ll actually have a comprehensive understanding of Linux, assuming SCO doesn’t get some goofy patent holding lawsuite in place to hose the whole thing.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Penguin Agnostic” Peterman

Tonight Abby and I went to Gymboree again.
That little girls loves to play.
She loves to climb, run, and she loves balls.
We bought her various balls for home use, but she doesn’t care about them, she loves balls when they’re associated with Gymboree.
She loves to hold them and not share them with the other little kiddos at Gymboree.
Sharing is not an Abby trait… yet.

And Abby was so cute tonight as she danced to I Will Survive on American Idol.
Speaking of which William Hung has signed a contract.
I’m hoping that millions of people will buy the album and send it to the top of the charts – just to blow the establishment away.

Anyway…. Resting in Him,

Randy Peterman