Facebook Connect Users Beware!!!

We just ran across a bug that must have been introduced very recently, where all users with new Facebook accounts were unable to access our application when 'connect'-ing their user name to Facebook. It was a weird issue, because I was able to connect my account with no issue. I finally noticed that the Facebook profile ID we were storing was the same across all users who were running up against this issue.

Truncation issue!

We had defined it as a 12-length INT, which really doesn't matter - the biggest value an INT can store in MySQL is 2147483647. Anyhow, updating the table to store the value as a BIGINT fixed the problem, but I can't image we're the only ones to run across this mess, and the FB Connect documentation is weak enough that I have never seen anything about suggested storage. This must have happened in just the last few days, so hopefully others will come across this and make the change proactively if needed.

What's That You're Reading?

I've done a fair bit of reading - I finished The Lost City, which was great until the end, which included a hallucination sequence that left me as confused as the afflicted character. Really a poor end to a well-told tale.

I also knocked through The Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Krugman. I can say that I didn't expect to like or agree with this book, and for the most part I don't. Krugman is obviously a smart guy, and a pretty good writer, but there are certain statements in the book that are just so obviously laced with blind left slant that they seem to erode the general credibility of the message. One such passage describes the potential for vote-rigging and how this means the Republicans could steal elections. Is this not true for Democrats as well?! Anyone been to Chicago lately?? This is a shame, because much of the book is solid and somewhat eye-opening. I must admit to having my view on public health care softened somewhat by his well-written chapter on national health insurance. Overall it was worth my time to read this one.

After that, I read George Pelecanos' 'The Turnaround'. This was another in a long line of dark tales set in the DC area. This one wasn't AS dark as usual, and actually had a pretty happy ending, which was kind of refreshing. This is a good tale about family, responsibility, and moving forward in life by facing the past. I love pretty much all his books, but I particularly enjoyed this one.
I then read James Patterson's '1st to Die', which was a good book. Sometimes I have to read a fluffy mystery thriller here and there, and this fit the bill. I finished it in a couple days. Not great not bad.

On the plane rides to and from SD, I was able to push through another David Baldacci book, Last Man Standing, which was a standard fluffy mystery book. Always enjoyable and fun stories in my opinion.

Finally, on the way back, I read Clay Shirky's 'Here Comes Everybody'. This was a good follow-up to Don Tapscott's 'Wikinomics'. It's about the power of decentralized knowledge, and how the new technological advances have made barriers to entry for previously hard-to-breach industries so much lower. It was a good read, with a little more hard-core sociology to it rather than anecdotal tales that were the basis of Wikinomics. I'll probably check out the Long Tail pretty soon as the final word on this sort of 'new economy' reading.

Who's Got Two Thumbs and Sucks at Blogging Lately

This guy.

Seriously, I have been a terrible blogger. After really hitting my stride earlier in the year, I find myself with less and less to write lately. Part of it is being just plain busy. Part of it is that it's summer and there is more other stuff going on. Part of it is me just being lazy.

Here's something to write about. Going from someone who is strictly a server-side Java developer who is far more comfortable with tools and databases to someone who writes PHP and uses CSS and HTML to create new pages has been interesting, maddening, and definitely a big change. I finally felt like an expert at something (Java Web Development), and wham - back to the beginnings. Obviously the core concepts of software development carry over, but everything else is different. The good news has been that the codebase I am working with is pretty solid and easy to learn. The bad news is that it's still WAY different from what I am used to. It's hard for me to write a blog post about PHP with a straight face - who the hell I am to try to talk about something I am just learning? It has been a humbling experience, but one that I recommend - in order to really understand this web app stuff, you almost have to use different languages and platforms just to stay on top of your game.

I really have been busy - I wasn't lying about that. We have been doing a lot of family stuff (Jena's cousin's daughter's first birthday party, sailing with Jena and her parents), bought fresh herbs, hung out with some friends at a DC United game, and we just got back from a quick trip to San Diego for Jena's friend's baby shower. Check out the pictures. It was my first time in Southern California - it's a beautiful place, with very striking geography and lovely weather. We spent some time exploring the city of San Diego, walking around in La Jolla, and hiking around Torrey Pines. I can say that the view from the dorms at UC-San Diego is probably a little better than the view from Eagle Hall in Harrisonburg, VA - who the hell has a dorm room with a view of the Pacific Ocean!?!? Wow. The shower was great. The parents-to-be and family are extremely excited, and everyone had a wonderful time stuffing their face and watching gifts get opened.

I really hope to get back to technical blog posts - what's heartening is that this sorry little blog still gets dozens of hits each day - it's nice to know that hopefully people are finding this blog and getting an answer to some obscure question they had about something technical.

MyIEFlashSpace

So, as if it weren't ridiculous enough that I am stuck trying to get Flash widgets to link out of Myspace in IE (seemingly impossible), now this:

This profile is undergoing routine maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience!

Apparently all the things I did wrong in my past are coming back to haunt me for this one horrible assignment.

The What!

I have been lucky enough to have a couple of great weekends in a row. Last week we spent time with Jena's family, and our crazy nephew William.


We did a harbor cruise in Annapolis (William even got to drive the boat!), had a delicious dinner, woke up, went down to Annapolis for brunch, then spent the rest of the day golfing and chasing after William. While I didn't play too well, the weather was great, and it's always good to hit the links with my awesome in-laws, and Jena's parents' neighbor Bill.

Monday we went and watched Angels and Demons, which I thought was pretty good, and certainly better than the adaptation of the Da Vinci Code, which was a good book and terrible movie in my opinion. We then went over to Archie's house to see everyone, and Jena got to hang out with young Alexander again for the first time in a while.

Then we had a short week of work, and this weekend, watched the Tigers Friday, then woke up early and got a bunch of stuff done around the house before heading out for a great bike ride. Saturday was a beautiful day, and we found a sweet trail from my mom's house down to the trail along the GW Parkway. After we got done riding, we then did a bit of shopping before heading home and making a delicious dinner, including oven-baked onion rings, which were delicious! Then we watched the Tigers bounce back from tough losses Thursday and Friday, as Clete Thomas went yard twice. Yes!

Sunday, we hit the Tigers game at Camden Yards. It was another great day, 80 and sunny. We got some great seats, then took a little stroll around the Inner Harbor. It was nice and breezy, but really didn't smell all that hot. In fact, there were a ton of dead fish floating on the surface and that might have been the stinky source. Makes me fear for the Bay.


We went back to the field and watched Edwin Jackson throw a gem, as the Tigers evened the series with a 3-0 win. It's a great park, and it's always great to check out a Tigers game. They used to come twice a year, and now it's down to once, what with the ridiculous unbalanced scheduling that they do now. Grrrr. Did I mention the fact that Edwin Jackson is awesome? Well he is.

Good times. Great weekend.

So...Been A While.

It's been a while since I wrote, and certainly since I wrote anything of substance. Much has changed. I left Sportsvite for a new gig as a PHP developer and designer at Crystal Media Networks. It's a big change, and quite unlike what I have done before. I don't really need to get into the reason for the switch, but will say that I enjoyed my 1+ year at Sportsvite, worked with some smart folks, learned a lot about running a public-facing site, and wish them all the best in the future. We had some pretty good stuff going on around the time that I left, and hopefully they will keep on truckin' with new features.

First of all, I am a PHP developer!??! Yes. Even though I have spent my entire career chasing after Java mastery, I just up and abandoned all of that to move to a new language. Crazy, you say? Nah, just ready for something different, and to round out my skillset. I feel like after a certain point as a developer, you reach a stage (if you are interested and curious enough) where you have a baseline of knowledge, and you can muster up the wherewithal to translate that to most any language or problem. I would like to think that after 7 years doing all this stuff, I finally can say I am there. (The alternative is that I am fooling myself into thinking I am really much more competent than I am, which is quite possible!)

I firmly believe that for where I want to go with my career in the longer term, scripting languages will be important for me to master, because as technology shifts to being a commodity in most cases, the ability to transition from idea stage to execution stage quickly is extremely important. In most cases, Java is not built to do that. Focusing on PHP and Groovy will help me do what I want to do.

The job has been interesting so far. Crystal Media Networks is still small-ish, with a fun young team. They have a very good idea of what they want to do, and I am excited about the future direction. I came to CMN in the middle of a project that includes some pretty cool things, and in two weeks have already done some interesting stuff with Amazon S3 and Facebook/FB Connect (neither of which I had ever worked with), while coming up to speed on the core application. I will even get to play with some Flash stuff, and do some web design, which I have not done in a long time, so I am really excited about learning (re-learning) some fun new tricks. We are pretty close to pushing something live, and I am excited to see how well it catches on!

The new job is in Bethesda, one block from Jena's office. This is great, and the timing just right. With the nice weather finally here we can take nice walks, go eat lunch together, and enjoy a nice dinner after work from time to time. While the commute is definitely worse than going to Court House in Arlington was, we are able to do it together, which makes it much more bearable.

So that's the big update. More on what else has been going on later! Off to spend Memorial Day with our family. We got a new camera, so I am hoping to take and post a lot more pictures in the very near future!

Happiness is a Big Cup of Coffee and a Good Book

I always drink lots of coffee. Fortunately for me, I have been reading a fair amount of good books lately, too:

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide - This one is sort of a handbook for how to do the things that the big web 2.0 sites (Facebook, Flickr, Linkedin) have done, which by itself is not that helpful. It would be like telling a football team to score more than the other team so they can win every game. This book digs a bit deeper and breaks down the recipe for success so you can use the constructs and concepts even if you aren't really competing in a similar space. I think it will be the kind of book I will re-read a few times just to spark my brain every so often. The 'further reading' section is really great. Tons of great follow-on reading for any of the topics make this book worthwhile by themselves.

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Everyone knows about this one. It's the 'highly anticipated follow-up' to the fabulous book The Kite Runner. I found the Kite Runner to be an incredibly well-written story, and I love when books can be good stories while serving as a window into cultures I am unfamiliar with. This book is no different, and if anything, the connection to the characters grows even stronger when reading this book. It's a wonderful story, and a wonderful social history of the female experience in modern-day Afghanistan. Reading this book will make you think a little deeper when you see stories of war being waged against the Taliban on the nightly news. Wonderful book.

The Lost City (Vintage Contemporaries) - This one was sort of a random recommendation by Amazon, and it has turned out to be pretty interesting - the story of a British ex-army drifter trying to find himself in a quest to find a lost city in the Andes. I am a bit more than half way through this one, and it is starting to get interesting. Full ratings to come.

I just started reading Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The book the Black Swan came highly recommended by my friend Ramsey, but I figured I'd read this one first, just to be wild and crazy. The introduction has already intrigued me. I am excited to really get into this one.

I am still working on The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. I hope that my new longer metro ride will make my transit reading more fruitful. I am also still creaking through my book on the Allied Campaign in Italy, but I am afraid that my progress through that book is as slow as the campaign itself!

I have been on a bit of a book-buying spree lately, spurred by Amazon Gift Cards. Here's what is in the queue:

The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: And the Birth of the Modern Arms Race - I thought this would be a good follow-up to the biography of him that I read. He's such a brilliant and polarizing character. Jena wonders if I am crazy buying this book since it took me about 9 months to read the giant biography of him. She's probably right, but hey this one is way shorter!

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations - I have had numerous people suggest this book to me, so I caved. These books are short and hopefully quick reads so even if they aren't profound works of genius, you can usually get a point or two out of them without putting too much effort in.

The Conscience of a Liberal - As a centrist, I thought I would read this one, then read a far-right manifesto. I think this one should be especially interesting considering how fervently I have disagreed with Krugman's take on the banking system plans.

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions - I thought this would be an interesting follow-up to 'Fooled By Randomness', and Amazon has been especially insistent in continuing to push this towards the top of my book recommendations, so I finally relented.