We need a large scale web app developer/architect

For our team at Adobe, we're looking for an experienced developer who knows larger scale web apps: how to design them, build them, integrate with hardware stacks, and so on. We already hired the more junior spot of the two we have open, but check out my previous post for the description of the more senior position. This promises to be an exciting gig, as we're using cool technology, building some great apps, and the team is a fun one.

Lake Putt and the Wide Angle

LakePuttFloatingRock.jpg
Originally uploaded by Christopher Bailey.

Yesterday I drove up the hill to shoot, and try out my new EF-S 10-22 wide angle. This lens is a lot of fun! Not a lot of great photos from the shoot, but a couple nice ones. Here's the set of four on Flickr.

Photography Beginnings

I've started to get into photography, and recently finished a short class. The class was given by my father-in-law, who's an avid photography, and while he does some work for pay, it's primarily a hobby. The class was very good, as I am a serious n00b when it comes to real photography (i.e. using more than a point and shoot, and having proper aesthetics and composition). But, it's been really fun, and I'm starting to get some pictures. I put up a of some I took for the class.http://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Espresso vs. American Fear of Death

As seen on Labnotes:

“Serving size is about the American fear of death. Instead of a great, short experience, people want to prolong a mediocre experience.”

James Freeman of Blue Bottle Coffee

Upcoming Adobe Apollo Seminar

Adobe is doing another Understanding Apollo seminar. The last one was very good, so I'd encourage folks to check it out. I've been doing some work with Apollo and it's really cool. The ability to create web apps that work online and offline has been a huge interest of mine, and really ups the usefulness of many apps.

Web Developer Jobs at Adobe - Rails, Flex, RIA's, etc.

We're hiring at Adobe (we always are, but my team specifically)! We have two positions, with one being essentially more senior. See the job descriptions below. If you're interested, and meet the requirements, email me your resume (in PDF) at chris.bailey at adobe dot com.

Job JV110630

Position Summary:

The Digital Imaging Services team at Adobe Systems is looking for a superior web services developer to help us make our hosted applications and web services architectures best of class in an entrepreneurial and fast moving environment.

You need to have serious Web Development chops targeting LAMP-like platforms using the latest tools. This means you've implemented web services and hosted applications that utilize the latest dynamic techniques and languages, can simultaneously develop for multiple operating systems, know and use n-tier architectural patterns, can sling around SQL, a couple of scripting languages, and automate unit tests with ease, and may have even scaled up a hardware or network infrastructure or two. You should have demonstrated experience working iteratively and incrementally in an agile fashion with a high performance team. Be prepared to explain some of the architectures you've developed, answer coding questions, and tell us about your successes working with a dynamic team!

Knowledge & Skills:

• Expertise with developing multi-tier, distributed web application architectures and deploying in live production environments.
• Experience with Java, Ruby on Rails, or other current technology stacks required, experience with native code development in C/C++ a big plus. Four or more years of hands on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/Ruby) development.
• Experience using quality focused development practices such as heavy unit test and automation tool usage or Test Drive Development strongly desired.
• Experience of successful deployment of multiple iterations of a commercial/publicly accessible high traffic web service or application required.
• BS/MS degree in Computer Science (or equivalent).
• Must be able to work both independently and in a focused and efficient Agile engineering team that is geographically dispersed.

Job JV110631

Position Summary:

The Digital Imaging Services team at Adobe Systems is looking for a superior web services and infrastructure developer to help us make our hosted applications and web services architectures best of class in an entrepreneurial and fast moving environment.

You need to have serious Web Development chops targeting LAMP-like platforms using the latest tools. This means you've implemented web services and hosted applications that utilize the latest dynamic techniques and languages, can simultaneously develop for multiple operating systems, know and use n-tier architectural patterns, can sling around SQL, a couple of scripting languages, and automate unit tests with ease, and may have even scaled up a hardware or network infrastructure or two. You must have experience building infrastructure that is highly available and has had to grow quickly due to rapid uptake. You should have demonstrated experience working iteratively and incrementally in an agile fashion with a high performance team. Be prepared to explain some of the architectures you've developed, detail growing pains and solutions while scaling SW/HW/Net infrastructure, answer coding questions, and tell us about your successes working with a dynamic team!

Desired Talents:

• Analytic.
• Learner.
• Communication (written and oral).

Knowledge & Skills:

• Expertise with developing multi-tier, distributed web application architectures and deploying in live, high availability production environments.
• Expertise with current commodity based hardware, networking, and software infrastructure and related Operations exposure.
• Experience with two or more of Java, Ruby on Rails, Perl or other current technology stacks is required, experience with native code development in C/C++ a big plus. Eight or more years of hands on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/Ruby) or similar development.
• Experience using quality focused development practices such as heavy unit test and automation tool usage or Test Drive Development strongly desired.
• Experience of successful deployment of multiple iterations of a commercial/publicly accessible high traffic web service or application required.
• BS/MS degree in Computer Science (or equivalent).
• Must be able to work both independently and in a focused and efficient Agile engineering team that is geographically dispersed.

DualingMacLaptops

DualingMacLaptops
Originally uploaded by Chris Bailey.

This is the frequent configuration of my desk in my home office lately. That's a MacBook Pro sitting on top of a PowerBook. I've been doing some things lately where the MBP is a big advantage, so have been bringing it home, even though I have the PowerBook to use at home. The PB's days may be numbered.

Note, I don't have them both on (i.e. fully awake) at the same time. The MBP is currently on and in use, but the PB is sleeping. I also use the handy smcFanControl to ensure the MPB's fans are cranked up and keeping it nice and cool.

FirewoodStackWinter2006

FirewoodStackWinter2006
Originally uploaded by Chris Bailey.

Here's my morning workout - stacking a half cord of nice oak firewood. About another quarter of it is on the side of the house, as it doesn't all fit in the rack (and this is claimed to be a half cord firewood rack :)

Adobe Open Source ActionScript code - attend the chat today

Today, there is a Mozilla developer chat with Brenden Eich and Kevin Lynch (Adobe), discussing Adobe is contributing source code from the ActionScript Virtual Machine to Mozilla! Learn more here.

Encryption choice dramatically effects WiFi range

I've had range problems with the WiFi in our house for a while. And more than that, it seemed that the older iBook we have in the kitchen simply wouldn't deal with our encrypted WiFi. Last night, after setting up WDS (Wireless Distribution System: basically a way to link many WiFi base stations up to provide a bigger network range) I learned the bigger reason.

The kind of encryption seems to make a BIG difference. I had been using the strong WPA2 Personal encryption. This worked just fine within close range of the base station. But, terrible in other spaces that had worked before with an older base station. Switching to WEP 128-bit dramatically changed things, and now I have excellent coverage again.

The WDS setup also helped in one room in particular, and is relatively easy to set up. In case you're interested in that, here's two resources for doing it when using a Linksys WRT54G base station and then either Airport Express or Airport Extreme as the extension:

Linksys WRT54G, Airport Express, and WDS
Extend a Linksys WRT54G network via AirPort Express

Upshot: our kitchen laptop, which is about the furthest point from our upstairs base station went from sometimes seeing the network, but never being able to connect, to now having a solid 4 bar connection. Similar improvements in other places.

HalloweenPepperBBQ

HalloweenPepperBBQ
Originally uploaded by Chris Bailey.

I'm taking today off. I'll be doing two primary things: cooking and coding. I'm going to do some coding work on my side project, as well as cooking for the little family Halloween get together we're having. As you can see from the pic, I'm grilling various peppers, some of which will be eaten as is, others are diced and put into a salsa I'm making. I've already got the chili simmering on the stove, and the immense cheese platter is up next. But, right now, it's time to take a break and code for a little bit. Happy Halloween!

Fall Leaves of Beauty

FallLeafOct2006
Originally uploaded by Chris Bailey.

Here's a beautiful leaf from one of our backyard trees. Nearly all the leaves on this tree look like this right now, and it's just stunning. Taken this past weekend - the leaves have already changed quite a bit since.

Moving to Eugene, Oregon?

My wife, kids, and I have been thinking about moving for a while now. We can't stand the heat here in Rocklin, CA, and have been wanting a different kind of town - less strip malls, more outdoor and healthy living oriented culture, better coffee ;-) and so on. We're now planning to move to Eugene next year, which is relatively shocking to me. I had thought we'd pick Bend or Portland, and was fairly biased against Eugene, but then being thorough, went to visit last week. We wound up liking it quite a lot. Also, we went into 10 houses with a realator and liked a lot of them, and it's reasonably priced (by CA standards).

The main downside from my perspective so far, is that the startup and tech culture is relatively minimal, Portland being quite superior. But, I have a ton of experience working remotely (did so for 6 years for multiple employers), so know it can work. Mainly I'd just miss the energy of being colocated with your other startup cohorts. For the time being I'd simply plan to work remotely in my existing job.

All in all, quite exciting. We've even found a house we love, so the question now becomes whether we go for that, and own two houses until we can move and sell ours, or wait a bit. Might be a crazy next few months.

New Camera Gear

I'm quite excited, as I just ordered a new camera. I'm getting a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I chose to get the "throwaway" 18-55 lens with it, which we did not do when we bought our Rebel XT, as instead we got the super sweet EF-S 17-85 lens, which is awesome. But, since we had the 17-85, and I also ordered a 70-300 IS lens, and knew I couldn't take the 17-85 away from my wife much, I got the cheap 18-55 to mostly fill the lower/wider angle end. We also recently got the EF-S 60mm macro lens which is pretty damn cool if I do say so.

Photography is a new thing for me, but I've been really enjoying it, in large part to using a DSLR. I used to use point-and-shoot digital cameras, and they were fun, are good for carrying on a mountain bike ride, etc., but the DSLR is just so amazing in comparison. I take much better pictures with it, in part I think because it makes me take a bit more time and simply the heft of it makes me more serious about it I guess.

I chose the XTi this time almost completely on price. Dell had this superb deal going on them, combined with a 20% coupon, which got me the body and 18-55 for $635 which is a screamin deal. I'd been debating between it and the 30D, which my father-in-law just got, as well as a friend. The 30D is super nice, but the Rebels are quite fine for me, and the nearly $400 I saved payed for most of the 70-300 lens.

GMail Package Tracking Rocks

One of the things that's been added to Gmail somewhat recently (AFAIK), is that it senses package tracking numbers in emails, and adds a little link to track it in the upper right of the mail window. This simply rocks. It's a little thing, but darn if it isn't just a big time saver and great convenience. Small things like this can really set services apart.

Bookmarklet for Pandora mini player

Matt recently turned me on to the Pandora music service. Very cool - check it out if you haven't. I always like to use their mini-player, but I wanted to be able to just bookmark that and have the mini player open. So, I created a bookmarklet for it. Drag the link below to your bookmark toolbar (in Flock or Firefox; other browsers use the appropriate mechanism). Now, whenever you click that link, it'll open a new window with the Pandora mini player.

Pandora mini player

Resources for Restful Authentication in Rails

I've been doing a fair bit of REST web service work in Rails apps lately. One of the interesting parts is doing the authentication pieces, and coordinating this with your regular interactive authentication. I've also been ramping up on the whole Simply Restful thing. I'm not totally sold on it, but the one thing that is definitely appealing about it is the further constraint it places on your code for which that primarily comes down to enforcing more consistency.

Anyway, in terms of REST WS API's, and authentication, there's a new Restful Authentication plugin that uses acts_as_authenticated. The San Diego ruby user's group had a video podcast and slides that touch on it briefly. These point to NAME's blog entry on using this for REST WS and authenticated feeds as well. Good stuff.

Why SSH stopped working on my Mac - with solution

I use SSH a lot, and recently it stopped working on one of my Macs here at home. I couldn't figure it out for a long time. The only thing I'd changed was that I got a new Linksys router (a WRTG54, which has WiFi and a switch). Previously I was using a Linksys router that was single port, and no WiFi.

Long story short, it came down to the DNS setting on my Mac. Even since I used SonicWall's, I had set my DNS entry to that of the router, not those of my ISP. This was nice, because then if the ISP changed DNS entries (which I pick up via DHCP), I'd be insulated. Well, apparently with the new Linksys, this somehow messes up SSH. It doesn't seem to bother anything else.

The one other nice change though, is that SSH connections now happen noticeably faster than they used to. Thought I'd pass this along in case it ever happens to anyone else.

Installing Rails, Apache 2.2, and Mongrel on Ubuntu Dapper 64-bit

I am setting up a system at SliceHost, on one of their Ubuntu Dapper slices. First, I'm not as familiar with Ubuntu as I am Fedora, but this is one reason I chose Ubuntu (to get more experience). Anyway, I found several other blog posts and such on the web about this, but none worked perfectly. I glommed mine together by using them though. Here they are:

• Simplistic Complexity
  
• Free Opinion
  
• Urban Puddle
  

And, here's what I did. First, uncomment the universe lines in /etc/apt/sources.list. Then...

# apt-get update# apt-get dist-upgrade
# apt-get install ruby ruby1.8-dev ri rdoc
# ln -s /usr/bin/irb1.8 /usr/local/bin/irb# wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/11289/rubygems-0.9.0.tgz
# tar xvzf rubygems-0.9.0.tgz
# cd rubygems-0.9.0
# ruby setup.rb
# cd ..
# rm -rf rubygems*
# gem install rails --include-dependencies
# dpkg --purge apache apache2  (this removes Apache if it exists, which it didn't)
# apt-get install build-essential zlib1g-dev
# wget http://apache.rmplc.co.uk/httpd/httpd-2.2.2.tar.gz
# tar xzvf httpd-2.2.2.tar.gz
# cd httpd-2.2.2
# ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache2 --enable-mods-shared=all --enable-deflate --enable-proxy --enable-proxy-balancer --enable-proxy-http
# make
# make install
# cd ..
# rm -rf httpd*
# apt-get install postfix  (Then, use the "Internet Site" default setting, and picked "WeighPals.com" as the name)
# apt-get install mysql-server mysql-common mysql-client libmysqlclient15-dev libmysqlclient15off
# apt-get install libmysql-ruby1.8
# gem install daemons gem_plugin mongrel mongrel_cluster --include-dependencies

technorati tags:RubyOnRails, Apache, Ubuntu, Ruby

Friday Night Coding

Some might consider it sad, but I'm really enjoying spending my solo Friday night coding.  My wife and kids headed to the Bay area earlier this evening to spend time with the grandparents and some of my wife's friends.  I have a project I've been wanting to work on for a while, so I'm taking the opportunity to hack for the evening.

Right now I'm enjoying:

• listening to Pandora, a very cool service
• sipping a decaf espresso (I don't need to stay up that late, and I had a regular espresso earlier this afternoon :)
• Hacking Rails code in TextMate, with ZenTest's autotest keeping me on track.  The project involves a few interesting things:
  
• Amazon's S3
• Music files
• Some "Web 2.0" features (natch)
• Client side code (just for Mac so far, but hopefully Linux and Windows as well)
• Figuring out where I'm going to host it.  I believe I will have one of TextDrive's new containers soon, but we'll see.
  

Hope you're enjoying your Friday night as well.

technorati tags:rubyonrails, TextMate, ZenTest, TextDrive, S3