Category: web development

All about building a website but the administrative/business stuff: that goes in “business and economics.”

Bribe Your Siteops Day

Mariano tells me that it is important to keep your siteops well fed, because they are the ones that make us software programmers look good. SiteOps keeps your machines running and when you’re as big as Tagged, that means five people on call 24-7 maintaining hundreds of machines for you.

Things went ugly on Wednesday when us and half the Web 2.0 world went down because 365Main failed—“World’s Finest Data Centers”? Give me the second tier then—at least they won’t have three backup generators failing at once on the same day they issue a press release bragging about their two years of continuous uptime. Fuckers.

And even though our SiteOps was first on the scene, they couldn’t get in because the power outage locked the doors as they watched helplessly as the co-location decided to play five-year-old with the power on our server tier—machines never designed to be powered off at all. As the folks at uncov said:

“The only real victims of yesterday’s outage are the poor sysadmins who had to line up outside the datacenter to make sure their machines came up correctly. I really feel for these guys, they’re the only people in Web 2.0 who are doing honorable work.”

True dat.

Recovering from that hell, plus a scheduled power upgrade this weekend, and prep work for a massive site-wide software upgrade means that our poor SiteOps is going to be very busy this week in order to make me look good. So when I heard that it is System Administrator Appreciation Day, I thought it’d be apropos if I gifted them some clearly addictive substances in order to get SiteOps on my side—in this case a dozen cookies from Specialty’s.

Specialty’s

Specialty’s
Financial District, San Francisco, California

Apple iPhone

Keep your sysadmins happy!

Now don’t you wish you worked at Tagged? 😀

Posted on by tychay 3

No whammies, big money

A funny rumor appeared on TechCrunch about the company I work for.

I won’t comment about the rumor. (To be honest, I’m so bad with numbers I wouldn’t be able to get the number right even if I did.) Instead I’d like to point out Comment 26:

“15M can hire the BEST engineers and product team in the bay area, word on the streets is that they already have 3 of the hottest sh*t php engineers, and a famous architect boot. I would watch out for them in the near future.”

Famous architect? Moi?

Pshawww!

P.S. Tagged is hiring. I don’t know about the others but I’m looking for some young, hot sh*t PHP engineers who don’t mind working with a “famous architect” for a profitable, growing, hot startup with tons of money. (The beauty here is you don’t work for me. I’m like the color commentator of your code.)

We’ll see who can kick out more product. As long as you kids don’t keep stealing my hearing aid, I’ll give you a run, I promise. 😀

Contact Mark Jen and Terry Chay (especially Mark, I’m just an engineer… but apparently a “hot sh*t” one. :-D).

Posted on by tychay 0

LOLGeeks

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any geekier with inside jokes, lolgeeks is an amusing take on LOLCATS. Here geeks make various image macros in pidgin of photos of other geeks.

And just when you thought I couldn’t get any geekier, I find out that my “Chris as a beer” photo made lolgeeks…

Chris’s beer costume

Chris’s beer costume
Oregon Brewers Festival, Portland, OR

Nikon D200, 10.5mm f/2.8G fisheye
1/180 sec @ f/13, iso 125, 11mm (15mm)

LOLGEEKS: i is a beer!
me: lol. i is a fotografr!
flawedartist: oh rly? no wai!

Chris, that’s karmic retribution for being declared a PHP hero a full three weeks before me!

Like that stuff? Then if you are “in” the social networking site with wit (and a horrible name): I’m In Like With You, why the hell aren’t you bidding up, flawedartist’s game in which Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and CEO of Slide at Facebook’s f8 event, is in sore need of an lolgeeks caption?

im in like with yr games
bidding up yr peeps

[more inside geek jokes after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 4

Job: Software Architect for NovaTunes in Venice, CA

Sent to my by my friend John Herren (sorry about the delay in posting):

Life’s a Beach! Fix The Music Business! Work in VENICE, California

NovaTunes is a revolutionary new music company putting control in the hands of the artists and delivering quality music to a hungry global community. One lucky contestant will join a small team of web and music veterans as Software Architect. NovaTunes has a great vibe, sits 100 yards from the Boardwalk and is hooked-up in the worlds of music and web.

We seek an experienced code writer unafraid to get his/her hands dirty and turn a great vision into a reality working with and managing top software developers both off-site and at our Venice HQ. The Software Architect guides development of the company’s web site, community and technology and interfaces with Web Producers to create widgets and cool web apps.

A successful Software Architect will have an excellent opportunity to make a difference and advance within the company.

Skills:

  • Solid PHP and MySQL scripting skills
  • Familiarity with HTML, DHTML, JavaScript, CSS 2.0
  • Widgets/Gadgets using Flash or Ajax
  • Audio-Video and Broadband and Networking
  • Hands-on experience with relational database design and web service API’s
  • Search engine optimization
  • Some knowledge of JSP/Java, ASP,.NET
  • Familiarity with the LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)

Bonus Skills:

  • 5+ years professional Web development experience
  • BS/BA in CS, EE, or equivalent education experience
  • Strong presentation, communication, and collaboration skills
  • Experience with online communities
  • Positive attitude and professionalism in the workplace

Perks:
Generous equity in well-funded company, benefits, competitive salary and casual work environment.

Contact Us:
So, if sad and you’re feeling blue go out and buy yourself a new pair of shoes, but if you need a job to afford the shoes call Michael Lato @ 310-748-8041 or send an e-mail to novatunesjob [at] here.

Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 2

What Web 2.0 is…

Dave called me today to complain about the sudden explosion of strange terms that have been appearing on the resumes of people he interviews: Ajax, SaaS, SOAs, Scrum, and, of course, the dreaded Web 2.0.

I said some stuff which I won’t repeat because I’ve decided to refrain from kicking Java while it’s down. 😀

Dave also mentioned that I haven’t pissed on Ruby in a couple weeks and their TIOBE stats have started to recover. But I figured, that since Ruby on Rails has hitched its car onto the front of the Web 2.0 train and that baby is going full steam ahead toward the cliff… Let’s just say I’m betting it won’t reach the requisite eighty-eight miles per hour.

Speaking of which, what’s with the fucked up vocabulary/acronyms in the Ruby world? RoR? (Rawr!!!!) DHH? (Dude, like I’m going to confuse him with the six other Dave Hansson’s in my address book?)

This somehow led into a discussion on how Chris Pirillo is my hero—which I guess makes him a hero’s hero:

(Dave’s comment while watching the video: “I think I phone screened the first guy.”) Reminds me of the phone calls I’ve been getting recently (only not as long or nearly as funny). Hopefully, they’ll go away now that I replaced my Vista phone with an iPhone. 😀

[Gnomedex and Lunch 2.0 after the jump!]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 5

Did you ever know that I’m your hero?

Can I ever say enough times how much I like to hear my name? Oh sure, Meagan one-upped my last article by getting her photo in Valleywag. But I refuse to be outdone.

Me! Me! Me!

So a big thank you to Bobs Matthis for making me his hero on Friday, with my own trading card, special powers, and everything. 🙂

Terry Chay

Bobs writes:

“I am a subscriber of [t]his blog and always look forward to [Terry’s] next post. His blog is always entertaining as he mixes in technical posts right along with everything else. He has a way with mixing in comical antics along with technical posts where he still comes across as an experienced developer, intelligent, and hilarious.”

Pshawww!!! I’m blushing! (In other news, my readership count has jumped to 11! That’s like as high as the dial goes, baby!)

[More about me after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 10

Getting Oracle and PHP talking

You’ve heard of LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) which according to “the vernacular” is “Web 2.0”, but did you know that there is OPAL (Oracle PHP Apache Linux)?

Me neither, until I ran across Chris Jones’s blog. Chris is the guy who wised me up to Oracle SQL Developer, a free download run-anywhere client (including Mac) into Oracle (and other databases). Super useful and worth a download.

He and Allison Holloway also wrote the useful The Underground PHP and Oracle® Manual (download pdf), which basically tells you how to get up and running with Oracle and PHP. You might find it useful. There is no Mac section though, FYI.

My view on such things is well known, so hopefully they’ll write another book addressing those things that he’s told me about what Oracle can do but I’ve been too busy to look into.

Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 2

BYOCommunities

F—: I wanted to ask you about the the Ning network.

Welcome to Ning

Welcome to Ning
Ning, Palo Alto, California

 

Nikon D200, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX
1/80sec @ f/8, iso100, 17mm (25mm)

Me: Okay, but I’m not the person to ask, you should have you should have gone to Lunch 2.0 and asked Gina yourself.

F—: How does it compare to Facebook? Does it feel like you are creating more of a community?

Me: Facebook is best for personal social networking. (Among other things,) Ning is basically Yahoo! groups for Web 2.0 (…or they should head that direction). 🙂

F—: I see. Is there any other sites doing similar stuff?

Me: Yeah, I think there are a couple.

F—: Cool. Thanks.

Me: No problem.

Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 2

PHP and front end job at Grayboxx

Today, I received another cold call for a contract-for-hire position in god-knows-where for god-knows-what. My resume—do you read?

In keeping with my new policy, here is another job spam in case anyone is interested:

Based on your experience with web applications and interface development, we believe these jobs may be of interest to you or someone you know.

“Lead Web Applications Engineer ~ Revolutionize Local Search”
Grayboxx
Saratoga, CA
Full job description

“JavaScript / CSS / HTML Programmer ~ Revolutionize Local Search”
Grayboxx
Saratoga, CA
Full job description

The web engineer job at Grayboxx is PHP, so score one for Accolo’s filters (how did I get on your mailing list though?)

Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 2

Sorry, my badoo!

Working for a social networking company means I have to test out all the social networks out there. I tested one out recently and their importers just e-mailed 25 random users from my Yahoo! address book (no UI to select, they just did it as soon). I never invite people unless they’re already on the network.

If you’re one of the 25. Sorry about that.

(I guess I know one of the reasons why badoo is growing so fast.)

Dicks.

Posted on by tychay 0