Tom Printy’s Blog

For as long as I have been writing software professionally there has always been a need to create reports. I have always found this be be boring but a necessary evil. The basic idea is to query a database munge the data and display it. The hardest part was showing the data to people in a format that they would understand and want to use. I have used different methods from table to graph to create excel spreadsheet. It was always the presentation of the data that seemed to take the longest. Well I think that is all about to change. Last week Google released their Charting API. It provides a nice and easy to use interface to create all kinds of configurable charts. As a developer you specify the url for the browser to retrieve and thier engine does the rest. For example here is the code that I used to generate the 3D pie chart:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:10.0,20.0,70.0 &chs=300×100&chl=Savings|Taxes|Expenses

That was all there was to it. I didn’t have to understand some crazy graphing javascript code, I didn’t have to play with image magic, I just had to load the url. While this method isn’t great for larger datasets this method is perfect for small datasets. I have already thought of a couple cool ways to use this api, It has actually made me excited to write reporting software now.

Today I ran across The Chicago Geek Guide. If you live in or around the Chicago area this site is aiming to be the definitive guide for all things techy in the CHI. The site links to mailing lists, users groups, news and events. This will be a great guide. It would be even better if it was a wiki but for now I will take it. This is a great asset and will help me found some great user groups to participate in.

Last night I discovered by reading the forums over on DSLReports that Sunrocket my VOIP service provider of choice was shutting down by COB yesterday. I wondered if this was really the case since my phone was still working and I could get to thier website. However since this was all over the internets today I guess it is confirmed, they are shutting down and will be no more. Right now my phone service is working. I am able to make and receive calls however I am not able to access my voicemail.

All is not lost though according to a email the DSL reports received it looks like they are in negotiations for the customer base to be acquired. They should act fast as a lot of customers are bailing and Vonage is even making a nice deal for customers to switch ( I will never go back to Vonage). In any event something needs to happen by Friday since that is when the Gizmo (VOIP and analog phone interface) needs to get its next software download. If it does not receive the download the whole kit stops working.

This is really disappointing as I bailed Vonage and signed up with Sunrocket back in December. I got the one year plan and was having no problems what so ever. Then this!!!!!

Leassons I have learned:

Don’t prepay for service in advance.

Make sure the company can provide you service for what they are charging.

Run your own Asterisk Box and get dialtone from multiple vendors. I will be enacting this later this year

The Only question I have now is what provider should I go with? A lot of the Sunrocket users are bailing to Viatalk or packet8 ?

Yes the iPhone blends…….

But as a side not this is a really interesting way to market a product. Blendtec has created a blender but they are using pure viral marketing to sell it. Really amazing!

Goodbye Slashgeo. I am sorry to see you go. It was nice to have a neat little blog to keep track of everything geospatial. I guess the rest of us are going to have to pick up the slack.

Thanks for you efforts and hope to see you back in the blogspehere soon.

It has been proposed the your blog is you new resume. Maybe it is not resume,  but perhaps more of an elevator pitch. That is whole reason that I started this blog last month. I hope to keep my online “profile” manged through this blog so that potential employers can find out about me. That doesn’t mean that I am actively looking for something at this time though. However I am always looking for side gigs or projects that would help me build multiple streams of income.

The resume isn’t totally dead because it is still a valuable tool. I think that when interview time comes that the resume will still be asked for. When I interview a new candidate I kinda use the resume as a test. I see what skills they listed on thier resume and start drilling into those to see what they know about the topic. I also like to ask questions about projects they worked on to see what they did during the project and what role the took. I don’t know anyones blog that would provide me with the information that a resume does that would allow me to conduct an interview like that.

So I think that in the short term is will be important to both maintain your on paper resume and perhaps an electronic version of that stored someplace as well as maintaining some type of professional blog. This will help you round out who you are and where your skills are. The real hiring is done during the interview process.

Starnum is an interesting widget creator. Basically you find products that you would like to recommend to others then create a widget to add to your site. What you get is a litle flash app (see below) that users can interact with. When they buy you get a piece of the action. The product selection is kinda weak right now but I am sure that will change.

Seems pretty neat so far.

Today is Free ice cream day at your local Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop. This event is interesting to be because the company that I work for does the store locator for the Ben & Jerry’s web site. So far things are going really well. I noticed that the B&j web site was a bit slow but other that that things are going really well. So go get your free scoop and have a lovely day.

I have deicded to restart blogging again. This time I indend to keep this a bit more professional in nature. Hopefully this will help me gather contacts in the vaiours industires that I am involved in.  On this blog I will not speak for any current or pas employer but may talk about the things they are doing.  So here is the start, who knows where it will go from here.