Trinity Brewing Company

© Trinity Brewing Company

For those in Colorado Springs area, the Trinity Brewing Company’s inaugural opening is today. We have been looking forward to this since catching their booth at the Craft Lagerfest.

We intend to be celebrating with friends and family around 5pm although others will be arriving sooner. So clear your afternoon schedule and head on down:

The Dark Knight

© The Dark Knight

Hopefully, by now, you have seen this movie. If you haven’t, then you really should.

The Dark Knight, for the unaware, is the sequel to Christopher Nolan’s first film: Batman Begins. Which is also the rebirth of the Batman franchise. To be honest, I haven’t really been into the Batman series since Tim Burton’s Batman (which I recommend seeing and owning, BTW). Unfortunately, the sequels that followed caused the series to get progressively worse. Especially Batman Forever and Batman & Robin which are horrible films. I didn’t care for some of the campy humor let alone the different actors that were chosen to fill the Batman role. For me, Michael Keaton was the ideal candidate for playing the Bruce Wayne/Batman role.

Now, over a decade later, the Batman franchise is being reborn and in a major way. Some are even saying that The Dark Knight is equal the The Godfather: Part II in terms of quality and impact. I would have to agree with that. It really is that good. So much so, that it got me excited enough to go to the theater again (which doesn’t happen very often these days).

Aside from the fact that the film is well written, well executed, and well worth watching. It also has some technical merit. I had read an article in Wired Magazine where I learned that Christopher Nolan had shot the film in IMAX format. Which, if you haven’t had a chance to experience yet, you really need to before it leaves the theater. However, I do want to point out than not all scense are in IMAX format. Which, for me, was a little disappointing. That being said, the scenes that were in IMAX format were truly astonishing, especially the beginning of the film as well as all city and aerial shots. There is just something to be said about having a movie totally engulf your vision and, for a short while, throw you into this dark world of super villians and super heroes.

Colorado Springs Open Source Meetup (Blender)

It has been a while since I last attended the Colorado Springs Open Source Meetup. This time the talk was on Blender and OpenOffice. I’m not even going to attempt to talk about Blender except to say I wish I had more time to play with it. Pretty amazing stuff but comes with a stiff learning curve. BTW, a good discussion on Blender can be found by listening to FLOSS Weekly - Episode 25 - Blender if you haven’t checked it out already.

As for OpenOffice, I use it in a rather limited capacity. Actually, I’ve been using NeoOffice but tonight convinced me that I need to drop NeoOffice and check out OpenOffice again. It has improved quite a bit since I last used it. It even supports extensions. Neat.

I spoke with Gary, who runs the Colorado Springs Open Source Meetup, and offered to give a talk on Ruby, Ruby on Rails, etc. I mean, c’mon, the meetup has only been running since January of this year and still, there is no talk of Ruby or Rails? That needs to change. Hey Brett, if you are listening, I think you should fly up. We could give a rather compelling demo of Ruby, Rails, and Google Maps.

Mac Software Business Podcast

I recently subscribed to the Mac Software Business Podcast and finished listening to the eight or so podcasts out there. I am really enjoying the commentary from the talented group of Micro ISV developers from such companies as Flying Meat, Rogue Amoeba, and No Thirst Software to name a few. Even Alex Lindsay of Pixel Corps fame showed up in one of the episodes.

I think I stumbled across this podcast series thanks to Bob Walsh who writes excellent articles on the 47 Hats site. BTW, this is another great feed for Micro ISV news and info if interested.

In news related to this, I wanted to mention that I created a new business page on this site to capture some of the Micro ISV news and tidbits that I am finding interesting. Not much there at the moment but you might find it useful in the future as I flesh it out more.

Blending Background Images and Colors

I ran into an odd situation where I was using a background image that was a gradient (with a light color turning darker from top to bottom). The gradient background, which is 1 pixel wide by 500 pixels high, would be positioned at the top and repeat across the horizontal axis. As you moved down the page, the background would eventually blend into the background color. For example, here is the CSS code:

body { background: #e75210 url(/images/main/bg.jpg) repeat-x top; }

This worked greate in Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, in Safari, I ended up with the following:

Not too sexy, right? Turns out that I wasn’t saving my JPG image for web format in Photoshop. I was saving it as a straight JPG image at a medium quality setting. Once I saved the image for web, Safari was happy and now I get the same experience in all three browsers.

Rubyology

For those looking to expand their interest in Ruby, you might want to subscribe to the Rubyology podcast/screencast feed. Thanks, Brant, for the tip.

A word of caution though, these podcasts are pretty rough. Here are a few reasons why:

1. No Labels - Each show is simply a number both when viewed from your iPhone/iPod and on the file system of your OS. Makes it hard to remember what each show is about and why you would want to listen to it.
2. Poor Sound - The sound quality is so low that I have to set my headphones at maximum volume and even then it is hard to sometimes hear.
3. Poor Use of Technology - For me, when you start talking about code, it really should be in a screencast as it is hard to convey in speech only.

I downloaded the screencasts but haven’t had a chance to check them out. I’m hoping they are better than the podcasts. That being said, there are a few tips and tricks that I have picked up along the way.

Rubyology is hosted by Chris Matthieu who lives in the Phoenix area and can sometimes be found at the local Ruby user group gatherings.

Useless iPhone Application Receipts

I am not a big fan of e-mail spam. Who isn’t, right? Well, as of late, I have started to get that funny twitch in my eye due to what I am now calling receipt spam from Apple. Yes, Apple, with all their shiny toys. Although, the shine is beginning wear off as I upgrade and download applications (free ones mostly) for my iPhone. The problem is that I keep getting these kinds of messages (and they don’t appear on the same day but a day or two later):

(click to view)

Does anyone really care about this? If I had to pay for something then, yes, I would like a digital receipt. Otherwise, why bother me? Instead, I see these messages and start wondering what it was that I purchased only to find out I didn’t purchase anything! I can see the gang at Apple now saying: “Ha ha, made you look. Sucker!”

Yeah, thanks Apple, you just wasted my time.

Managing Software Deliverables Documentation

I need to send the details of what I have been working on in terms of enhancements and bug fixes to my clients. I tried several ways of doing this where I would manage a text or word document but each was annoying to maintain and it would force me to have an additional app up and running. The other issue is that I use MacOS Spaces heavily and I don’t like COMMAND+TAB’ing to a document file just to capture the tidbits I am working on. I just want to stay in the same space.

The answer? OmniFocus. With OmniFocus I can open the Quick Entry window from any MacOS Space by using the global CTRL+OPTION+SPACE key combo. BTW, for those not familiar with OmniFocus, you can read more about it on my OmniFocus page. Here is my setup:

The projects you see above are the standard fair where I have all my “next actions” listed in “Bug” and “Enhancement” projects so I can tackle them when I’m in my “Work” context. The new project I added was “Deliverables” to capture items that I need to send out using the “Pending” context. As I complete my next actions in the “Bug” and “Enhancement” projects, I bring up a new Quick Entry window and quickly document what I fixed or enhanced. This might sound like duplicate work but not really. The reason is that what I enter as a “Deliverable” gets additional documentation because it needs to be readable by the client. I can enhance the action by using the note capabilities of the action such as adding more text or capturing a screenshot or two. The Quick Entry window is also handy in those cases for capturing tangential fixes or enhancements while in the midst of working on another action.

When it comes time to release a new milestone to the client, I can export all “Pending” actions into a document and I’m done (or export the entire project as HTML). No longer is there extra work at the end of week assembling all the documentation together. Now I am getting things done faster with more time spent coding.

The following screenshot helps illustrate (this is a view of the “Deliverables project for all actions in the “Pending” context, sorry had to blur most of the content out — too many secrets ya know):

(click to view)

Now, if only OmniFocus would allow me to export the contents of my “Deliverables” project as PDF. Maybe it’ll happen in the future.

Craft Lagerfest

We (Kate and I) attended the Craft Lagerfest yesterday and had a great time (not that it was hard to have good time while tasting beers from all over the state of Colorado).

While you can view the list of winners at the Craft Lagerfest web site, here are my comments:

• New Belgium Brewing Company - Based in Fort Collins I have generally not been fond of their beers. However, I tried their 1554 ale and enjoyed this chocolate malt.
• Phantom Canyon Brewing Company - Located in downtown Colorado Springs, it sports a nice restaurant experience with an upstairs billiard. They had a hefeveizen that was made from banana and clover. Wow! I’ll be planning to visit their establishment again soon.
• Wolf Rock Brewing Company - Located in Keystone, these guys made a really tasty beer called the “Montezuma Marzen” that is a toasty malt lager with a dash of spicy hops. It is summer still and I’m already planning on stopping in after skiing the slopes in the upcoming ski season.
• Trinity Brewing Company - These guys are new to the area and are opening their first brewery at the end of the month. They had no beers to taste but we remain hopeful as their establishment will be located on Garden of the Gods road and within easy walking distance to us.

While tasting beers and eating brauts, I saw a guy with this shirt in the crowd:

My sentiments exactly (the person in the picture, while hard to make out, is George W. Bush in airforce gear).

Cheers.