David Eisinger

* Around "Hello World" in 30 Days

2010-05-20T03:17:00Z

Last weekend, I flew out to Chicago to coordinate DevNation Chicago and present my findings from my month of new technology. In hindsight, I probably bit off more than I could chew trying to do both; maybe if it was the second or third time giving the same talk it would have been alright, but putting together a new talk consumed most of my energy in the days leading up to the event. Fortunately, Shay from Relevance was there to pick up the slack, and the conference went off without a hitch.

The talk itself was, in many ways, my most successful thus far. The contrast on the projector was crap, so a lot of my sight gags fell flat, and a few audience members mentioned that I need to speak louder. That aside, the audience responded really well to the talk, and a number of people came up to me afterward and said they found it inspiring, which was flattering to say the least. Here are my slides, in full color glory:

I hope to give this talk a few more times, though I’m not sure where exactly it’ll be appropriate. It’s not language-specific, so I’m not sure if I could get it accepted to a Ruby conference, even though I think that it’d go over well there. Stay tuned.

* My Month of New Technology

2010-04-11T22:42:00Z

Last week, I was talking with a friend, a fellow programmer, about what it takes to stay on top in the technology industry. We’re both Ruby guys, working with reasonably cutting-edge technology for eight or nine hours a day, but we both observed that the top guys in our field work a full-time job and then go home and spend another five hours working with the latest stuff, something I often have a hard time finding motivation to do.

In an attempt to change that, I’ve decided to spend the next month spending an hour a day learning a new technology, thirty in all. I’m keeping notes on this Tumblr site, and I’ll be reporting on my findings at DevNation Chicago on May 15th.

How’s it going so far? Well, I just typed this post in MacVim with no trouble, so pretty well, I’d say.

* On iPhone Photography

2010-03-27T18:55:00Z

I finally took the plunge and picked up an iPhone last October, and although my cellphones have had built-in cameras for the last ten years, this is the first one I’ve used with any regularity. As recommended in this fantastic post by Phil Coffman, I’ve been using Mill Colour and TiltShift Generator (WARNING: wonky iTunes links) to process my photos. Here’s one I took the other day, waiting for lunch at a Korean grocery store, processed using both apps:

To upload my photos, I use the free version of Flickit, which I prefer to the official app because it lets you post to Twitter simultaneously, using the title of the photo and a flic.kr short URL.

I love my DSLR, but even when I have it with me, it’s a photo better than any I’ve ever taken that would compel me to immediately transfer it to my laptop, process it, upload it to Flickr, and then tweet about it. The iPhone streamlines this process and makes it portable, and the geotagging abilities exceed those of my current setup. Certainly, you give up a lot of quality, but what’s the use of having great equipment if you never do anything with it?

I have a restrictive filter for what I publish online; I discard at least five times as many tweets as I publish. I probably wouldn’t tweet that I was meeting a friend to watch Hot Tub Time Machine. And I certainly wouldn’t post this photo to Flickr on its own. But combining the photo and the tweet pushes both across the quality threshold, at least in my mind, and is hardly more difficult than posting either individually.

* Email Interfaces Talk

2009-11-18T23:00:00Z

Just realized I never posted anything about my last talk, “Email Interfaces for your Ruby Applications,” delivered at Developer Day Boulder in mid-October.

I consider the talk a success on the whole. Compared with my previous speaking engagements, where I spent weeks preparing and still struggled to fill the allotted time, this talk came together easily. On the other hand, I don’t think the audience was nearly as engaged as in the past; it’s a dry subject, email, and it was hard to differentiate between the audience’s reaction to the talk and the combined effects of my post-lunch time slot and an overactive heating system. There was a lively discussion afterward, though, so I think people were paying attention.

I’m still trying to find my sweet spot — I’ve done well with talks that use humorous technical gimmicks to tie them together, but the prep time for these talks has been huge (roughly an hour prep for a minute of presentation). Additionally, as the gimmick goes, so does the talk, so I have a lot of anxiety leading up to the presentation that I really didn’t experience before the relatively risk-free Boulder talk.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME. Here are the slides:

Boulder is a beautiful city, if goddamn frigid. Hoping to spend some more time out there when it’s warmer or I’m ready for the cold. AND SPEAKING of hipster towns, I’m looking forward to refining the talk and then giving it again in January, when Developer Day (or whatever its new name is — I voted “Devtron”) heads to Austin.

* TheCoffeeLog, My Rails Rumble App

2009-08-29T15:29:00Z

Last weekend, I participated in the Rails Rumble, a 48-hour web application creation competition (and thus ends the rhyming portion of today’s entry) for the second year in a row. This year, my teammates and I wanted to build something simple, clean, and focused. In response to the stumbling blocks of many of last year’s attempts, we avoided requiring a large user base in order for our app to be useful and bypassed the traditional signup system. We decided on a simple feed reader that uses email as its primary interface. Users send the URLs they want to follow to a designated email address, and we send them their updates every morning. The app lives (and will continue to live) at http://thecoffeelog.com.

Participating in the Rumble this year was an incredible experience. I especially enjoyed getting the chance to work with former colleagues and building something that I hope will have value well beyond the competition. Major thanks to Mark and Clinton for their work streamlining the application and server setup processes.

Judging the Judging

For reasons I don’t quite grasp, the organizers decided to break the judging process into two phases for this year’s competition. All completed apps were to be graded by four members of the “Expert Panel,” after which the top twenty or so apps would go on to public voting. Our application only received three scores; our first two judges rated us highly, while the third gave us low marks across the board without leaving any commentary as to why.

Our application was certainly modest in scope compared to some of the other entries, so I didn’t expect us to win any prizes, but I’m frustrated that the same judge gave similarly low marks to Append — an app my friends made that I thought really had a chance at a top spot — again, without leaving any commentary or even signing up. I hope they continue to refine the judging process for next year; I think the expert panel should either be required to comment in order to leave scores or removed from the competition altogether.

Rails 2.0: It's done!

2007-12-07T12:37:00Z

Exciting day for web nerds everywhere. On top of all the new features, it's good to hear that they've focused on slimming down the codebase.

H2O RLY

2007-10-30T08:35:00Z

Casual Activist uncovers why bottled water is a total crock. Unless, of course, you're in Mexico, and the water es el color de mierda.

Kellogg's All-Bran 10-Day Challenge

2007-10-20T19:01:00Z

Click "On TV" and watch the commercial. So subtle. So disgusting.

Garbage Points

2007-10-18T19:33:00Z

A new sports blog from my friends Dhivy, Quang and Joe. These guys are great writers. If you're into sports, check 'em out.

The Incredible Em and Elastic Layouts with CSS

2007-10-12T14:10:00Z

Incredibly cool web design technique, where the whole layout resizes as text size is increased or decreased. Beautiful blog, as well.