Straight No Chaser at Harrah’s in Atlantic City, NJ

July 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

One of the things that I do with my limited free time is sing in a Barbershop chorus, the Ridgewood Cavaliers of Harmony. I love a good harmony and a cappella music really brings that out.

Straight No Chaser at Harrah's

Last Friday, our friend Daniel Bauer treated Sam and me to the opening night of Straight No Chaser’s new show “With A Twist” at Harrah’s in Atlantic City.

While they don’t sing Barbershop, they’re an awesome a cappella group and seeing them perform live was just magical. They’re performing here in New Jersey through August, so don’t miss this opportunity if you’re in the tri-state area.

Filed Under: Music, New Jersey Leave a Comment

Charlie’s got her own blog

July 7, 2010 By 1 Comment

I can’t believe it … ten years ago, she was just a little shrimp on an ultrasound image, and now … my oldest daughter, Charlene, has her own blog.

Last night, she asked if she could have her own website, and I told her, “We can work on one tomorrow.” I figured if she wasn’t seriously interested, she’d just forget about it. This morning, she didn’t forget about it, and wanted to start working on it before heading off to camp! So, I set up the DNS and installed WordPress 3.0 and let her pick out a theme to start, and set her down to write her first blog post. She didn’t have more than a few minutes to write it before having to head out the door for camp, but I think she did great.

charlene.shiobara.com on 2010-07-07

I’m really excited for her! I think she’s going to have a lot of fun exploring the available themes and learning how to customize them. It could be a great opportunity for her to make the leap from playing around with Scratch to learning PHP.

Filed Under: Family 1 Comment

Using MySQL Meta Data Effectively at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010

July 5, 2010 By 2 Comments

Since Oracle owns MySQL through its acquisition of Sun, more Oracle conferences are providing MySQL content. This past Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) Kaleidoscope 2010 conference from June 27 through July 1 had a whole dedicated track for MySQL.

Using MySQL Meta Data Effectively - title slide thumbnail

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to speak on MySQL metadata, titled “Using MySQL Meta Data Effectively“. Here’s the abstract:

This presentation discusses what MySQL meta data is available including the ‘mysql’ meta schema, the INFORMATION_SCHEMA (I_S) tables first introduced in MySQL 5.0 and extended in MySQL 5.1, storage engine specific INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables, as well as techniques for writing your own INFORMATION_SCHEMA plug-ins. MySQL also provides a number of SHOW commands that provide easily formatted presentation of MySQL meta data. Dossy Shiobara will also discuss some of the limitations and performance implications of the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.

Paper first page thumbnail

You can download the materials from my session here:

Filed Under: Geeking out, MySQL, Open Source, Oracle 2 Comments

Walking the virtual streets, looking for a good time

June 24, 2010 By 4 Comments

Now that I’m back to freelancing full-time, standing on the virtual street-corner waving at people looking for a good time with their web projects … it’s been interesting. The good news is that there’s still plenty of work out there to be done. I’ve been looking for work all over the web, and here’s some of my observations:

Elance

elance-dot-com.png

Elance is the gold standard of freelance project marketplace websites. Sure, there are a lot of jokers out there with “champagne tastes and beer budgets” that you have to filter through, but there’s also lots of legitimate work that people are looking to get done. Competing against foreign currency leverage is difficult, but there are buyers out there who aren’t only shopping by price alone. There’s no coincidence that I’ve made the most money through Elance so far, out of all the various places I’ve tried to source work from.

Freelancer.com

freelancer-dot-com.png

If Elance is the gold standard, then Freelancer.com is the bargain basement. There’s a constant stream of new projects showing up, most of them not even worth looking at, and the Indian mass-bidders have pretty much automated away the usefulness of the site. Still, I keep an eye on it just in case. I’ve only generated 1/10th the revenue on Freelancer.com as I have on Elance, so far.

Guru.com

guru-dot-com.png

Ah, good old Guru.com, there were great projects being posted to it in the late 1990′s, but the site’s functionality hasn’t improved in 10 years and the quality of the projects being posted have also declined. I’ll still check it every now and then, but I don’t expect it to lead to any real work any more.

Craigslist

craigslist-dot-org.png

Let’s not forget Craigslist, the proverbial junk drawer of the Internet. Don’t go expecting to find anything of real value there, but you might be able to turn a few tricks, and there’s likely to be less competition by Indian low-ballers.

***

Overall, this week has been encouraging and discouraging in its own way. I’m only making 20% of what I need to be in order to stay doing this full-time, but I am getting some decent work and it’s trending upwards. Just gotta keep hustling and shaking, smiling pretty and getting out there.

If you’re looking for short term help, almost doesn’t matter what as long as it can be done remotely, let me know. We’ll work out a good price and I could definitely use the work.

Filed Under: Employment 4 Comments

Looking for WordPress, Drupal or Joomla help?

June 9, 2010 By 1 Comment

Are you looking for help with your WordPress, Drupal or Joomla-based website? Having trouble customizing your theme? Need help installing or configuring a plugin? Would you like to have a custom plugin written to do something you need?

I’m once again looking for work, and in the meantime, I’d be happy to lend a hand to folks who need it. Let me know if you’ve got something you want me to take a look at for you, and we’ll work something out.

Filed Under: Open Source 1 Comment

Can mind maps help me?

June 5, 2010 By 2 Comments

I guess I’ll let a picture do the talking …

Can mind maps help me?

Am I missing anything?

Filed Under: Geeking out 2 Comments

The only constant is change

June 2, 2010 By 1 Comment

At 9:30 AM this morning, I was informed that my employment was terminated. Once again, I’m a free agent, and its time to start hustling again. If we’ve talked about work opportunities in the past, now is the time to take those conversations to the next step.

Over the next few days, I’m going to do some deep thinking about what kind of services and products make sense for me to offer given today’s demands. Even with the depressed economic situation, I know that there is still more work to do than talented people to do it – the challenge is identifying what I can deliver better than others.

The second half of 2010 is going to be very exciting and I’m looking forward to crushing it
…

***

Suzie, my younger daughter, at seven years old, loves to ask me if I can put songs on her iPod Nano. She loves to dance, and often hears songs at the dance school that she likes and wants added. Today’s request was for Let Me Think About It.

I like the song – the music is awesome. But, after having a quick chat with my wife, we both agreed that the lyrics are totally not appropriate for Suzie to be listening to over and over. She was a bit disappointed when I told her that we didn’t approve of the song’s lyrics and I wouldn’t put it on her iPod, but I did say that I would be looking for a copy of the instrumental version without lyrics and if I can get it, I’d be happy to put that one on her iPod, which made her happy. So, I went and found one on the Intertubes and now she’s got a copy of it.

Filed Under: Employment, Observations 1 Comment

May God hold you in the palm of his hand

May 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Today, we laid to eternal rest a dearly beloved son, brother, father, uncle, cousin and friend.

Carl Mirasola

May 27, 1966 – May 22, 2010
N40 50.2556′, W74 8.812′

We are all very fortunate and blessed, having known Carl for his too brief stay with us. Let us honor his memory by trying to live “a little more like Carl would.” Life is too short to do anything but love each other with all our heart and mind and body.

Filed Under: Obituaries Leave a Comment

Too late to say goodbye

May 22, 2010 By 2 Comments

I’m still processing the news, and I almost refuse to believe it’s true, but my friend Carl was shot to death, this morning.

Carl Mirasola

I got up at 8:30 AM and headed out the door to attend Joe Maggi‘s funeral mass this morning. I hadn’t heard the news, yet. As I sat at church, watching Joe’s family grieve, I couldn’t have imagined — I wouldn’t have believed — that Carl’s family was being torn apart and that he had been taken from us like this.

Carl and I worked together at Pearson. We became friends and he even decided to move from North Bergen to Butler after we invited him to a Halloween party, and he got to see the neighborhood. We helped each other out learning to take care of our swimming pools. We shared a joy of and love for grilling. He introduced us to his karate school, where my wife and daughters now train. We invited him to join us at church, where his kids discovered their interest in Sunday school.

Just this morning, after I returned home from the funeral, before we learned what happened, Samantha called and left him a message inviting his family over for a barbecue. We had no idea what had happened. We were trying to start this day like any other Saturday, with beautiful weather and the whole day ahead of us; a day that Carl did not live to see. A day that ended a beautiful life in such an abrupt and tragic way.

People will say that Carl will always live on, in our hearts, in our memories, but damnit, God, I want him here, with us. I want to hear his laugh. I want to see him smile. To shake his hand, to be hugged by the larger-than-life person who loved everyone.

I’m just not ready to believe Carl is really gone. I feel like I should have talked to him last night, maybe things today would have turned out differently. Maybe I could have said something, done something, anything, that would have changed things. Now, it’s even too late to just say goodbye.

Filed Under: Obituaries 2 Comments

Ah, brain, you cruel mistress

May 15, 2010 By 2 Comments

So, I had grandiose plans of trying to post updates to the blog at least three times a week, every week, for the month of May. Uh, the last update before this one was April 28th. Basically, I blogged more the last week of April than I have the whole month of May, so far. What the heck happened?

I just don’t get it. It’s like my brain is sabotaging my plans! Why is it so hard for me to write things down? I have the same problem with writing documentation at work: I tend to think I write very well, but I just can’t commit words to paper, or in this case, an editing buffer. Tons of words, sentences, ideas, etc., flow through my brain at an incredible pace, but nothing wants to come out. I sit with my hands resting on the keyboard, but every time I move my fingers to type something, my brain stops me and I feel like what would have come out wasn’t the right thing to say.

***

Got a bit of the man-cave (the garage) cleaned up with the help of my Dad, and set up the bench grinder that my wife got me for Father’s day last year. Now I can sharpen all sorts of things, and buff and polish others, with ease — sure, the Dremel “does the job” but this just makes things so much easier and better. The table saw and miter saw are also stored in a better place that makes them easier to take out and use, and my Dad ran a new outlet to the post between the two cave openings (garage doors). All very useful things for DIY projects.

***

On May 7 and 8, I attended PICC’10 in New Brunswick, NJ. It was a really great, fun, two-day conference for IT professionals, primarily focused at system administrators.

The next conference I’m planning to attend is ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010, June 27 to July 1, down in Washington, DC. I’ll probably only be there for two of the days. If you’re going to be there and want to meet up, let me know!

***

I set up a VMware guest with CentOS 5.4 x86_64 with EPEL 5, as my development sandbox for work, since that’s what they deploy on. It’s actually quite nice, not nearly as bad as I remember Redhat-based distributions being in the past.

***

I’ve set up a copy of CrowdFusion on my laptop, and plan to start working on a few plugins. I’m tired of dealing with crappy CMS‘es like Drupal or Joomla! but CrowdFusion is still quite “beta” in some ways. I figure if I can contribute here and there, the sooner I could propose it seriously in RFP responses and the happier I’d be. I’ll say this: as “beta” as it might be, CrowdFusion 2.0 is already better than Drupal or Joomla! at its core. Once a suitable collection of plugins are developed and tested, and a theme gallery is available and populated with attractive themes, there’ll be no reason to use anything else.

Filed Under: Dossy, Dossy and more Dossy!, Geeking out, Open Source 2 Comments
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »