COMPLETE – Krispy Kreme Challenge 2010
It is 7:40AM.
It is 31 degrees.
Ever so lightly, snow begins falling from the sky.
And here I am, with some of my best friends, getting ready to experience one of the most awesome traditions at NC State. The Krispy Kreme Challenge.
Going in, I knew I could handle the running. The course was about 4.6 miles in total. I knew I could do that, but outside? At 31 degrees? I have never done that before. The doughnuts were a different story. I figured I could eat them, but I learned a bit later just how much I had underestimated the power of a little, round chunk of doughy heaven.
There is a guy in front of us that is running in a speedo...and that's it. There's also a dude in a gorilla costume, a banana costume, and a guy running around with a giant doughnut on his head. I'm thinking to myself "These are my people! NC State friggin rocks!". Behind us are a few UNC folks. We all decide that if we were gonna puke, we should do it in their direction.
Finally, it's time to start. "On Your Mark. Get Set. GOOOOOOO". Bam, Andrew takes off like he was shot out of a cannon. I'm fairly sure I am running over people to keep up, but we're even before too long. The whole crowd is running at a very fast pace. We are a block away from Krispy Kreme and a guy, escorted by Raleigh's finest, is on his way back. That dude must have been running like he stole something. Time check...16 minutes down. Holy crap! We ran that fast! We run past mountains of doughnuts before some volunteer FINALLY hands me my box. I open it up and think to myself "Oh S**t, that's a lot of doughnuts".
I squish 2 together, and get them down quick. Next up, I squish 4 together and start chomping. I make my way around the building and get some water and start alternating bites with water. The bites are so sweet my jaw starts to hurt. I squish the next 4 together and start eating it. I look at Andrew with an I-don't-think-I-can-do-this look. He says "Don't think, just eat". I black out for the next few minutes and when I come to, I am on my last 2 doughnuts. Must. Get. Water. I dunk my last 2 in my water, shove them in my mouth and bam. I did it! 2400 calories and 12 doughnuts down, 2+ miles to go. Andrew and I chuck our boxes in a huge pile, right beside a guy projectile vomiting. Time check...35 minutes have passed. We start our jog back.
Dave find us as we are leaving KK. He's holding his remaining doughnuts like a football. He ate 4 of the 12. We call him all kinds of affectionate names 
Andrew and I are jogging pretty good and keep telling each other "follow the yellow line. We can do it". We turn to jog up the hill to the final turn onto Hillsborough Street. I'm feeling good. We're about 3/4 of a mile from the finish line and I tell Andrew the finish line is only a quarter of a mile away. He threatens me with bodily harm if I am wrong. Time check...50 minutes passed. We're good.
I see the finish line. I take off. Whoa buddy...too fast. It would suck to barf this close to the finish line. A few seconds later and I cross the line. Erin and Leah are yelling at me. I imitate Rocky, throwing my arms to the sky in celebration. Official time...56 minutes, 49 seconds. I made it under and hour. SUCCESS!
Andrew finishes right behind me. Dave is a few minutes back, but makes it in under an hour. None of our crowd threw up. We did it. Our wives are somewhat proud. We people watch a little bit. Saw a guy who recreated Justin Timberlake's SNL skit for "D**k in a box". Another dude is dressed like one of the Reno 911 cops. Wow...a chick dressed like Cyndi Lauper. Good times, great people. We are NC State.
I'm cold. Tired. Full of a whole bunch of doughnuts. But I couldn't be any happier. I accomplished something today and it feels great. As we walk back to the car, I am already thinking that I will do this again next year. And that there is no way I want another Krispy Kreme doughnut for a while
Open Source in Higher Ed – Give a Penny, Take a Penny
I love open source software. The sharing, the collaboration, the community around it. For those that know me, you know that is right down my alley. Working in higher education at NC State, there are many services that I know would not be possible without our access to open source software. Our campus homepage uses jQuery, we are a huge PHP shop, and MySQL provides database services for a lot of apps on campus. But open source is more about consuming, it's about contributing back.
I know you have all seen those little "Give a penny, take a penny" trays at convenience stores. There are a few pennies in there, and if you need one, you take it. But there is also an inference that if you have an extra penny, you should throw it in for someone else. Open source software is not really any different. I can't count how many open source solutions I have implemented, and without those solutions, I would have wasted valuable time and energy recreating something that was already done. Why not provide the code that I write for some other poor soul out there trying to solve the same problem? In my mind, that is just common decency, especially when my time is paid for by the tax payers of the State of North Carolina. If you work in public service and DON'T share your code, I may just call you selfish.
People really and truly appreciate the sharing of your code. As a perfect example, we have open sourced the code we created for the http://twitter.ncsu.edu site, making it free to download, implement, change, whatever. A few weeks after we released the code, I probably had messages from 5-7 other Universities who had downloaded the code and had plans to implement their own twitter site. Today, I got a message from one of those people that I had been helping over the past few months stating that they got their site up and going! Check out http://twitter.vanderbilt.edu! Then I also got this nice tweet from them:
I'm not saying that Vanderbilt couldn't have created this on their own. I'm sure they could have, but I'm sure they have better things to do than "re-invent the wheel". Now Vanderbilt's faculty, staff and students can benefit from the same code as NC State's, and that is a very powerful and meaningful thing.
Call this a plea. Call it a "call to action". But the fact is, if we are creating software at a public institution, we should be open sourcing it, no matter how big or small the codebase is. If you are creating software, realize the difference you can make for other developers by making your work freely available. Not only will it make you feel better, but it will probably make your code better because you won't want other people to see how you hacked some junk together.
The next time you download Wordpress, or Drupal, or jQuery, or Linux, or Firefox, ask yourself what you have given back to the open source community.
Bobcats game on NASCAR night
Last weekend, Erin and I went to see the Charlotte Bobcats take on the Orlando Magic. This was the first time that I had been to an NBA game since I saw the Charlotte Hornets in their first year at the Charlotte Coliseum. Erin's friend Ashley had gotten us tickets on NASCAR night, and they were really good. We were probably 15 rows back from the floor along the baseline.
I'm not really an NBA fan, but I am a fan of pretty much any competition, so it was entertaining. NBA games seem to be a lot more about the "show" rather than the game. Everything was sponsored by someone, the "cheerleaders" could probably be seen later that night at a local gentleman's club (not that I minded), and there were local celebrities everywhere. Ric Flair (NATURE BOY IN DA HOUSE) was sitting a few rows down from us, and one of the anchors for News 14 was there too. Not to mention half of the NASCAR drivers. It was all interesting people watching.
I had watched PTI the week before when Charles Barkley was on, saying that he was "disappointed in the product that the NBA puts on the floor every night" and I can totally see that. The game was about athleticism, not really about skill. Dwight Howard could NOT hit any shot more than 3 feet from the basket, but the dude is huge and dominates inside.
The game went into overtime, and the Magic ended up winning, but I didn't really care too much. Mostly because half the dang Bobcats played for UNC, and people all around us were obnoxious about rubbing that fact in every time one of them did something good. It was annoying. Probably the only time I will ever secretly cheer for JJ Redick (he once played for Duke, now plays for the Magic and was booed every time he touched the ball). At one point I told Erin "I hope the Bobcats win, but if JJ can hit a game winner and shut all these homers up, I'll be happy anyway".
Anyway, the trip was fun. Charlotte has a great environment downtown with lots of restaurants and a decent vibe. We had a good time and were thankful for the tickets.
Krispy Kreme Challenge
I may have done something stupid. I signed up to run in the 2010 Krispy Kreme Challenge. For all those that are not part of the NC State family or don't have a clue what it is, lemme lay it down for you. Run 2 miles, eat a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts, run 2 miles back. In under an hour.
Last year, ESPN was there to cover the festivities, so it's kind of a big deal around here. There were over 6000 runners last year! The event started in 2004 as a dare between some students, and it has quickly caught on. I have wanted to do it for a few years now, but never really had the nerve. Then one night, Erin and I were out to dinner with our bestest friends Andrew (my old college roommate) and Leah, and we started talking about it. Andrew and I decided we would do it, and as soon as I got home I registered online. No turning back now.
While not new to running, I have never run in a race before. And it's gonna be cold because the race is at 8:30am in friggin February! This should be fun. I will post my time, doughnuts ate, and pictures upon the completion
NC State Goal for 2010: Inventory the (NC State) Web
2009 brought a great deal of organization to the web development and design community at NC State. I played a large part in that by organizing the community, finding us an online home, and getting people excited about what we could do as a community.
The idea of inventorying NC State's web presence came from the community, and I would like to help push that through in 2010. My friend and coworker Nick started championing the idea in 2009, so I want to help support his effort and do what I can on my end.
I won't really get technical here and talk about implementation strategies, but I will tell you what I would like to see. I'd like an online repository of all the websites and applications that are owned and operated out of the ncsu.edu domain. This would have critical information about the site like who it belongs to, who is the technical contact, where do the files live, etc. Basically, a who's-who of NC State websites.
Just putting this in writing is scaring the bejeezus out of me. I instantly go to that place where this is impossible. What are the challenges? Oh lemme see...
- How do you gather all this data the first time?
- How do you keep it all up-to-date and relevant?
- There are tens of thousands of websites under ncsu.edu, how do you even get in touch with all those people?
- I'm sure there are more....
I'm not going to pretend that these questions are easy to answer, but I think we can get part of the way there. Nick is actively working on a locker renewal system, which will force everyone on campus who purchases web space from OIT to renew that space once a year. Perfect time to get some good information about who they are and the sites in that webspace! Will that be a complete list? No, but it will be better than what we have now which is nothing. And since there is a yearly renewal cycle, at least the data won't be years out of date...just months
So what are the possible benefits to having this data?
- We can track down sites that are orphaned or out of date
- Find a broken link on a web-page? We can easily automatically contact the right person so it gets fixed.
- We can see who is developing what on campus
- Easily transition ownership or responsibility of web space
- And again, I'm sure there are more...
At the end of the day, the best benefit I can find is related to a previous post of mine talking about branding at NC State. I am a firm believer that you can't start to improve on your brand until you know who is speaking on behalf of you, and right now we have no idea who is speaking, or what they are speaking about. This system will help us get a better grip on that.
I think this will be something that we can definitely achieve in 2010. This is also a goal where I am not really the lead guy on, but I will try to help Nick and the rest of the folks on campus working on the problem. What do you guys think? Good idea or foolish?
DISCLAIMER: These are my personal goals for NC State in 2010. None of this has been signed off on or anything like that, it is just what I hope to accomplish in the new year.
Strategies for upgrading webapps?
Calling all software developers! Garrison and I need some help...
Here is the scenario. We have to maintain a bunch of production web applications, most of which use Zend Framework. When we have created a new version of the application, we need to deploy it to production in as simple of a way as possible. We have automated the file version of this by using Phing to export the tag out of SVN, copy old config files, set write permissions in the correct place, etc. However, the database manipulation has happened manually and we are looking for strategies on how to automate this.
We came up with an idea to write a custom migration library which will execute php and sql files, but it seems like a problem that has to be solved better by someone else. Anyone have any tips? Anecdotes? Strategies? Anything to help us get going in the right direction would be much appreciated. I'd even buy someone a beer or two
Speaking at TEK·X
I had announced this on my twitter feed, but I thought it warranted a blog post of it's own. I have been asked to speak at TEK·X, an awesome conference for PHP professionals. My talk, "Lean Mean PHP Machine" was accepted! Flippin sweet! Here is the description of my talk:
Implementing software development “best practices” can be a challenging feat, especially if you are in a very small team of developers. Little to no budget, stress to just “get something out”, and lack of understanding from management of what you really do means you have to make sacrifices, right? This talk will give you some insight on accomplishing your goals of being a top-rated development shop, even if you are an army of one. From justifying those best practices to utilizing free services to hiring additional help, this talk will run the gamut of running a software development shop at a small scale.
Speaking at a conference is a great responsibility and honor, but then I took at look at who the other speakers are and I was immediately humbled. So many of the other speakers are the movers and shakers in the PHP community. Hell, some of them actually helped write PHP. As soon as I saw the speaker list, I instantly got nervous. But a few reassuring words from my friend Keith Casey helped. I am just thankful that people like Keith and the rest of the TEK·X organizers are willing to give me a shot to share what I have learned about working with PHP in a resource starved environment.
So if you are a PHP pro and want to get involved with a great community, consider coming to TEK·X in May. Knowing (of) most of the speakers, and meeting most all of them at one time or another, I can GUARANTEE that you are going to get your moneys worth.
NC State Goal for 2010: Improve adoption of the Brand
Last year, our campus adopted a brand book. This is a guideline for how NC State media (web, print, etc) is to be published. It was something that our campus SORELY needed, and a great step in the right direction. In 2010, I'd like to help NC State improve the adoption of that brand with respect to the web, and be better organized along the way.
To accomplish this goal, I believe it starts with developers and designers. Our campus has an awesome community of web developers and designers. I have been the key organizer for the group for the past year, and my continuance with that will be a focus in 2010.
More Meetups, More Topics
The plan for 2010 is to have monthly meetups that are a bit more structured than years past. The goal is to come up with a few presentations about web-like stuff, and have the community vote on what presentations they want to hear for the next month (similar to how IgniteRaleigh selects talks). The idea would be, after a while, people would start submitting their own talks so that a few of us don't have to do them every month. Every meetup, we'd have one or two topics, then use the rest of the time for socializing and general Q&A. We are also going to be trying to give equal representation to the designers among us. The better informed our developers and designers can be, the better they will be able to execute the goals of the brand book. And an active community, is (hopefully) a productive, happy one.
Social Media Push
Last year, we launched http://twitter.ncsu.edu and it was a massive hit. I have no facts to back it up, but we HAVE to be the most actively tweeting campus around. We have 74 official NC State accounts for goodness sake! I also helped teach a class last year on "Tweeting for NC State University", which made it to the home page of slideshare.net (way cool). In 2010, I'd like to continue our momentum and tap the Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever-social-media-outlet-you-want-to-name markets as well. I'd like to see us expand on the NCSU twitter site to also pull feeds from other social media outlets. I think it would provide a great resource to incoming students, allowing them ways to connect with new people on campus. I'd also like to organize some additional training for people on how to effectively use social media on behalf of the University. This will help us spread the brand to new and prospective students.
Certified Developer/Designer Program
This one is something that I have been thinking about for a while, and it may seem a little bit out of left field, but hear me out. I'd like to setup a system where designers and developers are rewarded for knowing and executing the brand book the way it should be. It would involve a bit of work on behalf of the employee, but the rewards could be tremendous for them and for the department or college they work for, especially in our resource-starved environment.
Here's the gist. We setup a curriculum which involves classes on the brand book, effective design principles, Photoshop, accessibility, usability, etc. This would be a lot of work to get started, but we already have a lot of good people who are already doing most of these classes already. As an employee completes the curriculum, they are accepted as a certified developer or designer for NC State. Part of them keeping this designation would be for them to turn around and help teach others. Blog, teach workshops, answer questions on the forums and mailing lists. It is a communal-like approach which may or may not work, but it would give employees the chance to add "teacher" to their toolbox of skills.
That sounds like a lot of work, right? So what's in it for the employee or department? Here is where I need to secure funding, but I do have a vision. First off, free software. Adobe Creative Suite, Zend Studio, Dreamweaver, whatever. Right now, colleges and departments have to purchase individual licenses for each employee that wants to use it. If you are a certified developer or designer, we will give you a license to use for free. Secondly, access to pre-made templates, logos, fonts, layouts, and all sorts of brand-related goodies. It will make the employees job easier, and they will have more time to focus on other things. Third, a conference lottery. Conferences are great ways to improve on your profession, but the sad thing is that we have very little funding to send people to conferences. All certified developers and designers would be put in a lottery once a year to win a "scholarship" to the conference of their choice. It will give people who don't typically have the opportunity the chance to branch out and attend events like An Event Apart, DrupalCon, ZendCon, or whatever they want.
Right now, this is all a dream with no real push behind it. But I think it would a great rewards program for our 100+ developers on campus. I know this will involve the efforts of lots of people and myself. But what do you folks think? Is it crazy to expect already busy people to do even more, even though it is for the betterment of NC State? Are the requirements too big? Are the rewards too small? What kind of challenges do you see?
Heavy stuff, but I will leave you with a bit of Dilbert humor about certifications...
DISCLAIMER: These are my personal goals for NC State in 2010. None of this has been signed off on or anything like that, it is just what I hope to accomplish in the new year.
NC State Goal for 2010: More Mobile
2009 got NC State started on a great foot when it came to providing content to users on mobile devices. We launched http://m.ncsu.edu in September with no initiative, no funding, no nothing. The only thing we had was a group of passionate people interested in doing something powerful and beneficial to the University ("Passion Rules!" as our new Chief Communication Officer Joe Hice likes to say). And the project was a great success! We got a lot of excellent press and nothing but praise from the higher ups.
Pro-tip: Despite popular belief, you don't need an official initiative or bloated requirements to do something worthwhile at NC State. This mobile project is proof that with a little imagination, a lot of hard work, a community-driven attitude and the RIGHT people in the RIGHT place, you can make a HUGE impact. Being willing to take a risk doesn't hurt either.
Later on in the year, the library launched their own mobile site at http://m.lib.ncsu.edu. They have a lot of very interesting apps that help out library patrons and are using the same code and design principles that the main mobile site is using. And because I am the coordinator for the project, I get to hear from lots of other people who are wanting to do mobile sites. Those voices have gotten much louder towards the end of 2009 and subsequently into 2010. And while what we have done already is important, this post is about what we will do in the future, so on to the goals!
Acquire an iPhone Developer License for NC State University
I worked really hard to get this goal realized in 2009, but Apple and NC State couldn't seem to come to terms with the contract. It sounds so simple. Just pay your $99 and you get to put apps in the app store, right? Nope, not when you are a state organization with some (in my opinion) overly cautious laws and lawyers. Then you have Apple who was unwilling to modify any language in the contract to get us on board (thanks Cupertino...really? You guys dropped the ball on this one). While both sides failed to connect in 2009, we have a new plan for 2010 and are moving forward with it. We WILL get this done in 2010!
Complete our Mobile Best Practices Guide
My vision is to have a resource that developers can use when they want to make their site or web application mobile friendly. Part of this will also be a guide for administrators to consider when dedicating resources (people and money) to mobile projects. The University is desperately in need of some continuity and consistency in branding, and since the mobile presence is very small so far, I think this is an excellent place to start. Best practices, user-interface design, approval procedures, etc. can really help NC State becoming a leader in mobile resources for higher education. Of course I am not going to do this by myself, but if I can continue to be a catalyst for this, I will work hard to see this goal realized.
Collect Mobile Apps and Sites
It's always good to know what kind of resources you currently have. If you don't know what you have, you don't know what you need. I'd like to see us collect the existing (and future) mobile applications and websites into a great, accessible resource that our current students, alumni, faculty, staff, and future students can use to get the info they need about NC State. This includes collecting our future iPhone apps, Android apps, mobile-friendly websites, everything. A one-stop shop for mobile at NC State.
Launch the new version of m.ncsu.edu
By trade, I am a programmer. I see a problem, envision a solution in my head, and can sit down and write the code to solve the problem. In this case, the problem is that we need a mobile framework so that people all across our campus (and others like, UNC) can develop code that can be specific to them, but also be maintained and re-used. It would include much of what the current website does, including device detection, but would also entail much much more. It would give us an awesome foundation to build something really special, and I am totally pumped about it! And of course, it will be Open Source, freely available to anyone and everyone that wants it (cause that's how I roll).
Funding and Acknowledgment
The mobile project from 2009 was really just an interested group of people that wanted to accomplish the same thing. While we accomplished A LOT, in 2010, we are going to need to solidify the group and be acknowledged by the University as a working committee. For anyone in higher ed, you probably hate that "committee" word, but it is a necessary evil to move the project where we want to. We need to secure funding for employees, training, and resources. To get that funding, we have to be more than "a group of people". The make-up of the group will probably be very similar to what we have now, we will just be more official
Features, Features, Features
NC State needs more of it's tools to be mobile friendly. In 2009, we started building a foundation to get the NCSU Dining menus on the mobile site. We need to make that a reality in 2010. We also planted the seed of innovation into a lot of people's minds as to what was possible on a mobile platform. Gym hours and equipment availability, access to student's schedules, classes and grades. The possibilities are endless, and we need to follow through. A lot of these features will be easier with an official committee in place. The mobile presence of the University will only be as good as the resources we provide, so we need to provide more stuff.
With all that said, what are your thoughts on this project? Anything you would like to see NC State work on with the mobile presence? So far, the community has driven the project, and I doubt it will be much different in 2010. So let's have it, what do you folks wanna see?
DISCLAIMER: These are my personal goals for NC State in 2010. None of this has been signed off on or anything like that, it is just what I hope to accomplish in the new year.
Looking ahead to 2010
I typically suck at making and keeping new years resolutions. I've never felt that making resolutions really changed anything, except for the first month or so of the year. As a perfect example, check out your local gym during the month of January...then go back in March. There will maybe be a quarter of the people there.
While I don't like resolutions, I do find that with a new year, it is good to reflect back on the previous one and evaluate where you are and what you want to accomplish in the new one. In an effort to keep myself honest, I figured I would record my goals for the new year here, in no particular order.
Grow My Business
2009 was an interesting year for AmberCube. We had a few clients, made a little money (enough to buy Garrison and I new computers), and joined some new ventures. The economy certainly affected our profitability, but I believe our focus wasn't as strong as I wanted it to be. My hope for the new year is that we can increase our client base and grow the business. Hopefully that means additional income too.
Advance Professionally
I accomplished a good bit at NC State in 2009. I lead the initiative to get the NC State Mobile Web up and going, helped a lot with the social media identity of the university, and started managing some part-time employees. I got more involved with the tech and social media communities in the Raleigh-Durham area, participated in BarCampRDU, and met a lot of great people. While all that is great, it's not enough for me. I'd like to establish myself more at the University and get to a level where I can feel like I make an impact. I'm not sure I can do that in my current position, but that doesn't keep me from trying. I already know that 2010 will bring an increased responsibility for me as I will be participating on the Campus Communication Committee, focusing on web and social media communications. And we are working on some really exciting projects for the mobile web presence. 2010 will certainly be busy, but my goal is to make it pay off professionally.
Travel More
Erin and I have talked about it a lot, but this year is the year. We have gone a few places since we got married (San Francisco, Memphis, Jamaica for our Honeymoon), but we have always wanted to go bigger. Our plan is to try to make it to Europe this year. I really want to go to Italy and Paris, so we are going to make it happen. We have been saving up money for 2+ years to go, so this is the year we are going to do it. Planning has already started Oh yeah, and on the back of traveling, I am planning on buying a Digital SLR camera before making any big trips. That means I'll need to learn how to use the thing properly too.
Lose some bad habits
This is the obligatory "I want to eat out less, work out more, be healthier" one, but I need to add it to the list. We got into a bad habit of eating out several times a week, which is not only expensive, but un-healthy too. I worked really hard a few years ago to lose a lot of weight, and I don't want all that hard work to go to waste. To help me, I found a great website/iPhone app to help me called dailyburn. It will help me track my food and workouts, set goals for myself, and accomplish what I want to in 2010.
Explore more
Erin and I love to try new things, so 2010 will hopefully be a year to explore new things. Food, wine, beer, places, things to do. I want us to live while the living is good. Part of this is travel, but a lot of it has to do with what we typically do on the weekends. Lately, it has been sitting around in front of a computer, which is pretty lame. I hope the new year provides us with a kick in the butt to get out, experience all the great things Raleigh has to offer, and spend more quality time together.
Get more involved with the PHP Community
Warning...Geek speak to follow! I really love the PHP community. I swear, it is the greatest thing since sliced bread for a developer like me who has to operate on no budget and a tiny staff. I have recently joined the Zend Framework project, finally signing my contributor license agreement! That means I can start helping with documentation and the monthly bug fixes. I have also been invited to speak at TEK-X in Chicago in May. I am really excited about the opportunity to speak at my first professional PHP conference as an on-the-agenda speaker. I have done un-conference sessions before, but this is the first for-real one. I am nervous and excited, all at the same time. There are a few more conferences that I will be submitting papers to as well, so we'll see where that takes me...
I think that is enough stuff for the new year. Hope everyone has a wonderful, productive and exciting 2010.
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