Carleigh Jane Baxter was born on September 16th, 2008 at 1:02 AM. She weighs 8 pounds 6 ounces and is 21.5 inches long. Mommy and I are very proud. We love you Carleigh!

July marks the one year anniversary of this website. I didn’t think I’d keep up with it this long, but throughout the past year, crunchlife.com has become a springboard for ideas and a wonderful source of reference. Just as other programmers, I have found that maintaining a blog helps crystallize my thoughts. It also has the added benefit of documenting my fixes and failures for not only myself, but the rest of the community. It has been very gratifying reading everyone’s comments. Keep them coming.

While reminiscing, I thought I’d list my top five most viewed posts.

1. Review: Linksys NAS200 - By and far the most popular post on crunchlife.com. This article has accounted for over 70% of my web traffic from July 2007 to July 2008. I had no idea it would become that popular and if I could duplicate its success on a daily basis I might consider quitting my day job. Not really.
2. IE7’s Inanimate GIF - Explains how to reanimate hidden animated GIFs in IE7 with a little JavaScript.
3. Samba Network Shares with Nautilus in Hardy Heron Part 2 - This time I posted a solution to a problem I was having in mounting SMB shares on my NAS200 using Nautilus in Ubuntu, Hardy Heron. The solution worked well and I’ll be posting a follow-up soon.
4. rake aborted! No such file or directory - /tmp/mysql.sock - Provides a fix for the much hated “rake aborted! No such file or directory - /tmp/mysql.sock” Ruby on Rails error.
5. Temporary Identity Impersonation in ASP.NET - If you’d rather only use ASP.NET Identity Impersonation when you want to then this article can explain how it’s done.

Many projects in the 9-to-5 grind of a programmer seem endless and are not gratifying in the least. Seeking fulfillment, developers often work on side projects. I have found this to be an extremely rewarding way to satisfy my inner programmer and push my career in new directions. So without a doubt, my favorite posts have to do with the stuff we all love – source code.

• Ruby Fractal Library - Just last week I posted a fractal generating library for the Ruby programming language. I’m rather proud of this one. The “zooming” functionality caused a lot of grief, but once it starting rendering the Mandelbrot set all became right with the world.
• Samba Network Shares with Nautilus in Hardy Heron Part 2 - Most old *nix salts will tell you that any problem can be solved with a Bash script. They are right. This script improved my WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) tenfold!
• Genealogy Data for the Future - Not exactly source code, but solving problems with a few small tools can feel nearly as good.

The last twelve months have been great and I’m sure the next will be even better.

A few of my favorite applications published major releases this week. The most known being the Firefox web browser. On Tuesday, the Mozilla team launched version 3 of their flagship product, Mozilla Firefox. It includes many bug fixes and an enhanced bookmarking system (love it). Within 24 hours, Firefox wracked up over 8 million downloads making it the most downloaded software ever.

The venerable Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) project finally reached version 1.0. For those not familiar with Unix-like operating systems, Wine allows users to execute Microsoft Windows programs on Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and Solaris. It’s a must have for those who just can’t quite give up their favorite Windows software.

This may not be considered a major release, but the folks at reddit have announced the open-sourcing of their social news website, reddit.com. IMO reddit.com takes the best elements of both slashdot.org and digg.com and combines them to make something even better. Kudos reddit, Mozilla, and Wine!

I’ve spent the last six years living in Bradford, Pennsylvania. It’s not the largest or most interesting town, but now that I’m leaving I can’t help but feel that I’m going to miss it. Many people recognize Bradford from having owned a Zippo lighter. Zippo Manufacturing Company is the largest employer in Bradford and has provided me with an internship and 5 years of employment.

As a programmer at Zippo I was never hindered by technology. Programmers there are are encouraged to get the job done using whatever tools are available. As a Web Developer I was involved in developing websites in ASP, JSP, and ASP.NET. I authored the Zippo Framework, wrote development guidelines, and developed the company’s Continuous Integration system.

As of Monday, I’m an employee of Primus Technologies Corporation. Primus is a leading circuit assembly and electronics manufacturing company. They are responsible for battlefield communications, aircraft electronics, missiles, shipboard and submarine guidance and tracking, surveillance, homeland security, IFF and integrated combat systems.

Primus has been great so far. Just today I completed training sessions in ISO9000/AS9100 and Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) safety. I must admit that I look smashing in my blue ESD smock (pictures coming soon).

My wife and I (mostly my wife) have finished unpacking most of our belongings and are looking forward to life in a new town. Thanks to those that helped us move! With a tinge of sadness I must say, so long Bradford, and thanks for all the fish.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64. Like many 30-somethings, I have fond memories of the C64. It was my first computer and provided years of wonder and learning.

All I wanted for Christmas in 1986 was a Commodore 64. While opening presents Christmas Day, I saved the biggest box for last. I knew that Mom and Dad would see fit to buy me this fantastic machine. I shredded the wrapping paper with haste. I was so excited that I barely noticed my father walking off to the kitchen to brew another pot of coffee. I tore at the last bits of tape and paper with a heart-sinking feeling in my chest. I’d saved the biggest and best gift for last, but my C64 was not inside. In it’s place was a terrestrial globe of the earth. I was stunned.

My mother rushed off to the kitchen to help my father. The passing minutes seemed like hours. My mother yelled out from the kitchen. The Monkey Bread had finished baking and my younger brother and I were to report to the dining hall. What a rotten Christmas. Not only did I not get that beige beauty, but we weren’t going to eat breakfast surrounded by Christmas toys.

My brother and I ran upstairs and into the dining room to find our parents standing next to our first family computer – a Commodore 64C. Typed lovingly at the Commodore BASIC V2.0 command prompt was the message,

MERRY CHRISTMAS RYAN AND ERIC.

LOVE, MOM AND DAD. 

The Commodore 64C fascinated me for years. I spent many days playing games with friends and cutting my first BASIC programs. In the 80s you could find C64s on display in many department stores. If one were so inclined they could have written infinite loops on these display computers with a few simple lines of Commodore BASIC.

10 PRINT “RYAN WAS HERE!!!”
20 GOTO 10

Or maybe something not as nice. My parents didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of my programming career. Times have changed, but I still have a place in my heart for the C64.

I’ve been layed up in the hospital looking sorta like Q*bert for a couple of days. More to follow.

I’ll be at the Construction Junction facility in Pittsburgh, PA on Saturday, September 15th sampling craft beer and listening to live music. The 1st annual Steel City Big Pour will be held at two sessions throughout the day. From 12 - 3PM and 5 - 8PM. Tickets are $30 in advance, $40 at the door, and $10 for designated drivers. If you enjoy beer, music, and food (who doesn’t?) then this event can’t be missed.

• Beer Samples From 24 Craft Breweries
• Live Music by Hoodoo Drugstore
• Food From 10 Local Restaurants
• Deluxe Kegerator Art
• A Not So Silent Auction
• Hot Metal Happening

Check out the Construction Junction’s events website for a list of participating breweries and restaurants, directions, and links for purchasing tickets online.