So far this has been an awesome phone to use. I’m even really liking the use of Sprint over ATT!

It’s that time of year again!  I’m going to PAX 2010 this year (September 3rd – 5th), and am looking to see who is going with me?  I’m doing group registration again (Which means 3-day passes for $50 instead of $5 – nothing huge, but it adds up).

If you want to be on the list, then let me know soon.  My deadline for getting this list together is going to be June 1st at 10am PST.

Let me know soon if you’re planning on going to PAX and want to do group tickets.

On top of this is the decision on how people want to congregate.  Whether we all want to share a room, multiple rooms, or even if the interest is there, a house in the area!

Same time frame on this too so that I can get the reservation into the hotels or house in time!

Thanks guys and gals!

Jason

This weekend I went to Portland Code Camp, and I am so glad I did.  This years FREE event, hosted at the University of Portland, had over a thousand people in its attendance, nearly fifty plus speakers, and seven sessions with a dozen or more topics in each to attend.  I ended up attending a number of different session topics ranging from mobile phone development to parallel programming; all of which were quite stellar.  On top of the sessions there were prizes that could be won by the different sponsors at the event (one being a 320GB SSD Hard Drive, WOW!!!)  There was food and snacks provided throughout the day with the dinner including complimentary been and wine.  I didn’t stay for the final session (after dinner), but either way I had a blast and learned quite a bit while also filling my belly!

Be sure to follow the site for next years event schedule, for it will be even bigger than this one!

- Jason

Since I haven’t updated for a while, I figured I’d share what is going on.

As of yesterday, I have been working at my new job working at Coaxis (aka. Viewpoint Construction Software). I started on April 19th after leaving IGT on April 9th. The new job change was due to IGT deciding to close the Corvallis location and my desire to stick in Oregon. So far, it has been a wise decision.

I have really been enjoying the company and the location it resides. We’re located right next to the Hawthorne bridge off of Water Ave near OMSI in Portland. The building is very eco-friendly with lots of light and very open. Much different than any office I’ve ever worked in and I like it. The people are all friendly and I’ve felt very welcomed since I’ve started.

The first few days I was here I spent in Agile training with half of the development staff (30 peoples) and that was great because it gave me a way to interact with the others and allowed me to learn where we’re headed right from the beginning.

This was followed up with training on what I would be working on. It was a good week of learning the tips and tricks of how they do things here. After this it was quite slow before getting into our Agile teams, but now that we’re in them, things are ramping up.

The commute to work isn’t too bad either. Since they gave us TriMet (local mass transportation) passes, I’ve been able to have a few different options to get to the company from where I am living in Hillsboro: 1) drive my car (this takes me between 30 and 45 minutes), 2) walk and take the MAX/busses to work (this takes roughly an hour), 3) do a mix of bike and MAX (this takes me around 35-45 minutes). Having the options are nice to get here, but taking longer than 30 minutes to get to work is really getting annoying. Hopefully I’ll soon move closer to Portland so that I can cut my trip down to either just in biking distance (around 5 miles is what I’d like) or MAX/bus distance making my trip around 15-20 minutes.  Figuring out where to move will be a huge factor.

Where I decide to move really depends quite a bit. Christina (my girlfriend) is planning to move up here towards the end of June so that she can attend PSU (Portland State University) this fall. Since PSU is so close to where I work, it wouldn’t be difficult to just live downtown, however that involves me having to pay for monthly parking on top of expensive rent. I think I’d rather try to live on the east side of the river where there are more houses and free parking on the streets. Finding a house (instead of an apartment) will be difficult and possibly expensive; especially one with a garage.

Many options to choose from actually, so I’m excited.

Other news:

Christina is finishing up her degree at Chemeketa Community College which should happen at the end of Summer, and Remmington (aka Remy, the bearded dragon) is growing so much and is healthy! I’m going to have to be working on building him a new cage sometime soon!

Well that is my life update for the time being. Hopefully, and I saw this often, I’ll update quicker next time!

Last time I posted I was talking about some documents I’ve been reading. Well since then I’ve made a number of changes.

With the closing of IGT Corvallis at the end of June, I’ve decided that instead of moving to Reno for IGT, that I would interview around and see what I can find. In the few months I applied I was able to get three confirmed offers. Two in Reno and one in Portland. I almost had one in Corvallis, however they failed to get permission to seek a new candidate before they began interviewing candidates…silly companies.

Though one of the offers in Reno was great, I decided to stay in Oregon and accept a position in Portland with a company called Coaxis. They deal mainly with their software called Viewpoint Construction Software which I hear is quite popular with construction companies; which is a good thing for me that I get into a business that is still growing. It is quite exciting and I will be able to contribute quite a lot. The great thing about going to Coaxis is that I get to work with a couple of co-workers from IGT that are already there.

Moving to Portland will also be quite fun and exciting. I’ve been interested in getting up in the Portland area so I am happy to have the chance to move up closer to friends I don’t get to see as often as I would like. Though this means I’ll be farther from friends, girlfriend included, in the Albany/Corvallis area, it just means that I’ll have to make lots of visits to the area.

Lucky for me, I really like to drive my car and really enjoy spending time with friends that it’ll be a great time.

With this whole move and starting a new company it means the end to a current one. I am leaving IGT for the right reasons (for me), and because of this I do not think it will be difficult to go. I will definitely miss working with all the great people I have gotten to know over the couple years I have been there, but the work itself I feel satisfied with. I was able to see my work running in a casino, and the current projects I was developing passed off into good hands. Hopefully I hear from the folks working on the project I spent so much time on and how successful it will turn out for them.

IGT was a great starting company after graduating and I will always remember the experiences with such great people. I look forward though to my next adventures which are starting quite soon.

This Friday (April 9th) will be my last day with IGT, I am then taking the next 9 days to just relax and move up to Portland. I then start day one at Coaxis on April 19th (a day after my birthday).

Here is to exciting and wonderful new changes. And here is to hoping that the people I meet at Coaxis will be as wonderful as those I met at IGT.

Jason

Second, this guide is geared for those who want to do more than they currently are doing, to become someone more than they are, and help others in the process.  If that is you, then get reading (less than 30 pages).

It is a great read, and definitely gets you thinking. So go out there, and get your hands on the guide today.

Jason

If you haven’t tried out Boxee for your media pc software, then I recommend you get going and try it out. Boxee is fantastic with very easy to use software.  I installed this great piece of work onto my main pc and my home theater pc and it just rocks.  It is able to grab your tv shows and movie files on your computer (or another computer on your network) and actually find out what show it ties to, what episode it is, what season it is for, and also if available online, an image about the show, and a description with a possible rating.  It does this for TV shows and also pulls the box art for movies as well.

Don’t have any shows on your computer…that is just fine, it’ll also list shows online and tell you which link it recommends (whether Hulu, ABC, NBC, etc.).  If you have an episode on your machine however, it’ll recommend that first, then show other locations for the episode available online.  It is also great to watch YouTube videos and others.

I really recommend this software for Windows, Unix, Macs, etc.

Jason

Thursday I had the fantastic opportunity to meet-up with Chris Guillebeau, author of blog “The Art of Non-Conformity” and creator of Unconventional Guides (.com).  It was great to be able to meet with someone who is doing so much and has such extravagant goals. Chris, resident of Portland, traveler of the globe, is doing what he wants to do in life (without the 9-5 job).  His goal of traveling the globe and visiting every country enlightens me so much.

Being able to meet with Chris and ask him how he got his start makes me realize that with the right amount of effort, I could do something similar.  Chris gave me some great advice and was kind enough to also point me to some other blogs and helpful books.  What a genuinely nice individual.  If you haven’t clicked on the links above yet, then get on it.  He has some amazing posts (1, 2, 3) that will really get you thinking.  He also has some great guides that are really worth the money and pay off multiple times over (I’ve already earned 100,000 miles off of his Frequent Flyer Master guide).

I am so excited to begin traveling more and seeing the world, and though I am not ready to rid my life of my career in Software Engineering (cause I actually enjoy it), I do realize that life is more than just working. There is so much to see and do in the world, and it just isn’t possible to view it all on just a few weeks of vacation a year. Thankfully I enjoy what I do and am willing to continue working away, growing my career, saving up money and paying off debt.  However this won’t be my mindset forever. 

Here’s to my next journey,

Jason

It’s quite a funny term to use – however it really is a screen of death.  Thankfully I was able to save myself.  Here is what I did.

Went to Google and told it what I was seeing.  Thankfully I’m not the only one who has seen this screen.  A number of bloggers who use WordPress (and Drupal) have seen this occur.  However for whatever reason, nobody has added default error logging when this occurs.  All you get is a blank white screen.  Check the page source and guess what – blank.

Well I dug into the sites looking for clues as to what had happened.  with no success.  So I decided to go on my own to try and fix things.

1. Using FileZilla, a free FTP tool, I renamed my Plugins and Themes directories under wp-content.  I backed up my wp-config.php file which resides in the root directory of the blog.
2. Downloaded the latest WordPress, in this case it was 2.9.1.
3. Extracted the zip file to my desktop.
4. Connected FileZilla to my blog location.
5. Pointed the left screen (my computer) to my wordpress install directory and pointed the right screen (ftp location) to my root directory.
6. Pressed upload, told it to overwrite, and let it do what it does best.
7. After this, my site still showed a white screen.  However I was able to get into blog/wp-admin and log in finally.
8. I changed the theme to the “WordPress Classic” theme and voila…it worked!

Now I wish I could tell you what had actually happened, but I can’t.  I’ll remember something though through this all…ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR STUFF!!!

Some points to make – when I renamed my wp-content directories from Plugins and Themes and tried to access the page, this should have “disabled” the themes and plugins.  However I’m not sure it did.  Something was causing this to fail before even accessing these directories.

From what I could tell, some plugin probably changed a necessary file.  I should have verified it worked with 2.9.1 before enabling it.  Oh well – live and learn.

Hopefully you don’t get into the same boat I did…and if you did…best of luck…it sucks!

Jason