jam's blog

Mariott doesn't get it ...

Posted 5 May, 2010 - 12:29 by jam

I stayed at a North Eastern US "Residence Inn by Mariott" for 5 nights during April 2010. Unfortunately, I was less than happy with my overall experience. Here are some excerpts of a letter I wrote to Mariott about my stay.

Anyone else had similar experiences?

Mariott doesn't get the environment

Mariott does not seem to pay even lip service to the idea of environmental responsibility or energy saving:

DrupalCon Paris 09 - Lobster Style

Posted 14 September, 2009 - 14:58 by jam

LobsterCon Paris 09

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Add your own language to the Acquia DAMP Installer Screencast

Posted 7 June, 2009 - 15:29 by jam

Want to help spread the word about the DAMP stack installer in your language? Show your friends and colleagues how easy and fast it is to install Drupal.

My first Acquia screencast - in English, German, and Italian!

Posted 28 May, 2009 - 21:55 by jam

It was a lot of work to get this right technologically *and* come up with a presentation that I could live with. So many issues: length, mic, formats, new programs ... In the end, I am pretty happy with it and am really looking forward to making this format my own.

Future plans include experimenting with more eye candy, background music, better microphone work, experiments with screen size ...

Versions in Italian and German included after the jump!

Music makes the difference - Different Strokes Opener

Posted 19 May, 2009 - 12:06 by jam

Really funny how changing the music of the opening credits of "Different Strokes" changes how I perceive the whole set up ... forget unrealistically cheerful sitcom land and enter the creepy zone

Ode to Chicken Fried Bacon

Posted 27 January, 2009 - 11:12 by jam

"We don't use ounces in this place, it's pounds."

My first e-mail address

Posted 8 January, 2009 - 22:23 by jam

Cleaning up at home, I just found a dot-matrix (!) hard copy (!!) of an e-mail my folks sent me on January 17th, 1996 at my very first e-mail address.

Keep in mind, in early 1996, I had to take a subway across town to the university computer room (yes, "the", not "a"), and hope that a machine was free to get into the UNIX e-mail system. Still it was cheaper than phones or airmail postage across the Atlantic.

So what was my first e-mail address?

Nice server setup helps streamline upgrades.

Posted 25 November, 2008 - 14:38 by jam

Separating your files from Drupal's, and simplifying upgrades

Drupal's developers are constantly fixing bugs and striving to make our Drupal installations as safe as possible - there have been 6 security updates of the 5.x and 6.x branches so far in 2008. If you have several sites, the maintenance work can really cut into your time.

I'd like to share with you a little trick I use in my server setup to streamline the upgrade process when a new core release is available. It not only makes core updates quicker and safer to implement, it also leaves the previous version ready to use on my server in case there are problems with the new Drupal core version.

My setup involves keeping the sites directory outside of the main Drupal installation and using symlinks to tell Drupal where it is. This saves me the step of copying the directory from one Drupal installation to the next when upgrading, which can be time consuming and a potential source of problems on a content-rich site.

Arrived at DrupalCamp Copenhagen

Posted 14 November, 2008 - 19:46 by jam

Got inspired by Denmark and made this Viking Drupal logo.

Vikings are like Nordic pirates! Yay!

Looking forward to presenting a little bit tomorrow and doing some hot Update-on-Site action here.

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Community is our strength - moments of Drupal epiphany.

Posted 5 September, 2008 - 11:32 by jam

Following two incredible Open Source Con experiences in the last three weeks - frOScon in St. Augustin Germany and the DrupalCon in Szeged Hungary - I have been feeling incredibly positive. I feel that I found what really matters to me in the FOSS world and probably the world at large ... I felt strong moments of epiphany in Szeged on this ...

It is all about community. Community, bringing people together to cooperate, working towards common goals and ideals, this is what makes us strong and successful in the Drupal community and what can make us strong elsewhere in life.

HornCologne.com

What's been going on:

Bring down IE6

My weird tastes in music ...