My Life

No, this isn’t an entry about Billy Joel.. It’s been quite a while since I have actually blogged about something meaningful, so I figured tonight would be a great night to write.

Where to begin..

Monica is now out of the first trimester and into the second. All is going well, and we’re looking forward to the big sonogram in six weeks. Just as we did (or didn’t) with Katie Lynn, we’re not going to find out the baby’s sex. So few things in life are truly a surprise, so we are just going to let the baby’s sex be a surprise. To keep up-to-date with baby news and goings-on, feel free to use subscribe to the RSS feed or just follow our updates over at tomandmonica.com.

Katie Lynn continues to amaze me. She’s growing up so quickly; it’s hard to believe she’s already sixteen months old. She’s enjoying her day care, her friends there, and her teachers. I love the social interaction and skills she is developing at this young age.

Wrigley is doing so much better. For those that don’t know, she had ear surgery a couple years back to resolve a condition affecting her ears. The surgeries went well but, in the end, did not seem to stop the condition. The vet in Lubbock said this was normal, so we took the “professional’s” word. When we moved to McKinney, we naturally had to find a new vet. Our new vet took a look and in five minutes knew there was a problem and how to treat it. The vet also diagnosed Wrigley with hypothyroidism, so she simply has to take one pill with her food.

Work is going great. Site5 was recently bought out by a couple of industry veterans. I had known that was the plan for quite a while, so naturally there was this sense of uncertainty. I’ve got to say though.. I could not be happier how things have turned out. Ben and Joel are exactly what the company needed, and I’m excited to be a part of the “new” Site5. I do miss working with the old owners and CEO, but luckily I still get to chat with them on a frequent basis as they’re all great friends.

I turned thirty last week. My wonderful wife planned a great surprise party for me. I had a great time, and are thankful for my family and friends that attended.

I’m still loving the MacBook that I bought back in October. I recently purchased an Acer LCD monitor to use while working. I used one back when I worked at DC, and I had forgotten how much I loved having one.

I’ve somehow gotten addicted to Twitter.. it’s even linked to Facebook. Who would have thought that I would be so into this whole social networking scene after being anti-MySpace for so long.

Instead of writing some corny summation paragraph (oops, too late), I’ll just end with some great pictures.

WordPress iPhone App

WordPress’s iPhone App is out! Downloading & installing now..

Multiple blog support..

Decent interface..

Nothing too intuitive about it to be honest, but it is GREAT for mobile blog writing but nothing more.

Features I’d like to see:

- Comment editing / approving
- Ability to see drafts on the server

Bug #1: using the iPhone bullet character causes the app to crash.

Anatomy of a Twitter Replacement

Twitter seems to be all-the-rage in the tech circles these days. When I was trying to find an easy way for Monica and me to update Katie Lynn’s website, I decided to give Twitter a try. It worked well usually, but I noticed the external javascript calls slowed down page load time dramatically. Additionally, customization ability is lacking. I loved being able to send a text message to update the site, but I wanted the ability to email updates as well.

So I set out to find a replacement. I thought that would be simple.

Boy was I wrong.

I searched for a long time and finally found some very basic framework. Luckily, I’m not too shabby with PHP and was able to write everything I wanted:

• Accept text messages, emails, and web submissions.
• Parse the text message/email into variables.
• Insert the variables into a MySQL database.
• Display records any way I want.
• Allow people to subscribe to receive an email upon a new update.
• Load fast!

I then wrote an extremely easy admin interface to be able to edit the entries.

There are five main files to the application:

• Parser – as the name indicates, it parses the text and email submissions.
• Admin – all admin functions including posting via web.
• Notifier – emails subscribers upon all new updates.
• Subscribe – as indicated, performs the subscription action as requested by the visitor.
• Unsubscribe – as indicated, unsubscribes a subscriber upon their request.

The beauty of my system is that it does not need a cronjob. Instead, I simply piped an email address to the parser script’s full path.

And voilà!

I have a nice, simple Twitter replacement.

Interesting Article

<shameless plug>

My friend Keith has been published! It’s a great article, so please go check it out.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/hatheadsvsbedheads

</shameless plug>

Sepper Designs Is No More

Over the past couple of months I’ve had a revelation – I no longer enjoy designing websites. I’ve been doing it for over twelve years and it’s lost its luster for me.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m much more interested in programming than designing.

Is that a good thing? I don’t have a clue. I’m not the most creative person; creating should be left to those that have that gift – like Nate and Keith for example.

For instance, look at this website. I could have never in my wildest imagination created this design.

Additionally, I’ve been married for almost three years now, and my focus and priorities have changed. Before it was just me, my dog, my college activities, and then my job after graduation.

It’s just time. I’m sorry to do this to the people I’ve helped, but it’s the right decision to make.

Big Changes at tomsepper.net

In case you didn’t notice, tomsepper.net has undergone a huge revamp.

The biggest change, for me at least, is the fact that I’ve stopped trying to reinvent the wheel. For the past three years, I’ve developed my blog system from the ground up. It was functional, but not very user-friendly. Instead of continuing development of it, I have joined the legions of Word Press users.

The web developer/programmer/designer in me is in denial about the transition, but I know it was the right move. Word Press is far more powerful than anything I could ever attempt to write. I’m already amazed at its power and usability. I’ve modded this theme fairly well; one day I anticipate writing my own.

Luckily, there was an import utility that allowed me to import my 200 posts from the previous three years without much hassle. I didn’t have to manually reenter three years worth of posts! I did have to go through and categorize them, but that was time well spent. Now I just need to go through them again and double-check the post itself, i.e. images, links, formatting, etc.

If you notice something odd, use the contact page. That is.. when I finish it.

New Year, New Design

I got sick of the old design (go figure, right?), so here’s to the unveiling of a new design for 2006.Happy New Year!

tomandmonica.com Redesigned

I have redesigned tomandmonica.com finally. Check it out!