Disqus - Latest Comments for doehlman

Re: PTV Timetable API - Datasets | Victorian Government Data Directory

Damon Oehlman — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 06:23:54 -0000

This looks to be an excellent resource, unfortunately the docx file doesn't render well on my machine. Just wondering if it's possible to get a PDF version?

Re: Cross Platform Mobile Web App Developer Training [Distractable]

Damon Oehlman — Thu, 03 May 2012 06:37:49 -0000

Hey Saeed,

Great question actually. In my opinion it is definitely worth trying to build the skill sets separately. That is, it is worth understanding how to build cross-platform mobile apps and separately what options you have for writing software that runs entirely "in the cloud". By doing this you can choose which technologies you pull together to deliver the best solution.

That said, there are some services that are trying to assist you in developing services in the cloud that make the process of writing cross-platform mobile apps easier. One collection of services I came across recently (through a recommendation on twitter) was trestle:

https://www.trestleapp.com/

There are many others also. Perhaps once I get some time, I should put together a list / directory of some of the useful ones.

Cheers,
Damon.

Re: What Is the Best Mobile Platform for HTML5 Development?

Damon Oehlman — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 23:23:29 -0000

If the question truly is "What Is the Best Mobile Platform for HTML5 Development?" then the answer is not iOS. iOS is definitely the flagship device for HTML5 support, but given Android's growing market share and at times disappointing implementation of HTML5 you would be much better of picking up an Android 2.2 device if you can only get one device for dev. If you really want to subject yourself to some pain, maybe get a 2.1 device instead.

Given the primary interest for developing with HTML5 *should* be maximising your potential device reach, using a device with the best implementation is a really bad idea. Developing on Android can be frustrating, but getting code that works on iOS (and others) after going through that frustation is well worth it.Sorry guys, I really think the article content is really misaligned with the title.

Re: No more JavaScript Animation - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:28:37 -0000

Oh, and I should probably clarify that I don't specifically mean only using CSS3 Animations. Using CSS3 Transitions is cool too :)

Re: No more JavaScript Animation - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:05:00 -0000

Nice plugin Erik - thanks for the link :)

Re: Dart - Fragmentation, Innovation and Standards - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 05:38:14 -0000

Hey John,

As always thanks for the comment. I agree that Google probably have made a bad opening impression with this one, which as light-hearted aside seems to coincide with the company hitting it's teen years - let's just hope its a short-term hormonal imbalance ;)

Definitely look forward to talking more about this at Webdirections - see you in a couple of weeks :)

Cheers,
Damon.

Re: Dart - Fragmentation, Innovation and Standards - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:36:26 -0000

Hey Liam,

Thanks for the feedback mate. I'm sure there are some who use CoffeeScript for the syntactic sugar that it provides (such as yourself), however, I do also believe (based on comments I have heard made, which I have followed up with additional questions) that people are using CS as a gateway into, and instead of, learning JS.

I do also think that the CoffeeScript class implementation (http://jashkenas.github.com... is definitely designed to make people feel more comfortable around JavaScript's at time confusing prototypal inheritance model.

Cheers,
Damon.

Re: On _designs undocumented

Damon Oehlman — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:42:30 -0000

Thanks for posting this Caolan. 12 months on and I think the situation is much the same, finding information on some of these more powerful features can be frustrating :/

Re: Node.js Templating Options - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 06:09:00 -0000

Thanks for the additional suggestions, I think having a look at the above JinJS is definitely worth a look also.

Re: A Punter's Opinion on the Future of Android [Distractable]

Damon Oehlman — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 09:18:41 -0000

Thanks for the comment - I have to admit you make a good point. Certainly as a Google services user myself I admit this tight integration is something that is very handy.

Re: Masterless Replication in NoSQL solutions - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:37:34 -0000

Thanks for the heads up Ken. I'm following Aseem on twitter already, though I can't remember why...

Ah, that's right. For his work at Bing Labs on Seadragon-Ajax...

Re: Masterless Replication in NoSQL solutions - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:49:25 -0000

Thanks Todd - had a read through Jim's post and I think I might have dismissed Neo4J a little early. I'll have another poke around for Neo4J HA and see what I can find. Using a graph database is definitely something I'm interested in exploring...

Re: Masterless Replication in NoSQL solutions - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:44:09 -0000

Thanks for the clarification Volker. The thing I find confusing (from the docs) is how to access the CouchDB functionality in Couchbase Server. Is this something that is only enabled in the 2.0 Developer Preview or is it also available in the current Couchbase Release also (1.7.1)?

Re: Masterless Replication in NoSQL solutions - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 20:13:23 -0000

Hey Ken,

Thanks for the comment and the Clipboard invite - it's a really polished app :)

I've seen quite a few people mention they use Redis in conjuction with other NoSQL technologies. Is the general concept to replicate data using Riak and then each machine has a Redis instance with a "per-node" cache? I'm assuming that Redis replication is not used and you make use of Riak post-commit hooks to invalidate the local Redis cache when data is updated.
Additionally, I'm guessing that your load balancers are configured with "sticky sessions" enabled to make the best use of the Redis caching.

Am I kind of on the right track? NOTE: I wouldn't be suprised if not ;)

Cheers,
Damon.

Re: Masterless Replication in NoSQL solutions - Distractable

Damon Oehlman — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:27:39 -0000

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the response - it's appreciated. I definitely understand why the enterprise licensing exists - the need to pay bills is something I'm all too familiar with :/

Thanks also for the recommendations on various people to talk to in the Node.js community.

I think the path forward for me now is to keep experimenting with both Riak and CouchDB to see which is the better fit for this particular use case - one thing I definitely need to experiment with is the post-commit hooks because they just sound awesome.

Keep up the great work over there at Basho :)

Cheers,
Damon.

Re: Distractable : tech : Static Website Generators - Jekyll vs Hyde

Damon Oehlman — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:52:20 -0000

Thanks. I haven't had an in-depth look at blogofile but it was recommended to me as another python alternative. I do agree that the Hyde documentation is a little bit all over the place at the moment. I certainly found that I got the most help from looking at the Wiki on Github yielded the best information.

In terms of Hyde version, I'm using the cloned github repository which seems to be working pretty well :)As for the source for this site, I've just uploaded it to the following git repo:https://github.com/DamonOehlman/distractable-blog

Hope it helps :)

Re: Disillusionment and Graceful Exits [Distractable]

Damon Oehlman — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 19:08:48 -0000

My thoughts exactly Todd, and thanks for your support. It's been a great journey and in many ways it has been far more successful that I could have hoped. I've definitely learned a lot and have acquired some great tools and experience that will definitely come into play with future projects.

Re: Monitoring Keyword Bounce Rates with Google Analytics

Damon Oehlman — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 06:45:38 -0000

Touche :) Nice timing too, as I'm just looking at the design of my business site. Thanks for the comment.

Re: Are you part of the rocket, or are you the fuel?

Damon Oehlman — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 20:58:20 -0000

Well said, John. Well said.

Re: HTML5 Library Monetization [Distractable]

Damon Oehlman — Wed, 25 May 2011 17:44:35 -0000

Thanks for the response Rob. Mate - I'm right there with you and I understand that you aren't trying to make a fortune, but rather create a product with a sustainable future.

You are absolutely right with regards to downsides of the "free" model, and from personal experience I can once again say that building a library itself is not a profitable exercise. Even once you take into account the professional services work that is generated from having such a library, it's probably still not even a "break-even" affair. Not for a single developer anyway.

My hope is that some of us in similar positions can really start to put our heads together on the topic and come up with some monetization strategies that support firstly sustainable development, with a view to creating profitable development.

Cheers,
Damon.

Re: Disillusionment and Graceful Exits [Distractable]

Damon Oehlman — Fri, 20 May 2011 06:34:26 -0000

Nice work :)

In all honesty, I wouldn't worry about IE support or worrying too much about vectors. From what I have seen over the last year most people are still just chasing the ability to pin locations on a map.

I agree with you regarding jQuery (the early versions of Tile5 used jQuery actually), however, I would definitely make sure that your library also plays nice with Zepto (http://zeptojs.com/) as it's a great option for people building mobile apps for webkit browsers.

Also remember that CSS3 transforms are your friend.

Good luck with the development of the library.

Cheers,
Damon.

Re: Disillusionment and Graceful Exits [Distractable]

Damon Oehlman — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:52:21 -0000

Thanks for the response and support Vladimir. That's some great info and insights as to how LeafletJS came about. I think that's a great story for those people who are trying to initiate change and one way to go about it.

From reading your story it seems that the core reasons that LeafletJS and Tile5 were initially created are very similar - born out of frustration with the implementation of existing offerings. Certainly while I have a deep respect of what OpenLayers has achieved the weight of the library is definitely something that makes me think twice before using it in a mobile application.

I have to say you have done a great job with Leaflet. Additionally you really have done something quite fantastic by showing influencing the decision makers at Cloudmade to endorse and support an opensource library.

As I mentioned in the original posting, without doubt I will still tinker with Tile5 (and probably even experiment integrating it with some cool projects like node-canvas). Additionally, I have built a couple of solutions on Tile5 for clients and I will continue to support Tile5 for those solutions.

Thanks again for the kind words, and we should definitely catch up for a beer sometime if we are ever in each others respective neighbourhoods :)

Cheers,
Damon.

Re: Disillusionment and Graceful Exits [Distractable]

Damon Oehlman — Thu, 19 May 2011 03:29:46 -0000

Drew,

Thanks for your comment mate and also the interest you have had in Tile5. I think you are bang on with your assessment around Canvas and once we see hardware accelerated canvas it's going to be like chalk and cheese on mobile devices.

I'm not exactly sure what direction I am going to take in terms of mapping libraries now. As I mentioned in the post, I will continue to tinker with Tile5 in the background (and the code will remain on Github), however, I won't be pushing it with the energy and effort that I have been previously.

In terms of solution development with regards to mapping apps, that is certainly an interesting question. With regards to the stack that I currently do the majority of work with there really isn't an opensource API (apart from Tile5) that meets the needs that I (and clients) have, so I'm really not sure.

It's certainly something that I will think about over the next little while, but one thing I do know is that attempting to build a full-stack implementation of an opensource javascript mapping library when you are in a bootstrapped startup is very, very difficult and it does affect the overral profitability of the company.

I've certainly enjoyed building the library, and still feel passionate about the mapping space, however, I think what I hoped to achieve while supporting a new business was and is too ambitious.

Cheers,
Damon.

Re: Ben Nolan - Why Brisbane is the best startup town

Damon Oehlman — Wed, 18 May 2011 19:31:21 -0000

Glad you enjoyed your time here Ben - it was great having you in town :)

Re: Mobile UI Frameworks: Declarative vs Markup Based

Damon Oehlman — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:49:27 -0000

Hey Joshuel,

Thanks for the comment. If older phones are a target for you, then I would definitely recommend giving Jo a try (if you haven't already) - very light weight :)

Cheers,
Damon.