The Johnson Blog

Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…

  • July

    With just a few hours remaining in July, I’m happy to report that this month saw my first several sales of Chef. It’s interesting how that very first sale made me feel – just a couple days prior I had been asked by a few people if I had sold any. At that time, it had been released for right around 3 months and I’d had not a single sale. I almost felt embarrassed to respond with the “0”, I think because of how much work I’ve put into the software and maybe I was just being silly to think that I could make a little money with it. Thankfully I may not be silly to think that after all.

    July also saw my first real support incident with it, one that was a little hairy but which I got resolved in a little over two evenings. It resulted in a new build, off of my 1.0 branch which forced me to make some changes (for the better) to my build system to allow building multiple code lines. This also allowed me to use Perforce’s integration capabilities to automatically merge this bugfix into the mainline – my first dealings with this in Perforce.

    As I type this, I’m running an RC build of sorts for version 1.1 which I plan on releasing later this week. I’ll get it installed on our Chef PC and run a few more tests before calling it good. Look for it on Friday morning!

  • Hosting

    Due to an internet connection mishap and some resulting downtime over the past two days here at home, I decided it’s time to upgrade my hosting account and move my Chef website to it.  No longer is it running out of my basement.

  • Kudos HP

    Last night I decided to start burning the recovery DVDs for the new HP computer in our kitchen, but the burn kept failing on writing/verifying disc 1.  After several attempts and ruined DVDs, I hopped online and spent 15 minutes chatting with an HP support rep; restore DVDs are en route to my house.  Thanks for not being a PITA, HP.

  • Chef PC!

    The day has finally arrived. We have a “Chef PC” in our kitchen!
    Chef PC

    This is the HP Touchsmart IQ770. That’s right, it’s a 19″ widescreen, touchscreen, all-in-one desktop running Windows Vista Home Premium and Microsoft Media Center. We first saw it Friday night at Office Depot, and today they had it on sale for $300 off.

    Overall, it’s a pretty loaded machine – dual core AMD, 2GB RAM, 300GB hard drive, TV+FM tuner (gotta run cable to it still), wireless connection, gigabit connection (gotta run some networking to it), DVD burner with lightscribe, etc, etc.

    Thank you HP for coming out with such an awesome machine that’s a perfect fit for Chef. It sits tucked away in the corner of our kitchen providing lots of cool capabilities (calendars, music, Chef!, tv, games, weather). It’s exactly what I pictured a couple years ago when I started writing the first incarnation of Chef; cool to see it actually running in the kitchen tonight!

  • Illinois Government at its best

    As some of you may or may not know (or care), Illinois government is overdue on a budget.  Our wonderful (uhh, yeah) Governor is in an annoying little fight with the representatives, seemingly over everything.  As a show of protest, here’s how special sessions (ordered by the Governor) in Springfield went today (courtesy of the Associated Press):

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  • Shortstop

    Shortstop_sized.jpg

  • 4th Recap

    The LAN Party was a lot of fun, even if we did get started later than intended. Some would say the teams were a little uneven, but I must say it was nice going to one of these things and actually playing a good game. Some photos available.

    The 4th was spent recovering (sleeping), attending a Garvert family gathering (Ana’s family), and watching the fireworks in downtown Springfield. I might add that the fireworks were pathetic, and I recall much better just a few years ago. Here’s one of the photos I took downtown. More available.

    SpringfieldCapitol.jpg

  • LAN Party

    Sooooooo, we’re sitting here waiting to start playing Battlefield 2.  Waiting.  Waiting.

  • Vote for Springfield

    Vote for Springfield, IL as the home of the Simpsons!

  • Chef Update

    It has been a while since mentioning Chef here, and I’ve had a few people ask me about it.  So here’s a quick update.

    No, no sales yet.  I am getting a few downloads per week, which I’m pleased about since it is a 260MB download.  Maybe one of these days someone will take the plunge and purchase.

    I have for the most part been taking a break from development, although I do have a decent amount of fixes ready for 1.1.  The big thing left to do is to tackle the download/install process.  I’m going to take the SQL Express install out of the installation package and let it get downloaded after the user installs.  This should kill two birds with one stone: a less intimidating, smaller download; and a simple way to verify the number of installs.  I’m really dreading going through the testing of the installation process since it takes so damn long, but I need to get on it.

    Meanwhile, we’ve started to use it more and more at home even though we’ve yet to get a pc into the kitchen (pending an island or bar or something).  It’s proving to be a nice piece of software to have – if nobody else ever uses it, that’s their loss!