AlanPalazzolo ^5.4

zzolo.org is now in beta and should be ready to launch soon. I imagine this weekend will see the switch over. This means that anything at alanpalazzolo.com will be redirected to zzolo.org. I will do my best to redirect the more relevant content.

Let me know what you think. My design skills are not that good; I'll be the first to admit

It's been a long time since I have put content up on this site (not to say that I have ever been consistent). But, in my defense, I have been busy. I got a wonderful job at the Chicago Technology Cooperative and since work at home which requires adjustment. I am also looking at moving back to Portland, OR.

But, more importantly, I have been re-developing this site. I am going to focus it more towards a location-based blog.

The Third Annual RhuBarBeQue went off splendidly on May 10, 2008 at Fort Awesome (that's where I live).

The BhuBarBeQue is a celebration of the wonderful vegetable known as Rhubarb. Rhubarb is a perennial that survives in the tundra known as Minnesota, and is one of the first edible things to come up in the spring. So, the RhuBarBeQue celebrates the thawing of this Midwest place after such a long hibernation.

I was pointed to Open Source Living by my friend Thomas the other day, and am really excited to see this site.

OSLiving is a great resource to find open-source software for any platform. What makes it stand out from the millions of other software collection sites, is that OSLiving has only open-source resources, focuses on production-level applications, and has a simple, intuitive interface.

Lots of Drupal related news for me. I have come across Drupal Modules and Drupal Code Search, wrote my first Drupal module, and contributed it after getting approved for a Drupal CVS Account.

Mollom is a spam deterrent and overall content moderation system by Dries Buytaert, the creator of Drupal, and Benjamin Schrauwen. It is similar to Akismet. There is a good post about Mollom by Dries on Drupal.org.

I am trying out the Public Beta. Unfortunately I don't get many or any comments (hint hint) in order to do some good testing. I have good faith in the mind of Dries and think it will become a good option for content moderation (spam killing). I will keep this updated as I learn more.

Of course there is a Drupal Module for it. There is also a Java Library to interface with the API.

On Thursday, I went to the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota to see Bruce Schneier give a presentation entitled Security Theater as part of the Paul Shambroom: Picturing Power exhibit that is at the Weisman until April 20, 2008.

My context of Bruce is mostly computer or technology related security. The topics he addressed were not focused on computer, national, or even personal security. This lecture focused more on the psychology of security and his Feeling-Model-Reality view of security in society.

In this program, Bruce Schneier helps separate "security theater", or a fictive performance of safety and prevention, from its actual and effective workings.

My co-workers also got some hubs signed by him and I took some pictures.

I really enjoy Google Maps. And though they keep a little for themselves, the Google Maps API offers a really easy way to embed these maps into your own personal site. Fortunately for us Drupal users, the swell folks at the Chicago Technology Cooperative and the other wonderful open-source developers have put together an amazing module called GMap that integrates well with Location, Views, and even CCK (sort of).

I have recently set up this site to use the GMAP module. And since this module is still not had a stable release yet, I figured I would explain what I have done with this site to get some custom maps on each node. I will go through setting up CCK fields, custom theming, and some extras.

I don't usually like to just stick videos up on my website. But since my only form of transportation is the bicycle, I am well aware of the danger of biking down any street. So, here is a short video that should help make you more aware of people on their bikes.

I had updated this site to Drupal 6, but did not realize that some fundamental modules, like CCK and Views, were not quite where they needed to be. This is not to say that there is any sort of lacking on the developer's side.

Nonetheless, I realized I could not have the site I wanted in Drupal 6 yet. I will be rebuilding the site in Drupal 5 since I have learned a whole lot since I first converted this site to Drupal...