We didn’t talk much about it, but our Apache ‘infrathon’ made some press. The infrathon was an in-person meeting of the Apache Infrastructure Team under the guise of switching data center locations. We also (they mostly) did some coding projects to help move the infrastructure along, and quite a bit of socializing as well. The article can be found here: Zen and the art of Apache Maintenance. I am the tallest one in the picture (mostly due to the hat). Erik Abele is as tall as I am if I take the hat off

I enjoyed it immensely from putting names with faces first, actually doing the move second, and seeing a huge colo third. I have worked with most of the team at least once, since I am/was [fairly] local, and I was the necessary ‘remote hands’. After the colo move went off with just a few hitches, we headed back to Brian’s house where we did the socializing/drinking part of the infrathon. I convinced Sander Striker to help me out with a small Apache problem, and he brought in the big guns, mod_rewrite. Needless to say, everything under the sun can be done in mod_rewrite, and I was expecting to have to get dirty and write a C module. Thank you very much Sander for the help. It was greatly appreciated.

I left that Saturday night to head back home, and didn’t make it back to the colo the next day due to some work issues that came up. I wish the Infrastructure team well, and would like to thank each and every one for the work that they do every day to keep [service here] on *.apache.org working. Cheers to you, guys!

I will be going back to install more hardware that wasn’t available at the time of the infrathon, but most everything did get done.

Popularity: 32%

I just found out that WordPress happily ‘converts’ some characters in the posts that I type. The problem is that these are not the characters that I typed. When I type an apostrophe ('), WordPress happily converts this character into ′. THIS IS NOT THE CHARACTER THAT I TYPED, JACKASS!!!!

Apparently all of this is done on a per-request basis, in the wptexturize() function. BRILLIANT! Let’s just break xml feed validation on purpose! I love this software… (which is another character that I did not type).

I am being censored in my own blog! Is this a f$$king wiki, or blog software?

Popularity: 22%

If you see this post, it is because your reader is intelligent (good for it)

Popularity: 20%

Here is another thing they don’t teach you in college: Relevant Conversation Radar. Working in the ‘real world’ building software, you learn to listen to distant office/cube conversations, and if the relevant keyword pops up (your name, the product/feature you are working on, the technology you use/the bug you just fixed), you learn to walk over and insert yourself into the conversation, to help ’steer’ the conversation since you are an SME (subject Matter Expert) on the topic of the conversation.

Why can’t this be taught in Computer Science courses? This is an important skill in team development.

Popularity: 15%