Oct 15
Quick TmF update: Over the past 6 weeks, I’ve been in the process of moving to Holland. While it can be bad blog-form to make excuses for not posting in a while, I thought emigrating from Belgium to The Netherlands would be a good enough excuse. After another week or two, I expect to be fully settled and back on track.
In the 3 years that TmF has been online, I’ve never gone this long without posting. Feels weird.
May 22
Unlike the real reorganization going on at my work, this one should have a minimal impact. As you know, I have recently updated Tod means Fox to the latest version of Wordpress, as well as updated the look and feel of the entire place. While I’ll continue to tweak the graphics, layout, and functionality, I think that I have finally finished reorganizing the content.
What did I do? Well, in the old version of Wordpress, I had no ability to add tags (without the help of a widget, which I avoided). I was forced to rely on categories instead. A single post might end up filed under multiple categories. In theory and practice, this isn’t a big deal. Many people do it, and there are many reasons why a blog post might fit into multiple categories.
But as I wrote more over 2.5 years, my list of categories began to grow in odd directions: Partially a result of bad planning and partially because my focus here on this website has moved away from software development and more into data management. The old categories were too restrictive in some places and too broad in others. But now, I’ve carefully thought about what I want to talk about, and I’ve created categories that reflect.
So instead of using categories to drill into topics, I’ll use tags. But I’ll be careful. You can be sure that I think about the tags as much as I think about the categories. The tags will be relevant, and consistent across my postings.
The following new categories will now be used:
Other tags exist in addition to the ones mentioned above. I’ll be installing a tag cloud a bit later to help navigate through the new structure. I’ll also be updating my sitemap.
Changing a post’s category has consequences, I know. If you had linked to an old category either through the Web or RSS, your link will break. The best I can say is to either subscribe to one of the new categories, or use a tag if you want to read very specific content from me (e.g. BI, DW, VFP, MDM, SOA).
Thanks for reading!
May 16
After almost 2 years, I’ve finally updated the design of Tod means Fox.
I’m not sure why today was the day. I suppose the stars were aligned. While I spend the next few weeks tweaking it, I was hoping to get some feedback. My goals for the redesign are:
What are your initial impressions? How does it load? Am I missing anything important?
Apr 26
As some of you may have noticed, I recently joined the Twitter revolution and secured the username TodmeansFox. While I try to keep Tod means Fox “on subject”, I intend to be a bit more general on Twitter. This means that I’ll post more about what’s going on with me, my work, and my thoughts on politics, current events, and the like. I won’t get as personal as Facebook, though!
My biggest reservation regarding Twitter, and why it took me so long to jump on the bandwagon, had been that I thought it offered little or no substance. In a way, it was akin to the sound-bite and buzz-word “information” network we’ve all become a part of. There’s a lot of noise around a weak signal.
That said, there is some great value in the service. I love following the people I hold in regard. What’s on their minds? Why do they blog? What makes them tick? For the friends I follow, it’s a way to keep track and be in touch without the hassle of calling (just kidding!). While I’m not so interested in when Joe gets a cup of coffee, I am interested to know that Jane works often on Sundays and that Stan loves comic book movies.
Check it out:
Anyway, micro-blogging is just another voice. It’s quick, painless, and a little infectious.
Some information about Twitter:
Wikipedia entry
Twitter Support
Twitter in the news
Oct 5
Man I’ve been busy! Not only has my posting been limited in the past 3 weeks, but almost all of my extra-curricular activities have been put on hold as well (it feels like months ago I last played my guitar). There are a few things going on currently. Topmost on the list is the rollout of the first real significant upgrade to our DW/BI Project here at ING. When I mull over the “feature” list, it amazes me how our team of a few developers and analysts (all quant’s), and 2 contractors (an SSIS developer and a QA Manager) got it done. What’s more, it looks like we’ll be right on schedule with the release with a few days to spare. Of course, I hope now I haven’t jinxed us!
I joined this project in mid-stride back in January when I was hired as an external consultant. I was coming over fresh from the United States, to a new and exciting land, Belgium (where the waffles are hot and the chocolate is worth dying for) and a new industry, financials. After a year and a half in healthcare at Cardinal Health, I felt I was ready to enter the financial world — particularly investment management. And so I joined the quant team in the quantitative research department at ING Investment Management.
I was hired as a BI/DW consultant (functioning primarily as an Integration Architect) and was immediately charged with supporting the in-place data integration (ETL) processes for the then un-released DW/BI system. I began my work by documenting (some functional, bust mostly technical) the entire system. In a few weeks I had uncovered many issues and offered a long list of improvements to the team. Many items on my list were directly related to many of the ETL Subsystems that I’ve been discussing. Taking these to heart, we began the long process of refactoring, renaming, and redeveloping some of the processes that were in place. The focus was on future maintainability and performance. I’ve chronicled some of these in a few of my recent posts.
In addition to this, I slowly took over the project management duties and have now been managing the development activities for the entire team. By mid-summer, and due in part to several converging circumstances, I was hired as a full time member of the quant team. Now, my stake in this project’s success is even greater!
I expect to be just as busy over the next two weeks as the final touches are added to this release of the project. I’ve also started to compile a list of “lessons learned”, most of which will be relevant-enough to share with you all. I think that some of these might surprise you!
This week I’ll continue my posts on the ETL Subsystems. I’ll also likely start working on another article for Advisor (topic yet unknown). Lastly, planning for the next release of our DW/BI system is already underway, with development starting as early as November!
PS: If you ever find yourself feeling a bit overwhelmed or too engaged in your work, I highly recommend re-reading Walden (ahh, come on — everyone’s read Walden, right?!?). It has always managed to level me, reminding me how important it is to just sit back and relax once in a while.
Aug 10
I have officially crawled out from under the rock and joined the land of the living. As a proud owner of a new iMac I feel both unshackled and invigorated.
For the past 10 years I have been convincing myself that I needed a PC and Windows (before that, I didn’t really take the Mac seriously). For one, all of my desktop development was in Visual FoxPro and .NET. Secondly, since my desktop applications were designed for PC users, I felt that it was important for me to have and use PCs (and Windows) like my clients. I would be developing in and using the environment that my users did, giving me more comfort and confidence when helping them use the software. But now that I’m involved strictly in Internet development and data warehousing, I no longer can justify the need for a PC; I simply do not have as much contact with my end-users as I used to.
My first order of business: I’ve got to set up a virtual machine on my iMac so I can install VFP9, .NET, and SQL Server. I may explore some other options, including Remote Desktop (or maybe VNC) into my PC, but I believe VM will be the best route. I’m dead set against having two computers on my desk at this point. The iMac just looks cool and I don’t want to cramp its style with my ugly PC box.
It is likely going to take me a while to get fully set up. I need to repurchase some of my key software (I need upgrades in all of them anyway): Dreamweaver & Photoshop CS3, Office 2008, and something to replace my old version of Cakewalk Pro Audio. And now that SQL Server 2008 is released, I’ll likely get that installed as well.
Apr 30
I’m saddened by the news that Ken Murphy has passed away. I have learned so much from Ken (although we’ve never met) and I already miss him. My condolences to his family…
Here’s how he felt about the “end” of FoxPro:
The decision to cease further development of VFP is one that I believe Microsoft, and especially, the SQL server division will come to regret. I develop database apps for charities, and it has been my experience that most of these charities eventually move to a SQL server back end. I would suggest that the same is true of many small businesses. VFP is a fantastic language for developing entry level database apps for small to medium businesses. The power and speed of VFP allows people like me to develop tools for these smaller organizations that allow them to grow. Evenutally, they outgrow the VFP back end and typically move to a SQL solution. If SQL were a major league baseball team, VFP would be their farm team. I wonder how many major league teams would succeed if they were to get rid of all their farm teams?
This will be how I remember him.
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