Visual Lizard
Ross McDowall
Ross is a senior web developer for Visual Lizard. In working for the company for the past 9 years he has steadily upgraded his skills. Both the best and worst thing about this industry is how fast things change. It is great finding new ways to do things, but in finding the new process, it sometimes means having to go back and redo all of the programming that was done the old way. Thus, he fears change... but since the world is always changing, he nevertheless changes with it. He enjoys working for the company as the small staff doesn’t allow for office politics. The office environment allows for independence, creativity, and quick access to a fairly substantial knowledge base.
Ross enjoys roleplaying games, science fiction and fantasy books, and movies. He has his own website which he uses as a place to experiment with his programming skills from time to time. He has done substantial work on the majority of the sites developed at Visual Lizard, with particular pride in working on Destination Winnipeg, The Forks, IMAX Winnipeg, Folklorama and the Winnipeg Airports Authority.
Ross is learning more about developing online web applications including a more comprehensive version of his own diabetes blood sugar testing recorder. He has honed his skills in both PHP and MySQL as these are the primary tools of his trade. His latest goal is becoming fully familiar with the CAKE framework (not easy as I am not good with change *harrumph harrumph*).
In our industry, the concept of standards for web and browser development should be at the forefront. Competition between browsers should not affect how the viewer sees the product which is being developed. It is up to the web developer to determine how a site should look. The browser should just be the platform to view the site, and should not interpret how to display what is written. Unfortunately the browsers are not quite to that stage yet, so for now we have to make the odd piece of non-compliant code to accommodate those browsers. One day soon maybe we will see all browsers following standards. Cross your fingers.
iPhone Comes to Lizard HQ
Earlier this week we called the only provider of iPhones in Canada. After some haggling over plans Julian found a plan that made it worth the switch. Once he had his plan, one by one we continued with the same sales person and proceeded to order a total of three iPhones. There was a fourth but our youngest associate was forced to call back and cancel by familial forces.
Julian and Wil ordered the 16 GB iPhone and I ordered the 8 GB iPhone. It would appear that the stock of 8s is far greater than that of the 16s, because my phone arrived today, and Julian and Wil still have not received their purchase confirmation emails yet.
There was some initial confusion and calls to Rogers over the fact that the plan I ordered was not the plan I received. After a pleasant conversation with a couple of very nice women in the customer service department (Hi Lynda and Anne) we worked out the details of my wireless plan to what I had asked for. It was time to open it up.
The phone came in a tidy little box. As usual the folks at Apple have taken time to design a compact simple package that only conveys what is needed. There was no massive plastic surround that requires a blow-torch to get into unlike many overpackaged products you see on shelves these days. No, just a small box with the phone, ear-phones, USB connector, USB-to-power adapter and the instruction manuals.
The iPhone, freshly born to the world, not yet corrupted by we geeks.
The parts that make it live.
Less than 10 minutes after this picture was taken, my iPhone was activated with my former home phone number. Now all that is left for me to do is to contact MTS and cancel my internet service, and I will no longer be tied to the world of telecommunication wires.
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