Visual Lizard
Wil Alambre
Wil works for Visual Lizard Inc. Wil is a web developer. Wil has been a web developer for over eight years. Wil likes working on web sites. Wil makes web pages in his spare time. Wil is one of those lucky people who get’s paid for doing what he loves doing. Wil would happily work on web sites for free. But Wil needs to pay bills. Luckily, developing web sites pays Wil’s bills. Lucky Wil.
Wil is influenced by many things, and it is reflected in Wil’s work. Wil likes comic books. Wil continues to collect graphic novels from a variety of publishers to this day. Wil likes movies, even the cheesy bad ones. Wil is one of those people that keep Hollywood in business, despite the drek they put out. Wil plays video games. Wil owns a Gamecube, and defies anyone to convince him he made the wrong choice. Wil plays roleplaying games, both table top and live action. Wil likes roleplaying because it’s like playing pretend as kids.
Wil was a kid in Thompson, Manitoba, Canada. Wil was very cold there. Wil moved down to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to continue his schooling. Wil is less cold here. Wil attended the University of Manitoba and Robertson College. But many of Wil’s skills were self taught. Wil spent many a moment in front of a computer. Wil read web sites. Wil learned web sites. Wil built web sites.
Wil entered the web industry in 2000. Wil learned about dynamic content and database oriented design at his job. Wil pushed and prodded at scripting languages and datatable layout. Wil discovered a lot about what makes a content managed web site tick. Wil made it sit up and beg. Wil also worked alongside a world class web designer. Wil learned about grids and colours and layout. Wil learned how important proper navigation and content and presentation was. Wil built some excellent web sites for very important people.
Wil joined Visual Lizard Inc in 2005. Wil learned about open source software. Wil learned MySQL and PHP. Wil discovered many smart people working with the same tools, and learned a lot from them. Wil wrangled code, working alongside already brilliant Visual Lizard staff to improve Catalyst, their content management system.
Wil works with Visual Lizard to build web sites. Wil gets paid, and buys comic books and video games.
Lucky Wil!
CakePHP Model Associations Using FinderQuery
Working on a CakePHP application, I found I needed to associate two models, but not in the regular way. In most cases, I could make a hasMany relationship by putting an appropriately-named foreignKey in the other datatable. So, if a Model named "Post" hasMany "Comment",...
Photos of the Lizards hard at work
I’ve updated my Flickr account with a couple pictures I snapped yesterday. We were hunkered down at the board room table, downing caffeinated beverages while slamming out some code. :) You can click here to see all my Visual Lizard related photos. Feel free to leave us a comment... we might...
CakePHP Updates It's Online Manual
We’ve been building a couple exciting projects on the CakePHP framework, and have recently been using the new 1.2 branch. So, as a developer, it’s been frustrating to try and look up information only to find the provided Manual was for 1.1 only... and it was out-of-date at that. There...
First Trailer For The Spirit
The first trailer for the comicbook movie, The Spirit, has been released. The movie is being directed by Frank Miller, creator of 300 and Sin City, and who helped direct the former. I know Frank Miller’s style in comic books of late, but I must admit I’m surprised to see this movie shot...
Danny Boy, performed by the Muppets
In honor of St Patricks Day, an old Youtube video of the Swedish Chef, Animal, and Beaker singing Danny Boy. Oh poor Beaker, will you ever get any respect? :) ...and, ’cause I love the Muppets and there’s very little funnier than seeing Beaker trying to sing...
On My Radar
Color of Magic
Jul 14, 2009
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Jul 15, 2009
Dollhouse, Season 1
Jul 28, 2009
Folklorama
Aug 02, 2009
From The Web
Comic Origins of Phrases
Linked by Wil
Michael Jackson dead at 50
Linked by Wil
10 Unexpected Merit Badges
Linked by Wil
Doorbell Instructions
Linked by Wil
Five useful CakePHP functions I just dicovered
The good part with frameworks is that they include a rich reusable API library full of functions that will make life easier for most programmers. - Lennaert Ekelmans.
Linked by Wil
Simple Site Maintenance Mode with CakePHP 1.2
The ability to put a website into offline or maintenance mode seems like a pretty common request these days. - Jamie Nay.
Linked by Wil
Giant Wraparound Screen Shows Air Traffic in Real-Time [Visualizations]
This installation shows all of Lufthansa's flights at once, all projected in 3D on a 180-degree, 46-foot-wide screen. And damn is it cool. - gizmodo.
Linked by Wil