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!
OSX at work, Win7 at home?
Last week, Apple finally released updated Windows 7 drivers, allowing me to get my Windows 7 Boot Camp partition working smoothly on my 17” Macbook Pro. I haven’t really been missing Windows 7, I barely used it at work since installing it a month or two ago, but being able to boot up my laptop into either Mac OS X or Windows 7 was a big selling feature for me. For all the internet flame-wars about which operating system is better, I have always found reasons to like them both, enough to enjoy having both installed on my machines.
One of the main reasons I like having Windows 7 installed is that it is not the operating system I am using at work. As a web developer who spends eight to ten hours a day working on a computer, I find it often hard to come home and sit in front of the same machine for more hours, even though I kind of want to; video gaming, blogging, surfing the internet, my own web-based side-projects… all things I enjoy doing, but have a hard time doing so after basically spending all day already doing that.
Having OS X for work is great, as there are a multitude of great apps to work in and with. Many of my respected colleagues in the same field as I work on Macs, which means there are programs, systems, applications, widgets, tweaks, and more geared directly for them (and me). It certainly makes my job easier and more enjoyable.
Having Windows 7 for home is a refreshing change of pace. Microsoft’s latest operating system is polished and works smoothly; I haven’t noticed any of the headaches or frustrations many people were experiencing with Windows Vista. More importantly, it works different, responds different, feels different, and I’ve set it up different. I have a Twitter gadget always open at one side. I have a Steam account with all my video games at the ready. I have Google Chrome installed, as well as Windows Live Writer (which I am using to write this, my first attempt at using this program). I don’t have an HTML editor installed, I don’t have an FTP program installed, I don’t have an SVN client installed.
If I need to do work, either at the office or at home, I can boot up in Mac OS X, and have an environment dedicated to that. If I don’t want to work, I can boot up in Windows 7, and have an environment purposely separated from where and how I work.
It’s something that feels comfortable so far. I’ll see how it works out.
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On My Radar
Folklorama
Aug 01, 2010
Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Aug 13, 2010
Resident Evil Afterlife
Sep 10, 2010
Iron Man 2
Sep 28, 2010
From The Web
Urbanized
Gary Hustwit next film in his design trilogy, after Helvetica and Objectified.
Linked by Wil Alambre
Apple looking into iOS4 and 3G issues?
My iPhone 3G has become frustrating to use since upgrading to iOS4. What happened to the silky smooth experience that sold me on the hardware in the first place?
Linked by Wil Alambre
Office for Mac 2011 beta 5
Linked by Wil Alambre
W3C's Unicorn Validator Checks Multiple Standards at Once
It's described as brutally unforgiving and that it's near impossible to get a perfect score. Sounds like a challenge! ;).
Linked by Wil Alambre
The Gamer's Alphabet
Q is for Q-bert's curse filled speech bubble... he was a bit of a potty-mouth, wasn't he?
Linked by Wil Alambre
YouTube to increase upload limit from 10 to 15 minutes
Looking forward to bigger, longer internet meme music videos. Oi. :).
Linked by Wil Alambre
Flower Warfare - Psychedelic Action Scene
Linked by Wil Alambre
I've been kicking the tires on Windows 7 too. Mostly so I can help clients get their email connected when they call, but I have to say, it is pretty smooth. It "shares" a lot of what OS X has going for it, with the main thing being that it just seems to work. So far no real issues with getting things setup.