https://bphogan.com/2008/Recent content in 2008 on Brian P. HoganHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usWed, 19 Nov 2008 22:28:41 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/11/19/web-design-for-developers-now-available-in-beta/Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:28:41 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/11/19/web-design-for-developers-now-available-in-beta/My book Web Design for Developers is now available in Beta form. You’ll learn how to design a web site from start to finish, and you’ll use many of the techniques and thought processes you’ve come to rely on as an application developer. You’ll learn some color theory, some typography basics, some XHTML and CSS, and how to incorporate Photoshop and Illustrator into a work flow that works for you, not against you.https://bphogan.com/2008/08/29/use-firefox/Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:45:04 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/08/29/use-firefox/Yahoo thinks you should. Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!https://bphogan.com/2008/08/05/lisas-next-surgery/Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:28:51 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/08/05/lisas-next-surgery/Lisa has surgery on Thursday morning. This is going to be the sixth one and I’m getting really tired of this. It’s expensive and nerve-racking, and I really hate putting her through it each time. Ana’s gone this week again, and I miss her. Things are moving so fast and yet I feel like we’re going nowhere.https://bphogan.com/2008/08/05/long-days-and-short-nights/Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:27:05 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/08/05/long-days-and-short-nights/I’ve been busy. Many of my side projects have come to an end and I’m not actively looking for more at this moment so I can get the graphics book finished. It’s holding up my life a bit and I want it done. The problem is that you can’t force writing, no matter how much you really want to. I launched http://www.snippetstash.com/ a few weeks ago. It’s just a simple site that lets programmers store bits of code they tend to use over and over again.https://bphogan.com/2008/06/07/4-months-already/Sun, 08 Jun 2008 01:26:56 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/06/07/4-months-already/So Lisa’s more than four months old already. I can’t believe how much time flies. In the last four months, quite a few things have happened around here. First, Ana just finished up Second Grade. She’s planning to spend her summer doing lots of reading and learning, and hopefully she’ll get some video game time in with me. I’m pretty proud of her–she really pulled it together this year. Next, I just gave a presentation at RailsConf 2008 in front of 208 people.https://bphogan.com/2008/05/13/carissa-has-a-blog-now/Wed, 14 May 2008 03:23:03 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/05/13/carissa-has-a-blog-now/Carissa’s getting in on the internets action. Go check it out here.https://bphogan.com/2008/03/25/done-with-casting/Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:09:14 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/03/25/done-with-casting/I can’t believe it’s been over 8 weeks already! We just finished removing Lisa’s final leg casts in preparation for her new set of shoes. We’re excited, but she didn’t like the cast removal this time It seemed to be quite painful for her which was hard on us. She’s also finally done with eye surgeries. For those that don’t know, she had to have two additional surgeries (making four total – two on each eye) because some scar tissue was in the way of the pupil so her eyes couldn’t dilate.https://bphogan.com/2008/02/24/one-month/Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:34:01 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/02/24/one-month/It’s been a month now since Lisa was born and we’re still balancing everything. The house needs a good cleaning and I’m getting ready to return to work in the middle of the week. Lisa’s already on her fourth set of casts (two more to go) and we’re ordering the shoes with the bar this week when we go in, so we can be sure it will get here in time.https://bphogan.com/2008/02/22/lisas-done-with-cataract-surgery/Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:54:24 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/02/22/lisas-done-with-cataract-surgery/Last week, on the 13th, Lisa had her first eye surgery and it went very well. She’s had a shield on her eye at night for the last week just so she doesn’t accidentally put her hand in her eye. Today she had her second surgery and it went just as well. We’re so glad that’s over. We have to come back to Marshfield soon to get her fitted for contacts sometime in the next few weeks.https://bphogan.com/2008/02/13/going-to-railsconf-2008/Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:41:54 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/02/13/going-to-railsconf-2008/I’ll be heading to Portland again this year to go to Railsconf 2008. I’ll be giving a talk there again this year too called “Design For Developers” where I’ll teach developers how to design a pretty-looking web page. Should be a blast.https://bphogan.com/2008/02/13/update-on-lisa/Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:40:32 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/02/13/update-on-lisa/I’ve been putting off writing an update about Lisa’s eyes and legs for some time so I could deal with everything personally. Now that things are finally settling down a bit I’m going to get back to regular updates to the blog. Lisa has been doing well with her clubfoot treatments. She’s on her third set of casts and things are looking very good. When we were in the hospital, the doctor who takes care of the casts made a big deal about us making sure we never miss an appointment.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/28/lisa-has-cataracts/Tue, 29 Jan 2008 02:30:01 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/28/lisa-has-cataracts/It’s been confirmed that Lisa has cataracts in both eyes. We have an appointment set up for Wednesday in Marshfield to have the pediatric optometrist take a look so we can come up with a plan of attack. I’m not ashamed to tell you that this was extremely difficult for me to deal with. Even though I knew it would happen, I still hoped that she would be able to dodge this one.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/26/finally-the-photos-youve-all-been-asking-about/Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:00:53 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/26/finally-the-photos-youve-all-been-asking-about/More photos available for viewing and downloading at Flickr.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/26/staying-another-day/Sat, 26 Jan 2008 18:25:12 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/26/staying-another-day/The pediatrician and the nurses want to keep Lisa for one more day. There’s problems with the feedings, similar to what happened with Ana so we’re just gonna get her going with formula. To make things more interesting, we’re still waiting to hear about the eyes. The pediatrician (nice guy by the way) didn’t get a good look at her eyes, so he wants to get an opinion from an eye doctor.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/25/one-problem-down-one-to-go/Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:07:28 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/25/one-problem-down-one-to-go/The pediatrist was just here and explained Lisa’s condition. It’s found in 1 out of every 1000 babies and it’s pretty treatable through a serious of castings and bracings. Lisa will have six different casts which will be used to reshape the legs. The last cast will stay on for three weeks. After that, there will be 14 to 18 months of shoes with the bar between them, 23 hours a day.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/25/one-nervous-dad/Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:10:19 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/25/one-nervous-dad/Lisa’s here, and she’s really a cutie, but I’m still extremely nervous. I’ve always been quite the pessimist though. We still haven’t gotten a good look at her eyes and that makes me extremely anxious. I really want to know that she’s okay, or that we can get the ball rolling on whatever needs to happen. Lisa was a bit scrunched in the room, so her feet ended up turned in.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/24/welcome-lisa-lin-hogan/Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:11:13 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/24/welcome-lisa-lin-hogan/Welcome, Lisa Lin Hogan. 20.1 inches, 7 lbs 14 oz, born at 9:52 PM on January 24th, 2008https://bphogan.com/2008/01/24/live-updates-on-the-new-baby/Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:36:41 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/24/live-updates-on-the-new-baby/You can follow mom and baby’s progress at Twitter. I’ll post a full recap of today’s events later this evening when I know more.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/23/tough-crittic/Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:27:59 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/23/tough-crittic/ Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!https://bphogan.com/2008/01/19/counting-down-the-days/Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:31:50 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/19/counting-down-the-days/It’s only six days until Carissa’s due date. It’s been interesting around here; we’re all kinda just playing the waiting game. We haven’t made any real plans to do anything just in case, and we’ve been so tired lately. Carissa got some good sleep last night finally, and I fell asleep on the couch watching TV. I’ve almost got everything ready for a leave of absence from work. I’m going to continue working on the books though.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/18/play-rock-band-drums-on-pc/Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:26:50 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/18/play-rock-band-drums-on-pc/Really cool and fun… First, download the 360 drivers for Windows. Install it and accept all the defaults. Next, grab this nice driver for the drum kit. Save it to your hard drive, plug in your drum kit, and tell it where the drum kit driver is. Finally go and get the drum machine. It’s awesome.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/16/stupid-xbox-connections/Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:14:24 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/16/stupid-xbox-connections/Chris and I have been trying to connect to eachother over XBOX Live for a little over a week without success. Tonight we finally got it worked out. He did a firmware update to his router which solved the problem on his end. I, on the other hand, had to hack some things up a bit. My setup is a bit different. I have a media PC in the living room that has a wireless connection to the network.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/16/thank-you/Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:08:10 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/16/thank-you/I just wanted to say thank you to our friends and family for the extremely generous gifts. Carissa really enjoyed seeing everyone at the shower. My only regret is that I missed out on seeing some people. I got back to the house right after they left for dinner. The guys had a good time though. Thanks for coming!https://bphogan.com/2008/01/16/getting-down-to-the-wire/Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:02:27 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/16/getting-down-to-the-wire/It’s getting closer to baby time. Carissa’s ready, that’s for sure. If anyone cares, I’ve set up a feed over at Twitter. Latest updates appear here on the blog in the sidebar, but you could always sign up for an account and follow me. I’m not getting much sleep lately, because Carissa’s not getting much sleep. She’s looking forward to having the baby just so she can get some sleep. Even if it’s only two hours at a time, it’s still something.https://bphogan.com/2008/01/02/loose-ends/Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:15:16 +0000https://bphogan.com/2008/01/02/loose-ends/This week is about tying up a bunch of loose ends. I’ve got a lot of projects I started that I want to get finished. One of those projects is the graphics book which is shaping up pretty well. I have a new editor who is a really good motivator and a very good eye. We don’t always agree and I have to fight back a lot, but the experience is good for me.