This site is the creation of Rick and Jen Townsend. As sections are updated, we'll put notices in the News section below. Keep in mind that this is a hobby site; updates will happen when we have time, and I've designed the site around fast load times, minimal maintenance requirements, and as a technological playground.
2008-10-27: I'm back online after some unforseen downtime. The RAID controller on my home server died, just a month after my backup drive suffered click-death. That'll teach me to go a month without replacing my backup hardware! Thankfully, Andreas Gani came to my rescue with a replacement part. Thanks Andreas!
2008-07-14: Just a quick note to indicate that I've joined L'Oreal New Zealand as their "Application Support Specialist". Bascially, that encompasses Developer, DBA and backup for the Network admin and Helpdesk. I'll be incredibly busy, but will try to post as I go.
2008-06-08: Announcing uncompany.co.nz, a new group of skilled designers, developers, dbas and managers. Looking for the best of the best at reasonable rates? Need a team, not just a group of developers? Check us out!
2008-05-31: Announcing the release of LinkifyOutput, my
first Eclipse plugin! This plugin isn't designed for mass appeal, but rather to eliminate a specific
pain-point. Any process that outputs to a console (Java, CVS, PHP debug, code coverage tools) can
now have it's output linkified by the simple addition of a row in the preference page of my
plugin. No more meticulously highlighting text to use AnyEdit for opening the file at that path.
LinkifyOutput will even take you to a specific line, or highlight the specified character range.
Even better, the newest version, 1.0.1, now opens files that aren't in an Eclipse project, and
also opens URLs!
Point your Eclipse updates at http://www.townsends.ca/eclipse_plugins/site.xml to
get the latest version now!
Watch this space for further updates. The next minor release will include more help details and
an improved UI experience on the preference page. The next major release will include the ability
to import and export link patterns, so that other plugin authors can supply preset lists to
linkify their output.
2008-05-30: I'm tired of the smug "Your website is broken" emails I get from random visitors,
so I've added some text to the background of this website specifically for them. Here's the
gist of it: Firefox versions before 3 have a bug which causes Firefox to not render the background
of a transformed XML. Seriously, check this page in Opera, Safari, IE 6 or 7 - it looks fine in
all of them. Still not satisfied? Check out this page using the Firebug or View Source Chart
plugins. They both show that the background should not be white; and they work off the
transformed web page supplied by Firefox itself! So before you complain to me, maybe it would
be better to stop being such a FF fanboy and actually vote to get this bug fixed.
Follow-up: A friend reminded me that FF versions 1.4 and 1.5 used to render
this correctly, but the fix was removed in subsequent minor releases because it conflicted with
other code. Whatever; I refuse rebuild my website to support one broken browser, when the next
version fixes the problem.
2008-05-17: Vianet is closing its Kerikeri office, so it looks like I'm out of a job. Watch my blog for more details as I get them, and to monitor my mental health.
2008-03-22: Jen and I have moved to Kerikeri, in Northland, New Zealand. I got a job with Vianet International, a Kiwi start-up that provides a booking and payment solution to the travel and tourism industry. Jen is doing three more papers (courses) for her business management degree, and has a part-time job at a local accounting firm. Our cats are just enjoying all the warm weather, and the fact that we now have stairs for them to run up and down. :)
2007-12-09: A few bug fixes to the site, plus a new colour scheme. I haven't bothered to create a new logo yet, but hopefully the darker blue is easier on the eyes. The bug fixes adjust the output so the XML should display correctly on Firefox and Opera. Note that this wasn't actually a problem with my site, but rather two bugs in the XSL engines on those two browsers. Neither liked custom tags in the XHTML tree (which is explicitly allowed in the W3C HTML spec), and neither would render the transformed XML as proper HTML without being explicitly told to do so. As web browsers, the XSL recommendations state that they should default to XHTML ouput styling, not XML.
2007-11-28: Pat and Paula have had their baby; congratulations, and welcome to Jayden Paquette!
The weather is warming up, so we're having all the development team over for a BBQ. Should be fun,
plus a good time to say farewell to some of our friends who've been laid off.
2007-10-20: Went to Armageddon yesterday with Malcolm. It was fun, got to try out some different systems, but I'm not sure I'll go again next year. About the same price and entertainment factor as a movie.
2007-10-12: Saw the Linkin Park concert at Vector Arena yesterday evening. It was lots of fun: the music was good, we had tickets for the floor and got really good spots near the front, and Chris Cornell's band opened with an hour long set (including the theme for the latest James Bond.)
2007-10-01: Mom & Dad should be home by now (don't we all wish our work took us to Europe!) Hope you had a safe flight home, guys.
2007-09-10: I've posted our pictures and videos from Fiji! What an awesome trip, loads of sun, sand, swimming and snorkelling. Jen and I can't wait to go back!
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