Zaf’s Blog

An interesting day so far at NZNOG 2009, NZDF network, 4 byte ASNs, National Library. Also “attended” a “speed” course in DNSEC over lunch, which basically summed up the previous days DNSSEC tutorial I missed (due to attended IPv6).

Will resolve (*ba* *dum*) to implement DNSSEC on all my domains, even though .co.nz, etc aren’t yet signing.

Well, I’ve just registered for NZNog 2009, which is conveniently located in Auckland this year. Yay for me. Unfortunately they have 4 great looking tutorials, and I can only pick one. I’ve decided on the IPv6 one, purely because it’ll hopefully have the most practical usage. I was seriously considering DNSSEC instead, but we don’t do *that* much DNS stuff.

I’ve been infected, but now I’m contagious

Its a disease that thinks, talks, and walk, but now it's contagious

Its a bit late, but if you haven’t  brought Contagious, the new Sci-Fi-Horror-Thriller novel from Scott Sigler (AKA the SDO), you should do so immediately. It promises to be even better than Infected, Scotts prequel to this book. I have the poster on the right hanging on my wall at the moment. Though I admit I like it because of my Fire Police duties.

I’m a loyal Scott Sigler fan and have listened to every podcast since Earthcore, and I own every dead-tree version, except Earthcore (damnit!). Oh, and the Contagious novel is not yet in my hands, but will be soon.

I have spent the recent weeks playing with Catalyst, a Perl website development framework. Initially I’ve resented using any form of framework other than something like CGI:: or PHP, and prefered to build my own framework as I’ve needed it.

This current project required me to use a framework in order to meet the deadlines, and that I’ve done. I’m impressed with Catalyst for providing all the needed supporting infrastrucutre, without requiring you to use it in a certain way. Peversely, my biggest complaint about Catalyst is they don’t tell you how to use it the “right” way.

The tutorial exists, and I’ve gone over it in detail, and of course every module, being Perl, has perldoc sitting right there with it, but I still found myself a bit lost with certain aspects. Should I put the extensive database logic right there in Controller? Or should I put it in its own module. How do I access the DBIx model from code in its own module. Is it the “right” thing to pass $c to external code?

Obviously with Perl the answer to the above questions is do what-ever the hell you like, it’s Perl, it’ll sort it out. But there are reasons for development methodologies to exist, and maybe thats my problem. I’ve spent so much time out in the cold, doing my own development my own way, I don’t know how its commonly done.

So now the coder is coming in from the cold.

My dual book order from Amazon has arrived (see previous blog entry). Philippa Ballantine’s Digital Magic and Tee Morris’s The Case of the Pitcher’s Pendant (a Billibub Baddings novel). I ordered them on 08/08/2008.

I am looking forward to reading them, and will start with Billibub first, as I haven’t finished listening to Philippa’s first novel, Chasing the Bard.

Double Trouble

8-8-08, yes its the opening of the games, but thats not whats important! Its double-trouble, the dual release of Tee Morris’s The Case of the Pitcher’s Pendant (a Billibub Baddings novel) and Philippa Ballantine’s Digital Magic.

Though with the wackyness of timezones, the official purchase time is 8am Pacific, which is 3am Saturday (9-8-08) New Zealand. So if you do happen to read this in time and decide to buy, any time after 3am Saturday New Zealand time is good. (Yes you can apparently do it on Saturday morning, but I think those people are slackers. Its 3am or bust for me)

Of significant note is that Philippa Ballantine is New Zealands only podcast novelist. So support local talent, and buy her book.