Well, it seems official that Netscape is dead.  I wish it meant more to me to read that, but Netscape lost relevance so very long ago.  We all owe a great deal of gratitude to it however, for: pushing browser boundaries; making the “internet” relevant for a large number of people; keeping Microsoft honest; giving us Firefox.

I’ll always thinking back fondly of you Netscape, but I’ll try to remember you as you were… not not who you became.

Sheesh.  Has it really been a week since I last posted?

I’ve been spending my time plugging away on ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter.  Both of these systems are getting a pretty substantive going over.  You might say we’re giving them the business.  We’re working hard.  Very hard.  As Les says, “pulling our hair out hard”; and its been a blast. There’s been 18 entries to the CodeIgniter svn repository, and many more to come.  The changelog currently has 50 (five-zero) items in it, and (again) many more to come. EE 2.0 is also shaping up very nicely, and while I can’t speak about specifics, you will not be disappointed.

I’m trying to find time to write another tutorial for CodeIgniter.  I’ve got 3 half-finished tutorials that are pretty substantial - why can’t you ever find the time to finish things off?  Anyhow, as time comes free, I promise to write more.  Next time I’ll write about something controversial, and get the juices flowin’ again.

Oh yeah… and IE8 passed the Acid2 test.  Whoop de doo.

Get it while it’s hot!  (BambooInvoice).

Thanks to everyone who helped beta test it!

While Bamboo is absolutely free and open source, if you wanted to buy me a beer, I certainly would not object ;)

We’re there! w00t!

Note: Please backup your data before you do an update.  Anything comes up, feel free to leave a note in the BambooInvoice forums.

With the next release of BambooInvoice nearly ready to go, and probably set for release within 24 hours, I’ve needed to finally decide which license I’ll be releasing it under.  If I were going to change it, this update would be a logical one since there are so many foundational changes to the underlying code. But for now, Bamboo will remain GPL.

That said, I’ve decided to continue to release BabooInvoice under the GPL, and I guess I can only ask that people not try to pass it off as their work.  Thanks to everyone who wrote me both on this blog and privately.  The general sentiment from people who identified themselves as Bamboo users was “hey, as long as I can keep using it, do whatever you want… its your software”, which was pretty cool I do have to admit.

I do though want to mention that any change in license would have been made on philosophical grounds, not an “enforcement” one.  The argument that people would continue to “steal*” it no matter what license I used is irrelevant to me - the license is about how I want my software to relate to its users, not about “protecting” myself.  Bamboo has always been about 2 things; scratching an itch, and serving as a proving and learning grounds for CodeIgniter.

So onto happier matters!  The license will remain unchanged, and the next version of Bamboo is (if I can say so myself) pretty kick-ass.

Watch this space for an update!  I have to get it that next version out shortly, so that I’m not too distracted and can keep up with my new duties at EllisLab. ;)

* I do not consider someone taking Bamboo and claiming it as their own “theft” per se, that’s just a convenient word here.

I’m very proud to say that I’ve formally joined the EllisLab development team as a Technology Architect.  In the near term future, I’m focusing on code changes to ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter in our goal to get EE 2 out the door (its a major task).  I’m looking forward to sinking a bit more time into the codebase, which I really haven’t had the opportunity to do.

Not many people realized it, but I was only onboard with EllisLab part time.  I’d spend a few hours each day working there, mostly in the support forums, where I acted as Senior Technical Support Specialist.  The rest of my day was spent running my business, which I’m fortunate was pretty busy.  So yeah, I was the classic “freelancer” - keeping busy with client projects and programming.  Freelancing was very good to me, but it’s a bit “unrewarding” (is that a word) to pour yourself into a project, and then have it end.  What I really wanted professionally, was to be part of something “bigger then I am”.

Now EE 2 development is underway, and EllisLab needs a few more hands on deck.  If ever there was something worth joining, if ever there was something that I want to have a legacy in… its ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter. So I did something that scares the hell out of me - I put my business (which I’ve proud to say I’ve built up into a nice little organization since 1999) on hold, and accepted a senior role at EllisLab. 

Time to start building up a new legacy.

A few days ago I mentioned that 24ways.org was back up for this year.  Well, it seems there’s another good read available!  Chris Shifflet is posting 24 PHP articles from guest authors on his website.  I just got through “Writing Code is Like Doing the Dishes (5 Reasons Why Documenting Your Code Makes You a Better Coder).” by Elizabeth Naramore and I have to say that I really enjoyed it.

So add one more stop to your daily RSS and follow along with the fun.

I stumbled across two noteworthy CodeIgniter blog posts today when reading the forums today, that I wanted to share.

• Favio wrote Forms in CodeIgniter Views.  Essentially, what they’ve done is created a controller that takes the data you feed it (as a csv via a textarea) and generates all the validiation rules for you, as well as the forms.  Looks very promising, and is a clever solution.
• Jonathan Abbett posted instructions on how he uses Oracle with PHP and CodeIgniter.  Its well written, step by step, and hopefully will be useful for you.

There’s a lot of exciting things happening in the CI community recently - its hard to keep up with everything.

24Ways quickly became everyones favourite daily visit in 2005, followed it up with a great 2006, and since today is 2007, has started again today.  I just love the concept.

That said, the first entry is Transparent PNGs in Internet Explorer 6.  Personally, while I’ll ensure my stuff “works” in IE6, I’m not going out of my way to support it anymore. Can someone please explain to me why we’re still supporting IE6?

I should also mention Matthew Pennel‘s article “Easy cross-browser transparency”, of which this reminds me.

Joanne and I are self-confessed “beer snobs connoisseurs”, and like to try different beers.  Last weekend I commented that we hadn’t tried too many new beers recently.  Apparently I struck a chord with her, because over the last 3 days here’s what has accrued in the beer fridge.

Most of those are 1 bottle from a six pack, but some (like those 3 stubbies) came in a pack.

... now I know what it feels like to be a father.