Category: Community

It’s Happening Again, Seattle Code Camp!

I’ve got two presentations happening this year at Seattle Code Camp! Are you signed up? If not, hit this and get signed up ASAP:  https://seattlecodecamp2013.eventbrite.com/

My two presentations are:

Distributed Databases – An Introduction to Riak

Presenter:Adron Hall

I’ll dive in with a quick definition and context of what distributed databases are. From there we’ll quickly move into what Riak is, how its architecture lends it toward being one of the premier distributed database solutions on the market today. We’ll take a walk through vector clocks to consistent hashs, clusters and rings managing the world of the distributed systems. Then we’ll dive into a use case with a put and pull of data from a walkthrough implementation of Riak.

…and…

Developer Workflow: From Angular.js, Riak, Testing and Vagrant Dev Environments

Presenter:Adron Hall

Each developer has to come up with a workflow that works well for them. Sometimes a lot of the workflow is dictated but there is still a lot that’s left up to the individual. With many modern tools you have a selection of everything from text editor, to IDE to actual operating system distribution. In this presentation I’m going to walk through some of the tooling to help keep all of these things under control during the course of programming efforts. …and yes, this will go beyond just the IDE (or text editor, etc)

…and others to check out!

Much Ado About Hadoop

By now you’ve heard the words “Big Data” and “Hadoop”, but you’re not sure what they mean, much less how to get started. You’re struggling with storing a lot of data, rapidly processing a huge volume of data, or maybe you’re just curious. There are a bewildering array of options and use cases within the Hadoop ecosystem. Every day I help customers understand their data problems, understand where Hadoop fits into their environment, and determine how they can use Hadoop to solve their problem. This session provides an introduction to what Hadoop is, when it’s appropriate to use Hadoop, and guidance on how to get started.

Unit Testing Web Development

Presenter:Mark Michaelis

When it comes to testing, Web Development is fraught with challenges whether it be from variations in browser behavior, the lack of compilation on JavaScript, or the traditional coupling between the UI and the code. In this session we walk through the complexities surrounding the testing of web projects and cover how to overcome these. This includes leveraging everything from source code analysis and JavaScript unit testing to UI and performance testing. Don’t miss this session to learn a multitude ways to significantly improve the quality of your web development.

Riak in a .NET World

Developers have a lot of choices when it comes to storing data. In this session, we’ll introduce .NET developers to Riak, a distributed key-value database. Through a combination of concepts and practical examples, attendees will learn when Riak might be appropriate, how to get started with Riak using CorrugatedIron (a full-featured .NET client for Riak), and how to solve data modeling problems they’re likely to encounter. This talk is for developers who are interested in backing their applications with a fault-tolerant, distributed database.

Introduction to Ember.js

Presenter:Jon Cortez

Ember.js is an open-source client-side JavaScript web application framework based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) software architectural pattern. It is designed to help developers build scalable Single Page Applications (SPAs) by incorporating common idioms and best practices into a framework that provides a rich object model, declarative two-way data binding, computed properties, automatically-updating templates, and a router for managing application state. In this session, you will learn the key concepts of Ember.js and how to use it to create a simple Single Page Application.

Think Like a Dev: Cognitive Pitfalls in Software Development

Presenter:Michael Ibarra

Our own minds are often working against us. What makes estimating so hard? Is there real value in planning poker? How effective are weekly retrospectives, really? Let’s explore how our minds may be working against us in ways we might not realize. We’ll examine the sources of some common cognitive biases, how they apply to our work efforts, and discuss some “strategery” for overcoming them.

Building a Server Appliance in Node.js

Presenter:Eugenio Pace

Auth0 is a server/service to drastically simplify authentication, identity federation & SSO scenarios; for web & mobile apps. It’s our first big project on node. One of the reasons we decided to build it entirely on node, is the ability to package it and deploy it anywhere: as a service in the public cloud, as a virtual appliance on private cloud, or as an appliance on-premises. In this session we’ll show how we built it. How we use JS for extensibility and easy customization. What worked well, what didn’t. Tools we used, etc.

Hope to see you there. Cheers!

Riak in a .NET World

Jeremiah's Demo Works, IT WORKS IT WORKS!
Jeremiah’s Demo Works, IT WORKS IT WORKS!

A few days ago Troy Howard, Jeremiah Peschka and I all traveled via Amtrak Cascades up to Seattle. The mission was simple, Jeremiah was presenting “Riak in a .NET World”, I was handling logistics and Troy was handling video.

So I took the video that Troy shot, I edited it, put together some soundtrack to it and let Jeremiah’s big data magic shine. He covers the basics around RDBMSes, SQL Server in this case but easily it applies to any RDBMS in large part. These basics bring us up to where and why an architecture needs to shift from an RDBMS solution to a distributed solution like Riak. After stepping through some of the key reasons to move to Riak, Jeremiah walks through a live demo of using CorrugatedIron, the .NET Client for Riak (Github repo). During the walk through he covers the specific characteristics of how CorrugatedIron interacts with Riak through indexs, buckets and during puts and pulls of data.

Toward the end of the video Joseph Blomstedt @jtuple, Troy Howard @thoward37, Jeremiah Peschka @peschkaj, Clive Boulton @iC and Richard Turner @bitcrazed. Also note, I’ve enabled download for this specific video since it is actually a large video (1.08GB total). So you may want to download and watch it if you don’t have a super reliable high speed internet connection.

Also for more on Jeremiah’s work check out http://www.brentozar.com/articles/riak/  and contact him at http://www.brentozar.com/contact/

Introducing Junction

Today I’ve officially kicked off a new project from my notebook of projects based around building a Riak admin, data manipulation, reporting and news tool for Windows 8. If you want to jump right to the project, here’s the Github Pages Site, the Github Junction Repo and eventually I’ll have it listed in the Windows 8 Store for download. Yes, it’ll be free as in beer, it’ll all be Apache 2.0 Licensed and the project is open to contributors and others that want to jump into things. There’s also a quick intro for how I setup the “Windows 8 Logos, Badges & Splash Screens of Riak“.

So now that I’ve provided the links, here’s a quick intro to each of the application sections, what this application is for, where the workflow for contributions will be and what the next steps are. Trust me, I roll easy, I’ll be working as hard as I can to make pull requests easy peasy, keep the issues down to workable contributions and the whole “this is a good OSS project”.

Riak Junction Application rocking on the Windows 8 desktop with a full tile!
Riak Junction Application rocking on the Windows 8 desktop with a full tile!

Juncture Divisions

The juncture application should be split into several key components, or application divisions of functionality. I’ve broken each out with a basic description. If you just want to watch a video where I outline each division, play the video below for a quick 5 minute intro to the application and the idea behind it all.

A quick run through of the first sample UI.

Call the Doctor! (Administration & Maintenance)

This part of the application would provide an interface for all the general administration and maintenance needs around individual nodes and around the overall cluster of nodes. The ability to add, remove and generally administer everything that is available via the riak-admin command line interface.

Time Travel That Data (Performance Benchmarking)

This section of the application will provide the ability to benchmark the timing of data in and out of a cluster. In addition it should show standard benchmarking similar to that which is offered with the basho_bench project.

Love of the Data (Reporting)

This division of the application would be focused on reporting. I’m not sure what exactly that would entail, but something with charts, graphs and pulling together trending points of some sort. If you have ideas and want to work on this part of the application, weigh in!

Golfing With Your Data (Query, Put, Deletes, Etc. Handling the CRUD)

The application will have an interface to provide access to add and remove data, as well as viewing the data that is available within a cluster. The primary means for implementing this part of the application will be with the CorrugatedIron Project. It’s a library available via Nuget that @peschkaj and @TheColonial have put together.

News! News! News! (News…  RSS Feed Reader)

The idea is that this will provide a quick and easy way to get familiar with Windows 8 dev and the project overall. I’m aiming to eat the Basho blog feed and provide it as key highlights for the application with future abilities around mining other RSS feeds or such and having those fed into a ??  Riak Cluster? Again, everything is open to change, addition or removal! So jump into the project and let me know your thoughts.

Cheers & Happy Hacking!

Farewell Basho, It’s Been Swell Yo!

Whew, it’s been a total blast working at Basho. I’ve accomplished a ton of things. Riak is a solid distributed database system and I’m glad to have worked with the team on advocating its use, teaching distributed systems ideas and concepts and generally spreading the knowledge. I’ve seen some truly great things that people are hacking together, setting up for projects and redesigning old systems to utilize newer, better, faster and more capable distributed systems concepts and ideas. Some of the things I’m happy to have contributed to in my time at Basho.

…and there has been a whole lot more. Suffice it to say, Basho has provided me with some sweet opportunities to work on some extremely interesting data projects from a very data sciency point of view (yeah I know sciency aint a word). There may be more Riak work and Riak meetups and Riak hacks and Riak who knows what coming from me, but the meetups & such are now at the hands of the core Riak crew and…

Where Am I Headed?

Right now, I’m moving 20 blocks away from where I currently live, setting up a couch to hack on and grabbing a beer. I’ve got a few personal projects I’ve been wanting to work on. Then I’m taking a few weeks to do some side projects that have been on the burner. Keep an eye out, I’ll be kicking off one, maybe two of these open source projects in the next few days. As @tsantero twitted…

…I’m going to attack my own notebook of ideas. Maybe I’ll even work on that Riak CS Video object store that Tom and I spoke about 10 months ago? Either way, whatever the projects are, I’ll have them posted right here. Until then…

Cheers & Happy Hacking!

Johnny 5 yo! Nodebots Day PDX

Today the first Nodebots Day took place worldwide! Portland held its own event here at the old Urban Airship garage space. With the garage door wide open and the glorious day gleaming daylight into the garage 50+ hardware and coding beginners, learners, coders and hackers of all backgrounds came together. Breadboards were wired up, code was slung, robots moved and twitched to life.

This all started with a super quick organizing effort by some local JavaScript hackers to join the worldwide Nodebots Day (check the repo for infoz). After a meet, some sponsors jumping to our aid, and some hustle by some great people, the event in Portland came together. The turnout was great!

The bits everybody got...
The bits everybody got…
Bits up close...
Bits up close…

My Own Robot Battle

Oh dear, I was dead zonked when I arrived. It’s been a super long and hard week. I’ve had deadlines to meet, code to write and OSCON to attend, needless to say that leaves basically a few hours each night of the last week to actually recharge. Things were definitely catching up with me…  and I’ll admit I made almost zero progress, however I was super excited to see what many others accomplished!

Panoramic View of Nodebots Day PDX.

There was the quad copter that Carter @CarterRabasa got up and flying with some aerobatic acrobatic flips.

There was an erector set wheeled robot that was primed for deployment. Nothing like combining the quality and build endurance of erector set gear with that of modern machine and robot automation for fun!

Troy going mad scientist on his bot.
Troy going mad scientist on his bot.

Troy @thoward37 was building a walking bot for world domination… which if he didn’t finish it after my departure I’m looking forward to see it walking and doing full auto-deploy in the near future.

Serial Port for a head!
Serial Port for a head!
Wires, Connections, Devices & More...
Wires, Connections, Devices & More…

There was musical linkages being made to device and computer alike. With code combining to form knew methods of interaction between device, human and music.

Along with these bots there was much progress among breadboards laced with ideas and blinking LEDs amidst us all. I do believe everybody had a blast and learned a lot.

Erector Robot
Erector Robot
Edit Post ‹ Composite Code — WordPress
Working together… creating the robot society!
Codez! Arduino! Wires! Brains!
Codez! Arduino! Wires! Brains!

Johnny 5 and I say “THANKS AND HIGH FIVES!!!”

A huge thanks to so many, I might have missed a few people, apologies (and let me know, I’ll add you to the list of thanks!!)  —  and also, thanks to EVERYBODY who came out and worked and learned about robots!

Also if anybody has any questions about robots, javascript, node.js, robots in Portland, Portland Bridges or the event or about coming to Portland to hack, code, beer, food or just move here. Let me know and I’ll be more than happy to hook you up with appropriate resources!  Peace!

  • @HackyGoLucky – Cuz yeah, you kicked some ass and herded all us cats together for this! Thanks Tracy!
  • @nexxylove – Thanks for the code repo o’ lights! I’m sure you enjoyed San Francisco, we missed you in Portland! We’ll hack when you’re back!
  • @BlaineBublitz – Welcome to Portland again, thanks for traveling into town! I’ll ping you next I’m in Phoenix and we’ll hack the light rail. 😉
  • @s5fs – Yo, ok, you just front loaded my cortex full of ideas on that last brunch convo. Thanks for helping, being kick ass, and coming out to Nodebots day!
  • @nickniemeir – Thanks for coming up to Nodebots day PDX!
  • @thoward37 – What did you do again? You keep showing up everywhere… are you a robot?
  • @CarterRabasa – Thanks for coming down to the Stumptown from the Emerald City.
  • @_jden – Yo, Palo Alto to bridge city (another PDX nick name)… welcome back to PDX and to the future with our Robot Overlords!

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