If you are stuck on a Windows machine and miss the Unix style, you probably have cygwin installed already. In my case, I also had Vim installed on Windows plus some configurations and plugins.  Well, if you want to use the text editor inside cygwin, you won’t have the configuration you made under Windows.

In fact, Windows is not using the default vim file names.  More, they are not located in your home folder.  Simple trick, under cygwin, you can create links to vimrc and vim folder.

Under cygwin, link to _vimrc and vimfiles folder:
cd ~
ln -s “d:/program files/vim/_vimrc” .vimrc
ln -s “d:/program files/vim/vimfiles” .vim
dos2unix .vimrc

replace “d:/program files/vim” with your Vim installation folder

Finally, start vim under cygwin and enjoy !

Since my commitment to run my first half-marathon, I am really motivated to achieve this first time race.  I’ll will publish here some post about my training advancement.  It will serve as a “journal de bord” …

I started to train my legs and my cardio.  Last year, I got injured  before the Montreal marathon, it won’t happen again this year.  For my legs, I decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator.  So, every lunch time, I walk down 20 levels and 20 levels to come back.  There is around 30 stairs per level, so it’s 1200 (30 x 20 x 2)  stairs every week day.  For my cardio, I started some spinning at home.  I got a bike roller from a friend so I could use my new DeVinci Silverstone SL3.  I do it while watching the Montreal Canadiens games.  The team is playing so badly that my frustration helps me to keep a good rythm.  Thanks guys …

Both of those training where tough at beginning.  But now, I feel that I can start running.  Still, I will start slowly.  So the first runs will be 3.2 km, at least for the first week.  I’m so glad to re-start running.

I just installed the latest Wordpress application for iPhone.  It could be useful for writing a post while I am in the bus. But, it takes some time to write a post using only one finger. Still, I like it.

Wordpress for iPhone / iPod

Last week, I presented my thoughts about XHTML / CSS.  My goal was to discuss about how I think we should build a web site, the structure, the appearance.  In fact, I have concerns about how developers are using HTML, inline styles and javascript.  So many developers don’t know about XHTML, javascript frameworks or even CSS … and they don’t want to.  But they should !  They should try to maintain or refact their work.

I think XHTML should be applied on EVERY pages.  The HTML there should represent the data only.   The appearance should be done with CSS.  For me, the use of reset.css is mandatory.  A CSS framework like Blueprintcss could be a lot useful.  For event behavior, Ajax or anything non-HTML, jQuery does an excellent job.

Finally, sure it is not easy to follow this method at 100%. Perfect separation between the HTML and the CSS could be a pain at first.  But at least, if someone has to maintain your work, you follow a standard that someone can understand.

My slides (in french) are available on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/rgiard/xhtml-css-janvier-2009-presentation

This is decided, I am starting my training for Ottawa’s 21k happening on May 24th.  So, this is my official commitment for the race.  I will be logging my workouts on mapmyrun and display them in the sidebar using their Google Gadget.  For now, it displays old workouts, it will soon be replaced with my new ones

My Runner’s world training

Ottawa Race Weekend

It has been a while since I tried to find an e-commerce platform which seems to be a real development platform, not only a tool to be configured with incomprehensible settings.  Satchmo seems to be what I am looking for and will be the next platform I’ll use for a web store.  It is built with Django, so it has all the benefits of this framework and new functionnality coming with Satchmo.  Now, the trial step, more to come …

http://www.satchmoproject.com/
http://gosatchmo.com/starting-a-new-store-real-world-project-layout
http://djangositeoftheweek.com/oohgabooga/

After a long wait, Django 1.0 is planned to be released September 2nd. As some of you knows the philosophy behind Django version management, a version 1.0 does not mean a first incomplete version. In fact, a lot of work has been done since few years.  The guys behind the framework decided that a version 1.0 release represents a mature and stable framework. I am very happy of that news and am anxious to start playing with Django 1.0 !

More information

Recently, I’ve been reading and discovering many technologies, but I stayed at the observation level. Having more spare time since few days, I decided to crunch into those technologies by reading the APIs, blogs, forums, reviews and listening to podcasts. Now, it\’s time to start test projects for this new stuff.

First, in the open source world, my next targets are jQuery, blueprintcss, Drupal 6, JRuby and Git.

Well known in the Ajax world, jQuery seems to be very light, easy and efficient to find, create and update DOM element. More, it now has UI controls. For blueprintcss, it seems an excellent platform to build a multi-browser compatible site without having to use CSS hacks for this and that. A plus, I know two CSS gurus, Eric Meyer and Jeff Croft, have been working on this framework. In the PHP world, Drupal 6 seems to be the platform I was expected from the beginning. Having work in Drupal 4.7, I was disappointed for the number of bugs and difficulties to have a clear cut between the UI and the code. Since the upgrade to version 6, the installation process is easier and multi-language templates are more easy to create and maintain. Compared to Joomla, Drupal is really a completely CSS themable product.

Next, being a Java and an open source guy, I still worked on ASP.Net projects since a year. I have to admit that the Microsoft world interest me more than never. In fact, it’s not ASP.Net which interest me, but the new products that are coming soon. I am talking about the MVC framework, Entities Framework and Silverlight. I have not read or seen code for now, my sources being co-workers and the podcast from http://www.visualstudiotalkshow.com/. At first, MVC architecture seems a lot similar to Struts in the Java world. I guess I will feel more comfortable in a MVC architecture than with postbacks, view states, controls tree, etc. I mean, I wish MVC is more like the other MVC web frameworks instead of being completely different with its own philosophy … like ASP.Net is.

On the other side, the Entities framework used in pair with LINQ is a ORM. The product seems to be really well thought and designed. With these new products, it seems feasible to have a complete efficient and testable application architecture with only Microsoft products.

Since I switch all my mail hosting to Google, I started to use Google Docs. I just discovered that using Google Docs, we can write a post and publish it to our blog as easy as two clicks. Just write the post, click “Publish” and then “Post to blog”. I love it !

* Note that I had to use the MetaWeblog API to have a blog title

I’ve just found the following post on Digg : “How to Make the Time for Your Personal Goals“. I am sure many people will recognize themself in that post. Here the proposed “steps” to augment the achievement chances of your personal goals.  In resume, know and understand why you want to achieve the goal and commit completely to it.

• One goal at a time
• Make sure you really want it
• Make it your top priority
• Reduce your commitments
• Keep it simple
• Stay focused
• Block off time
• Make it your most important appointment
• Show that your are serious
• Find your time wasters
• Make it a part of your daily or weekly routine