Interested in my services?

Contact me at remy@remygiard.com

Officially a freelancer

February 2, 2011 – 22:59

It’s been a while that I wrote on this blog. So I decided I could give some news.

Since last December, I officially started to work on my own as a freelancer. I found my first contract, 7 months ending in June if it is not renewed. I am working for a Montreal agency called Planaxis, the client is Trilliant Networks in Granby. The technical environment and the product that I work on are really interesting. For me, it is a comeback in Java after a 2 years break. I though that I might be a little rusty at the beginning, but it came back pretty fast. For now, I am getting experience with Java technologies like Spring and Maven, which I never used before. I think it is a good choice to keep a foot in Java as it is my principal experience. I admit that I like the structure and the language of Java.

That said, Java is good, but who knows me is aware that I have an extended profile and I love learning and working with many technologies. In fact, I need to understand and master everything that a web developer might happen to work with. Since I discovered Python / Django and Ruby / Rails years ago, I have adopted the philosophy of those frameworks. I think it is the way to go to build web sites. They offer a good language, lots of utilities and libraries, a complete framework, actives communities and fast development.

You might be asking yourself “what he is trying to say?” … well, eventually, I’d really like to find some work in Ruby. Lately, I’ve worked with Rails, version 3 and the e-commerce solution called Spree. Since Spree is based on Rails 3, I enjoy working with it. It’s really fun to work with this kind of complete and structured framework.

Finally, It would be great to work in Ruby or Python, but the language is not the only aspect. For me, the most important is being challenged within my mandates and also having fun. And this, can be obtained whatever the language. Let’s see what will happen in the next months …

By Rémy | Posted in Django, Ruby on Rails, Software development | Comments (4)

Getting Google Skecthup 7 working under Ubuntu 9.10 64 bits

March 14, 2010 – 19:31

You might be interested to get Google Sketch up under Ubuntu.  I am using Ubunu 9.10 64 bits and Wine Here is the steps using Wine 1.0.1 :

  • cd ~/.wine/drive_c/windows
  • wine regedit.exe
  • Change the key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\SketchUp6\GLConf ig\Display\HW_OK” to 1
  • Change the key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Sketchup7\SnappyInstructor\Show” to 0

It is now working !

By Rémy | Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

Drupal Camp Montreal 2009

October 19, 2009 – 12:19

Saturday, I’ve been at the Drupal Camp Montreal.  It was my first presence is that kind of event and it was nice.  Lots of geeks, nice meetings and interesting presentations.   I have attended to “Tips & Tricks for Building a Multilingual Website with Drupal” presented by Suzanne Kennedy.

The localization client is my first discovery.  It is Drupal module that adds a bar, displayed at the bottom, and helps you translate the terms of the current page.  It performs the updates using AJAX.  I have not tried it yet, but there is a screencast here.  It looks a lot better then the default Drupal translation page.

Suzanne quickly talked about few planned improvements to Drupal core’s multilingual support.  I was happy to hear the removal of the duplication of translated nodes.  Instead, new tables will keep the translations of the variables, strings and fields.  It is quite similar to “Globalize2“, a plugin we can use with Rails. Having worked with many different CMS, I’ve just realized how Drupal is superior to any others I know for building multilingual sites, even before the refactoring planned for version 7.  With Drupal, it is easy and efficient to translate static content but also dynamic content.

I really appreciated my time at the camp.  And more, I got the t-shirt! :)   Congratulations to the organizers!

By Rémy | Posted in Drupal | Comments (0)

Next race: 10k at the Marathon de Montréal

July 21, 2009 – 23:10

Yes !  I’m back at running.  I’ve started to train last week.  I made my fourth run tonight with Martin.  It was his first run with a partner and I am trying to convince him to run a 10km during the Marathon Oasis de Montréal with me.  But still, my utlimate goal is a 21km planned on October 4th.

So my objectives are:

10km, Marathon Oasis de Montreal : 55 mins
21km, Demi-marathon de Granby : 2 hours

By Rémy | Posted in Running | Comments (4)

Cygwin sharing Vim configuration with Windows

February 18, 2009 – 11:28

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 !

By Rémy | Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

Training started for Ottawa marathon

February 12, 2009 – 17:08

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.

By Rémy | Posted in Workout | Comments (0)

Sent using WordPress for iPhone

February 4, 2009 – 0:06

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

By Rémy | Posted in iPhone / iPod | Comments (0)

Still not using XHTML / CSS web standards ?

January 27, 2009 – 17:42

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

By Rémy | Posted in XHTML / CSS | Comments (0)

Getting ready for my first Half-Marathon

January 14, 2009 – 17:27

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

By Rémy | Posted in Workout | Comments (0)

Satchmo e-commerce platform

January 12, 2009 – 16:50

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/

By Rémy | Posted in Django | Comments (0)