nathan jara

Ten years ago today, President George W. Bush described the attacks that shook our nation: “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.”

Ten years ago today, I remember exactly where I was when the news spread.

Ten years ago today, the lives of thousands were changed forever.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt described December 7th, 1941 as “a date which will live in infamy.” I think many would agree that September 11th, 2001 is the “Pearl Harbor” of our generation. I’ll never forget walking through the high school halls to a morning class during my sophomore year and hearing fellow students yelling “They’re attacking us!” Confused and not sure what to think, I remember sitting down in that next class where my teacher had on the news. Every channel was a new channel that day. I don’t remember really believing what I was watching at the time. It seemed surreal. Seeing those planes fly directly into the sides of the Twin Towers. This has got to be a movie. It wasn’t.

Hearing the news of the crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania was just as jarring. Knowing that an attack came so close to my home was horrifying. Since that day, I’ve had the opportunity to visit the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville and Ground Zero in New York City. This experience provided a connection to those who lost their lives in a way that you can’t get by reading an article or watching a television special. Standing in those places remind you truly what happened that day.

The events of September 11th, 2001 changed the course of many things. It changed the lives of New Yorkers. It changed the lives of those living the Capital. It changed the lives of Pennsylvanians. It changed the lives of Americans. American flags began waving in more places than I’d ever seen before. Waving on front porches, cars, office buildings, stores, trucks and buses, shirts, pants and hats. American pride was never higher. The outpouring of giving and care for others was amazing.

This past week provided many opportunites to reflect on 9/11. Radio programs, television specials, articles, songs and books commemorated the events of the past. It is a good thing. We need to remember. We need to tell the stories. We need to visit the memorials. We need to rekindle that American pride. We need to not forget that day, ten years ago today.

For all those goofball…I mean web developers out there, we’ve all had that notorious inner conflict; you know, the oh my goodness, there’s so many, which code editor do I use conflict. I recently was suffering from said struggle, so for about a week or two, I tried a handful of new fancy schmancy code editors for the Mac to see if I could find a new favorite. For a while I’ve been using Panic’s Coda, but some have told me “Coda?! Textmate’s so much better.” Or, “Aptana’s where it’s at.” And even, “Notepad++ on Windows through Parallels baby!” So, after all the struggle here’s my opinion on a few to hopefully help ease any confusion you may be going through.

If I used a PC, Notepad++ would be my editor, hands down. First, it’s free. Second, it’s really solid. It’s a simple and effective editor that doesn’t get in the way of itself. The program offers great customization with many built-in preference options, default syntax modes for many languages, and a great plugin library to add features that don’t come out of the box. One of my favorites is the project explorer so you can get an explorer view of your code directories. Notepad++ has super syntax highlighting and an awesome search component. There’s a good online community of users too. If you’re looking for an all-in-one program with FTP features though, you won’t find it in Notepad++; it’s an editor only. My only other gripe is that I need Windows to run it. While running Windows with Parallels on my Mac isn’t difficult, I just really don’t want to run Windows unless I’m testing IE :P So, no Notepad++ for me, but it may be for you. If so you can get it here.

MacRabbit’s Espresso is the NKOTB for the editors I tried. For starters, it’s pretty. The guys and gals at MacRabbit definitely took design into consideration on this one. Great looking icons and smooth movements throughout the app make it fun. Espresso takes some different approaches to the traditional code editing setup, however. This area is where things got too different for me. You have to set up separate Espresso projects for all your workspaces. I’ve never been a big fan of setting up projects with editors and it also automatically adds Espresso project files to your workspace directories, which to me, is annoying. Once you get your project setup, the workflow in the app takes a different approach too. Espresso has its own feature which it calls the ‘workspace’ to organize the files you’re currently working on. The workspace basically functions like your tabbed files would across the top but it’s tucked at the top of the sidebar where the explorer area lives instead. I found this to be the biggest hurdle. The flow just didn’t work for me; I just like my current files in tabs along the top. The interactions with this workspace area and the explorer seemed unintuitive also. Espresso does boast an integrated FTP feature to upload files along with the ability to extend via plugins which are called sugars. (giggle giggle :) Only problem is, there aren’t too many that are available yet just because Espresso is so new. I wasn’t able to find a JSP syntax mode when I was using the program. Espresso isn’t free. It costs $79.95. You can use it for free for a while with the trial version, available here. If you’re feeling adventurous and are willing to learn to create a sweet sugar, then go for it, otherwise I’d hold off on a cup of esspresso for a while until it heats up some more.

Of the editors I tested, Macromate’s TextMate is the grandpa of the group. It’s the most seasoned of the Mac editors that I know. The app does a great job of being what it should be, a text editor. Solid syntax modes for many languages out of the box and one of the best search features I’ve used, Textmate does just about everything you could ask for in an editor. There’s a very large online community for support and a host of plugins for just about anything. My only problem with TextMate is that it is just an editor. You’re going to need an additional program for FTP or Terminal work, but if editing’s all you want, TextMate is great. Free trial for 30 days or buy it for about $55.

Next is Panic’s Coda and my choice editor for Mac. Coda features a solid code editor, good collection of out of the box syntax modes, integrated FTP client, integrated Terminal, a GUI CSS editor, site preview feature and a reference book area for development help. And it looks nice too! The editor component of Coda comes with good syntax highlighting along with your standard preferences and theme customization. The app has an explorer sidebar for navigating to all your files along with an “Open Quickly” feature which acts like OSX’s spotlight component to open a specific file. One of the coolest features of Coda is the integrated Terminal and FTP client. With these features together you can connect to your server and have not only the explorer bar become a remote window to your server for the FTPing of files but also have a terminal window open to run commands via SSH on that same server, all within the same Coda window. My only complaint about Coda is the search/find and replace component. While the component is fast, it isn’t the most powerful in the fact that it doesn’t give you many options to customize how the find works. RegEx searches are available of course, but you can’t restrict certain folders globally, for example. Despite this setback, I think Coda is the best of the editors I reviewed and I’m willing to wait out future releases for hopefully an improvement to search. Panic has a free 14-day trial or you can purchase for $99.

Happy editing.

It sounds a little silly, because who isn’t, but I’ve always been fascinated with people. In particular, the way people think. And to be particularly particular, the way two people can arrive at the exact same idea in two completely different ways.

While I didn’t pursue it any further than taking two or three classes in college, one of my favorite ventures outside of my 1′s and 0′s and getting covered in paint in the art studio was sociology. The study of people is how I like to describe it. Understanding how and why people react and behave the way they do based on their social influences. Understanding why one person believes something and another person believes something completely different, all because the first person had this experience or the second person had that experience. You can look at how a person grew up and where he or she grew up and have a pretty good idea about what type of person he or she can become. Obviously there’s a little more to it than that, but these simple things can shape personalities in a big way. These simple things can shape the way he or she sees the world.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and you know you’re talking about the same thing but you can’t get the other person to understand? Sometimes you just can’t get the process to compute in your brain or their brain. But at the same time, you know you’re both on the same page. I had that experience tonight. It’s so interesting. It can be very frustrating at the time, but you can learn so much from understanding a different perspective. I think it’s fascinating to think about where the other person is coming from and why they thought about it that way and you thought about it your way.

So I’m not sure if I’m making any sense, because you may not get where I’m coming from, but I bet we’re getting to the same idea anyway, just differently.

A conversation at work today jostled my thoughts about something I came across this past summer called the All Things Digital Conference. The conference is an annual event that began in 2003 and is organized by the Wall Street Journal. The event invites influential individuals of the technical world to discuss what it is they are doing, why they are doing it and listen to their opinions on hot topics in the digital arena. One interview in particular that sparked my interest was the conversation with Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs. As an avid Macintosh user and one who really appreciates Apple products, I was intrigued to hear what Mr. Jobs had to share. However, one of Steve’s points got me thinking and honestly found me disagreeing with his opinion. He was discussing the iPad and the special programs that have been developed for it as interactive magazine or newspaper applications. He stated, at about the halfway point of this ATD article, that he does not “want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers.” I found this point to be critical of those who blog, such as myself. While I understand his point that we continue to need the talents of professional writers and news agencies to take in accurate information, I found this point to be somewhat belittling of individuals who choose to express themselves creatively through the many types of writing online. Granted, there certainly are many people who may not have the impressive expressive skills of a New York Times journalist and probably shouldn’t be writing anything at all, but the Internet, being the Internet, gives everyone equal opportunity to be creative. The fact that I’ve decided to blog has never, is not, and will never prevent The Wall Street Journal or Wired magazine from producing professionally written articles. What is the harm then in giving the everyday Joe a chance to express himself? What do you think?

Several months ago, I posted about a documentary I watched called FOOD, Inc. If you saw the post, I’m sure you realized the impact the film had on me and the light it shed on the status of the ways our food is prepared here in the good old U.S. of A. If you’ve seen the documentary, I think you’d agree that it’s no surprise to hear of the many health problems that plague our nation, especially in our youth. One organization connected with the film is Slow Food USA. This organization is overseeing a program to better the lunch programs in school cafeterias across the country in order to provide fresher and healthier food for kids. If you’re interested in helping out the cause, you can contact your representative through their website or just get some more info. They provide a simple form for you to send an email and also provide a pre-written message in case you’re not sure what to say. Check it out and take part!