Silent Rant

[GEEK ALERT: I'm hijacking my old personal blog as a place to drop some info about a web coding contest I entered]

I know you hear this kind of phrase a lot, but if you haven’t checked out Rapportive yet, go do it.

The built-in Raplets are pretty impressive, but the fact that you can build your own is really cool, at least for web hackers like me. The documentation is really straightforward and it’s a pretty flexible platform.

So after a bit of tinkering, I’m ready to share my first Raplet with the world. If you collect email addresses through a Wufoo form, check it out. I’m hoping this will especially be useful to small businesses that use Wufoo as a mini-CRM or for basic sign-up forms that collect a bit of meaningful info.

Here’s a basic rundown. The example I’m showing here is from a Wufoo form we used for my 15-year high school reunion this summer.

1. The first time the Raplet loads, it’ll ask for your Wufoo login info (it only needs your sudomain if you have multiple accounts)
2. Then you choose one of your forms:

   

3. Then select the fields that you want to display and click “Save”

   

4. Rapportive makes a call when you hover over an email address. If we can find a match in your Wufoo form entries, the fields you checked will be displayed.

   

5. In addition, if there are any comments for that entry, it will display the most recent one.
6. If no entry is found for that email, you can click the “New Entry” link, which will open up your form in a new window with the Email field pre-filled:

   

The URL you’ll need to enter on the Rapportive “custom Raplet installation” screen is https://secure.limechile.com/wufoo/raplet.php

One last note about security: all calls are made over a legitimate SSL certificate, and your Wufoo login credentials are never saved on the server.

Enjoy, and please let me know if you encounter any problems. There’s only so much debugging I can do with my own forms and user accounts!

[GEEK ALERT: I'm hijacking my old personal blog as a place to drop some info about a web coding contest I entered]

This one falls under the category of “wrapper.” I’ll keep it short. If you’re not familiar with YQL, go read all about it. But the Wufoo API is fantastic; RESTful, well-documented, and fairly flexible. So why bother going through YQL? A few reasons, all of which have to do with efficiency:

Speedy Server

If you’re making one single simple call to the Wufoo API, it’s going to be tough to beat just hitting it directly. But if you need to make multiple calls, filter, sort, etc. then you can take advantage of Yahoo!’s server farm. YQL let’s you run server-side Javascript. No strings attached. Heck you don’t even need an account. Chances are the PHP running on your discount shared hosting account won’t quite match what Yahoo! has running on their farm.

Caching

YQL implements some decent caching. That means you’ll be less likely to hammer the Wufoo servers for identical calls, and also keep it more likely that you won’t go over your 5000 call limit. That’s good for your users, you, Wufoo, and the internets.

Combine Queries

Whether pulling from two different sources or just running a subselect within the Wufoo API, YQL can do all that combining in the background, and you can just send one single query. For example, in this call we’ll grab the EntryIds of any entries that match “Ryan,” and then use that to fetch the comments.

NOTE: In all of the examples below, click the blue “TEST” button to see them in action in the web console

Wufoo comments based on Entry search

Or maybe you want all the entries and comments for a form. Two separate calls? bleh. Let’s batch that:

Entries and Comments combined

Again, all that parsing and subsequent calling is happening on the YQL servers.

But where it really gets interesting is when we combine totally disparate data sources. Like how about getting the geo coordinates from the IP address of a Wufoo entry? Again, one single call does it all:

Get location based on Wufoo Entry IP address

Yep, true to their word it looks like at least part of the Wufoo team is hanging out down there in sunny Florida.

Filter

The Wufoo API already lets you limit entries by searching for specific values, and also by setting the “page size.” What it doesn’t allow is a way to specify which fields get returned. If you’ve got a form with lots of text in the entries, pulling 50 full entries down is a real drag if you don’t need all those fields. This example won’t be too dramatic given the tiny bit of text and only 4 entries, but you’ll get the idea:

Select only First Name and Date Created

List of tables

• Forms
• Fields
• Entries
• Comments
• Login

These should be pulled from GitHub into the main set of community tables by the YQL team within a few days. In the meantime, you can either put something like this at the beginning of your query: USE http://static.limechile.com/wufoo.entries.xml as wufoo.entries or add &env=http://static.limechile.com/wufoo.env at the end, depending on your style.

Beyond the contest

YQL also allows you to INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE. Someday if the Wufoo API gets more of those added, I’ll probably update these tables.

Editors Note: this post was actually written in Oct. 2009. This week my older brother started a little “political journal” and his first post reminded me a lot of this post. So I’ve added a couple new links and I’m pushing it out there just for fun.

In the last 2 years, I’ve stopped myself many times from posting political rants on this site. Consequently I haven’t posted much at all- apparently I have no other material.

Well I’m giving in just this once. Partly because these rules apply across issues and parties. And partly because I want to look back 5 or 10 years from now and see how my political ideas have changed.

First let me set the context regarding my political leanings. I’m currently non-partisan and mildly progressive.* I’m a strong advocate for Fixing Congress First. I can’t stand cable news pundits on any end of the political spectrum, and will defend NPR to the death as the least-biased source of news.**

And now, here are Jed’s rules for political debate.

1. No “Slippery Slope” Arguments

I’m really tired of this one. Okay, I’m really tired of all these, but this one is frustrating particularly to my progressive self. It’s an attack that’s too easy to make against any change. A small liberal movement swells into a “Tide of Socialism” and a nudge in the conservative direction becomes a catapult that’ll “Return Us to the Nineteenth Century.” Our government is set up such that it’s difficult to make changes quickly,*** and the current party polarization exacerbates this effect. If each side continues to view every proposed change through a telescope that shows only the bottom of the slippery slope, we’ll never make meaningful progress.

2. No Comparisons to Hitler, Nazis, or Commies

It’s been almost 20 years since Godwin’s Law was created as a response to the tendency of internet discussions to go Reductio ad Hitlerum. It’s time for a revival. The last straw on this one was when I tripped across an article a few weeks ago by an otherwise smart and thoughtful author, in which he declared anybody who eats chicken eggs to be just like the Nazis.****

3. No Justifications Based on Similar Actions by the Other Party

Avoiding this one take a lot of restraint. Just tonight I heard an example that I’ve heard several times before: “Republicans are opposed to Obama’s deficit increases, but where have they been for the last 8 years?” Or how about “All these anti-town-hall-protesting Democrats were the same hypocrites that were protesting the Iraq war in much more outspoken ways”. I get it. It’s annoying. It’s frustrating. You want to point it out because of how absurd and obvious it seems. But it’s also completely unproductive. If overspending by the government should be avoided, then let’s push to reduce it rather than justifying it by comparison. If there’s a level of civility required in public debate, let’s uphold that standard everywhere, not just when we want the other side to calm down and listen.

3.b No Justifications Based on Similar Hypothetical Actions by the Other Party

It’s a subtle difference, but one worth noting. “If President Bush would have said something like that…” It’s another easy place for your frustrated mind to wander. But again, it’s totally unproductive. The issue at hand is what it is, and we should address it appropriately, rather than guessing what the “other team” would do if the tables were turned, or projecting something back several years to what a previous President might have done.

4. Give People Room to Change

People grow. Situations change. More information is gathered, or existing information is better understood. When our elected officials seem to flip-flop, I get skeptical; it’s hard to believe somebody who is always changing their mind. A campaign promise that’s blatantly broken within months of election deserves to be called out. However, I don’t agree with reaching back across the decades, digging through obscure interviews to uncover some “gotcha.” I think Ezekial Emanual has some great ideas about healthcare reform.***** I was familiar with his proposed ideas long before Betsy McCaughey began spreading her bizarre interpretations of his previous medical journal publications. Even if they weren’t mis-interpreted or taken out of context (which they were), I care much more about his current suggestions for healthcare reform today. I mean, where were all these people 5 years ago when I pointed out that George W Bush used to be Pro-Choice?******

Footnotes:

* By progressive, I mean the generic definition: “…is a political attitude favoring or advocating changes or reform,” not whatever boogyman Glenn Beck concurs in your mind when he yells about Progressivism. (via Wikipedia, which is always right).

** Unfortunately, listening to facts and unbiased reports doesn’t change our minds.

*** Except when all the congresspeople (other than Ron Paul) panic and approve bazillions of dollars in bailouts in a matter of weeks.

**** link intentionally omitted because it’s too easy to get sucked into the meaningless forum discussion…

***** you’ll probably agree with me. Just listen to him

****** I wish I were a good enough writer, and had enough of a loyal readership, that everybody would catch my intentional irony there. But unfortunately neither is the case, so I have to ruin the effect by pointing it out.

I’m 32 today. Since turning 30 I’ve regained most of that weight, become a bit more cynical, and I’ve picked up my guitar fewer times than I’ve taken business trips. But Friday night I was part of a really special concert, and today I’m feeling less cynical. Tomorrow I’m going to play my guitar.

I’ve mentioned Billy on this site one other time. I’ve been listening to his music for about 6 years now, and revere him as one of the pioneers of the two-handed tapping style of acoustic guitar.

Before I discovered Billy, he was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disorder that made it impossible for him to play his own songs. He dropped off the scene for several years. But now he’s making an incredible comeback:

What I didn’t realize until last week is that Billy is from Minneapolis. By a stroke of Google-based luck, I happened upon a concert Billy was playing at the tiny 318 Cafe in Excelsior, MN. For some reason it wasn’t listed on his site. Chelsey and I already had a sitter lined up that night so we could go celebrate my birthday.

I had high expectations for the evening, and they were exceeded. The place was almost empty before the show, and Chelsey and I took the little table right up front. Billy was joined by mandolinist/violinist Nathan Wilson. When the show started, there were less than 20 people there. I thought Billy would be discouraged or upset, until I heard how sincerely thankful he was to be playing back in his “favorite favorite favorite place, to such a manageable crowd.” You could tell he was really enjoying it.

When they took a break, Billy pulled a chair up to our table. We chatted about music, his condition, Chicago and Utah, his kids and ours. I tried to explain to him what a somewhat-surreal privilege it was to be there. I can tell you that this guy is the real deal; he loves the music, and he loves the connection it gives him to his fans. Being right there, watching him play those songs, and getting to meet him has really sparked my desire to get back to the guitar.

You can follow the links on Billy’s site to download his music, check tour dates, and learn more about focal dystonia.

Given that we’re back in travel mode again, all posts and photos from Chelsey will be via Mexican Radio for the next month or so.

Zoe was a little older when we caught her laughing, but unlike Zoe, Lucy spends a lot of time crying. So we scrambled to capture this while it lasted…

8 years ago I devoted the vast majority of my web surfing time (which was quite a bit) to educating myself on finances, particularly long-term stuff like IRAs. Many thanks to good ol’ Motley Fool.

I was a very early user of a little startup called Upromise. I got really into it for a while. Then the full force of grad school expenses hit us, and I never really got back to it. When I first signed up, I had doubts that the company would really make it.

My interest (okay, obsession) with tax-advantaged long-term investing has really heated back up as of late. Sure, some of it is due to the economy, but not as much as you might think. Rather, we’re just now getting back to a position where it’s more feasible for us to actually save some decent cash. I know I know, there’s never an excuse not to save. Cut us a little slack.

Anyway, after setting up some 529 college savings plans for the girls the other day*, I remembered Upromise. I guessed (correctly) at my old username and password. You can imagine my pleasant surprise when my account popped up as if I logged in yesterday, when in fact it’s been 6 years! And my $13 is still sitting there.

It’s at this point that the reality of drops in a bucket starts to hit me. 1-3% bonus on a few select items and stores here and there just hardly seems worth the trouble. But as I scanned the list of eligible stores, I thought of the hundreds (okay thousands) of dollars we’ve given those retailers over the past 6 years. eBay. Best Buy. Target.com. JC Penny. Bed Bath & Beyond. Travelocity. Hotwire. Expedia. Apple (okay fine, it’s more like tens of thousands).

And then my subconscious reminded me of all those blue U stickers I see at the grocery store that I’ve been visually tuning out.

Well, no sense in lamenting the missed opportunity. With a good 16 years before our oldest heads out for higher education, there’s still plenty of time to let those drops accumulate!

*p.s. if you’re interested in busting open a 529 for your kids or anybody in your extended family, drop me a line and I’ll send you a referral code that gives you a $25 bonus for opening the account. Unlike many investing accounts, most 529s have no setup fees, very low minimums (like $25) and very low investment costs. Best of all, you can set one up online with no paperwork. Woohoo!

I love it when babies are first learning to hold up their heads. There’s this constant over-compensation in the quest for equilibrium.

There are only a few things that are awesome about ridiculously cold weather. Sun Dogs tops the list, in my opinion. While on my way home from my morning work shift (4-8 am) I spotted some the likes of which I haven’t seen since my first month in Winnipeg Canada- 12 years ago. I didn’t get a photo, but it looked pretty close to this:

Today is my birthday. Events from this weekend (a traumatic visit to the ER, Zoe, Jed and Lucy all having the stomach flu, no sleep, etc) had me coming into it with low expectations. This morning we decided to go out for breakfast. After we finished our meal and asked for our check the waiter said our meal had already been paid for. We sat there a little confused and told the waiter there must be a misunderstanding. The waiter then explained to us that people from another table had paid for our meal, and he gave us this:

Wow! If that doesn’t put you in the holiday spirit, what does? Feeling inspired, we picked someone else in the restaurant and paid for their meal. I wonder if they were inspired and paid for someone else’s meal, too!

The whole experience made my day!

My hope for this holiday season – that everyone who reads this post does an anonymous act of kindness for someone else this month. Pay for someone else’s meal next time you are at a restaurant, the drive-through, or even Starbucks. Or do something else that will lift someone else’s spirits! Please leave a comment about your experience and, hopefully, in a few weeks this post will have a bunch of great stories of  spreading Christmas cheer!

Like everyone, Thanksgiving reminds me of the millions of things I am grateful for, big and small. This year I’m especially thankful for my little family. I love my babies!

And who doesn’t love fabulous dessert?

We spent Thanksgiving day in MN with some friends and their family. We were too busy eating and hanging out to stop and take pictures, but we had a great time and SO much food! Especially dessert (all homemade): apple pie, cherry pie, pumpkin pie, banana cream pie, creme brulee, eggnog, chocolate bunt cake, chocolate covered nuts and marshmallows, cookies and (not homemade) ice cream! Whew! That’s a lot of suga!

Pictures for this week…Zoe and her “babies” (Lion, Sheep, Dino, Charcoal and Striped Kitty) without whom she rarely voluntarily goes anywhere and is very, very grateful for…

Lucy proudly showed off her new cheeks.

I’m constantly in awe by everyone else’s fantastic blogs. Especially all of my friends who have beautiful blogs and more children than I do. For some reason, I can’t manage the two. I have a ton of other things I have to do, and honestly, so many other things I’d rather do. And since everyone decides to email me about every post (which I do appreciate) instead of post comments, I end up emailing updates to people instead of blogging. So I’m going to simplify my life (or use that as a front). Instead of being bummed about how lame my blog is, I’m going to admit it and embrace it by just posting pictures weekly. Here are a some from this week (and Halloween:)…

Now that you’ve decided which presidential candidate to vote for, give yourself a 2-minute break from watching/listening to the pundits and make your voice heard to the FCC about another important Nov. 4 vote. The same folks that tried to stop everything from cable TV to TiVO are attempting to block the use of “white space” slots which open up all kinds of possibilities for advancing broadband in this country. More via Google’s Blog.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about my late (paternal) grandpa Earl. Maybe it was my sister-in-law’s recent post about her grandpas.

Like most people that live long full lives, Earl had plenty of wisdom and experience. Here are 3 gems that come to mind:

On Business:

When two people are business partners or own something together (i.e. farm equipment), and one person wants out, here’s what you do: The person that wants out proposes a price. The other person decides whether they want to buy or sell. This pretty much ensures that the proposed price will be fair.

On Life:

Experience is the best teacher, but it’s also the hardest; it gives the test first, and the lesson after.

On Politics:

When election season came around, Earl’s voting strategy was simple: go in and vote against every one of those damned incumbents.

Yes, it’s been four weeks since she was born – I’ve resurfaced and feel human again.

Let me start by saying that she’s beautiful!!! I was completely unprepared for the rush of emotions and the familiar ache that comes when a new helpless little person enters your heart and your life. I remember feeling overwhelmed by it when I had Zoe, and it was just as powerful this time. Having a baby is so incredible. Lucy and Zoe are absolutely worth everything I endured to get them here. But I’m so glad they are already here!

Lucy’s birth stats:

September 16, 2008 at 7:54 pm
5 lbs 13 oz, 19 inches

She’s so tiny, but she’s healthy! I feel so much better about having to boot her out three weeks early. In fact, she’s healthier than Zoe was. She only had one hiccup with breathing and that was when she choked on some amniotic fluid still stuck in her tummy the day after she was born. She turned blue and then purple, and scared me to death! The nurse helped us get her breathing again. I cried the rest of the night, but she was fine. We also had to take her to ER a few Saturdays ago to double check her bilirubin level, but it came back fine. As of last Monday she passed up her birth weight and was a whopping 6 lbs and 3 oz. In just the last week we’ve noticed her little skin rolls are filling out – she’s going to be chubby in no time! I love plump babies!

(During her first bath in the nursery at the hospital.)

Thank you for all of the emails, texts, phone calls and packages that still keep arriving in the mail. It means a lot to all of us to have so many great friends and family thinking of us. A big thank you to everyone who has prayed and fasted for us over the last 8 months. Babies are miracles, and me actually getting mine here is a miracle, too. I’m certain I’ve met my miracle quota.

Zoe and Lucy’s first meeting was a bit uneventful until after they both took their naps. Jed posted some video footage of it on Flickr and a follow-up to it on his blog.

…

For anyone who’s interested, here is my L&D story. I typed it up so that I could remember it, but thought I’d include it anyway….

Needless to say, the amnio results were positive and I was induced the next day! I had an epidural during my labor with Zoe and it was so strong that I sat around reading magazines while Jed ate sushi until it was time to push. This time it was completely different.

It took a nurse, a nurse anaesthetician and then the anaesthesiologist to get the IV started (which would make my homecare nurses feel better about their failed attempts). It actually wasn’t that bad because they gave me me a shot of litocaine before each stick so when the veins blew it wasn’t very painful, just ugly. Although it was a lot of shots. I was already having big contractions a few minutes apart when I got to the hospital and the pitocin made them more intense, so it got really painful pretty fast. Unfortunately, I had to wait forever during contractions that were peaking on the machine and two minutes apart to get my epidural because the anaesthesiologist was tied up in some insanely long c-section. Big thanks to the dead fly in the light on ceiling of the L&D room that helped me keep my focus during the contractions. It stopped me from screaming like a lunatic. I now understand why laboring women get loud.

After I got my epidural (I may have actually told the anaesthesiologist that I love him), I felt great until I got dizzy and started throwing up. I guess my heart rate went down and I wasn’t breathing very well so they stopped the epidural and gave me one of those fun little nose breathing tubes. That helped with the dizziness and nausea a little, but not with the pain. Finally they let me dispense little doses of the epidural to myself. It worked off and on through the rest of labor until I didn’t give myself any and went into transition. Big, big whoops. The pain was insane. I cannot even describe it. But after pounding on the epidural button for 35 minutes it kicked in just as my doctor showed up and I started to push. I felt the delivery, just not that much pain. And I actually liked it better than my delivery with Zoe because I felt the contractions and knew when to push, and I could walk right afterward. When I had Zoe, I couldn’t walk unassisted for a day.

I left the hospital feeling great less than 48 hours after I had her. The recovery has taken a few weeks, unlike the three months it took last time. Wooohoo!

Needless to say this went much better than the first attempt. Note the advice that Zoe offers regarding having more babies.

Just over a year ago I wrote the following:

I don’t know where we’ll be living a year from now. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing for work. I dont know if my grandma will still be with us. I don’t know if my parents will be somewhere in Mongolia or Venezuela or North Dakota serving a mission. I don’t know if we’ll be expecting another child.

Grandma passed away, and I think I’ve covered the rest!

I know I know- everybody had a crazy busy summer. But go with me here for a minute.

This past spring we moved out of state (again). The burbs continue to treat us well. But moving is still moving, and it’s a huge time suck no matter how or when you do it.

Then we spent a month in Utah- a trip that was extended a bit my fathers serious motorcycle accident. And I decided to have a hernia repair surgery while we were out there. That was fun.

Oh, and did I mention my wife had another debilitating pregnancy? Thank goodness that’s finally over. A friend asked me today if having the 2nd kid was easier than the first. I told him that for now it feels like it, because now there are 2 people to take care of 4, instead of 1 of us taking care of 3

In case you didn’t get included in my mass email, here is the first round of photos, and a funny little video of Zoe’s first crack at being a big sister.

(Zoe says “It’s a baby. Please take her. TAKE HER! TAKE HER!)

Oh, and for all the ladies out there that care about this kind of thing:

Lucy Rose Wood
Sept. 16, 7:54 pm
5 lbs 13 oz
19 inches