My name is Alan, but you can call me Al. This is my alcove on the Web. Like many people, I fully intend to add more content, but we all know how life really goes.

By day I'm a web & database software developer and at night I transform in to a do-it-yourself addict. I've remodeled my house, recorded music, worked on my motorcycle, and brewed my own beer.

I like the outdoors, but the city is fine too.

And I like coffee.

Latest Blog Posts

Etikette & Web UI

February 16, 2010

I've been a web developer for a long time. My work progressed from user interface, to the server-side scripting, to databases. As my work became more specialized, however, my web UI skills emaciated. Recently I had the opportunity to give them a workout when I implemented the new design for Etikette.

Visualizing Triathlon Performance

September 25, 2009

I ran my first triathlon about a month ago. I'm not sure what a normal approach might be for other people doing the same but, being the data geek I am, I ended up with handwritten calendar-based training plans and grids of statistics that my bike computer spat out. I even started the whole mess with running a basic regression analysis on triathlon times I found on the web. That was enough to start training but surely there's more of a story to be told.

Screen-Scraping and RSS Feeds

April 29, 2009

Much of what I read on a regular basis comes to me via RSS feeds. Sure, theyre not for everybody but Im hooked. The downside of this is the rare site I'd like to follow but doesnt provide a feed. Whats a geek to do but write some code to generate a feed?