Ryan Robitaille

Sometimes you get stuck in a rut, hey, we all do – but how you deal with it is what separates us from common wildebeests. Most people? They do nothing – they are totally fine with having an unfulfilled albeit mostly “comfortable” existence. Sounds crazy? Nope. Its the middle-class American way. Follow the rules, color […]

One from the “Random-Shit-Pulled-Out-of-the-Junk-Drawer” Department… as I sit here and watch my beloved Red Sox cement their way OUT of playoffs… {sigh} Here’s a little function I use when building sexy little graphs in my PHP Reporting / Web Interfaces. Its good to calculate a MAX value for the graph axis. Since we never know […]

I’m sorry – but who the fuck cares that you can recite X, Y, and Z off the top of your head. Is its relevant and useful? Generally, no. Are you helping the situation, project or issue? No. There is a word for out-of-context over-information like that… Banal Minutiae. Google search makes glorified know-it-alls obsolete. […]

Anyone who has ever dealt with the mortgage software package “Encompass” from Ellie Mae – from any kind of support / IT standpoint knows the pain. It just… well, doesn’t behave as you would assume. Seemingly simple things (from an integration / workflow standpoint) just don’t play nice, help in the web forums is laughable, […]

Now any Python duct-taper integrate-anything junkie like me has a need to schedule their things (in production) every once in awhile. Usually this is not a problem – Unix / Linux cron jobs handle this nicely – but for a client or job that runs on a Windows server – the built-in “Scheduled Tasks” just […]

Business Intelligence. I hate the term as an IT buzzword. So sick of hearing Business Intelligence-this, Business Intelligence-that, Business Intelligence-expert-my-ass. But, hate it or not “Business Intelligence” shiz isn’t going anywhere – in fact, its been here in one way, shape, or form since the first caveman traded a sharp rock for some unsanctioned cave-nookie.

Smile at people. Oh, that’s right – I just dropped a feel-good knowledge bomb on you of EPIC proportions. I guarantee that if you look people in the eyes and smile at them – regardless if its a cashier, toll booth worker, random ass-pony on the street, cute girls (or dudes) at a bar, or […]

TrueBlood. Killer show. Let’s face it. It really is a weird-ass perfect storm of timing, promotion, and just straight up quality storytelling. Don’t even dare to compare it with those Justin-Beiber-esque-Saved-by-the-Bell-type-Vampire-Twilight-Movies that are currently sweeping the minds and loins of young teens these days. They are an inferior product – vamprires (fictional or not) do […]

If you’re like me (exactly maybe, as scary as that might be) and have a Motorola Droid, and use Clicky for awesome and simple web analytics – you’ll want this. Its only 1 dollar – which is the same as a double cheeseburger at McDonalds (if you local vendors participate – since we all know […]