Web Hosting

There is the area where I tend to have the least amount of luck. That being said I have had some success with these guys:

• Host Gator – I haven’t been with them long enough to say for sure, but they have had the best reliability and features with services I’ve used so far. They’re relatively inexpensive too!
• Linode – Really fast, really flexible, really cheap…. I’m in love! Well not really, but Linode is an awesome VPS hosting solution. I have had zero complaints so far.

Web Platform Frameworks

• WordPress – WordPress is by far my favorite platform for blog-centered websites, primarily because it is packed with feature and development is hoppin’. I haven’t delved far into customizing it or theming it, but the little I’ve done has been promising.
• CakePHP – For custom web applications, or anything beyond a static site, CakePHP is the easiest, fastest, and cleanest way to get something from paper to prototype quickly. I’m currently on a major project using CakePHP and I love how quickly I can make changes to the design and database appear in the product. I haven’t seen how the framework stands the test of a production site yet, but for development, CakePHP is king.

Libraries/Tools

• JQuery – This award winning javascript libraries is probably the item on this list I’ve used the longest. I first began using javascript libraries a couple of years ago with mootools. While mootools was great, I quickly found the power and flexibility of JQuery to far more appealing, and I’ve used it ever since.

There are a few other libraries I’m currently toying with, and there are still plenty of gaps in my tool-chain to be filled. These are the basics of my web development though. Enjoy!

Work at Jobscope is always a huge part of the day, and today was particularly busy. The project I’m working on is beginning to wrap up. So now I’m in the process of getting all of the infrastructure in place to release it to the world. This mostly involves sending emails to lots of other people, waiting for replies, training others on how to use the software, etc.. Fun stuff! I will then probably spend most of next week working on another project before I head off for the summer. There are no fewer than 4 other web projects that I have to work on on the side. Realistically, probably none of them will even get started before I start my stretch of summer that I’ve been preparing so hard for, but there are one or two I would like to at least make some progress on before leaving. We’ll see how it goes.

I got a call from a girl in Russia today that made me smile. Though, it also kicked my brain into gear about preparing more for Ethiopia. I ended up making what will probably be my largest Wal-Mart run for the trip. At least I hope so, because the stuff I seem to need has a very high price density. Meaning I walk away with only a little bit of stuff and and lot out of my bank account. God had been very gracious, though, in continuing to provide support.

Tonight, I began gathering bags for Ethiopia and even began to put stuff in them! Packing for Ethiopia will be quite interesting because, in less than two weeks, I will have to pack a bag to go to Garden City for a week of leading worship, come home Friday afternoon, empty that bag hurriedly do laundry, and then repack that bag to leave early Saturday morning for Ethiopia. So it’s pretty important that I go ahead and get my packing organized now, and planning this far ahead doesn’t come natural to me.

Everything else for Ethiopia seems to be in order. I have all the medicine I’ll need for stomach bugs and Malaria prevention, I have a travel guitar on the way for some good ‘ole Jesus music, all my immunizations are good to go, and I’m all paid up on my trip expenses! Praise God for all of that! Now it’s just time to go.

Before going to Ethiopia, as mentioned before, I’ll be leading worship for a week in Garden City for a high school retreat. I’m incredibly excited about it, but nervous and anxious at the same time. Keeping God’s glory at the forefront of my mind and heart is always a challenge when I’m preparing to get on a stage anywhere and have a microphone put at my face, but it’s even more tempting to try and take that glory for myself when the camps become so large and the musical talent you work with is so good. It has been an incredibly frustration journey preparing for this camp, and that hasn’t been that much fun. In a lot of ways, though, I have to still pray for God to keep me frustrated and on my toes, because it’s in those times of frustration that I can’t find comfort in myself. I have to turn everything over to God and let him provide for everything. When I can get that right, it’s such a great and encouraging feeling. I just need to work on getting that right more often.

Please be praying for Beach Camp,  that the band would work well together during our rehearsal this Saturday, that we would keep the weight of what it means to lead worship on our hearts, and the God’s glory would be our primary objective; and for Ethiopia, that the support would come in for those who still need it, for God to be preparing those in Ethiopia that we will meet and share our lives with, and that God would be preparing the team for the work cut out for us, most importantly that we would trust God to be the strength and comfort in doing that work.

First off, I have 2(maybe even 3) websites that I’m suppose to work on over break. One is supposed to have been done already, but the timing of receiving materials with school assignments really threw that one off. It is priority number one next week. In fact, I’ll probably get working on it before this week is over with.

Second, I’ll be spending a week or so back at Jobscope doing whatever programming tasks that have available for me. Hopefully, that will allow me to have textbooks and eat next semester… always a plus.

Third, independent research. Unfortunately, I probably won’t get to actually do much with this because of my plethora of other work to do. But I still have my project I began last summer that I want to work on, as well as two new projects just recently devised. I know that is incredibly vague, but ideas are very valuable in a line of work where they can be turned into products very rapidly. So I’m keeping the lid on my ideas until after the products are ready to go!

Now it’s back to brainstorming features for the next round of updates. Ideas welcome!

So I’ve been reading bits and blips about the new MVC(Model View Controller) framework coming out for ASP.NET for a little while now, but I hadn’t really thought much of it. Microsoft has a tendency to release demos and previews for products that won’t actually see the light of day for some time, and I hate wasting my time on such things. So, as cool as it is, I didn’t pay much attention to it. Things changed, though, when I had opportunity to go see MVC demoed and explained by a Microsoft evangelist on Tuesday night. It turns out the ASP.NET MVC framework is actually much more robust and feature-filled than I originally thought. What’s even better, it’s bin deployable! Basically meaning you can use it now, you don’t have to wait for Microsoft to roll it into an ASP.NET version 3 years from now.

Since I discovered that golden bit of information, I’ve slowly begun rolling it into my top secret project that I’ve been working on this summer. The MVC pattern gives ASP.NET a much better model for web applications than traditional web forms. We may finally see an end to those ugly post-back-every-click websites and see some slick, user-friendly asp.net sites. Another great feature that has been added is routing. This is something that php on apache based servers have had for awhile, but IIS and ASP.NET have lacked. This basically means you can uses pretty, sensible urls (www.micahlee.com/blog/post/edit/1) instead of cryptic ones (www.micahlee.com/index.aspx?action=editblogpost&id=1). ASP.NET MVC includes a very nice and easy-to-use routing library that, when combined with controllers, makes web application design and development in ASP.NET a breeze.

Overall, MVC is a revolutionary addition to ASP.NET.  If you do web development, you should check it out. Here’s a link: http://www.asp.net/mvc/

But anyway, that’s enough of that. Without further ado, I now present to you the humble beginnings of the Micah Lee web empire:

• MicahLee.com – THE place to buy your web services from. It’s a one stop shop.
• MicahLee.net – I have a feeling you’ve heard of this one before. The personal blog of me!
• MicahLeeBand.com – This site has yet to see it’s heyday, but it’s coming. Hopefully soon.
• LaneBrownArt.com – Ok, so I don’t actually own this site, but I’m hosting it, and he’s good, so I’m adopting it into the empire.