My Acceptance Speech

By chandlervdw | Published: April 8, 2010
This week I won tickets (VIP, nonetheless!) to Greenville’s Top of the Hops Inaugural Beer Festival. They asked me to give an acceptance speech with the threat of losing my tickets. Without further ado:

First, let me tell you all a little story. When I moved to Greenville 3 years ago, I had a small understand & appreciation for craft beer. I learned a distaste for the Bud Lights and the Schlitzes and to lean towards ‘uncommon’ beers from my father and older brother. None of us knew too much about beer, but we knew we enjoyed branching out and trying something new. Since the move, I’ve run into more beer people and learned more about craft brews than I imagined. A new passion was kindled under my loins, and it was a passion for GOOD BEER.

Thusly, I began my quest for tasting and knowing good beer. As it turned out, I gained an understanding of Asheville, NC as a “beer town”. Naturally, I visited several times and experienced the breweries and (later) the homebrew scene. As I spoke of my travels to Asheville with more and more people in Greenville, I found a number of people with interests akin to my own affinity for the tasty concoction. I learned of the (few) breweries in Greenville and in SC, and I found BARLEYS. Many a night has been spent at the corner of S. Laurens and Washington trying new beers and discussing their characteristics. This joint was a huge stepping stone into my understanding of craft beer.

I quickly gained a basic knowledge of the different types of beers available. I knew that I hated Belgians and that the really bitter beers were too harsh on my pansy little palate. All was well and good in my little world of Scottish Export 80’s when I met my good buddy, Brian Trump. Brian, more affectionately known simply as “Trump” is a genius and, subsequently, a little extreme. This fashions itself in many ways but for my story, it manifested itself in the form of Avery’s Maharaja IPA. But let me back up. Trump and I hung out regularly, if not daily, and our friendship harnessed itself to our likened lust for good beer. So, we often enjoyed each other’s company over a pint or 4. As usual, Trump was far ahead of me in his understanding of most everything, and his taste buds had already matured to the very bitter IPAs which I was so afraid of.  I couldn’t stand these beers he would order and I would never have split so many pitchers with him but … you must understand, Trump is very persuasive. In any case, my taste buds slowly started to mature. First the Rogue Dead Guy, then Stone’s Arrogant Bastard, and then I discovered Avery’s Maharaja. It was the first IPA that I got butterflies over. In the ups and downs of our friendship, Trump and I can ALWAYS gather over a pint of that delectable beer. Since then, my affinity for Belgians has taken a turn as well. I’m currently addicted to Ommegang’s Hennepin Farmhouse Ale, as I rightfully should be.

It wasn’t long until my brother, David, was trying these IPAs that I loved so dearly. But he opened my eyes to a completely different understanding of beer in general: Homebrewing. On Easter Sunday, a year ago, he ordered a Scottish Wee Heavy extract kit and we brewed my first beer, as his birthday present to me. Since then, it’s been all downhill. I’ve upgraded to all grain brewing, I have a kegerator and a fermentation chamber (chest-freezer with temperature control) in my sunroom. And now we’re planning to do an ESB for a late birthday present for him in a few weeks. Homebrewing has forced me to truly learn beer – why things taste a certain way, what processes got them there, why subtle distinctions make all the difference. And I can’t go on any further without mentioning my wonderfully sweet wife, Lauren, who puts up with all of my spending and my ridiculous equipment, not to mention that she encourages it, even though she’s never liked a beer that’s touched her tongue. She, of course, helps finish out this story.

My birthday celebration was not a surprise this year – all of our friends had overdone it with the surprise parties. On Lauren’s queue, we decided to do a beer-tasting dinner. Ten 22oz “fancy” beers (as she called them) were hand-selected by my amazing wife. From Moylan’s Hopsickle IPA to Koeningshoeven’s Quad, we had an the best Green’s had to offer. It was awesome but for some reason Lauren was sad when giving me my present. I didn’t understand. “I got these a long time ago,” she says, “and the Top of the Hops Festival hadn’t been announced yet.” Two tickets to Athen’s Classic City Brew Festival, one for my good buddy Kerry Shay and one for me. What a sweetie. “But Kerry asked for the wrong day off of work,” she continued. “He’s coming on Saturday.”

At that point, I was determined to win tickets for my friend Kerry and I to go to the Top of the Hops Beer Festival. It appears that I have succeeded and so I thank you. You have completed my birthday present as well as Kerry’s, whose actual birthday is this Saturday, April 10th. Come wish him a happy birthday, he’ll be drinking delicious beers with the guy sporting the ridiculous mutton chops. That’s me.

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Best Firefox Plugins

By chandlervdw | Published: April 5, 2010

Update: I continue to use Firefox for development, but I have definitely made the switch to Google Chrome. Much faster. The only plugin I use for it regularly is G0ogle Voice. ;)

Here is the beginning of an ongoing list of Firefox Plugins that I can’t live without:

  1. Screengrab! Abduction (this works with the pixelperfect plugin)
  2. ColorZilla (a developers’ must have!)
  3. Greasemonkey
  4. Download Statusbar
  5. Tab Mix Plus
  6. Firebug (a developers’ must have!)
  7. PixelPerfect (a developers’ must have!)
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Minimalistic while I redesign.

By chandlervdw | Published: April 4, 2010

I switched my wordpress theme from my old, overly blue, unfinished design to the Thematic theme by Ian Stewart of Themeshaper.com. I’m worried that I like it a little too much. ;)

I might be posting some design ideas over on Dribbble, so, if you happen to be weird and care what my site might look like or you want to be intrusive and give me suggestion and feedback, either get drafted or follow / interact with me on Twitter.

Progress is inevitable.

Progression is inevitable.

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Topeka On Main

By chandlervdw | Published: April 4, 2010

In honor of Goo Topeka’s rebranding, we did a little rebranding here in Greenville, SC. Inspired by the actual events.

Topeka On Main

Lame Photoshoppery.

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It’s time for a redesign

By chandlervdw | Published: March 18, 2010

Building and designing this site was great for me to learn Wordpress’ backend but whenever I look at it, I’m a little embarrassed. So, with that said, I’m going to clean this up a bit over the summer. Hopefully it will be better by the time I launch it’s next iteration, complete with Twitter stream and all.

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It’s been a while.

By chandlervdw | Published: February 15, 2010

I never check on my site to see how many visitors I’m getting but I figured I’d do a blog post just to fake out anyone that may or may not think I update this very often. You’re more likely to find me active on Twitter nowadays.

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1st Homebrew

By chandlervdw | Published: April 12, 2009

Today marks a couple of important things in my life.

1. We commemorate the Lord Jesus raising from the dead and giving us Life, abundantly!

2. I attempted my first homebrew.

Obviously, the latter is less important but because I don’t have any videos of the open tomb or of Jesus appearing to the disciples in the upper room, I’ll just post some videos of my homebrew experience. Pretty schwanky.

If you’ve never done a homebrew before, here’s how it works:

  1. Buy a recipe off of Homebrewery – David got me the “Scottish Wee Heavy” for my birthday.
  2. Get a good kit. If you live in the Upstate of SC, go to Thomas Creek and order a good homebrew kit. I don’t know what’s good because I was given one by my uncle for my birthday.
  3. Boil a big ole pot of water (outside, unless you want your house to wreak of yeastiness).
    • Once it reaches 120 degress Fahrenheit, you’re ready to add your grains.
  4. Cook your grains for about 20 minutes, no higher than 170 degress – otherwise you’ll get some bitterness (not the good kind).
  5. Add your malt mix and the bittering hops. This is sort of cheating when you get it in a kit because malt is usually a liquid that comes from cooking grains over a period of about 8 hours (if you’re doing it at home).
    • The malt is food for the yeast – the yeast makes the alcohol and the flavor. It’s pretty crazy how much a different yeast can change the flavor and consistency of your brew. Read up some more.
    • There’s a difference between the bittering hops and the flavoring hops. Not a crazy difference, but essentially the bittering hops are added at the beginning and the flavoring hops are added at the end. Although some flavoring comes from the bittering hops, it’s mostly aroma. The flavoring hops are added at the end of the boil, just in time to give your brew some kick. The type, when you add it and several other factors come into play.
  6. Boil for 2 hours. That means about 200 to 220 degress. Make sure you don’t boil over your pot. We did this outside in a big country boil pot over a large bunson burner.
  7. Add water to your mixture depending on the recipe and set it in your fermenting vessel of choice. I have a glass carboy as well as a plastic bucket made especially for brewing (hole in the cap, spicket on the side).
    • Make sure these have been sterilized – we did this in a tub of warm water and a little more than a capful of clorox. If any bacteria get in there, your yeast is done for and your beer could be ruined. Take the time to carefully clean your equipment.
  8. Set for 2 weeks or more depending on your recipe.
    • Sadly, ours calls for 3 to 6 months of fermentation, in which case you add priming sugars made from corn starch. The yeast feeds on this inside of the individual beer bottles and creates CO2 as a bi-product, which carbonates your beer naturally. CO2 is always a bi-product, but in the initial fermentation, it is just released outside of your fermentation vessel.

So, enough with the lingo. Go to My Qik Page for videos!

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How to create a favicon for your website

By chandlervdw | Published: February 23, 2009

This tutorial assumes you have Photoshop. If you can figure it out using a free program like Gimp, kudos.

  • Open a new document: RGB, 72 ppi, transparent background, 100 x 100 (the dimensions can actually be whatever you want, assuming the file size isn’t HUGE, but they need to be the same)
  • Design your icon: this is usually your logo. Some pointers:
    • Using a dark gray circle behind your logo can help with that “web 2.0″ feel. Granted, I just went with my simple flame icon but it’s something to consider. Make a circle that has a beveled down layer style with the light source coming from 90° and about 20°-25° altitude makes for a good looking indention. Here are my settings:

These are the settings I used for the gray circle.

  • Place your logo on top of this circle layer
    • Placing a similar bevel style on your logo can be beneficial as well, only this time, make the bevel direction “Up” instead of “Down”
    • You may want to consider just using gray colors if your logo is simple. A good logo should work in black and white, grayscale and full color, being just as recognizable in each form.
  • Before you export it, be sure to update your foreground color to the color you want to use in your matte settings.
    • The Matte setting affects the edges of a transparent GIF. If Matte is set to None, the edges of the graphic will appear jagged when the GIF is placed on a Web page. If Matte is set to a color that matches a Web page background, the edges of the graphic will appear smooth against that background.
    • I used a Firefox plug-in called ColorZilla to determine the background color of Firefox’s tabs. I do realize that this doesn’t look completely proper in IE because of it’s lousy blue tabs, but it does look fine in Safari.
      • The color is #9E9E9E. Set this as your foreground color.
  • Make sure any layers underneath your logo and gray circle are transparent and then go to File > Save for Web and Devices… or press shift + option + command + s
    • Select GIF, along with “Foreground” from the dropdown menu for the “Matte” selection. The following options as well, saving it to somewhere you’ll remember (your Desktop!):

    My GIF export settings.

  • Head on over to ConvertIcon in your favorite browser and upload your newly created GIF. In the last dialogue box, deselect “Original Size (100 x 100)” and select “16 x 16″ – then click export and save it to your desktop as a .ico file.
  • Upload this file to the root directory (public_html) of your website and viola!

Comments or questions? Post away!

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Sync both Outlook Calendar & Gmail Calendar to iPhone via Google Sync

By chandlervdw | Published: February 22, 2009

This workaround will get your personal Google calendar and your work Outlook calendar syncing to your iPhone via Google Sync without sharing your personal calendar with your work Outlook Calendar.

Note: You can only run one Exchange ActiveSync account on your iPhone – that’s why this workaround is necessary. Also, this sync does NOT support email sync.

The Setup

  1. Back up your iPhone. We don’t want to take any chances.
  2. Create a new Google Calendar account – I chose to use my work email address which is setup with Outlook. This doesn’t create a gmail address, merely a calendar. Also, this isn’t going to replace your personal
  3. Download Google Calendar Sync on your work computer or a computer where Outlook can access it’s associated calendars. Set it up to sync your Outlook account with your new Google Calendar
  4. Go to your newly created Google Calendar and go to Settings > Calendars > Shared Settings. Share the calendar with your personal Google Calendar account and give it FULL access privileges.
  5. Login to your personal Google Calendar account and in settings, rename the shared calendar to “Work” or whatever you like.

NOTE: Upload any Contacts and Calendars from your phone to your computer before proceeding. The iPhone will delete Contacts and Calendars during setup.
Learn how to upload your Contacts with iTunes: PC Users – Mac Users.

The Execution

NOTE: for the full Google instructions, click here. I am just pasting in for simplicity’s sake.

Open the Settings application on your device’s home screen.
2. Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Tap Add Account….
4. Select Microsoft Exchange.

Enter Account Info

5. In the Email field, enter the name of the account (anything you’d like).
6. Leave the Domain field blank.
7. Enter your full Google Account email address as the Username.
8. Enter your Google Account password as the Password.
9. Tap Next at the top of your screen.
10. A new Server field will appear. Enter m.google.com.
11. Press Next at the top of your screen again.

12. Select the Google services you want to sync. Currently only Contacts and Calendar are supported.
Make sure that you have uploaded your data before proceeding. Press Sync.

I didn’t select Contacts, only Calendar. I didn’t have my Google Contacts setup properly and didn’t care to have a bunch of extraneous email addresses synced to my phone.

After you’ve made it through all the steps, visit m.google.com/sync on your iPhone and activate the sync service. Now you’re set! Your personal calendar is not shared to Outlook but any changes you make on the work Calendar (either via your iPhone or via Google Calendars), it will sync to Outlook.

Comments or questions? Please let me know below!

Posted in Apple, Google, iPhone | Leave a comment

MAMP can be tricky.

By chandlervdw | Published: February 22, 2009

So, I made my first attempt at Wordpress. Me likey. I setup MAMP on my MacBook but had a few problems. It turns out that there are some serious problems with using root to login to your mySQL db’s. I don’t know much about it but I learned a lot today.

Basically, here was my problem:

I installed MAMP and it worked correctly the first time but I needed to install Wordpress. So, I found a nice little tutorial over at Tech-Recipes which served as basic guidelines through the ordeal. Earlier, I setup a mySQL database on my free hosting account at 000webhost (thanks @joelnewcomer) and locally tried creating the database and user privileges with the info I was provided there. But, somewhere along the way I made an error (I think it was in the ‘host’ field when setting up my local db).

At first I got a ‘could not connect to host’ error, and later ended up making progress to a ‘404 error’ and then eventually a ‘database connection error.’ I’m not quite sure what fixed the problem but maybe this will help someone out there in interwebworld:

  • I had to make sure that Apache and MySQL weren’t running so I went to System Prefs > Sharing, turned off Web Sharing and restarted my computer. Yes, there are terminal scripts but I wanted to make sure.
  • Also, I reinstalled MAMP by deleting the folder withing Applications, rerunning the MAMP .dmg and copying it over to the Applications folder again.
  • Then, I placed the Wordpress package files within Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ folder.
  • I ran MAMP, clicked Preferences, changed some settings, pressed OK, then clicked Preferences and changed them back. I kept the ports on the default MAMP port settings (you can set this by clicking the ‘Reset MAMP Ports’ button under Preferences > Ports tab).
  • Here’s the kicker: when I clicked the “Open Start Page” button, I always got an error, even when it was fixed. So, I went to http://localhost:8888 and got the ‘Wordpress config file missing’ page. At this point, I still needed to setup my database. To get to the phpmyadmin page within MAMP, you have to go to http://localhost:8888/MAMP/ (and click on phpmyadmin) not the link that MAMP creates, which is http://localhost:8888/Applications/MAMP/. This only works if you have /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ as you Document root and your Start Page URL in MAMP preferences. This was a very frustrating glitch but I finally figured it out.
  • Once I created the database, the only problem I had was using the correct host name. When in phpmyadmin, create your database and then click the localhost link at the top of the screen so that you see the whole system setup, not just one database’s specs. Then click Privileges and create a new user. This is where you setup your 3 major fields: username, password and host. For host I just put “localhost,” not “localhost:8889″ or “localhost:8888,” which some troubleshooting tutorials may give.
  • Then go back to http://localhost:8888 and follow the WP config file setup. I just put ‘localhost’ as the host when doing this.

Now, you should be set! If you have other problems, feel free to post your questions in the comments.

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