It’s almost time for the last rite of passage from winter into spring. That’s right, we’re just two weeks from [[The Masters]] golf tournament… the most storied tournament on the greatest (well, one of the greatest) golf courses ever designed.

The story line this year (as it seemingly is every year since 1997 when [[Tiger]] burst onto the scene) is whether or not [[Tiger]] can continue his dominance of the even and win it for a staggering fifth time. He’s currently tied with Arnold Palmer for second place in Masters victories. Only Jack Nicklaus’s six is still in front of him. He’s passed Hogan, Nelson, Snead, Faldo, Price, and other notables… and he’s still only **30 years old!**.

This looks like a much more expressive language. I may have to use it instead. It has ways to markup tables and nested lists, which I really like. And it supports footnotes and some other nice markups like superscript and subscript. I think this outweighs some of the other things that I like about Markdown better. Stay tuned.

I’ve changed the software the formats the pages to use Markdown instead of my home grown system. Markdown is a quasi-standard simplified markup language that allows for very nice web pages to be written with no HTML coding required. The goal of markdown is to use the formatting of the text itself define how a page should be formatted in HTML.

For instance, to get a bulleted list, I just start each line with a ‘*’ and the right thing happens in the page:

* This
* Is
* A
* List

This is very similar to what I already supported before (for reference, take a look at the [[Vanila Markup Language]]). There are a few differences, but I don’t have to maintain this stuff anymore.

More things up and running. There’s an [RSS](http://www.carneyweb.com/blog/rss.xml) feed available now. Also note that the search feature is back. I decided to stay away from the FULLTEXT feature of MySQL and instead went with [Ferret](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowToIntegrateFerretWithRails) instead. This keeps me database independent, and it works really well.

Also, the calendar is working a bit better, although there’s still some bugs.

Stay tuned!

I found a nifty plugin for Rails called [Calendar Helper](http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/calendar*helper) It’s allowed me to very quickly add a calendar to the sidebar. Oh… and the sidebars are being done with another nice plugin called [Simple Sidebar](http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/simple*sidebar). I have to see if it’s possible to use that to add in multiple sidebars (left side and right side for instance).

If not… I wonder how the site would look with just one sidebar on the right… hmmm… I may just have to move in that direction.

Stay tuned.

For those of you who are bloggers out there, you’ll understand this. My first order of business after getting the basic structure of the site up and running was to get the MetaWeblog (or any blog) API up and running so I could easily start posting to the site with my favorite tool: MarsEdit.

Amazingly, it only took about ***’50 lines of code’*** to get it all up and running.

Welcome to the all new CarneyWeb.

Just as it’s been since the beginning, CarneyWeb has been a way for me to explore technologies that I don’t really know. This time around, it’s Ruby on Rails.

If you keep an eye on this site, you’ll see it evolve over time as I add new features with this new software that I’m writing.

I have to say, I’m having a blast so far. Ruby on Rails in an incredible piece of software, and Ruby is an interesting programming language.

I’m still just barely getting started on the new site (I’ve really only been working on it for about a week and a half!). All the old content is still here, but it’s going to be tough to find for a little while, so stay tuned. This should be a fun ride.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, and now it’s time for an explanation.

Well, there’s lots of reasons really, but it really just boiled down to the fact that I was bored with it. I had written the software for the website as a way to learn new technologies. First, it was Userland Frontier, and then PHP and MySQL. These were technologies that I didn’t know, and it made for some fun while adding the content to the site.

Well, the site’s been basically unchanged in several years. I wrote a bunch of software and it’s worked great… until now. Back in January, we decided that our original iMac from 1998 was really starting to show its age, and we really needed something new. So, we got a 20 inch iMac with an Intel dual core processor…. **sweet**.

There was only one problem. The only versions of PHP and MySQL that I could get to run on the machine (easily) were not compatible with all the software I had already written. What a drag. Now, if I was going to get my site back up and running, I had to go back into this software that I was really bored with and get it updated to run in the new environment. I couldn’t get motivated to do it.

Then, while at work, I started talking to some people about a sort of new thing, something called Ruby on Rails. Hmmm…. maybe I could do something with that.

From [Gizmodo](http://www.gizmodo.com:) “Want to scuba dive but are just too damned lazy to actually swim? Scooba-doo to the rescue! It’s an underwater moped, letting you sit down and enjoy the underwater depths without annoying stuff like swimming, masks, and tanks. Sure, you’ll look like you stepped off the short bus and into the ocean, but fish won’t”

Actually, I think this thing looks really cool… like something you’d see in a James Bond movie. I bet this’ll be huge at vacation spots in the Caribbean!

From [Newsday.com](http://www.newsday.com:) “Michael Brecker, a versatile and highly influential tenor saxophonist who won 11 Grammys over a career that spanned more than three decades, died Saturday at age 57. ”

I can’t believe it.

I’ve been blown away by what Michael was able to play on his saxophone (and EWI) since about 1988. He was definitely an influence for me. The void left in the jazz community with his passing is massive.

You will be missed Michael.