http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/wes-morgan The Essentials: http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/wes-morgan Mon, 05 May 2008 12:13:27 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/kaleb-murphy People Behind WebGUI Interview The Essentials: Name: Kaleb Murphy Username: perlmonkey2 Age: 32 Profession/Employer: CodeMonkey +3 / University of Oklahoma – Center for Applied Social Research Place of Residence: Norman, Oklahoma WebGUI Related Questions:In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? I hang out on IRC, look through the discussion board, and generally try to be helpful. But my biggest contribution will be the update of the Survey System. When did you first hear of WebGUI? I first heard of WebGUI in 2003. How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? I became involved with WebGUI in 2006 when the center I worked for decided they wanted a content management system. It just so happened I had spent the last few weeks experimenting with what open source had to offer and had found that WebGUI had been reborn into something spectacular. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? Not by Plain Black. How much time do you spend on WebGUI? When things are busy at work, I don't work on WebGUI at all. When things are slow, I work on WebGUI nearly exclusively. What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? WebGUI is what it is. So I'm not sure it is missing anything, rather it has room to grow. I would like to see it move more into the thin client arena (I dislike the connotations that have grown up around “Web 2.0”). WebGUI's API makes it extremely well suited to AJAX interfaces, which allow for faster, more complex user interaction. Not only would I like to see WebGUI continue to move in this direction, I would like to see a standardized framework for AJAX development (did someone say “rip off KSS”?) As for the WebGUI Community, the people currently involved seem extremely friendly and helpful, so the more the merrier. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? It is a fun project to work on. I like powerful frameworks that contain a lot of magic, while maintaining developers' freedoms to do as they please. I also like where WebGUI seems to be going, with an aggressive set of features and releases to keep it one of the most powerful tools in the interwebs. What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? Maybe this has been said before, but WebGUI's killer feature is hidden to most users. It is the API, which makes doing just about anything extremely easy for developers. What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? WebGUI's largest weakness is the relatively small number of open source developers attracted to the project. What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? WebGUI has better fundamentals and, hence, more potential (oh and I like the people). What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? Isn't hacking illegal? Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? No. I missed my flight due to some confusion over the so called rabid squirrel in my carry on. (Buddy was not rabid.) Where do you keep your Gooey doll? In JT's warehouse. Personal Questions:How would you describe yourself? As a guy who cares deeply for his family and friends; who wants to make the world a better place; who really likes building things; and who thinks there is always a shortage of coffee, laughter, and beer. But according to my wife, I'm just really silly. Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? Yes, to Dr. Robin Murphy, who I was lucky enough to sucker into marriage. Do you have any kids? No, but I hear you can find some cheap on the interwebs. Do you have any pets? Yes, a weiner dog. I think he's something like 192 in people years. I had a pet squirrel but he died of rabies after nearly suffocating. If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? Go to a rodeo, visit the museums, go fishing with me at the ranch. Understand that “fishing” is a code word for, “drink a lot of beer and grill steaks while being within a few hundred feet of the fish,” as I'm entirely too impatient for fishing. My mind wanders to more efficient means of catching them, which I hear defeats the whole purpose of fishing in the first place. What do you hate? Hollandaise sauce, closed minds, and people who take themselves seriously. What do you love? Making interesting and useful things. What's the last book you read? The Cathedral and the Bazaar What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? Dropkick Murphys – The Meanest Of Times What's the last movie you watched? "Across The Pacific" You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind, what do you do to amuse yourself? Pull out my laptop and start doing use cases and GUI mock ups for my next toy, er, I mean very serious application. Any last words? Life is too short to have as much fun as we all should. http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/kaleb-murphy Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:44:24 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/ehab-heikal The Essentials:Name: Ehab Heikal Username:ehab Age:36 Profession/Employer: Online content and presence builder/Self Employed in El Motaheda Web Place of Residence: Cairo, Egypt. WebGUI Related Questions: In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? Our company has been maintaining the Arabic language translation for WebGUI since 5.5.8. And we currently frequent the forums and help newbies out. When did you first hear of WebGUI? I did a comprehensive study of all open source content management systems 5 years ago to determine which one we will use to build our portal and offer to our clients. WebGUI was the best then, and still is the best now. How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? I started with WebGUI to manage vegetarianegypt.com as a community site for vegetarians in Egypt. Later I used WebGUI to build one of the large general interest portal sites for the Arabic speaking Middle East. The site is has a world rank of 4000. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? Yes. All of our work to clients that want websites is on WebGUI. How much time do you spend on WebGUI? A lot. More than the time I spend with my kids. What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? WebGUI needs more Assets or plugins in more popular terms. This needs a larger community, and that in turn needs WebGUI to be easy to install. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? WebGUI keeps up, it has minor revisions a few times a month. It is alive in a way no other commercial software is. It eats Joomla for breakfast on a feature to feature comparison. The main strengths of WebGUI is that its architecture is very well thought out. What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? Templating. The degree of control over page layout is amazing. It is easy and very well defined. Not only that, this deep templating control allows you- with a bit of imagination- to take existing assets and apply them to new classes of problems that they where not intended to solve. What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? None, once you have it installed. Well, installing it is a bit hard for newbies. What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? I believe in the core developers of WebGUI. I believe and that JT knows more about CMS design than anyone working in open source. Also when I show people they can drag and drop elements in the page I love to see people's faces and reactions turn to that :) What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? Mashy.com the Arabic language general interest portal is one big WebGUI hack. With the modular authentication we where able to get other systems to work as one with WebGUI. When a user registers they can get a free web based email account as well as free file storage and many other things that are done by other non CMS systems. All with the same authentication. Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? I live too far from any of the conferences that where held. Where do you keep your Gooey doll? In my imagination. Personal Questions: Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? Married. Do you have any kids? Yes, 3. Do you have any pets? No. If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? Are you kidding? I live in Egypt. A third of the world’s artifacts are here, mummies, golden sarcophagus and more in the Museam of Antiquities in Cairo. The Pyramids are magical, nothing I can say can describe them. No photo graph can capture their magnificence. You have to see them with your own eyes as the hot desert breeze blows through your hair and then you will feel the same awe that millions of people have felt for the past 4500 years as they see the pyramids for the first time. Thousands of miles of beaches on both the Mediterranean sea and the Red Sea. Incredible diving in the Red Sea. Egypt is paradise if paradise was a desert. What do you hate? Nothing really. What do you love? The Creator, my children, wife, parents and family. Computers. World of Warcraft. Pink Floyd. Food especially Pizza and Pasta ( the Italians are on to something ). What's the last book you read? The Holy Quran and The Bhagavad Gita. What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? The latest album by Mark Knopfler in hope that an echo of the music of Dire Straights still lives. What's the last movie you watched? Monsieur Ibrahim on DVD. You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind, what do you do to amuse yourself? If a train then the marvel of 3G will make me go online. If a plane then I am sure I would have picked a good book for the way. Any last words? Are these really my LAST words? http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/ehab-heikal Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:14:16 -0600 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/graham-knop The Essentials:Name: Graham Knop Age: 23 Profession/Employer: Senior Diagnostician / Plain Black Place of Residence: Madison, WI WebGUI Related Questions:In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? I provide support for Plain Black clients, and work on bug fixing in the WebGUI core. When did you first hear of WebGUI? In March, 2007, I saw a job listing on jobs.perl.org, which lead me to discover MadMongers, the Madison Perl user group. At a meeting I met JT who was doing a presentation on WebGUI. How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? I was hired by Plain Black shortly after that to deal with support and bugs. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? Yes. How much time do you spend on WebGUI? I'm working on or with WebGUI full time. What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? From a CMS side, the style templates are always going to be one of the hardest parts. WebGUI 7.4 helped a lot with this, but it's always hard to match the look of a site to what you envision in your mind. Better tools for adjusting the style and layout would help a lot. From a developer side, more robust error handling. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? Obviously I'm paid to continue working on it, but also because it can easily become whatever you need it to be. Need a CMS? It's just point and click. Need to develop something custom? There's a framework in place that makes it easy, and allows you to integrate it with the rest of your website. What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? I think the asset system is very nice. Allowing very different types of content to all interact in a predictable manner. What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? Server requirements. Many competing products are easy to deploy on any web host you'll find. WebGUI requires complete control of the server to set up, which influences the cost of seting up a server, and also prevents hobbyists from contributing easily. What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? Perl is my favorite language to work with. I work on some projects in my spare time that use PHP, and it is always painful compared to using Perl. What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? Building a data entry system entirely with SQL Reports was pretty fun, if a rather silly way to create such a thing. Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? Yes Where do you keep your Gooey doll? On my coffee maker Personal Questions:How would you describe yourself? I've never been able to come up with an answer to this type of question. Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? Nope Do you have any kids? Nope Do you have any pets? I share an apartment with two cats, but they aren't mine. If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? There's plenty to do right around the capital, whether it's the farmer's market, the restaurants, or the bars. What do you hate? Hot dogs What do you love? Any Indian food What's the last book you read? Connie Willis – To Say Nothing of the Dog What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? Suzanne Vega – Beauty and Crime What's the last movie you watched? The Prestige You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind, what do you do to amuse yourself? Listen to music or sleep Any last words? Nope http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/graham-knop Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:04:23 -0600 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/klaus-hertle Name: Klaus Hertle Age: 41 WebGUI In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? Helping in the forums, reporting bugs and suggesting new features. I hope I soon will have some more time to contribute code also. When did you first hear of WebGUI? I think it was in 2003, Version 5.3 How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? I was looking for a CMS written in Perl. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? Yes. How much time do you spend on WebGUI? Depends on the site(s) I'm working on. Some months only a few hours and some weeks a lot more. Nearly every day I have a look to the WebGUI forums. What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? More layout packages easyily change the look an feel and an easy way to select, download and install or uninstall add ons for the WebGUI version that is running. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? I'm familiar with WebGUI, the nice community, the many built-in features. Every time I work with WebGUI I discover new features or possibilities to achieve new functionality. What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? The flexibility of the Wobjects/Assets and the template system and that it's written in Perl. What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? WebGUI still needs some better community functions (especially for moderators and admins) for the discussion forum and a flexible online-shop system. What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? All the built in features and Wobjects because they are still available after each update. What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? I don't think there was something brilliant up today. Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? Not yet. Where do you keep your Gooey doll? Right beside the keyboard Personal How would you describe yourself? 41 years old, tall enough, weighty enough, dark blonde, single, catholic, grown up in Bavaria and a funny geek. Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? no Do you have any kids? no Do you have any pets? no If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? One of the wine festivals and hiking in the Palatinate. What do you hate? I think 'hate' is a too strong word to find something I really 'hate', but here is one rare example: syntax errors in my programs... What do you love? Hiking, swimming, cycling, riding on my motorbikes, baking, cooking, steaks and beer. What's the last book you read? The last books I've read were textbooks – not worth to mention here. What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? An audio book with stories from Ephraim Kishon. What's the last movie you watched? I dont't like going to cinema, on TV I watch nearly all crime series. You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind, what do you do to amuse yourself? I hope I have my mp3 player with some audio books and a full battery – or I think about new ideas and watch people. Any last words? No. http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/klaus-hertle Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:14:51 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/yung-han-khoe Name: Yung Han Khoe Age: 32 Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Profession: Programmer Website: www.unitedknowledge.nl WebGUI In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? Bugfixing, speaking at the conferences. United Knowledge and others are also active in building a Dutch WebGUI community by organising conferences, workshops and drinks. We have also paid for some new features that will be added in 7.4.0. When did you first hear of WebGUI? In 2003 when we (United Knowledge) were choosing between using an existing cms or building one ourselves. How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? We wanted a cms that was written in Perl and preferably one that used mod_perl. The evaluation of available cms's that fitted those requirements quickly pointed to WebGUI. When I started using WebGUI I built a lot of custom wobjects and macros to add features that were not available in WebGUI. During the 6.x.x cycle that was our only option because we decided to skip 6 and go straight from 5 to 7. Forntunately that has changed in WebGUI 7. It has become a lot easier to get more involved in WebGUI development. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? Yes How much time do you spend on WebGUI? Almost all my work is related to WebGUI in one way or another. Hacking takes up between 4 and 20 hours. What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? I would like to see more discussion about WebGUI. The dev list has been kind of quiet lately. I've heard the discussion has moved to irc, but I'm not a big fan of that. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? I can't wait to see how WebGUI will grow in the coming years and to be a part of that. What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? The fact that it's a flexible application framework and a complete cms that works out of the box at the same time. What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? The versatility that is its strength is also its weakness. What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? I've never worked on any competing applications. But I have never encountered a good reason to switch. What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? Nothing I've added to WebGUI can be called brilliant. The most usefull thing will probably be the new version of the UserList Asset that I'm working on now. Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? I've attended every WebGUI Conference and I was a speaker at the last two conferences in Las Vegas and the European conference in Amsterdam. Where do you keep your Gooey doll? I have two of them in my living room, but I'm not sure exactly where. They like to move around. Personal How would you describe yourself? I wouldn't. Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? No Do you have any kids? No Do you have any pets? No If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? Try to get out of the center after you've seen the tourist highlights. Amsterdam is a great, but small city that can easily be discovered on foot or by public transport. If you're a WebGUI hacker and you're looking for a place to work, drop by United Knowledge in the center of Amsterdam. What do you hate? Insomnia. There are other things that I hate. But this is the worst because it makes me hate the other things I hate even more. What do you love? Dancing salsa, traveling, Islay whiskey, hacking, poker. What's the last book you read? The Polity Line by Neal Asher, a science fiction novel. I read about two or three novels a month, mostly science fiction and contemporary British and (Latin-)American fiction. What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? Across 110th street by The Spanish Harlem Orchestra. One of the best salsa cd's of the last couple of years. What's the last movie you watched? O Homem do Ano (the Man of the Year), a decent Brazilian movie. You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind. What do you do to amuse yourself? Actually, I was writing part of this interview while I was on a plane. I usually read or try to sleep. http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/yung-han-khoe Mon, 09 Jul 2007 09:35:05 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/jesse-kinross-smith http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/jesse-kinross-smith Tue, 27 Mar 2007 19:35:22 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/doug-bell Age: 23 Location: Oshkosh, WI, USA Profession: Developer, Designer, Revolutionary Homepage: http://commctrl.com Favorite Color: Olive WebGUI In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? Mainly I'm a Perl developer, doing work on the WebGUI core. I also do community support in the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net #webgui). Thus far I've re-written the Events Calendar (now just Calendar) from scratch, closed a few dozen bugs, and helped numerous people on the public support areas. When did you first hear of WebGUI? I responded to a job posting on jobs.perl.org. I looked at some of the sites that are powered by WebGUI and liked what I saw. How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? After responding to the above-mentioned job posting, Frank Dillon offered me a job as a contractor for a small project. My success on that contract paved the way to me being hired-on full-time. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? Yes, but only because surviving in meatspace costs money. How much time do you spend on WebGUI? Besides my expected 40-hour week, my side projects for WebGUI consume another 20+ hours (but they're fun, so they don't count as work). What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? The major things missing I've already mentioned to Plain Black: More robust error handling, more feature-rich upgrade system, incremental patching for bugfixes that occur in a beta release. I've been given license to try to come up with solutions to the upgrade/patching problem, and the error-handling problem is under development. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? Besides a paycheque, I finally get to do professional Perl/Web development for a company that's fun to work with. Outside of Plain Black, I get to develop a system that Just Works, and I take pride in working to make WebGUI the best CMS available. What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? From a content-manager's standpoint: Flexibility. To this day, I get amazed at some of the sites that have been developed with WebGUI. There are CMSes that look like CMSes, and there's WebGUI. From a developer's standpoint: Perl. 19 years old. I've got 7 years experience and this language still amazes me. Anything you want to do, you can do with Perl. What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? It's big. Really big. That isn't a weakness in itself, but because it's so big, maintainability becomes a major effort. Some of the cooks stirring the soup seem to have neglected writing maintainable code. (note: This is another thing that Plain Black is working on, by implementing Perl Best Practices) What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? It doesn't suck. I'll try to keep this short... 1) It wasn't written in PHP. 2) It was written in Perl. 3) It's a Content Management System built upon an Application Framework. There are clear definitions between the two. 4) I can leave the boring stuff (managing content, styles and templates, administrating users, making license plates) to the non-developers while I get to do the fun stuff (hack a new Auth module to handle OpenID / LID / other distributed identity systems). What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? If I were so inclined, I'd say the new Calendar Wobject. The new WebGUI::DateTime API that wraps Perl's DateTime.pm and adds some nice features. The ability to download an SQLReport's output as a CSV file. Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? Not yet. I've been tapped to make some presentations at 2007's WUC. Where do you keep your Gooey doll? Below the iron dragon hanging from my ceiling, between the plants, next to the TV. Personal Stuff How would you describe yourself? Eccentric. Fun. A touch of the madness makes things more interesting, n'est pas? Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? No. Do you have any kids? No. Do you have any pets? No. My apartment is entirely too small for pets. If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? Me. Li Yang's chinese food. Blue Moon coffee bar. What do you hate? People who get bored easily. What do you love? Hacking. Dance Dance Revolution. What's the last book you read? Perl Best Practices by Damian Conway. What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? Lincoln by They Might Be Giants What's the last movie you watched? Bad movie: Pirates of the Carribean 2 (complete fanservice, slow and confusing) Good movie: I <3 Huckabees You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind, what do you do to amuse yourself? People-watch. Make up stories about them. (This is assuming I don't have a computer, because when I have a computer I'm never bored). Any last words? Jalopy. Porridge. Ubuntu. Whatevz. Lollerskates. Kay-oh. ZOOM! http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/doug-bell Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:45:42 -0600 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/jt-smith2 Age: 32 Location: Madison, WI Profession: WebGUI Geek Homepage: http://www.plainblack.com/ Favorite Color: Black WebGUI ------------ In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? I'm the lead developer for WebGUI, and the President of Plain Black. When did you first hear of WebGUI? When I came up with the idea for it back in the late 90's. =) How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? Early in 1999 I wrote the first version of WebGUI, which then was called Web Done Right. It was built on the Minivend e-commerce server. However, at the time Minivend's future wasn't very certain, and it also didn't provide the flexibility that I was ultimately looking for. Early in 2001 I wrote the second version of WebGUI, based upon CGI::Application, but that too was too limiting for my tastes. In June of 2001, I started writing WebGUI as we know it today, and the rest you can see in the change logs. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? Yup. All the R&D I do is funded directly from support contracts and hosting. So if you want to see me adding more features faster, please buy support and hosting! How much time do you spend on WebGUI? That depends upon the week. I generally spend no less than 60 hours per week on WebGUI / Plain Black related stuff. During heavy R&D times, it's not uncommon for me to work between 16 and 20 hours per day on WebGUI. A lot of people ask me how I can work so much, but when you love what you're doing, it's easy. What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? There's lots missing from WebGUI. If there wasn't, I'd be out of a job, cuz there'd be nothing left to write. I think we need to re-invent how commerce is done to make it easy to set up a really powerful online store. I think we also need to start building more hard-core business applications similar to the Project Management app that we put into WebGUI 7.0. The growth of the community has been slower than I'd have liked. But I think that's mostly my own fault. The community was really starting to take off just before I started development on WebGUI 6.x. The constant changing API really killed the community. People didn't know how to support it, write code for it, develop themes for it, etc. I'm still glad we did the rewrite in 6.x, but if we do a rewrite in the future, I'll be much more mindful of how it affects the community at large. Now that we're on to 7, I think that the community should start back with a healthy growth once again. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? Getting to build cool features based upon feedback. I love the challenge of figuring out how to solve the problems posed by the community's desires, and by our customers' needs. What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? I think it's the power we put into the hands of the user, while still keeping it fairly easy to use. A lot of developers these days believe that less is more in web apps. A minimalist approach makes the software easy to use by 90% of the possible users. The problem is that it only suits 50% of their needs. True power is in getting both those numbers as close to 100% as possible. Though I haven't achieved that goal entirely, I feel that WebGUI is closer to that than any other system out there. And that is WebGUI's killer feature. What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? There are many areas of improvement, but the biggest weakness at the moment is that WebGUI's not known to a lot of people. Going forward we must do more to get the word out. What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? If I ever saw a system that is flat out better than WebGUI, I'd switch. WebGUI's not the best at all things, but what makes WebGUI the best system out there is that it does a lot of things really well. Competitor X may do something better, or have a shiny new feature that WebGUI doesn't have. So what? WebGUI is flexible enough that we can pretty much add any feature our competitors have if our clients want it badly enough. What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? I think that the design of the asset system (starting with WebGUI 6.3) is pretty cool. It gives developers a common way of creating all sorts of content, and it gives users a very standard way of managing content. But honestly, with each new release, there's always something I like. With 7, I'm really happy with the workflow system. And I've got some really killer features that I'm working on for the 7.x series. Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? Every one. Where do you keep your Gooey doll? One on my mantle, two in my car, one on my desk, and several hundred of them in a storage closet at my office. Personal Stuff --------------------- How would you describe yourself? I overcome a lack of intelligence and talent through large amounts of drive and willpower. =) I'm 6'2", wear only black, and am overweight from working on WebGUI too much and exercising too little (though I'm working on that). And finally, I often come off as angry, rude, and downright mean, but in reality I just have very little time so I talk fast and write faster, and often don't give any thought to how my words or tone will be interpreted by others. Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? I'm engaged. We'll be married in October 2006. Do you have any kids? Nope. Do you have any pets? Just a whole pile of Gooeys. If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? Get a Teddywedger , take a walk through the Capitol , pick up a copy of the Onion and the Ithsmus, and get tickets to what ever's going on at the Overature Center. What do you hate? Wasting time. Examples: small talk, meetings that reach no decisions and/or offer no deliverables, rituals for the sake of tradition. What do you love? My fiance, WebGUI, the color black, and pizza. Oh, and playing games (board, video, card, bar, sport, it matters not). What's the last book you read? Cradle to Cradle, by William McDonough & Michael Braungart What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? 50 Cent - In Da Club What's the last movie you watched? The Da Vinci Code EDITORS NOTE: We dragged JT out to watch "Crank" although he begged and pleaded to watch "Snakes on a Plane" You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind, what do you do to amuse yourself? If I have my laptop, I'll code or play a game. If I've got my iPod, I'll listen to some music. If I've got something to read, I'll do that. And barring all else I'll either sleep or people watch. Any last words? Thanks for making WebGUI what it is today. Though it's my job to add features to WebGUI, if I didn't have you supporting me through purchasing services and providing feedback, WebGUI would still be at a 0.x.x release. So thanks. http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/jt-smith2 Tue, 05 Sep 2006 12:29:53 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/frank-dillon Age: 31 Location: Janesville, WI Profession: VP Development Plainblack Homepage: www.plainblack.com Favorite Color: Blue WebGUI------------ In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? I have written hundreds of custom applications for WebGUI and have contributed many features, most notably the current Authentication System, the LDAP Connection Manager, the Project Management System, and the Time Tracking System. I also design and manage all of the custom development projects for Plain Black as well as the contractors who work with us. When did you first hear of WebGUI? I have known about, and been writing applications for WebGUI as long as it has existed. How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? JT came over to my desk and said, "Hey, go to www.plainblack.com" back in 2001 when we both worked together. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? Yes. How much time do you spend on WebGUI? I average 60-80 hours per week working on WebGUI. What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? Female models to show off our clothing line. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? I love what I do. That is motivation enough. Oh, and money. What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? The WRE. Having WebGUI pre-configured and fine tuned without having to know much about MySQL, Apache, or Mod Perl is an amazing feature. Also, the administrative tools that we give away help to make WebGUI as powerful as it is. What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? Not enough open source developers contributing to make WebGUI better. WebGUI is where it is because of a handful of very skilled developers. Imagine where it would be today if we had twice as many minds contributing. What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? I’ve done research on many competitors and nothing stacks up to WebGUI in terms of power and flexibility. You truly can make WebGUI do just about anything. Also, I really enjoy working with the Plain Black team, even if JT can be one big pain in the rear from time to time =) What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? So far, it would have to be a tie between an HRIS system I wrote for a client and the Project Management system (even though it’s still in it’s infancy stages) Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? Yes, I lecture. Where do you keep your Gooey doll? I shredded mine and dumped it over southern Wisconsin at 12000 feet because the spirit of WebGUI should be everywhere! Just kidding, my dog ate it. Personal Stuff--------------------- How would you describe yourself? I’m pretty laid back. I enjoy working, but I like to complain about it to anyone who will listen! I’m a people person and I really enjoy building professional relationships and networking. Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? Happily married (my wife is standing behind me as I type this) Do you have any kids? I have a 4 year old boy. Do you have any pets? We have two dogs and various yard creatures for short spells. To date: 3 toads, a frog, 3-4 lightning bugs per evening, and a baby bunny. If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? I haven’t been here long myself so I don’t know. The local bars are lots of fun though! What do you hate? People who have more than 10 items in the 10 items or less grocery lane, People who do not turn on their blinker when changing lanes, and paying taxes. What do you love? I love playing games. Give me an evening with some good friends and any type of game and I’m happy. I also love spending time with my family and I enjoy a good horror novel from time to time. What's the last book you read? I’m in the middle of the last of the Dark Tower Series “The Dark Tower” by Stephen Kink What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? Fall Out Boy What's the last movie you watched? Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind, what do you do to amuse yourself? If I’m on more than a 3 hour flight (which I try to avoid as I hate to fly), I take two Xanax and pass out. If it’s a 6 hour train ride, I would watch a movie or work. Any last words? Box; Toaster; Alumnimum; Maple Syrup ... No I take that one back. I’m gonna hold on to that one! http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/frank-dillon Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:42:04 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/jamie-vrbsky Age: 31 Location: Stoughton, WI Profession: Jack of all trades Homepage: www.plainblack.com Favorite Color: Green WebGUI ------------ In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? I write the documentation and create the videos. I also take care of the day to day operations for Plain Black thusly freeing up more of JT's time so he can work on WebGUI. When did you first hear of WebGUI? Several years ago when JT started creating it. How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? I got involved about a year and half ago. JT asked me to come and work at Plain Black to take some of the load off of him. The rest is history. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? Luckily, yes. How much time do you spend on WebGUI? 40-45 hours a week. What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? Commerce. I would love for WebGUI's commerce functions to rival that of Amazon and Ebay. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? It's an amazing piece of software that evolves faster than anything else out there. It always keeps me on my toes making sure I know what's been added. Plus I'm paid by Plain Black to do it. Plain Black is such an awsome company to work for I can't imagine working anywhere else...ever. What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? How easy it is to create content. With all the assets it has, even novices can create a powerful web site for their users. What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? Up until 7.0 I would've said the changes were coming too fast and furious. It was too hard for community and users to keep up with everything. What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? Plain Black What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? I don't hack. Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? Last year I gave several speaches. Where do you keep your Gooey doll? My son has it. Personal Stuff --------------------- How would you describe yourself? A Family man. I have a wife and 2 kids that I would do anything for, but Plain Black is my second family and I'd do anything for the people there as well. Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? Married. Do you have any kids? 2 kids. Do you have any pets? A dog, a cat, 2 fish and a hermit crab. If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? Stoughton is close to Madison. They should definitely stop up on the capitol for the farmers market. What do you hate? G.W. What do you love? My family and gaming of all kinds. What's the last book you read? Redemption by Jean Rabe What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? Don't remember. What's the last movie you watched? Chicken Little You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind, what do you do to amuse yourself? Watch the people or read. Any last words? I can't wait for the WUC this year. It's going to be awsome. http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/jamie-vrbsky Mon, 21 Aug 2006 17:12:13 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/steve-swanson Age: 29 Location: Madison, WI Profession: WebGUI's designer guy Homepage: http://www.plainblack.com/ Favorite Color: Green and blue WebGUI ------------ In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? I'm the graphic designer for PlainBlack, and in turn, WebGUI. When did you first hear of WebGUI? About 2 years ago, but I didn't really start working with it until last year. How and when did you get involved in WebGUI? Around fall of last year, I was looking for a new job. Through a friend, I had heard PlainBlack was looking for a graphic/web designer. I applied, went through a pretty rigorous interview process, and got the job. Are you paid to work on WebGUI? That I am. How much time do you spend on WebGUI? Well it depends on what's going on with WebGUI. If you asked me this during the thick of getting WebGUI 7 off the ground, I'd say about 40+ hours a week. Now that it's slowing down, my time gets more spread out. What do you think is still missing from WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? Although I really love working with WebGUI, there are still things that could be done to make it easier for designers to use it. There have been some huge steps to make it more accessible, especially with 7.0, but I'm always thinking of ways to make my job easier which in turn will make all designers jobs easier. What keeps you motivated to keep working on WebGUI? I get to design some cool stuff working on WebGUI, more than I would working for a giant faceless company. Some of the features of WebGUI and new projects associated with it push me to become a better designer- I can look back at my old work and think that I could do better if I did it again today. That's a good feeling, although it tends to keep me busy. :) What's WebGUI's killer feature and why? Templates. I think people take them for granted, but man are they ever powerful. I've worked with classic ASP, .NET, .JSP, and .PHP, and although they do give you a whole lot of tools, none of them really have this on-the-fly ability to swap out the way a page looks and feels with just a few button clicks. And it's all completely customizable, you've gotta love that. If I had to pick a second thing, it's just how much you get with your standard WebGUI install. Polls, message boards, logins, restricted content- you would pay a developer a lot of money to get those features, and they freakin' come with a base install of WebGUI. How cool is that? What's WebGUI's greatest weakness and why? The learning curve. I think for new users, it's daunting. I've worked with other designers who blanche at having to learn this whole new system, especially since it's quite different from what they're used to. This is especially true if the extent of their website building knowledge comes from using a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver or Frontpage. Some of the features that come with WebGUI aren't very obvious to most people, like ecommerce, so that's an area that needs work. That said, give a designer a week or two using WebGUI and they're hooked- not to sound like a fanboi, but I honestly don't want to make websites on anything except WebGUI. It's just so much easier. What makes you work on WebGUI over the competition? I think I kinda covered this one already, but it's just easier. There's so much available right at your fingertips. What's your most brilliant WebGUI hack? Being a designer, not a coder, I can't say that I have a real WebGUI hack. But, I love snippets. If you're still uploading an external CSS file to control your site's look and feel, stop it. Start using a snippet instead. That's only one use for them, but that started my love affair with them. Have you attended the WebGUI User's Conference? Yep. Where do you keep your Gooey doll? Believe it or not, I don't have one! JT, take one of those storage Gooeys and float it my way. EDITORS NOTE: Steve has since received his Gooey... all is well now =) Personal Stuff --------------------- How would you describe yourself? Pretty geeky. That's good or bad depending on who you ask. Overweight- the switch from working at a grocery store to working on a computer hasn't been a good choice for my body. Picking up 50lb boxes of spuds takes a lot more effort than double clicking, don't let the brochures fool you. I like to think I'm a decent guy, but from my experience those who say they're decent people usually aren't. So hey, take it with a grain of salt. Oh, and if I could have dinner with anyone in the world... it'd probably be either Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, or Richard Dean Anderson. Are you married, dating, or otherwise involved? Married for almost 7 years. Do you have any kids? Nope. Do you have any pets? Yep, a Papillon named Deedlit (bonus Karma for those who know who know that reference! j/k). She actually has been bugging me to go out while I fill this form out. If someone visits your area, what's something they must see or do? Come over and hang out. Working at home can be a lonely affair, so I've gotten this weird thing about wanting to hang out with people when I can. Don't worry, I won't lock you in my basement. Well, probably not. What do you hate? George W. Bush, businesses that are too ginormous for their employee's good, Uwe Boll, and ignorance. What do you love? GAMES! I love pencil & paper RPG's and computer/console games. It may sound cliché, but my wife ranks pretty high up there. I'd even put her above a +5 Dancing Longsword. What's the last book you read? Sadly I haven't read a book in months, but I suppose it would be the Key of Light. What's the last CD/MP3 you bought? I just bought 'Video Killed the Radio Star' from iTunes. What's the last movie you watched? Cars. Decent movie, although not Pixar's best work. You're stuck on a train/plane for 6 hours and bored out of your mind, what do you do to amuse yourself? I'd pull out my DS Lite and start playing some Super Mario, or I'd listen to some music on my iPod, or watch a movie on my laptop. Any last words? Thanks to everyone who's been using WebGUI, you've been keeping me employed. http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/steve-swanson Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:06:51 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/martin-kamerbeek http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/martin-kamerbeek Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:40:28 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/gerald-young http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/gerald-young Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:40:27 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/colin-kuskie2 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/colin-kuskie2 Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:40:27 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/roy-johnson2 Age: 26 Location: Daytona Beach, FL Profession: Programmer / Sys Admin / Community Manager -- Plain Black Homepage: www.snapcount.org Favorite Color: blue WebGUI ------------ In what way(s) do you contribute to WebGUI or the WebGUI Community? I http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/roy-johnson2 Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:40:36 -0500 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/lucas-bartholemy2 Age: 22 http://www.plainblack.com/webgui/campaigns/people/lucas-bartholemy2 Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:40:34 -0500