Personal
Numbers don’t lie, and Joomla’s are a wake-up call. Today, I’m fighting back with Content - Amazon Product Advertising API, a new extension that lets site owners weave Amazon’s Product Advertising API into their Joomla site—pull product data, earn affiliate revenue, all seamless. Unlike the only two other Joomla PAAPI extensions—both paid—mine’s free. WordPress has 220 free PAAPI extensions. Joomla’s 1 free (mine) and 2 paid vs. their 220 free is a gap I’m here to close.
For years, Joomla felt like a digital barn-raising—everyone pitching in, sharing tools, and building something bigger than themselves. I’ve been part of that from the start, releasing free extensions like my Fields - XMLForm because that’s what kept the engine running: a community of creators trading ideas freely, no tolls or tickets required. My SaaS gig—hosting aviation platforms—pays the bills, and sure, it’s a quieter part of my story, but the extensions were always the heart of it—pure Joomla optimism in action. My SaaS business was built on top of Joomla. It was a potluck where everyone brought a dish to share, until lately. Some developers feast on what’s still free, then lock even the basics behind a paywall—whatever happened to tossing out the staples for free and charging for the spice?
Picture this: mid-20teens, I’m contracted to build an iOS app and a website for a Cable TV hardware company. The app’s a custom RF calculator—Joomla’s in my blood, so I know it’ll anchor the website too. I deliver the app, spot-on, and start asking about the site. Then the rug gets yanked. Investor politics kick in—some bigwig’s buddy gets the gig because the site needs to “pop” for their IPO. My Joomla pitch? Too boring, too “technical.” They go WordPress. Weeks after launch, it’s hacked—tens of thousands of spam emails blast out, their domain’s blacklisted, and ahead of the IPO, they can’t email a soul. The IPO flops. Company’s dead in a year. I’m left shaking my head—Joomla could’ve saved them, but nah, they wanted “pop.”
For my wife's poultry show (Yellow Rose Classic), each of the show sponsors gets a banner. Unfortunately, most of her sponsors either didn't have a logo, or their logo was a low-quality image. That is not to say the images were bad; they were just not something we could scale up to banner size without significant loss of quality. So I get to do some SVG work.
Supporting my wife's hobby, I find myself making another commercial. It's a good cause, the Texas Independent Flock Owners Association supports and promotes agriculture in Texas.
Two years ago, I had the opportunity to take on a unique challenge outside of my usual software development work in the name of school safety. I was asked by Texas Defense Force Security to create a commercial promoting their School Officer Program. The program teams volunteer private security officers recruited from the local community and local law enforcement agencies to provide a safe and secure learning environment for students.
Read more: Promoting School Safety with Texas Defense Force Security
Our first time coming to Edom for fireworks. For the past 5 years I've been helping the Whitton Fire Department put on their show, but the show was cancelled this year. I don't often get to watch the show, it was nice!
Oh my goodness - I ran across some old hard drives and decided to take a peek at their contents before sending them to be recycled. I'm glad that I did! I found some things that I thought were gone forever!