Employee Spotlight

An Interview with Dave Hoffman

What's your favorite project from last year?

It's hard to choose as I get to work on so many and they all have their intricacies.  I guess if I really have to choose one, I would say that I really enjoyed being involved in the planning for the Google Toolkit.  I have some family that aren't necessarily the most web-savvy and they're able to easily integrate it's functionality with their pages.  Kudos to the team on that one, I think it's a really great testament to the entire staff and our friends at Google.  Hopefully we'll have even more fun tools of theirs to integrate in the future.  However, as I can never forget my first love which is to have my hands in the code... Site Assist v3 was pretty fun too!.

How do you spend your time outside of WebAssist?

I tend to be a bit of a busy body when work time is over.  I play rugby for Seattle Men's Rugby Club (less often than I'd really like to).  In my opinion, it's the best sport ever invented.  Much more fluid than American football, and definitely more exciting to play than soccer. 

Life is about a lot more than just being in some sort of shape, really my first love is singing.  Although I'm a bit more comfortable in the baritone range, I do most of my singing as a tenor.  I'm presently involved with two chorales regularly: the Seattle Symphony and St. James Cathedral Chorales.  Above and beyond that, I do some other singing for an entertainment-industry recording company and another local area choir.  When you're playing World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, and hear the choir on the soundtrack, I'm in there..

I understand you've been traveling recently – where did you go?

I had the extreme pleasure of spending an extended period throughout Europe over the month of October.  Through various friendships, acquaintances, and a brother, I was able to find my way to and around some great and beautiful places across the continent.  As I strolled through the Loire valley near Dijon, I was struck by the beauty and serenity of the place and I was amazed at the good fortune that would bring me together with a person from a village of 1000 and have us be great friends for such a long time, or my other friend from a mid-sized town in far eastern France, or even my brother in the Czech Republic and his lovely lady-friend Markéta. 

It's really amazing how each place that I went someone was there to be my willing host / tour guide, I count myself as truly blessed.  With friends in Paris, Alsace, Burgundy, Amsterdam, and Brno, I was able to see all of those places as well as Prague and Vienna with locals and natives.  It was truly a wonderful experience that I will cherish for a long, long time.  If you're ever in Amsterdam and want some good Tapas, go to Dos! :)

Are there any Web technologies you're keeping your eye on?

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you... and we like havin' you around so... :)  In all honesty, when I used to do Mentor Training, I had always wanted a tool like Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional to help with both screen and work sharing, but also have the video capability.  I'm really impressed with its capabilities at times.  However, I'd be remiss if I left out some of the emergent wireless markup language comings and goings.  Not that I actually have a crack-berry myself... but I think some of the apps available are pretty great and only getting cooler. 

As an engineer that spends a lot of time making Dreamweaver extensions, I better say that latest versions of Dreamweaver and new Web development tools from Microsoft are also not to be left out as topics that pique my interest.  Otherwise, I'd have to say I'd missed my calling.