Dan Benjamin

Yes, you’re in the right place. Hivelogic has merged with DanBenjamin.com, and its content now lives here. Watch this space for details.

About

14 April 2008

Hi, I’m Dan Benjamin, your Internet pal. I’m a business strategist, software developer, writer, interface designer, and amateur photographer. I’m probably best known for the posts and tutorials I've published here at Hivelogic. You may also know me as the developer of the A List Apart CMS, the co-founder of Cork’d, or as the co-host of The Talk Show podcast.

I started this site in 2000 as a publishing platform for my writing, but it’s evolved over the years into a repository for my articles, the home for my podcast (on hiatus), and a blog where I post my thoughts on business, technology, development, and the like.

Hivelogic is powered by a CMS I created in Ruby on Rails. It’s a straight-forward, simple system designed for publishing an equally simple website. I don’t have any plans to release it at this time, but thank’s for asking!

The amazing illustration you see above (and which I use as my avatar across the web) was created by the equally amazing Kevin Cornell.

Follow Me

You can follow me on Twitter, connect with me on Facebook or LinkedIn, and see my photos Flickr.

You can contact me directly too, if you'd like.

Work

I’m the CTO of Rails Machine, a hosting and infrastructure company with a focus on production-level Rails applications.

I co-founded Cork’d, the web’s first social network and reviewing application for wine aficionados, which was later acquired by Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV.

I’ve created publishing tools for A List Apart, Capgemini, Halogen Guides, Alma, and many others, and developed software for companies including Convergys, MCI, Vitalsource, and Tupperware.

In addition to publishing my writing about software development, technology, photography, and podcasting on Hivelogic, my writing has also been published both in print and online on sites including O’Reilly’s Mac Dev Center, A List Apart, and the FreeBSD Journal.

I’ve been a featured speaker at conferences including RailsConf and LinuxWorld Expo, and was a keynote speaker at acts_as_conference.

Personal

I live with my wife and son in Orlando, Florida. I try to jog as often as possible. I love kayaking. My favorite movie directors are Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson. I've been a Mac geek since 1984. I'm a classically trained guitarist, but I'm pretty rusty these days.

I have a B.A. in Technical Writing with a Computer Science focus from the University of Central Florida.

I'm from Philadelphia, PA, and I'm a lifelong Philadelphia Eagles fan. I like college football too, and I have season tickets and watch all of the UCF Knights football games.

I am an amateur photographer (meaning I don't get paid for taking photographs). My primary camera is a Nikon D700 and my main lenses are a 24-70mm, a 70-200mm telephoto lens and a 50mm prime.

I practice daily Vipassana meditation in the Theravada Buddhist tradition.