05.23.06

We Be the Maddest Back Yoable

Posted in Development at 6:30 pm by Soabirw

Site has been down for a few years now I guess. I kept wanting to re-write it myself so we can have all our rediculous and over the top features, but I just never had the time. Between full time jobs and two businesses it just doesn’t seem like an “anytime soon” project. So for the time being we settled on WordPress. So far I have been pretty impressed. This sort of thing has come along way in the past 2 years or so.

I’ll still do my own blog software since I like to use it to experiment. Make the usual PHP version to play with new OOP ideas, AJAX version to test a complete single page navigation, Ruby on Rails, etc. I am hoping to keep all versions up and functional so visitors and seemlessly switch between each version and get the same content. Then it can be up to you what version you want to stick with.

But for now, at least we have a functional site. I’ll probably look into making my own template soon too.

05.24.06

7:00 a.m.

Posted in General at 8:19 am by Soabirw

I remember when 7:00 a.m. used to mean it is getting close to bed time. Those were good days. Now that is when my blasted alarm clock goes off. I actually made it in to work early enough to have to disable the alarm. Even though it’s only a 4 digit code, my stupor necessitated all of the 30 seconds it gives before calling the police. I don’t actually have to come in this early, but to be honest 8:00 a.m. isn’t any less painful then 7:00 a.m. So at least this way I get to go home at 5:00. With my very short lunch that actually saves up about 2 hours for a short Friday. So it’s worth it.

Office is dead quiet. Think they launched something last night and the general rule is if you are working past 10:00 p.m. with a launch you don’t have to come in until noon the next day. Last time they were working until 2:00 a.m. I think. Some day it will be my turn. Something to look forward to.

IDE of the Week

Posted in Development at 8:53 am by Soabirw

It’s not a secret that I am fickle when it comes to my editors. Let’s see if I can even remember them all. Notepad (I know, shouldn’t even count), EditPlus, Dreamweaver (not gui mode), Vim, Emacs, Quanta Plus, Kwrite, gEdit, Jedit, Eclipse w/Tru Studio, Eclipse w/ PHPEclipse, PHPEdit, and some others I probably didn’t spend much time on. Maybe I’ll quickly touch on my favorites.

  • EditPlus - Just a great text editor to replace notepad and do light work. Very fast.
  • Eclipse - Best cross platform editor. Not a lot of good PHP support yet though.
  • Tru Studio - Free version is decent. Pay version gives a lot of instant debugging and polish.
  • PHPEclipse - It colors you code fine, but beyond that it is pretty lack luster.
  • PHPEdit - My 2nd favorite as of last week. Has most of the features you would want and some unique ones I’ve never seen elsewhere. For example, you can toggle between HTML and PHP in a file that has both. When you cursor moves into PHP all the HTML fades to a light grey and visa versa. Making it very obvious what you are editing. Fine code completion and hints, but gets very sluggish when using code completion on medium sized or bigger projects.

Now for my most favoritist. Zend Studio. I’ve only had the joy of trying this recently because work paid for it. It’s pretty pricey, but you can see where that cost goes. This thing has every feature I’ve loved except for PHPEdits HTML/PHP toggle. But it doesn’t need it since code completion and hint works in both modes just fine with good color coding. Here are my favorite features:

  • Good project management.
  • Fast code completion, even for very large projects. And I mean shit fast.
  • Code folding. You can collapse everything from classes to comments with quick shortcuts.
  • On the fly debugging. If there is a parse error in the line you just typed, it will underline it. All debug errors are red lines on the right side of you screen for quick access.
  • Server side debugging. You can actually run your scripts through an intense debugger right from you browser. Both IE and Firefox and toolbars for this.
  • Complete server package. It will install PHP and Apache for you if you want to work right off your workstation.
  • Inspectors. Quickly updates a table of contents for all your files and objects. Makes for quick accesses.
  • SQL interface. Nice gui for database and table structures. Bottom of editor lets you run queries so you can test them straight from you code.

I’m sure there is more I’m forgetting or haven’t come across yet. I am running it at home as well. After it’s impressive performance I just couldn’t stand the sluggish PHPEdit.

Since I mentioned the complete server package I think I’ll make a better recommendation. I am running XAMPP on my Windows (normally I do Linux at work) workstation and I am very impressed. Very easy to setup. I prefer MySQL Query Browser to the interface they provide, but other then that it is working out great. If you need FTP and E-mail it provides those too. FileZilla for FTP and Mercury for E-mail. I don’t use either, so can’t tell you anything about them. I just needed Apache with PHP to work on my checkouts.

AJAX

Posted in Development at 9:14 am by Soabirw

My task for the next few weeks here at work is AJAX. Used five toolkits so far and some are pretty impressive and easy to use.

  • SAJAX - Not really impressed at all. Not easy enough for a n00b like me anyway.
  • Agent - I think this is what SAJAX is trying to be. Very easy, but gives no gui perks. Just makes your server communication cake.
  • Rialto - All about the sexy gui help. Just with commands you can build an entire interface. And with enough tweaking you may be able to change the appearance to fit your needs. But it is slow. Pages crank like crazy.
  • Scriptaculous - Fantastic URL. Impressive demos too, but I haven’t had time to really play with it.
  • Dojo - This is the one I am spending most time on. I think it fits my current project the best. It’s easy to use and provides a good balance between libraries and gui.

The Dojo book also has the best geek, nerd, and dork comparison I’ve seen:

Geeks, Nerds, and Dorks: A geek has a very focused knowledge of a subject (that guy that memorized the language of myst), a nerd is a master at many subjects (that girl you go to when you need homework help), and a dork is just plain socially inept (Napoleon Dynamite).

Our Waste Is Nature’s Butter

Posted in Media at 3:02 pm by Soabirw

Thank God we have been getting rid of all the pesky CO2 gobbling trees. I can’t even imagine what will happen to all the technology that is dependant on our air being filled with CO2.

I suck at segues, so here are two unrelated, but great promotional videos:

05.25.06

V Is For Virtuous

Posted in Toys at 8:56 am by Soabirw

Now that I have meetings and other things to remember I deced to get a fancier phone. In the last two weeks I’ve been late to or completely forgotten at least three meetings. I have a mild interest in PDAs, but I don’t want to carry a PDA and a phone. PDA phone’s are just too damn expensive for something I’m not sure I want or need. So I went with The V, made by my favorite brand, LG. $150 is a much better price tag then $600 plus that come with the PDA phones. Doesn’t have as many features as a PDA phone, but I didn’t want them anyway.

I haven’t been able to play with the more sophisticated stuff like Bluetooth yet. I forgot to get Bluetooth stuff for my PC too. Never used Bluetooth so I’m a bit clueless. Any recomendations would be appreciated. Most the things I’m loving about it right now are appearance related. Dead sexy. Has the usual very bright and colorful front display with basic menu navigation. But when you flip it open and get the larger display all your menu options double or triple. I don’t remember seeing anything extraordinary in the menus besides a much better interface then my last phone. Especially with the contacts manager. Having a full, non squished QWERTY keyboard has been nicer then I expected too. I don’t mind T9 since I still only have to push each key once, but this is definitely better. I think I might actually use this thing for e-mail and such if I am out of town. I will even be able to post via e-mail. I could via browser, but even with the larger screen I’m thinking browsing the web wont be all that great. Might even set it up to work with IM clients. But not sure, since last time I did that MSN freaked and showed me as offline to random people all the time.

Speaker phone seems much more usefull on this model too. When you flip it open you have a nice, steady base and the incoming sound comes out the “stereo” speakers. You can do MP3s and videos and stuff like that this way too, but I’m not interested in that either.

Last feature I’ll talk about is the camera. I’m not that interested in this either, but I might use it now and then. I do like how they laid it out though. The back of the phone actually looks like a real camera. It uses the front display as your preview and the camera buttons are on the side/top. So it really feels and functions like an honest to God camera. Has that micro dealy that helps with close up pictures too. Not that it will make 1.3 megapixel images look less like ass.

All in all, very happy with it. Just wish it wasn’t such an ordeal to get it. It’s well known I there is no love loss between me and FedEx. Especially if you have seen my wonderful commercial (maybe I’ll link it later… maybe). I was supposed to recieve two packages yesterday, one from Newegg and one from Verizon. When I got home Verizon left a note saying they left it in a secret place, but then it also said they were unable to deliver it and I needed to drive my ass all the way back to Orem to get it. Found that confusing, but after checking their hiding place I understood the problem. The Newegg FedEx guy loves to play games with his deliveries. Each time it is in a new and adventurous place. When I got my last 19″ LCD it took me 30 minutes to find it. This time he put it in the place Verizon claimed they were going to. My theory is the Verizon delivery man left in a huff because the other delivery man stole his awesome idea. Sounds like a good script if I ever make another spiteful commercial.

Mobile Soa

Posted in Toys at 10:24 am by Soabirw

I don’t really understand this mobile text message stuff. I signed up for the mobile service on MSN, but that doesn’t seem to automatically send all messages to my phone. In the MSN client I had to assign a mobile number to the offline contact. So this isn’t working if you use something like Trillian. So that sucks. Any tips or tricks are welcome. And if you want my MSN and/or new number, e-mail me or talk to me by whatever medium you normally do.

Edit: This thing comes with AIM, Yahoo, and MSN. So I don’t have to do the awkward IM to TXT setup. I actually sign on with my phone and will show as online to any app. Have a contact list and all. So just let me know if you want my MSN and it should just work. Now I just need to figure out how to check e-mail.

05.30.06

Cell Phone Reception

Posted in Toys at 9:52 am by Soabirw

Anybody know of a way to increase reception? I’ve seen plenty of gimmicky products, like sticking plastic to the back of your battery that has fake circuitry printed on it. But I am curious if there is a legit product. In my basement I literally get zero bars. I can’t call out because it constantly says “service not available”. At work and when visiting friends in Salt Lake I get great reception. Even on their broadband network. I guess Pleasant Grove is still plenty podunk.

06.01.06

Perty Ubuntu

Posted in Rant at 3:32 pm by Soabirw

Looks like the latest Ubuntu switched to the super pretty Mac OS X like interface. Almost enough to make me want to try Linux again. Let me just say that I do love Linux very much. But I’m not about to pretend that it is hassle free for the common user. The prettier X Windows gets the harder it is to install. I had a decent time with Suse and a few others. Unless you want a dual monitor setup, of course.

I love the comments too. You have the hard core Linux lovers saying how horribly difficult it is to get nVidia cards working with Windows XP. When it’s super easy with Linux. All you have to do is download the approprate kernel headers, run the right nVidia script (if you are using a mainstream enough distro otherwise there is much more compiling and configuring to be done), and then edit your X windows config. And if you want dual screen, plan on spending a lot of time in that config and bouncing between run levels. Hope your very familiar with the command line. I know my folks are rock solid with unix based commands. But man, that’s sooo much easier then Windows XP. To quote a comment: “Linux is far better at that and easier for the masses to adopt it.”. So true. All you need to install Linux is a very distro specific step by step guide.

Not that I love Windows XP. My hatred runs very deep. Hopefully I’ll be trying the happy meduim, Mac OS X, in the next month or so.

06.02.06

Heathen Accross The Board

Posted in Toys at 11:55 am by Soabirw

Whelp, I just took the plunge and ordered a MacBook. I wanted something cheap to try out this Mac stuff, but still functional. The MacBook ended up being the same cost as the Mac Mini I was wanting since I didn’t want a totally gimped one. So I sacraficed some power for portability. I want to be able to play with this thing at home and at work as well as take it around to friends and relatives who are also interested. And I’ve always wanted something I could even take around the house for random tasks. Sure, I have an Alienware. But that thing hardly qualifies as “portable”. I think they stopped showing the weight in the technical specifications because of that. Their new ones are approaching 20 lbs. MacBook is about 5lbs. My boss has one and it is great to work with. Grabbed all the adapters I would want too. This thing can do VGA, DVI, and S-Video. I have the MythTV box, so I don’t need to hook it up to my TV. But that sort of functionality always comes in handy.

Anyhoo, hoping it will be here next Tuesday or Wednesday. If Mac really impresses me maybe I’ll go all out and grab a few dream displays.

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