I have a friend, Scott Davis, who owns a Tampa Computer Repair company called TechMonster. They offer computer repair, home theater installation, home theater computers, custom built computers.
He knows his stuff and I suggest using him if you live in the Tampa Bay area and are searching for a Tampa computer repair company.
This is not my typical post, but since I’m getting married this summer, I decided to post it. I didn’t know this until now, but weddings can be pretty expensive! I feel like it’s an unecessary cost, but to make most bride-to-be’s happy, it’ll get done…and you’ll like it. Anyhow, I was browsing the web and I filled out this survey, for a chance to Win A Dream Wedding.
I’m not normally a fan of surveys, but anything is worth the 5 or so minutes it takes to fill this out. To qualify though, you must live in the USA. If you decide to do this, let me know something. Thanks again for reading.
It seems like everyday there are new Instant Messenging (IM) clients being developed. It seems like I’ve tried them all. A few months ago, I read a blog and tried out this software. It was called Digsby. It had all the features that I could have wanted. It allowed me to use all my accounts from other various messengers. These being: ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Messenger.
One of my favorite features of Digsby is that it allows me to check my email accounts. Thus, I don’t have to open Thunderbird every few minutes, I can look in the bottom right icon tray and see how many I have.
All in all, you should check out Digsby. I like it and I think you will too.
I was recently attempting to transfer a site from one host to another. The process can be tedious if you decided to download all the data and then upload it again, no matter what connection you’re on. So, none the less, on my hosting account I have SSH/Shell Access. So, anyhow, I attempted to use the FTP command from the command line. Not being fond of using command line ftp, I googled on how to transfer an entire folder to another host using command line ftp. I found some post, basically stating it wasn’t possible no matter what the person tried. However, one of the people on there suggested that you use RSync. Rsync, I believe comes with all or most of every linux distros. The following command is what I used to transfer my site over:
rsync -aE -e ssh /home/myoldusername/public_html/ newuser@newhost.com:/home/newhost/
I can’t really give you too much info on how it works, but I can tell you that it worked for me. If you would like to read more up on this, then check out the link below.
http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-52649.html
I have to start off by saying, I’m not someone who’s great at reviewing products, websites, or anything for that matter. Anyhow, let me cut to the chase.
Basically, I was looking for a host, who offered SVN for free, without me having to set it up and install it myself. For the last 5 years or so I’ve been managing my own server, whether it be a VPS or an actual Dedicated Server. It was and is tedious. Well, one of the only hosts I came across that provided this service and offered affordable rates, was Dreamhost.
DreamHost basically offers unlimited storage to any individual or company. To top that off, it also offers unlimited bandwidth. However, I must warn you. If you plan on signing up to create a file sharing website or just to use it for hosting, you’re going against their terms.
This host will be perfect for the novice user of a web host. It offers 1-click installs, allowing you to create blogs, shopping carts, content management systems, almost anything you can think of…and at the click of a button, it’s done.
My favorite part so far is the integration with Google Apps. Do you like GMail? Well, DreamHost will allow you to set your domain up using Google Apps. This will in turn, make your domain’s email look like GMail’s, but it’ll be yours. You can add any email address you want, up to 200 for the basic package.
Last but not least, you get a free domain. This means that if you’re a new company or just a novice computer user looking to start-up a website…They GIVE you this, absolutely free! You can’t beat that.
That concludes my DreamHost.com Hosting Review. I hope you visit their site, signup, and thank me later.
Click here to visit DreamHost.com
Using Windows XP and keep getting the prompt to restart your computer, after downloading Automatic Updates?
I do, and it annoys me to death. It happens to pop up at the most inopportune times, watching a movie, playing a game, developing a website, etc.
For those of you that are lazy, I have created a simple .bat file to kill the annoying windows update restart popup. Simply download the file and open it. A black box will appear, and then go away. You should see the windows update box go away.
I originally found this post on LifeHacker
If you are getting the error: PHP Warning: Module ‘tidy’ already loaded in Unknown on line 0
The issue is *more than likely* that you have ‘tidy’ loading in your php.ini file.
If you are using version 11 of cpanel, tidy is optional and you can now compile it into php. However, before version 11, you needed to compile this yourself.
Well, a while ago I posted about some goals I wanted to meet before the year was over. None of which I’ve met 100%, however, I’m improving/attempting to still do.
1. Being employed at a company/corporation - I’ve went to a few interviews, felt they went well, but apparently someone wasn’t expressing their exact thoughts. When I inquired about whether or not I was invited back for another interview or even got hired, I got the run around. Anywho, still trying to be optimistic about things, I’m still looking for employment elsewhere.
2. My goal about finishing things on time, not quite on time, but atleast I’m getting the finishing down. Kind of hard to get things done between all the distractions, having a normal life, working a real job, and trying to keep yourself motivated. I feel I have improved in this area dramatically. I still feel that the main reason I lag on things is due to interest and the fact that I know it’s not my primary source of income. If it were my ONLY source, I’d have no choice or just be homeless.
3. Learning a new development language. I think that I’m pretty much done learning new development languages. I mean, as of now, I see it like, “what’s the point?”. I’m not employed and my skills are useless. Regardless of what I know, places that want developers, want college educations. I find it completely irrelevant to the position, but hey, their money, their choice. WHEN I get a job that requires or atleast seems like it’d benefit from me learning a new language, then I’ll atleast try. Until then, my brain is locked.
–
The four sites that I had listed.
1) poetrycircle.net - Halted development completely on it until I had a better base and idea of what the site should be. A very broad idea of the site was in my head at the time. I’m reworking my ideas for the site and the old designer is wanting to redesign the layout.
2) babetemplates.com - I don’t think this site will ever be back to ‘life’, so to speak. It went from having a forum with 1k+ members, to being completely dead in no time. Though, I’d like to bring it back to life, I sit and think…”Who actually wants babe templates anyhow?”.
3) mystorytime.net - The current site contains OLD exploitable code from when I first began developing in PHP. I redid the site using CakePHP, it’s not 100%, however only a few pages are left to design. I had got sidetracked by some paid work, and forgot all about it.
4) oceanempires.com - I’d still love to complete this game, I just have this feeling it won’t ever happen. While chatting in the #cakephp channel, I met someone who was interested in developing it with me. We created a project page and that’s all that happened. The other guy’s computer messed up and he fell behind in work. From that day forward, he magically never had time anymore. Funny how that works, eh?
My next issue is, creating a portfolio with all my work in it. I do graphic design and web work. I’m not sure whether I should separate the two or just keep them in the same portfolio or what. Blah, stress.
When I began developing in PHP, I remember needing a complete random string, for passwords/verification emails. The code for it went a little something like this:
$letters = array('A', 'B', 'C', ... etc);
Being a novice programmer, I used to ask people for help and let them see my code. Anyhow, to make a long story short, I met Peter Harkins on Freenode’s #php channel. He showed me the range() function, which helped shorten my code, and make it look cleaner. Below is a simple function that can be used, may be useful to some, that can shorten the process.
<?php
function range2($start, $end, $length)
{
$str_array = range($start, $end);
srand((double) microtime() * 1000000);
$text = '';
for($i = 0; $i < $length; $i++)
{
$text .= $str_array[rand(0, count($str_array) - 1)];
}
return $text;
}
?>
Example:
<?php
echo range2('A', 'Z', 5);
?>
How it works:
Creates an array of letters from ‘A’ to ‘Z’ using ascii characters. Check out www.asciitable.com for the ordering of them. Afterwards, it selects a random letter from the array and assigns it to the $text variable.
Not too hard, just something I feel is simple and useful. Since I tend to see alot of developers still doing it the “hard” way.
While reading one of my favorite blog sites, LifeClever.com, I came across an interesting article. In short, it basically gave tips on how to be more productive, while reducing distractions.
How many of you check your email every 10 minutes, IM while working, have people distracting you in many ways, people calling you, and overall, feeling overwhelmed by all of these distractions? I know that these things tend to happen to me when I’m trying to complete a site or a design.
A bad habit of mine is chatting on IM’s rather than working on what I KNOW needs to get done.
If some of these things happen to you while you’re attempting to get work done, check out the article on LifeClever.com - “10 quick and (almost) painless ways to kill distractions“