Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
An hour and a half
I have been in my Human Management Resources class for over an hour and a half and we have yet to do anything but complain about our jobs.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Business Administrations
I am currently in my second business administration class. I am having a very difficult time paying attention. This must be what it like having ADHD.
Friday, August 1, 2008
This is how awesome Ubuntu is.
I was interested in trying out some bug tracker tools and found a program called Mantis. I found an installation guide at http://www.gbbservices.com/prog/mantis.html
If you go and view that page you will see that it takes quite some time to get this up and running, but not in Ubuntu. I got everything working by simply typing the following in at the terminal:
In about a minute Ubuntu had downloaded, installed, and configured everything. Go back and review the above page for installing on Windows and then review my instructions for installing on Ubuntu.
If you go and view that page you will see that it takes quite some time to get this up and running, but not in Ubuntu. I got everything working by simply typing the following in at the terminal:
sudo aptitude install apache2 mysql-server php mantis
In about a minute Ubuntu had downloaded, installed, and configured everything. Go back and review the above page for installing on Windows and then review my instructions for installing on Ubuntu.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Programming
In many way, being a programmer is like being an artist. Inspiration comes and it goes. You can't always force useful work.
Many times I get on a project and I rock that project for hours on end. And then it will all putter out. It may be that I completed the project, or that I have to wait for someone else to complete something. It could be that I have coded up until I reached a point that there are now a few jams that have to be backed out. I need time to step back and rethink everything. Resort the puzzle in my mind so I can get a good idea of how to proceed, which will usually be followed by hours more of useful work.
When I reach these points it is best if I just go home. They usually come within an hour of the time I leave anyhow. I simply cannot get back to a highly productive state before it is time for me to leave, and even if I did, I would have to stop in just a little bit of time anyhow.
Other times I have the opposite problem. Four-thirty will come around and I'm rockin' code, but I have to abandon it and go home. Being in the middle of a productive streak and having it cut short by having to clock out, a meeting, or something else is very bad. It takes a while to go from cold to productive, sometimes up to an hour.
Code is big and it depends on so many other things. To get everything working just right takes putting a lot of pieces together and delicately placing them just right. Like in Operation, a single slip causes the buzzer to go off and you have to start from the beginning. And like doing taxes, there are so many rules you have to be really careful to get everything just right or you end up with the IRS a down your door, or in a programmers case, your boss. You round a number the wrong way, that number gets passed around and multiplied, and then you ended up billing hundreds of customers too much and they are upset.
It would be nice if my end time was not set in stone. I leave when it is best, not when the clock does its thing.
Many times I get on a project and I rock that project for hours on end. And then it will all putter out. It may be that I completed the project, or that I have to wait for someone else to complete something. It could be that I have coded up until I reached a point that there are now a few jams that have to be backed out. I need time to step back and rethink everything. Resort the puzzle in my mind so I can get a good idea of how to proceed, which will usually be followed by hours more of useful work.
When I reach these points it is best if I just go home. They usually come within an hour of the time I leave anyhow. I simply cannot get back to a highly productive state before it is time for me to leave, and even if I did, I would have to stop in just a little bit of time anyhow.
Other times I have the opposite problem. Four-thirty will come around and I'm rockin' code, but I have to abandon it and go home. Being in the middle of a productive streak and having it cut short by having to clock out, a meeting, or something else is very bad. It takes a while to go from cold to productive, sometimes up to an hour.
Code is big and it depends on so many other things. To get everything working just right takes putting a lot of pieces together and delicately placing them just right. Like in Operation, a single slip causes the buzzer to go off and you have to start from the beginning. And like doing taxes, there are so many rules you have to be really careful to get everything just right or you end up with the IRS a down your door, or in a programmers case, your boss. You round a number the wrong way, that number gets passed around and multiplied, and then you ended up billing hundreds of customers too much and they are upset.
It would be nice if my end time was not set in stone. I leave when it is best, not when the clock does its thing.
Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
In a spark to learn a little about how to program in Ruby I ran across Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby.
It is definitely a different take on teaching programming. For example, there are cartoons sprawled all over the place. One cartoon has the two characters trying to convince the author to use the phrase "Crunchy Bacon" in one of his quotes.
There is also a side-bar that includes other such ramblings, such as at the beginning explaining that the book is released under the Creative Commons license, and what the means. The explanation being that the author's visions of wealth and fame from the book are being tossed out, and the reader is enabled to take those on for him or herself.
Anyhow, I'm enjoying reading it.
It is definitely a different take on teaching programming. For example, there are cartoons sprawled all over the place. One cartoon has the two characters trying to convince the author to use the phrase "Crunchy Bacon" in one of his quotes.
There is also a side-bar that includes other such ramblings, such as at the beginning explaining that the book is released under the Creative Commons license, and what the means. The explanation being that the author's visions of wealth and fame from the book are being tossed out, and the reader is enabled to take those on for him or herself.
Anyhow, I'm enjoying reading it.
Butter
Aurora had watched a video cast of some guy making butter and really wanted me to help her make some. So I watched the video and saw what the guy did. It was pretty simple. Let whipping cream sit out for ~12 hours, put it in a jar, forcefully shake the jar in hard deliberate shakes.
It just so happens that I had a little tub of whipping cream, so I set it out yesterday morning before I left for work. I had poured it into a water bottle.
When I got home last night we took the bottle and gave it those deliberate shakes the man did in the video. After about thirty minutes we didn't really have much. I thought that maybe there was too much cream in the bottle so I poured about half of it into a cup. Sure enough, after that we had some action in just a couple minutes.
What came out looked a lot less like butter and a lot more like whipped cream. There was suppose to be some butter milk run off, and we didn't have any of that. I was a little worried we had created whipped cream and not butter.
I had bought some bread at Publix, because Aurora insisted that the man on the video cast said we needed "fresh bread", so our week old bread in the fridge wouldn't cut it. So we put our "cream" on the bread and it was really good. Athena enjoyed it too.
I put the rest of our cream in a container and put it in the fridge. About an hour later is resembled butter a lot more.
When we run out of this we'll try again, but with our water bottle not too full from the beginning.
It just so happens that I had a little tub of whipping cream, so I set it out yesterday morning before I left for work. I had poured it into a water bottle.
When I got home last night we took the bottle and gave it those deliberate shakes the man did in the video. After about thirty minutes we didn't really have much. I thought that maybe there was too much cream in the bottle so I poured about half of it into a cup. Sure enough, after that we had some action in just a couple minutes.
What came out looked a lot less like butter and a lot more like whipped cream. There was suppose to be some butter milk run off, and we didn't have any of that. I was a little worried we had created whipped cream and not butter.
I had bought some bread at Publix, because Aurora insisted that the man on the video cast said we needed "fresh bread", so our week old bread in the fridge wouldn't cut it. So we put our "cream" on the bread and it was really good. Athena enjoyed it too.
I put the rest of our cream in a container and put it in the fridge. About an hour later is resembled butter a lot more.
When we run out of this we'll try again, but with our water bottle not too full from the beginning.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Networking
Yesterday I finally got something done I had been wanting to do for a while. I went up to Lowe's and purchased some CAT5e cable and wall jacks. I then went home, drilled some holes in the floor, and ran cables under the house. Next to my DSL modem I have two network outlets that run to my bedroom and the other to the girl's bedroom.
I had previously been connecting wirelessly. Wireless support in Linux is not stellar, and the cards in our computers have gone from supported to not supported, which is kind of odd.
With my new wired connections I have a full 100M connection between the PCs, and no wireless headaches.
For the jack in the girl's room, Aurora punched down two wire pairs into the jack.
One thing I was worried about was if I made even one mistake, then the run wouldn't work. I don't have any tools for troubleshooting problems with network cables. If any wire was out of place, or wasn't punched down properly, the only indication I would have of a problem is that my computer wouldn't connect. I would have no idea why. Testers can tell you exactly which wire is having a problem, but without that it would be up to me to make sure all wires are in the proper place and try to punch them down a little harder. If that would have failed then I would have had to just restripped everything and started over again. Fortunately everything worked the first time and I didn't have to worry about any of that.
Now I can very easily pass music and videos around from computer to computer. My next step is to get a Gig switch so I can go from 100M between computers to 1,000M between computers. Sweet!
I had previously been connecting wirelessly. Wireless support in Linux is not stellar, and the cards in our computers have gone from supported to not supported, which is kind of odd.
With my new wired connections I have a full 100M connection between the PCs, and no wireless headaches.
For the jack in the girl's room, Aurora punched down two wire pairs into the jack.
One thing I was worried about was if I made even one mistake, then the run wouldn't work. I don't have any tools for troubleshooting problems with network cables. If any wire was out of place, or wasn't punched down properly, the only indication I would have of a problem is that my computer wouldn't connect. I would have no idea why. Testers can tell you exactly which wire is having a problem, but without that it would be up to me to make sure all wires are in the proper place and try to punch them down a little harder. If that would have failed then I would have had to just restripped everything and started over again. Fortunately everything worked the first time and I didn't have to worry about any of that.
Now I can very easily pass music and videos around from computer to computer. My next step is to get a Gig switch so I can go from 100M between computers to 1,000M between computers. Sweet!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Firefox3 out
You can get it at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?from=getfirefox once the site stops being hammered. Regardless of what browser or OS you are using, you should get this immediately.
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