When Sprint PCS service became available, I bought a phone fro my wife and myself, and dropped Ameritech (hopefully never to return).
I am figuring a $25-40 savings per month over traditional land-line phones. Before I used an ISDN line so we each had a number, but now we each have a phone, voicemail, callerID, etc. Long Distance is included and we have 1000 minutes to blow this month.
I know of a ouple otherr people who ditched their land line phones, I believe it will become increasingly popular, as high-speed internet access (cable, and DSL) become more popular.
What would be really cool is a cradle for the cell phone, that plugs into your homesexisting wiring, and when the phone is "docked" allows you to place and recive calls like a regular land-line. I imagine some kind of mini-pbx would actually provide the dial tone, and the interface between cell-phone and teh handsets in your house. That would be quite cool, has anyone heard of anything like that?
Are these socks anonymous servers like a scaled up NAT server?
NAT is great if your organization is pretty large, but since there are two users for my 20 computers (which share a single IP) it doesn't hide much, but if there was a public NAT that supported thousands of userrs, it would make it much more difficult to track people down.
On a side note, could the "bad" guys who are spying on us use a sniffer pointed at the "anonymous socks server mentions above and see the IP of incoming packets, and consequently defeat the anonymous nature of it?
Sorry for such a public display of ignorance, but I am curious and since we are on the subject . . .
I totally agree that "the code" and layout should not mix. However, I disagree that tools like PHP EmbPerl, ASP etc should not be used.
While those tools make it easy to mix up the logic with the layout, any programmer worth his/her salt is going to be able to keep them seperate enough. There almost always is some overlap anyway, (HTML forms that become variables in the actual logic.) The tools designed for web use (like PHP) make it very easy to get variables/parameters from the "layout" into the logic. Without web specific feature to automatically get the HTML form variables, environment variables, etc you as a developer must do a lot more work and maitain a lot more code. IMHO why reinvent the wheel, just to enforce a seperation of logic and layout.
I commonly seperate out most of the layout by using include files in my PHP scripts. I use a nameing convention to help me enforce this:
1. disp_*.php are PHP scripts that produce output. 2. disp_*.inc are include files that contain functions that produce output 3. sys_*.inc are include files that contain "logic" function (i.e. they do not produce output (other than debug statements) 4. *.html are "layout files that are mainly HTML, they may have functions calls embedded to produce things like selection lists, or results from DB queries. My goal is t make them maintainable by people who know nothing about PHP.
Your mileage may vary.
I have only been using PHP for about a year, and I know I have a long way to go in learning, but the fact that it is very is to learn, and does a lot of things for the programmer (with out sacrificing flexibilty) makes it the best tool for the majority web projects.
I agree with ANGELO, there are many "best" choices depending on what you want you need.
But I would also add that beyond your needs you should look at factors such as your development background, the scalability needs, your connectability needs, etc.
The biggest Advantage I see in PHP is however the support it has. It compares favorably to PERL, ASP, JAVA, PYTHON, etc as far as features go. But the difference with PHP is it was written solely for a web/CGI tool. This makes it obviously very web centered.
So when you are looking for help, the chances are much greater that the people using it are trying to accomplish the same things you are. This is opposed to a general purpose tool like PERL, Python, or Java. Those languages are so flexible and useful that they are shoe horned into many many situations.
Consequently the user functions that are created may or may not be applicable to the web, and consequently they add a layer of "fuzz" to the web programmer looking for web specific information regarding the tool.
Compare that to PHP, search newgroup archives, the examples are all explaining how to accomplish something on the web. Look at the great on-line manual at PHP.net, and you get examples that are clear and consise, and easy to cut and paste. Even better is the annotated manual with thousands of comments focused on utilizing web the exant functions for a specific task.
I have not seen anything nearly as useful for any other development tool.
The documentation allowed me to jump into PHP and be proficient in a very short time. I started as a PROGRESS 4GL developer, and moved to PROGRESSES Proprietary Webspeed application. It was great if you are a Progress shop. As the projects became independent of the Progress database, I started using PHP for its ease of use. It was very easy to me to pick up and become proficient. Progress is not a object oriented language, and while PHP has some object oriented features, it is was very easy for a non-object oriented guy like me to pick up.
I thought the BIOS "ads" were generally open so manufacturers or common blokes (with enough tinkering) could change them, with a custom "splash" logo. at boot up. The bioses I had that did this had provisions in the update to facilate a small graphic (gif i think). Unfortunately that was a looooong time aga, and I haven't bother to play with it since then so I could be totally mistaken.
My experience with Via Voice, and several competing products have been un-impressive at best. In my experience the software had a lot of trouble using "cheap" microphones. Also background noise was an issue. Of course that was in my relatively quiet office. What is going to happen in a car where there is a lot more ambient noise?
Have you tested any proto types in a variety of driving conditions?
Does the unit feature voice feedback as well? (does it talk back?). The march 2000 issue of Linux Journal has an artocle (p130) by Goran Devic, explaining how to create a "talking" mp3 system, that uses speech synthesis to annouce tracks and albums (he uses Festival). The input is via a hacked X10 universal remote control that simulated a mouse. Its very interesting, and the combo of the two would be quite cool.
I agree, its like the famous scene from Phantasia (redone on itch and scratchy) where they chop up the mouse into a million little pieces and those little pieces devour one from the inside out. Definatelty bad mojo in my opinion. . .
I read someplace that Intel donates the old x86 technology to the government for use in space vehicals. I do not believe they donate hardware, just give them a free liscense to use the x86 chip set.
Sandia National Labs was tagged to do the hardening for the Pentium series of chips, though I don't know where they stand with it.
I have had experience with many digital camera over the past 3-4 years. They started out as a toy, but I have found them very useful for my business as a web designer as well.
I currently own a Olympus 620L. It's resolution is a bit low by today's standards, but it has a number of imporovemnets over the 500L and 600L that preceded it. Namely a "fast" buffer, so you can quickly snap 5 pictures. This is a must feature for me since I have a young toddler, and getting him to hold still is darn near impossible. it also works well for action shots of my ferrets. The flash is not as fast, so when you use burst mode you need a lot of light (best outside on a sunny day).
Over all I really like the quality, with the new epson photo printers I have prints that are instinguishable from photo lab prints even using a magnifying glass. (at about 4x6" size. I have had good experience with prints up to 8x10") the lower resolution (compared to newer models) comes into play after that (1280x1024). Though the vast majority of the pictures I take end up on the web, and I often use the lowest resultion for those (640x517).
I also have an older ricoh 2E (I think, its on lone to a friend.) It doesn't have a flash so It kinda stinks for indoors or action shots. It does however do much better than any camera on close up shots. (it does not have any type of zoom, but it works well for fishtank shots, and for textures. It aso supports direct output to television, and can act as a limited video camera, which makes it fun at parties, or even presentations, because you can upload jpg "sides" and show them on any TV with a RCA input.
All in all the best camera is one that suits your needs the best. Try out as many as you can first, if you are going to use it for prints, make sure you test that (Walgreens has photo print kiosks that you can use to print straight from a floppy for about $7 if you don't have a printer, the quality is great!).
/** If you see this comment twice, its because I was a dumb ass and accidently posted a reply in the wrong thread the first time, doh! **/
I too am a professional PHP developer. I have found that planing ahead is the best way to write good code.
I always try to build small functions, that can be re-used and generate clean and quick code.
However, as a coder, you need to be aware what the design team is doing. I fortunately do a lot of my own design, and am aware of how large file sizes and extraneous "extras" like javascript buttons, popups, etc waste resources. Unfortuately the majority of designers I have worked with have been paper publisher, who have only recently started producing layouts of the web.
I am contantly telling them to avoid things like background gradients, and lots of images fading from one to another. Sure it looks good, but doesn't lend itself well to scaling.
On some projects it is frustrating to have to deal with browser incompatibilities, resulting in extraneous code, to use one block for Netscape, and another block of code for I.e., and maybe a third for Lynx. This scenerio doesn't happen too often, as planning inadvance helps alot, as does design for the lowest common denomiator (I usually target a 3.0 browser at 640x480).
Sometimes you're lucky and the project is for a local intranet. Those are the best because you can design for the standard browers (usually a I.e 40 or 5) and can rely on a fast connection.
My list of things to keep in mind when coding for the web: 1. target audience, (what do we expect the clients to have) 2. Do I need a database to store my dynamic content, where is that machine at in relation to the web host? What can I do to cut down on database transactions? 3. How many of the viual elements can be reused. I try to break down the site into sections, a header section, footer, navigation, body, etc. the more these peices can be reused the faster, your site will be, and the easier it will be to maintain. 4. Graphics effientcies? Where can I subsitude background colors in tables for an image. If there is an animated image, can I chop it up so that the animated portion is as small as possible, and store the image layout in a table? (.GIFs are bad, and animations are annoying, but sometimes the client insists) What format is the smallest.PNG or.JPG. 5. Maintainability. This includes this liek a meanful directory structure, consistent capitalization, comments, etc. While it is important to do things the right way up front to save time in the long run. I have found that when i start off quick and dirty, the project stays that way. You almost never go back and add comments or clean the code once it works, you only will do so if there is a problem. So I feel it is important to address as many issues as you can upfront. Plan for easy maintainability. If your logic is easy to follow, it will be easy to maitain (and therefore there will be less temptation to put inefficient band-aids in place.) 6. Testing. Make sure you test your site and application on as many browsers and at as many resolutions as possible. And even if you have a DSL or CAble modem, get a dial-up account to test the access. (A ppp link over a null modem with the speed turned down also will work for this. ..)
For references I use a pretty standard HTML syntax book, an Older version of Javascript Unleashed (sams), I also highly recommend the MySQL mSQL by Reese and King (O'Reilly) and The PHP on-line anontated manual (http://php.net/ docs.php3). When I get stuck, or what advice I always go to the mailling list archives at http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists?I=php-genera l
I too am a professional PHP developer. I have found that planing ahead is the best way to write good code.
I always try to build small functions, that can be re-used and generate clean and quick code.
However, as a coder, you need to be aware what the design team is doing. I fortunately do a lot of my own design, and am aware of how large file sizes and extraneous "extras" like javascript buttons, popups, etc waste resources. Unfortuately the majority of designers I have worked with have been paper publisher, who have only recently started producing layouts of the web.
I am contantly telling them to avoid things like background gradients, and lots of images fading from one to another. Sure it looks good, but doesn't lend itself well to scaling.
On some projects it is frustrating to have to deal with browser incompatibilities, resulting in extraneous code, to use one block for Netscape, and another block of code for I.e., and maybe a third for Lynx. This scenerio doesn't happen too often, as planning inadvance helps alot, as does design for the lowest common denomiator (I usually target a 3.0 browser at 640x480).
Sometimes you're lucky and the project is for a local intranet. Those are the best because you can design for the standard browers (usually a I.e 40 or 5) and can rely on a fast connection.
My list of things to keep in mind when coding for the web: 1. target audience, (what do we expect the clients to have) 2. Do I need a database to store my dynamic content, where is that machine at in relation to the web host? What can I do to cut down on database transactions? 3. How many of the viual elements can be reused. I try to break down the site into sections, a header section, footer, navigation, body, etc. the more these peices can be reused the faster, your site will be, and the easier it will be to maintain. 4. Graphics effientcies? Where can I subsitude background colors in tables for an image. If there is an animated image, can I chop it up so that the animated portion is as small as possible, and store the image layout in a table? (.GIFs are bad, and animations are annoying, but sometimes the client insists) What format is the smallest.PNG or.JPG. 5. Maintainability. This includes this liek a meanful directory structure, consistent capitalization, comments, etc. While it is important to do things the right way up front to save time in the long run. I have found that when i start off quick and dirty, the project stays that way. You almost never go back and add comments or clean the code once it works, you only will do so if there is a problem. So I feel it is important to address as many issues as you can upfront. Plan for easy maintainability. If your logic is easy to follow, it will be easy to maitain (and therefore there will be less temptation to put inefficient band-aids in place.) 6. Testing. Make sure you test your site and application on as many browsers and at as many resolutions as possible. And even if you have a DSL or CAble modem, get a dial-up account to test the access. (A ppp link over a null modem with the speed turned down also will work for this. ..)
For references I use a pretty standard HTML syntax book, an Older version of Javascript Unleashed (sams), I also highly recommend the MySQL mSQL by Reese and King (O'Reilly) and The PHP on-line anontated manual (http://php.net/ docs.php3). When I get stuck, or what advice I always go to the mailling list archives at http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists?I=php-genera l
Please forgive my ignorance... but will this tool work with other languages?
It looks like it is matches text strings in the source files.
I haven't done much C or C++, but I work with PhP and HTML (i know it is not a language per say) daily, and PERL on occassion. And it looks like it could help me manage the larger sites i maintain.
It seems Love's comments were targeted at the "suits". His definition of proprietary simply reflected a term that he felt would relate better to a significant portion of his audience.
Do I agree with his attitude? No, not entirely. Do I think his attitude makes some sense, Yes I do.
Like it or not our economy is not a gift economy. It really is not feasible to give away everything. A lot of the time, maybe even most of the time, Open SOurce makes sense, but I believe there are exceptions to every rule.
Its just is not a Black and White issue. His statements reflect he believe more strongly in one direction than the other, but that is not important. What is important is the message that there needs to be room for all opinions. And that being an over-zealous advocate (at either end of the spectrum) is limiting to the community as a whole. Hasn't RMS been criticized for being over-zealous in his advocacy?
So I say we should take this in stride. Caldera might not be from the same side of the tracks as most of us are, but at least they are on the same map. We do not have to agree or support them, they don't really seem to want our support. But if they can expand the community by bringing in new users who don't fit the "traditional" linux user mold who are we to complain. It will make for a bigger community, and therefore better IMHO.
If we have to give all student some peice of rather expensive hardware it should be an "E-book" type device that has a high-resolution screen, so that current texts can be downloaded onto it. Perhaps with so extended functionality (perhaps liscense the NEWTON OS) for use in annotating the text of their "books". I say net access would be a distraction, as would general purpose features that would just allow some techinal guru to convert the thing into a game machine easily (I sure it would be possible anyway, but we should at least make it difficult). Keep it simple. Current electronic text books, and limited note taking and maybe PIM like features. Thats it. No internet, no Networking, simple serial connection for file transfers (ala palm pilot). If we make communications a focus the the thing gets to be much more unmanagemble and uncontrolable. A side note I read way back that some school-system was going to buy Apple Message Pads (actually the not message pads, but the ones that had a clam shell design and were about the size of a subotebook). What ever became of that initiative? I imagine it didn't work, but I bet it came closer than any of the current proposals will. . .
These programs seem like more of an PR ploy to boost the esteem of the schools systems.
While I believe that some students could benefit from computers with internet access, most would not. Teachers would need to adjust lesson plans and their ciriculum to be more net focused. Teachers would need to keep current on the information on the net, 401 not found, would be a pretty lame lesson.
Administrators would be exposed to even more censorship hassles. Not to mention the extreme effort to support the hardware. Large corporations have a HUGE budget of IT infrastructure, that schools do not have. Not to mention corporations have $$ to pay talented people to build information resources to help them leverage their investment and make retreiving information more effecient. Schools would need to have the same resources built to facilate things like common lesson plans, perhaps standard test databases, quizes, educationtional software, etc.
What it sounds like to me is putting the cart before the horse. I doubt there is much anybody can do avbout this near sighted reactionary ploy by politicians and schoool boards. For example my school district about 10 years ago (before big Internet hype) was hyped on getting new hardware. They cleverly used funds from a bond to buy new computers for labs throughout the district. Unfortunately for them, they were not allowed to use the same $$ to buy software. There was something about the bond that limited its spending to equipment. So The computers sat unused for some time before they could pass a milage to allow them to buy the software for these machines.
It was ridiculous then, and I think the same type of mistake is happening now. A suprisingly high percentage of schools are connected to the Internet (I forget how high but it was a majority of them). But nobody asks how many are using it?
I have several teachers (ranging from elementary ed, to college profs) in my family from around the country, and when we get together they usually talk education. I heard the same recurring theme. They want to use computers and make use of them, and are all trying to do that, but they don't know how.
What we need is not to give a computer to each kid, but to give a computer to each teacher AND TRAIN THEM. Not a wimpy week long class, but make them go to a specially designed class at the college level. AND make it some type of certification, otherwise they will not keep up with technology.
By training the teacher they will have the skills to make use of the technology in their class room and pass those skills along to the students. Once we get a technology savvy set of teachers then we can put technology in the hands of the students.
I have never really had a problem with domain name squatting or speculating, but squatting on a top level domain to me is ridiculous (even if they paid $50M). They are holding all.tv domain names hostage, for instances major cities start at 25k a year (detroit.tv, grandrapids.tv) states are 100k (michigan.tv) and usa.tv is 250k (i believe). My last name is 5K per year.
This system goes too far to prevent the "little" guys from getting on and making a name for themselves in a relatively uselful top-level domain. This compares to the.com/.org/.net system where it was too easy for the little guy to get a name. Which I think directly led to this type of this "super squatting".
It is not the auction format that irks me, I actually think it is more fair in many ways. The thing that bugs me most is the arbitrary starting price for the domain names, and also an arbitrarily long auction time. If each domain was treated equaling and the market was left to decide, this system would be great, but it is not.
I am particularly interested in the dotTV's success or failure at marketing an alternative TLD because I work for a company that is attempting to capitalize on the.MD domain. We are providing personalized "vanity" email and webspace for the medical industry. You can check it out at DrWeb.MD.
Time will tell. dotTV has a desirable product, but their gorilla tactics may keep out the small young companies that are the true innovators, that made the web big. Their strategy is simply to milk the fat corporate cows, and keep out the little guys.
I think in the long run this stratgey will fail, because the big guys they are going after have already spent millions of dollars marketing their.com addresses. They are not likely to put that much money into a.tv address, because it will dillute the value of their.com. They also are not likely to spend big bucks just to keep a malicious parody site off the market, because dotTV is essentially doing it for them with such a high cost of entry.
The internet is still a frontier, that rewards risk takes and innovators. DotTV is certainly taking a risk (but most of it I am sure is not their money). They are locking out the true risk takers and innovators, in what will be a fruitless effort that will essentially slaughter the cash cow.
If I had a million bucks to invest it sure as hell wouldn't be in dotTV. IdeaLab! has blown this one. IMHO. MS2k
What happens when we switch to purely digital radio broadcasts? Presumably then each song will be broadcast with additional information like, artist, genre, publication date, etc. It would seem pretty straight forward to have a either a radio tuner add-in card that simply scans for music you want that is being broadcast over the air in a digotal form.
Obviously we are not at that stage yet, but it is only a matter of time.
Another thought . . . I know there are a lot of people who rush out and purchase the latest and greatest CDs as soon as they are released, but I would guess much more people are like me and only buy their favorite artists newest albums. I don't have 20 bucks to waste everytime a new group gets to number one on the charts. So Napster has not changed my CD Purchasing habits in the least. Therefore no artists or record companies have been harmed.
Does anybody have numbers on CD sales for the last year or so? Has there been a big decline in CD sales? Since Napster has been unbeilevably popular in one of the record industries biggest demographics (college students) it would follow that a noticible drop would occur.
If that drop hasn't occured it would support my theory that people are like me, and download "new stuff" or stuff they normally wouldn't buy. But they still purchase their favorites on CD.
-MS2K * I wish I coud think of something creative to put on a signature *
I am in Michigan and have telecommuted more-or less full time for the last three years. My situation was such that I started at the company as a regular worker, that got to know me and trust me. When I decided to move to the other side of the state they asked if I wanted to keep my job and work from home. After almost two years at that company I moved to another company, still on the opposite side of the state, and worked from home for them.
I think the key is to success is trust. It also helps if you are motivated and can concetrate without the distractions that you have at your home. I rarely work a standard eight hour day, I usually work a couple hours here and a couple there. I often get distracted and have terrible output for a day or two, but I will pull all nighters to catch up.
I make my self available via telephone and email pretty much all day everyday, because I trust my employer not to abuse my privacy. I actually encourage them to call me whenever so I can "stay in the loop".
I do go in to the office about once a week. Since it is almost a three hour drive, I usually only spend about 6 hours in the office per week. Since I am a full-time employee I cannot get a milage deduction for the commute, but I believe contract workers can.
The things I think are important are: 1. Trust between employer/employee (that may be hard to come by with out working in the office for a while) 2. Communication. You have got to stay in the loop. Many times I'll get busy and they get busy and we forget about each other. Thats not good. 3. Independent thinking. You need to be able to work without outside motivation, and without a lot of guidence. So you nede to know how to get the people your working for to give you all th information you need to do your job. Sometimes scope creep, and infered features stay locked up in the minds of the powers that be. You bust your tail to get a project done, then they say oops, we meant to tell you it needed this or that. Then nobody is happy. So its much better to ask a lot of questions up front, and COMMUNICATE. 4. Weird hours - It would be hard for me to imagine a programmer who can getup every morning walk to his orher home office in their pjs and sit down and program diligently for an 8 hour work day. Programing to me is like writing, I often get a case of writers/programmers block. (A full time internet connection doesn't help my work habits either!, nor does my baby boy, etc) So overcoming distractions and working when you can is important. I don't want to slack off and screw up the oppurtunity to work in my undies!
I am sure there are a lot of things I should have stressed that I didn't. I cannot imagine a better job. So good luck.
I subscripe to the Sunday newspaper almost solely for the purpose of lining my ferrets cage with the pages. Newspaper seems to be pretty absorbant.
I admit I briefly skim the sports section, and may at least glance the cover of each section to see if there is anything remotely interesting.
Local news coverage is best served by newspapers in my area, the local television news is too "sensational" and at least seems to cater to my grand parents generation. I usually feel insulted the way the news is portrayed on television, and to a slightly lesser extent in the newspaper.
What can newspapers do to be more appealling? I would suggest adding regular technical sections, and recruiting geeks to write, and posting printed versions of the on-line formums that we all like to participate in. They should also strive to appeal more to the magic 18-24 male demographic, by featureing non-mainstream sports regularly, and other alternative hobbies that teens are turning to for enjoyment.
Also building quality websites that directly mirror the printed version (in term of content) would help a lot. I like to feel confident that I'm not missing anything if I were to pick up the dead tree.
Though it is a long shot that I will ever go back to reading a newspaper.
I recently read about a company that plans just this.isky.com However they do not have a satelitte in orbit yet, I tink the web page said something like Q1 2001.
Slashdot Mirror
When Sprint PCS service became available, I bought a phone fro my wife and myself, and dropped Ameritech (hopefully never to return).
I am figuring a $25-40 savings per month over traditional land-line phones. Before I used an ISDN line so we each had a number, but now we each have a phone, voicemail, callerID, etc. Long Distance is included and we have 1000 minutes to blow this month.
I know of a ouple otherr people who ditched their land line phones, I believe it will become increasingly popular, as high-speed internet access (cable, and DSL) become more popular.
What would be really cool is a cradle for the cell phone, that plugs into your homesexisting wiring, and when the phone is "docked" allows you to place and recive calls like a regular land-line. I imagine some kind of mini-pbx would actually provide the dial tone, and the interface between cell-phone and teh handsets in your house. That would be quite cool, has anyone heard of anything like that?
-MS2k
Are these socks anonymous servers like a scaled up NAT server?
NAT is great if your organization is pretty large, but since there are two users for my 20 computers (which share a single IP) it doesn't hide much, but if there was a public NAT that supported thousands of userrs, it would make it much more difficult to track people down.
On a side note, could the "bad" guys who are spying on us use a sniffer pointed at the "anonymous socks server mentions above and see the IP of incoming packets, and consequently defeat the anonymous nature of it?
Sorry for such a public display of ignorance, but I am curious and since we are on the subject . . .
-MS2k
I totally agree that "the code" and layout should not mix. However, I disagree that tools like PHP EmbPerl, ASP etc should not be used.
While those tools make it easy to mix up the logic with the layout, any programmer worth his/her salt is going to be able to keep them seperate enough. There almost always is some overlap anyway, (HTML forms that become variables in the actual logic.) The tools designed for web use (like PHP) make it very easy to get variables/parameters from the "layout" into the logic. Without web specific feature to automatically get the HTML form variables, environment variables, etc you as a developer must do a lot more work and maitain a lot more code. IMHO why reinvent the wheel, just to enforce a seperation of logic and layout.
I commonly seperate out most of the layout by using include files in my PHP scripts. I use a nameing convention to help me enforce this:
1. disp_*.php are PHP scripts that produce output.
2. disp_*.inc are include files that contain functions that produce output
3. sys_*.inc are include files that contain "logic" function (i.e. they do not produce output (other than debug statements)
4. *.html are "layout files that are mainly HTML, they may have functions calls embedded to produce things like selection lists, or results from DB queries. My goal is t make them maintainable by people who know nothing about PHP.
Your mileage may vary.
I have only been using PHP for about a year, and I know I have a long way to go in learning, but the fact that it is very is to learn, and does a lot of things for the programmer (with out sacrificing flexibilty) makes it the best tool for the majority web projects.
-MS2k
I agree with ANGELO, there are many "best" choices depending on what you want you need.
But I would also add that beyond your needs you should look at factors such as your development background, the scalability needs, your connectability needs, etc.
The biggest Advantage I see in PHP is however the support it has. It compares favorably to PERL, ASP, JAVA, PYTHON, etc as far as features go. But the difference with PHP is it was written solely for a web/CGI tool. This makes it obviously very web centered.
So when you are looking for help, the chances are much greater that the people using it are trying to accomplish the same things you are. This is opposed to a general purpose tool like PERL, Python, or Java. Those languages are so flexible and useful that they are shoe horned into many many situations.
Consequently the user functions that are created may or may not be applicable to the web, and consequently they add a layer of "fuzz" to the web programmer looking for web specific information regarding the tool.
Compare that to PHP, search newgroup archives, the examples are all explaining how to accomplish something on the web. Look at the great on-line manual at PHP.net, and you get examples that are clear and consise, and easy to cut and paste. Even better is the annotated manual with thousands of comments focused on utilizing web the exant functions for a specific task.
I have not seen anything nearly as useful for any other development tool.
The documentation allowed me to jump into PHP and be proficient in a very short time. I started as a PROGRESS 4GL developer, and moved to PROGRESSES Proprietary Webspeed application. It was great if you are a Progress shop. As the projects became independent of the Progress database, I started using PHP for its ease of use. It was very easy to me to pick up and become proficient. Progress is not a object oriented language, and while PHP has some object oriented features, it is was very easy for a non-object oriented guy like me to pick up.
-MS2k
I thought the BIOS "ads" were generally open so manufacturers or common blokes (with enough tinkering) could change them, with a custom "splash" logo. at boot up. The bioses I had that did this had provisions in the update to facilate a small graphic (gif i think). Unfortunately that was a looooong time aga, and I haven't bother to play with it since then so I could be totally mistaken.
-MS
My experience with Via Voice, and several competing products have been un-impressive at best. In my experience the software had a lot of trouble using "cheap" microphones. Also background noise was an issue. Of course that was in my relatively quiet office. What is going to happen in a car where there is a lot more ambient noise?
Have you tested any proto types in a variety of driving conditions?
Does the unit feature voice feedback as well? (does it talk back?). The march 2000 issue of Linux Journal has an artocle (p130) by Goran Devic, explaining how to create a "talking" mp3 system, that uses speech synthesis to annouce tracks and albums (he uses Festival). The input is via a hacked X10 universal remote control that simulated a mouse. Its very interesting, and the combo of the two would be quite cool.
MS2k
I agree, its like the famous scene from Phantasia (redone on itch and scratchy) where they chop up the mouse into a million little pieces and those little pieces devour one from the inside out. Definatelty bad mojo in my opinion. . .
-MS2k
Sandia National Labs was tagged to do the hardening for the Pentium series of chips, though I don't know where they stand with it.
see www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN1 2-18-98/intel_story.htm
There or those really curious I suggest a trip to google search for "radiation hardened pentium"
-MS2k
I have had experience with many digital camera over the past 3-4 years. They started out as a toy, but I have found them very useful for my business as a web designer as well.
I currently own a Olympus 620L. It's resolution is a bit low by today's standards, but it has a number of imporovemnets over the 500L and 600L that preceded it. Namely a "fast" buffer, so you can quickly snap 5 pictures. This is a must feature for me since I have a young toddler, and getting him to hold still is darn near impossible. it also works well for action shots of my ferrets. The flash is not as fast, so when you use burst mode you need a lot of light (best outside on a sunny day).
Over all I really like the quality, with the new epson photo printers I have prints that are instinguishable from photo lab prints even using a magnifying glass. (at about 4x6" size. I have had good experience with prints up to 8x10") the lower resolution (compared to newer models) comes into play after that (1280x1024). Though the vast majority of the pictures I take end up on the web, and I often use the lowest resultion for those (640x517).
I also have an older ricoh 2E (I think, its on lone to a friend.) It doesn't have a flash so It kinda stinks for indoors or action shots. It does however do much better than any camera on close up shots. (it does not have any type of zoom, but it works well for fishtank shots, and for textures. It aso supports direct output to television, and can act as a limited video camera, which makes it fun at parties, or even presentations, because you can upload jpg "sides" and show them on any TV with a RCA input.
All in all the best camera is one that suits your needs the best. Try out as many as you can first, if you are going to use it for prints, make sure you test that (Walgreens has photo print kiosks that you can use to print straight from a floppy for about $7 if you don't have a printer, the quality is great!).
Good Luck,
-MS2k
/** If you see this comment twice, its because I was a dumb ass and accidently posted a reply in the wrong thread the first time, doh! **/
.PNG .JPG. .)
a l
I too am a professional PHP developer. I have found that planing ahead is the best way to write good code.
I always try to build small functions, that can be re-used and generate clean and quick code.
However, as a coder, you need to be aware what the design team is doing. I fortunately do a lot of my own design, and
am aware of how large file sizes and extraneous "extras" like javascript buttons, popups, etc waste resources.
Unfortuately the majority of designers I have worked with have been paper publisher, who have only recently started
producing layouts of the web.
I am contantly telling them to avoid things like background gradients, and lots of images fading from one to another.
Sure it looks good, but doesn't lend itself well to scaling.
On some projects it is frustrating to have to deal with browser incompatibilities, resulting in extraneous code, to use
one block for Netscape, and another block of code for I.e., and maybe a third for Lynx. This scenerio doesn't happen
too often, as planning inadvance helps alot, as does design for the lowest common denomiator (I usually target a 3.0
browser at 640x480).
Sometimes you're lucky and the project is for a local intranet. Those are the best because you can design for the
standard browers (usually a I.e 40 or 5) and can rely on a fast connection.
My list of things to keep in mind when coding for the web:
1. target audience, (what do we expect the clients to have)
2. Do I need a database to store my dynamic content, where is that machine at in relation to the web host? What
can I do to cut down on database transactions?
3. How many of the viual elements can be reused. I try to break down the site into sections, a header section,
footer, navigation, body, etc. the more these peices can be reused the faster, your site will be, and the easier it
will be to maintain.
4. Graphics effientcies? Where can I subsitude background colors in tables for an image. If there is an
animated image, can I chop it up so that the animated portion is as small as possible, and store the image layout in a
table? (.GIFs are bad, and animations are annoying, but sometimes the client insists) What format is the smallest
or
5. Maintainability. This includes this liek a meanful directory structure, consistent capitalization, comments,
etc. While it is important to do things the right way up front to save time in the long run. I have found that when i
start off quick and dirty, the project stays that way. You almost never go back and add comments or clean the code once
it works, you only will do so if there is a problem. So I feel it is important to address as many issues as you can
upfront. Plan for easy maintainability. If your logic is easy to follow, it will be easy to maitain (and therefore
there will be less temptation to put inefficient band-aids in place.)
6. Testing. Make sure you test your site and application on as many browsers and at as many resolutions as
possible. And even if you have a DSL or CAble modem, get a dial-up account to test the access. (A ppp link over a null
modem with the speed turned down also will work for this. .
For references I use a pretty standard HTML syntax book, an Older version of Javascript Unleashed (sams), I also highly
recommend the MySQL mSQL by Reese and King (O'Reilly) and The PHP on-line anontated manual (http://php.net/ docs.php3).
When I get stuck, or what advice I always go to the mailling list archives at
http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists?I=php-gener
-MS2k
I too am a professional PHP developer. I have found that planing ahead is the best way to write good code.
.PNG or .JPG. .)
a l
I always try to build small functions, that can be re-used and generate clean and quick code.
However, as a coder, you need to be aware what the design team is doing. I fortunately do a lot of my own design, and am aware of how large file sizes and extraneous "extras" like javascript buttons, popups, etc waste resources. Unfortuately the majority of designers I have worked with have been paper publisher, who have only recently started producing layouts of the web.
I am contantly telling them to avoid things like background gradients, and lots of images fading from one to another. Sure it looks good, but doesn't lend itself well to scaling.
On some projects it is frustrating to have to deal with browser incompatibilities, resulting in extraneous code, to use one block for Netscape, and another block of code for I.e., and maybe a third for Lynx. This scenerio doesn't happen too often, as planning inadvance helps alot, as does design for the lowest common denomiator (I usually target a 3.0 browser at 640x480).
Sometimes you're lucky and the project is for a local intranet. Those are the best because you can design for the standard browers (usually a I.e 40 or 5) and can rely on a fast connection.
My list of things to keep in mind when coding for the web:
1. target audience, (what do we expect the clients to have)
2. Do I need a database to store my dynamic content, where is that machine at in relation to the web host? What can I do to cut down on database transactions?
3. How many of the viual elements can be reused. I try to break down the site into sections, a header section, footer, navigation, body, etc. the more these peices can be reused the faster, your site will be, and the easier it will be to maintain.
4. Graphics effientcies? Where can I subsitude background colors in tables for an image. If there is an animated image, can I chop it up so that the animated portion is as small as possible, and store the image layout in a table? (.GIFs are bad, and animations are annoying, but sometimes the client insists) What format is the smallest
5. Maintainability. This includes this liek a meanful directory structure, consistent capitalization, comments, etc. While it is important to do things the right way up front to save time in the long run. I have found that when i start off quick and dirty, the project stays that way. You almost never go back and add comments or clean the code once it works, you only will do so if there is a problem. So I feel it is important to address as many issues as you can upfront. Plan for easy maintainability. If your logic is easy to follow, it will be easy to maitain (and therefore there will be less temptation to put inefficient band-aids in place.)
6. Testing. Make sure you test your site and application on as many browsers and at as many resolutions as possible. And even if you have a DSL or CAble modem, get a dial-up account to test the access. (A ppp link over a null modem with the speed turned down also will work for this. .
For references I use a pretty standard HTML syntax book, an Older version of Javascript Unleashed (sams), I also highly recommend the MySQL mSQL by Reese and King (O'Reilly) and The PHP on-line anontated manual (http://php.net/ docs.php3). When I get stuck, or what advice I always go to the mailling list archives at http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists?I=php-gener
-MS2k
Please forgive my ignorance... but will this tool work with other languages?
It looks like it is matches text strings in the source files.
I haven't done much C or C++, but I work with PhP and HTML (i know it is not a language per say) daily, and PERL on occassion. And it looks like it could help me manage the larger sites i maintain.
-ms2k
It seems Love's comments were targeted at the "suits". His definition of proprietary simply reflected a term that he felt would relate better to a significant portion of his audience.
Do I agree with his attitude? No, not entirely. Do I think his attitude makes some sense, Yes I do.
Like it or not our economy is not a gift economy. It really is not feasible to give away everything. A lot of the time, maybe even most of the time, Open SOurce makes sense, but I believe there are exceptions to every rule.
Its just is not a Black and White issue. His statements reflect he believe more strongly in one direction than the other, but that is not important. What is important is the message that there needs to be room for all opinions. And that being an over-zealous advocate (at either end of the spectrum) is limiting to the community as a whole. Hasn't RMS been criticized for being over-zealous in his advocacy?
So I say we should take this in stride. Caldera might not be from the same side of the tracks as most of us are, but at least they are on the same map. We do not have to agree or support them, they don't really seem to want our support. But if they can expand the community by bringing in new users who don't fit the "traditional" linux user mold who are we to complain. It will make for a bigger community, and therefore better IMHO.
-MS2k
If we have to give all student some peice of rather expensive hardware it should be an "E-book" type device that has a high-resolution screen, so that current texts can be downloaded onto it. Perhaps with so extended functionality (perhaps liscense the NEWTON OS) for use in annotating the text of their "books". I say net access would be a distraction, as would general purpose features that would just allow some techinal guru to convert the thing into a game machine easily (I sure it would be possible anyway, but we should at least make it difficult). Keep it simple. Current electronic text books, and limited note taking and maybe PIM like features. Thats it. No internet, no Networking, simple serial connection for file transfers (ala palm pilot). If we make communications a focus the the thing gets to be much more unmanagemble and uncontrolable. A side note I read way back that some school-system was going to buy Apple Message Pads (actually the not message pads, but the ones that had a clam shell design and were about the size of a subotebook). What ever became of that initiative? I imagine it didn't work, but I bet it came closer than any of the current proposals will. . .
These programs seem like more of an PR ploy to boost the esteem of the schools systems.
While I believe that some students could benefit from computers with internet access, most would not. Teachers would need to adjust lesson plans and their ciriculum to be more net focused. Teachers would need to keep current on the information on the net, 401 not found, would be a pretty lame lesson.
Administrators would be exposed to even more censorship hassles. Not to mention the extreme effort to support the hardware. Large corporations have a HUGE budget of IT infrastructure, that schools do not have. Not to mention corporations have $$ to pay talented people to build information resources to help them leverage their investment and make retreiving information more effecient. Schools would need to have the same resources built to facilate things like common lesson plans, perhaps standard test databases, quizes, educationtional software, etc.
What it sounds like to me is putting the cart before the horse. I doubt there is much anybody can do avbout this near sighted reactionary ploy by politicians and schoool boards. For example my school district about 10 years ago (before big Internet hype) was hyped on getting new hardware. They cleverly used funds from a bond to buy new computers for labs throughout the district. Unfortunately for them, they were not allowed to use the same $$ to buy software. There was something about the bond that limited its spending to equipment. So The computers sat unused for some time before they could pass a milage to allow them to buy the software for these machines.
It was ridiculous then, and I think the same type of mistake is happening now. A suprisingly high percentage of schools are connected to the Internet (I forget how high but it was a majority of them). But nobody asks how many are using it?
I have several teachers (ranging from elementary ed, to college profs) in my family from around the country, and when we get together they usually talk education. I heard the same recurring theme. They want to use computers and make use of them, and are all trying to do that, but they don't know how.
What we need is not to give a computer to each kid, but to give a computer to each teacher AND TRAIN THEM. Not a wimpy week long class, but make them go to a specially designed class at the college level. AND make it some type of certification, otherwise they will not keep up with technology.
By training the teacher they will have the skills to make use of the technology in their class room and pass those skills along to the students. Once we get a technology savvy set of teachers then we can put technology in the hands of the students.
This system goes too far to prevent the "little" guys from getting on and making a name for themselves in a relatively uselful top-level domain. This compares to the .com/.org/.net system where it was too easy for the little guy to get a name. Which I think directly led to this type of this "super squatting".
It is not the auction format that irks me, I actually think it is more fair in many ways. The thing that bugs me most is the arbitrary starting price for the domain names, and also an arbitrarily long auction time. If each domain was treated equaling and the market was left to decide, this system would be great, but it is not.
I am particularly interested in the dotTV's success or failure at marketing an alternative TLD because I work for a company that is attempting to capitalize on the .MD domain. We are providing personalized "vanity" email and webspace for the medical industry. You can check it out at DrWeb.MD.
Time will tell. dotTV has a desirable product, but their gorilla tactics may keep out the small young companies that are the true innovators, that made the web big. Their strategy is simply to milk the fat corporate cows, and keep out the little guys.
I think in the long run this stratgey will fail, because the big guys they are going after have already spent millions of dollars marketing their .com addresses. They are not likely to put that much money into a .tv address, because it will dillute the value of their .com. They also are not likely to spend big bucks just to keep a malicious parody site off the market, because dotTV is essentially doing it for them with such a high cost of entry.
The internet is still a frontier, that rewards risk takes and innovators. DotTV is certainly taking a risk (but most of it I am sure is not their money). They are locking out the true risk takers and innovators, in what will be a fruitless effort that will essentially slaughter the cash cow.
If I had a million bucks to invest it sure as hell wouldn't be in dotTV. IdeaLab! has blown this one. IMHO. MS2k
What happens when we switch to purely digital radio broadcasts? Presumably then each song will be broadcast with additional information like, artist, genre, publication date, etc. It would seem pretty straight forward to have a either a radio tuner add-in card that simply scans for music you want that is being broadcast over the air in a digotal form.
Obviously we are not at that stage yet, but it is only a matter of time.
Another thought . . .
I know there are a lot of people who rush out and purchase the latest and greatest CDs as soon as they are released, but I would guess much more people are like me and only buy their favorite artists newest albums. I don't have 20 bucks to waste everytime a new group gets to number one on the charts. So Napster has not changed my CD Purchasing habits in the least. Therefore no artists or record companies have been harmed.
Does anybody have numbers on CD sales for the last year or so? Has there been a big decline in CD sales? Since Napster has been unbeilevably popular in one of the record industries biggest demographics (college students) it would follow that a noticible drop would occur.
If that drop hasn't occured it would support my theory that people are like me, and download "new stuff" or stuff they normally wouldn't buy. But they still purchase their favorites on CD.
-MS2K
* I wish I coud think of something creative to put on a signature *
I am in Michigan and have telecommuted more-or less full time for the last three years. My situation was such that I started at the company as a regular worker, that got to know me and trust me. When I decided to move to the other side of the state they asked if I wanted to keep my job and work from home. After almost two years at that company I moved to another company, still on the opposite side of the state, and worked from home for them.
I think the key is to success is trust. It also helps if you are motivated and can concetrate without the distractions that you have at your home. I rarely work a standard eight hour day, I usually work a couple hours here and a couple there. I often get distracted and have terrible output for a day or two, but I will pull all nighters to catch up.
I make my self available via telephone and email pretty much all day everyday, because I trust my employer not to abuse my privacy. I actually encourage them to call me whenever so I can "stay in the loop".
I do go in to the office about once a week. Since it is almost a three hour drive, I usually only spend about 6 hours in the office per week. Since I am a full-time employee I cannot get a milage deduction for the commute, but I believe contract workers can.
The things I think are important are:
1. Trust between employer/employee (that may be hard to come by with out working in the office for a while)
2. Communication. You have got to stay in the loop. Many times I'll get busy and they get busy and we forget about each other. Thats not good.
3. Independent thinking. You need to be able to work without outside motivation, and without a lot of guidence. So you nede to know how to get the people your working for to give you all th information you need to do your job. Sometimes scope creep, and infered features stay locked up in the minds of the powers that be. You bust your tail to get a project done, then they say oops, we meant to tell you it needed this or that. Then nobody is happy. So its much better to ask a lot of questions up front, and COMMUNICATE.
4. Weird hours - It would be hard for me to imagine a programmer who can getup every morning walk to his orher home office in their pjs and sit down and program diligently for an 8 hour work day. Programing to me is like writing, I often get a case of writers/programmers block. (A full time internet connection doesn't help my work habits either!, nor does my baby boy, etc) So overcoming distractions and working when you can is important. I don't want to slack off and screw up the oppurtunity to work in my undies!
I am sure there are a lot of things I should have stressed that I didn't. I cannot imagine a better job. So good luck.
-MS2k
I admit I briefly skim the sports section, and may at least glance the cover of each section to see if there is anything remotely interesting.
Local news coverage is best served by newspapers in my area, the local television news is too "sensational" and at least seems to cater to my grand parents generation. I usually feel insulted the way the news is portrayed on television, and to a slightly lesser extent in the newspaper.
What can newspapers do to be more appealling? I would suggest adding regular technical sections, and recruiting geeks to write, and posting printed versions of the on-line formums that we all like to participate in. They should also strive to appeal more to the magic 18-24 male demographic, by featureing non-mainstream sports regularly, and other alternative hobbies that teens are turning to for enjoyment.
Also building quality websites that directly mirror the printed version (in term of content) would help a lot. I like to feel confident that I'm not missing anything if I were to pick up the dead tree.
Though it is a long shot that I will ever go back to reading a newspaper.
I recently read about a company that plans just this.isky.com However they do not have a satelitte in orbit yet, I tink the web page said something like Q1 2001.