This is a story that starts back in December of 2008. I had been working at a fortune 500 company for just over 2 years, I can’t release the name of the company nor the names of the people there because I signed one of those don’t sue us here is some money letters. Anyway back to my story. After getting canned, January 19th 2009, because I refused to participate in social events like birthday parties, non-business related lunches, and social gathers after hours (believe me I got this in writing on my yearly review). Oh, did I mention my son was just born December 1st, 2008, yes my boss fired my a little after a month after my son was born, I was not even good and back from taken a leave of absence so I could be with my new born child, and I got canned. OK, onward, well after this lovely event I was forced to break open my 401k and use every last bit of my savings to stay a float. Well, I searched high and low, day and night for a job but none could be found. You see we were in the middle of that recession that the analyst said would not happen. So here I am searching high and low. After about two or three months with no luck in the Job Market I finally begin trying to pick up clients and attempting to start a consultant business. Well I finally got lucky and landed one that was bringing in enough cheese to pay the bills.
Read more…
So, you have decided for one reason or another to give up Windows and switch to Linux. One of the problems is that most people don’t know how to accomplish this and those who do understand have already done. Human nature dictates that most people, once they learn how something is done become sensitized as to how hard it was to gain that knowledge. I decided to think back and then document exactly what one needs to do in order to migrate successfully from Windows to Ubuntu. When I say successfully I mean completely including getting flash and Java to work in Firefox, installing the most needed codecs for your Media Player files, MP3s and DVDs. Also perhaps setting email and for a good measure a few tips and ticks. During this guide I will be showing you how use what is provided by the default Ubuntu install and only installing minimal applications. I will not be showing you how to install what I think are the best applications for doing things, I’ll just be showing you how to get things working and installing the minimal apps to get things working.
Read more…
I certainly make no secret that my favorite Linux Distro is Ubuntu, but I felt compelled to give PCLinuxOS another shot. Before I get to PCLinuxOS 2009.1 let me tellyou a little about PCLinuxOS 2007.x. About, two years ago a college of mine convinced me to give PCLinuxOS a try. OK, he did not have to try all that hard, I do like to try new distros from time to time and I had not tried PCLinuxOS. I do remember that I initially liked PCLinuxOS, but in the end my experience left me with the feeling that some how the distro was not managed by a group that understood usability. I feel like they were to focused on what I call “Type one users” that they were failing to address “Type two users”. “Type two users” generally have expectations about usability which can be summed up by following buzz words: Read more…
Ubuntu Linux 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), is just one of the many Linux flavors out there today that can run the software your business needs to run its day to day operations. If there are so many flavors out there why choose Ubuntu, simple in my opinion they have the best online community, they tend to be the most flexible (They don’t take the “well, we think it would be best this way attitude”, they actually listen to the community), and their release schedule is pretty reasonable. Enough about why I chose Ubuntu, lets get to the point here. The number one reason that most business owners venture into the Open source world is “Cost Savings” (typical savings can be anywhere from $500 to $2500 per user in a year). Business owners need to be aware that not only can you save money but time, in the long run most users once they have jumped past the learning curve period, can become more productive. I guess I should mention here that you can opt for the paid support option from Canonical Global Support Services and get premium first class support from the Ubuntu team, even if you chose this route you will still be able to save thousands of dollars per year.
Read more…
It is actually very easy to create a Template system in PHP. Just about every CMS system out there uses some sort of template system. There will come a time that every developer, for one reason or another will need to create their own template system. What I have decided to do is create a starting point for a simple Template Parser system that should be ample for most, yet scalable for the rest. I am going to be following the ever growing and popular separation of logic and design, but you can still place PHP code in the template file should you choose to.
Read more…
Now I know there are a hundred and one tutorials on how to manipulate files with PHP, but I have to write this tutorial for no other reason than to practice writing. You see I aspire to perhaps write a book or two about programming on the web and well, I am going to need the practice before I actually write the books. So here we go. For those of you who don’t know already my writings are of the southern variety, and I usually don’t try to sound all refined and sophisticated, I usually leave out the unneeded technical mumbo jumbo and stick with just the useful stuff, and sometimes things come out of no where in my writings.
Read more…
I have been ask on more than one occasion by beginners in PHP, especially those fresh out of college or those still in college, how would I do a stack and queue structure in PHP. Well the truth is that PHP has built in functions to manipulate arrays as though the were either a Stack or a Queue, so it is basically something that is done all the time without any thought. So you maybe asking why am I writing a tutorial, well just to humor those who wish to be humored I guess.
Read more…
I decided that I would write a tutorial on how to simulate a two handed card shuffle on a deck of cards. Yesterday I wrote this in JavaScript here, today I am porting this to PHP. Most of us know what a two handed card shuffle is, and most of use this method to shuffle cards. To explain for those of you still not sure what a to handed shuffle is here you go. When most of us sit down to play cards and someone says “Well shuffle up those cards up and deal them already”, we will grab the deck and split the cards into two piles, one for the left hand the other in the right hand. Now we will begin to “thumb” random numbers of cards from the left and right hand piles of cards into one pile of cards. Now everyone should be on the same page here.
Read more…
I decided that I would write a tutorial on how to simulate a two handed card shuffle on a deck of cards. Most of us know what a two handed card shuffle is, and most of use this method to shuffle cards. To explain for those of you still not sure what a to handed shuffle is here you go. When most of us sit down to play cards and someone says “Well shuffle up those cards up and deal them already”, we will grab the deck and split the cards into two piles, one for the left hand the other in the right hand. Now we will begin to “thumb” random numbers of cards from the left and right hand piles of cards into one pile of cards. Now everyone should be on the same page here.
Read more…
It is certainly apparent if one turns on the news that the United States is no longer in the same political position it once was. The United States was formed as a Democracy with a capitalistic economy, and you will find very few people who will argue against this point. Today however there are many signs which might make one believe that indeed we are now experiencing a transitional phase of our economy from capitalism to communism known as socialism. However a deeper look reveals the more obvious assumption that our president, Barrack Hussein Obama is indeed setting himself up to be our “tyrant” by appointing one czar after another. Certainly Barrack would be able to use the current economic status of the State in order to mask his movements within the government. After all most dictators come into power during times of emergency.
Read more…
