Thanks to my sister in law I really picked up reading books this year.   As most people do I read a whole lot of the internet content and as most programmers do I tends to google solutions to my problems so I learn a fair bit from sites like Stack Overflow.  This year though I broke that loop and read read books.  I know, crazy right?   Here’s the list books I read (in the order I read them) and my synopsis of each. ^_^ Read more

It’s slow (at 15Hz refresh rate currently) but I’m enjoying near Ultra High-def resolution on a secondary monitor paired with my Late 2011 Model 17″ Macbook Pro.

Thanks to my friend Chris’ suggestion I bought a Seiki SE39UY04 on Amazon for a steal.

With the help of SwitchResX I’m able to make use of the full 3840×2160 resolution it offers. 

When using the monitor at the super high resolution the mouse cursor is really quite slow but for web development and general system administration it’s extremely useful to have an extra monitor attached to my macbook running 3840 x 2160 resolution.  I’m quite happy however this definitely makes me want a newer Mac that can handle UHD. ^_^

Help cover the web with loading icons and raise awareness about net neutrality with battleforthenet.com.   Also, join the fight and sign the letter against cable companies trying to slow your internet.

Read more, get the #internetSlowdown modal at:

https://www.battleforthenet.com/sept10th/

In a few recent interviews as a PHP developer applying for LAMP stack contributing developer positions I’ve been asked the following NON-TECHNICAL questions:

If you were given a box of pencils, list 3 things you could do with them that are not their traditional use.

My answer: I’d juggle them, practice my trigger pull (pencil in barrel marking a wall) & play Pick-Up-Stix.

Why do you want this position?

If you could be any street sign, what would you be?

My answer: .. was all over the place. lol. An interstate sign for a left exit! Then I had a lap of judgement and said “A useful one” to which the interviewer responded, “That would be all of them”.  Fine, Not a speed limit sign though.!.

Explain a day in the life of a developer.

Explain your approach to coding.

How do you choose user stories and estimate time.

I’ve really enjoyed some of the interviews I’ve participated in. I’ve also totally bombed at least one of the three I’ve had. lol.  If there is one thing I would stress over everything ( understanding we’re applying for jobs we have the skill set to back up ) is to be positive, inquisitive and engage the hiring staff interviewing you.  As a developer, we’re supposed to be magical sources of logic based creativity. So keep the logic mind on and be magical. ^_^

Props to Comcast who even managed to slide in “Miracles (Daily!)” on their Job Opportunity doc under a “Typical Activities” section. lol.

Step 1: Visit the local ARC thrift store and purchase some outdoor sports equipment.

For this example I bought some roller blades for $12.99.

Z and I also acquired an awesome set of diving boots and fins for a future adventure for the same price.

Step 2: Find a park.

In this example I went a couple blocks down from the Arc to Clement Park at Johnson Reservoir to skate the features.

Step 3: Enjoy lazy or intense fun

Despite trying to break myself, I broke the blades.

Step 4: Grab a bit to eat somewhere near by.

I grabbed food w/Z at Sweet Tomato which was across the street from the park.  Great stuff.

Step 5: Go Home when it hails

This was fun

UPDATE:  The Heartbleed vulnerability is of course multitudes simpler and thus a significantly easier means to the same end.  ^_^

The following is a screenshot from a computer that’s been quite obviously hosed. I won’t even ask why….  Walking past the rabbit hole & moving along.

  No, no background will be provided on this post beyond the simple facts.

1. I didn’t do it.
2. I’m the only one with access to this computer
3. I wasn’t present during the timestamp. (pre-time reverse fail huh?  yeah)

I’m not sure if Google is just trying to keep us on our toes but it makes absolutely no sense that the 5th and 6th result links when I searched for PHP Database Design were published in 2006. Content age doesn’t always equate to a good thing. In this context it’s just silly yet there will be people learning from this, very likely lots of people.

when(old != good){}

What the heck?  MySQL Workbench has crashed a couple times on me today and now I get this:

I may just be confused because I’m annoyed at the  moment but is this not a setup to lose data? lol.  I have an option to continue and open an auto-saved version thus losing the recovery or let it try and recover data saved at the exact same time?

I’ll take the hint and stop poking at MySQL Workbench in between tasks for today at least.  I’m confused and workbench is broken. lol.

KidsQuest.mdb KidsQuest_DBModel.pdf

I find it entertaining that Google Chrome happily consumes virtually all the resources our computers can put out in many cases while at the exact same time I (or the collective we as web developers I suppose) are configuring virtual machine dev environments that Vagrant Up as identical clones of our systems live production environment (read: operating system) totally happy n’ snappy being allotted a single Gigabyte of memory.  If that…  lol.  Then there’s Chrome which was just a moment ago consuming over 5 Gigs of memory. I may have closed a few tabs before the screen shot but you get the idea. ^_^

Next time you find yourself trying not to buy something from the apple store, just remember that in order to logically weigh in that memory upgrade – go ahead and write off half your system memory to Chrome’s lay-on-the-couch-in-a-crowded-house comfort zone.  Then feel free to consider other things like Virtualbox or Fusion. ^_^

I’m switching to Opera for no less than the next 47 minutes.