Just when I thought I was done

So I don't have to worry about the GAC for the Xceed components, but MapInfo used GAC assemblies to distribute the MapXtreme application we use to display maps inside our C#.Net app.

So here are a few more articles I've found in my quest for knowledge...
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315682

CodeProject summary of GAC concepts - http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/demystifygac.aspx?df=100&forumid=15829&exp=0&select=856234

How to get a dll from the GAC - http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/wellink/archive/2006/07/12/12947.aspx

Registering a

one of those lol moments

Turns out the easiest way to work with managed dll's is to not register and access them through GAC, but rather directly. This cuts out a huge headache of dealing with tying into the OS.

After all the research I've done, I'm kinda glad to be rid of it...

Playing with assemblies in the GAC

There's a tool in the .Net Framework SDK for messing with .Net's Global Assembly Cache called gacutil.exe. This tool allows you to get information about existing registered assemblies in the cache, register new assemblies, etc...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ex0ss12c(VS.80).aspx

.Net 3.5 SP1 framework download (for offline installation) - http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/0/e/20e90413-712f-438c-988e-fdaa79a8ac3d/dotnetfx35.exe

NSIS color coding for TextMate

Color coding for NSIS in TextMate would rock right about now...

silently installing .Net 3.5

Very good info about the installation requirements of .Net 3.5 - http://www.msfn.org/board/NET-Framework-35-Silent-Installer-t108344.html

reasons why the .Net 3.5 framework installer might want to still go out to the web - http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2008/07/17/8745415.aspx

.Net 3.5 offline installer - http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/0/f/60fc5854-3cb8-4892-b6db-bd4f42510f28/dotnetfx35.exe

According to this forum listing you should be able to run a local copy of the offline .Net 3.5 framework installation from the command line with the /q for a silent installation. In testing this it looks like its good to go. I've been working with this line in my .Net installer component for past NSIS installations (with older .Net runtime installations):
ExecWait '$TEMP\dotnetfx.exe /q /c:"install /q"'

so on the regular command line this would look more like:
>dotnetfx35.exe /q /c:/"install /q"

With the older .net installation it was easy just to store it inside of the setup.exe I was compiling, extract it to the temp dir, and run it from there. We've been using .net 2.0 with this approach, when the .net installation was a mere 20mb. Now the offline .Net 3.5 sp1 release is closer to 200mb. So storing the .net installation in the setup.exe only adds time to the installation and wastes considerably more hard drive space on the target deployment machine for installation purposes only (once installed, the .net installation doesn't need to remain on the machine).

So I'll be revising a couple of lines in my custom NSIS .Net install module.

GAC: Global Assembly Cache

Using NSIS, I'm writing an installer for a .Net based application along with third party software that the application depends on. We're going to registering some managed .Net .dll's into the GAC (or the Global Assembly Cache).

Since I've never done this before I did a little bit of research. Suffice it to say Wikipedia was a more helpful resource than Microsoft's Knowledge base in getting started.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Assembly_Cache

Let the fun begin!

vista accessing remote shares

I worked on a Vista machine today that was not able to access remote shares, and so couldn't map network drives, etc. It was able to get online, rdp to the server, and perform other network based tasks.

When trying to map the drive out over the command line, an error 67 would return. When trying to access the share from Windows Explorer, I would get an unspecified error number. (probably would have been nicer to receive an error that a service responsible for this functionality was not accessible.

What ended up being the problem was that the Computer Browser Windows service was not able to start because it depends on the Workstation Windows service that for some reason had been disabled.

setting up email on the iPhone

This is definitely something that was easier to do on the blackberry. Maybe its partly my servers using non-standard ports, but all my blackberry needed was my email address and password and it set itself up completely for all of my email accounts.

Apple needs to work on this if they want to keep serious email people happy.

resetting TCP/IP network stack

http://www.zimbio.com/Windows+Vista/articles/43/Reinstall+Reset+TCP+IP+Internet+Protocol+Windows

backup the registry!

netsh int ip reset [ c:\tcp_stack_reset ]

http://geekswithblogs.net/mattcampbell/archive/2007/09/30/Resetting-your-whole-IP-stack-in-Vista.aspx

• Go to the Start Menu, type cmd and right click or (Ctrl + Shift and hit Enter), and select "Run As Administrator"
• Type the following commands, each followed by pressing enter.

• ipconfig /flushdns
• nbtstat -R
• nbtstat -RR
• netsh int reset all
• netsh int ip reset
• netsh winsock reset

Or another helpful command:

• netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

Hope this might solve any problems you might have with Vista's new networking stack.


\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa

and the Key is "LmCompatibilityLevel" - Change the default value 3 to 1 then reboot.

school is starting back

I’m wondering if I can get all of my books for class in e-book form this semester. Instead of selling my books back to the store I usually end up selling them to my friends. Needless to say, I never really make anything back at the end of the semester.

I got an email from my biology professor talking about the e-book format that’s available for his class. I like the idea of being able to search for things in the book faster, but they only sell a crazy DRM copy that can only be used on up to 2 computers. I don’t plan on anything happening to where that would be a problem, but I would much rather purchase a PDF that I could use and do with however I want. (I’m not going to have this same laptop forever, right)

http://store.vitalsource.com/show/9780072916904

The 2009 Gameplan

I found a job board among other things on scientistsolutions.com. It got me to thinking about what I need to be doing academically in order to be able to jump into bioinformatics- and genomics- type internships this next summer.

There are a couple of interesting things I noticed:
* There are upper age limits for applicants; so everyone’s looking for young minds out of grad school. This could be because they want fresh ideas, or because they’re cheaper than the older guys with more experience.
* Education is highly respected in the scientific industry. This is relatively new to me because the tech industry is almost the exact opposite in my experience. Its always been in this order: how much do you cost, can you actually do the work. (most times education, if even brought up, has always been a 3rd or 4th tier hiring objective)

There are plenty of postings for technically inclined folks that are interested in learning the biology aspects of projects (they are still professional level positions, and not internships). Most of the posts are looking for:

Under the technical realm:
* strong c/c++ background (large completed c++ projects seemed to be huge plus)
* maybe some java
* perl
* Linux and Windows environment programming
strong relational DBMS (database management systems) skills: MySQL and Oracle are both popular choices.

Under the scientific realm:
*knowledge of different forms of life: bacteria, fungi, protists, protazoa, metazoa, etc
* Experience with Math/Science tools like Mathematica

Educational Requirements:
* Masters or Doctorate in Biology/Computational Sciences/Bioinformatics


So to do all of this I need to:

Under the technical realm:
* start contributing to a large science bound c++ project (something with genomics would be ideal)
* start scripting in scripting languages more for mac/linux tasks. Perl and Python come to mind here.

Under the scientific realm:
* start reading a whole hell of a lot of biological books (learn what the hell these guys are talking about)
* Boost my math skills (seriously need to audit another calculus course and start thinking math)
* Learn how to use Mathematica and other Math/Science related programs. (Probably noteworthy to mention that I need to find out what these programs are)

Educational aspects:
* Lock down in a game plan for a fast-paced but still valuable undergraduate degree in Biology/Microbiology (something where I can experience a broad spectrum before I lock myself into something specific)
* start checking out schools with strong ongoing research projects/grants in Bioinformatics related fields.
* Figure out something with the biology department as far as volunteering on internal research projects.
* Find someone that can offer some advice on where they’re at and where they see things going in the future.


This means that I’m going to be a very busy/broke person this year. (not going to have as much time to work for money this go-around) Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and come into some money for doing some of this.

Browser wars round X???

Not sure how many times we've been through this now, but the browser wars are heating up again. Google is leading the charge this time with its popular Gmail service dropping support for IE 6 and recommending users make the switch over to Firefox or Google's Chrome browser.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10130301-16.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheOpenRoad

It looks like IE is starting to lose its grasp on the browser dominance battle front. According to Net Applications (someone I've never heard of but seems to be entertaining a large audience) Firefox is gaining well over 20% of the market, while IE has dropped to under 70% market share. While IE is still ahead by a large gap, it has taken serious damage from what used to be a very commanding 95% browser market share dominance.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/firefox_tops_20_in_november_ie_under_70.php

One way or the other it's not looking good for Microsoft. They've lost a lot of brand reputation with Vista, and Apple seems to be sweeping everyone up that's looking for something newer than XP. (not that I don't love my XP machines out there)

Since I've made the switch to my MacBook Pro a couple of months ago, I've since learned to work in different, sometimes more efficient, ways. Getting used to working with something new has opened my eyes to working with Linux a little more for desktop purposes. (that along with the rise in Linux based netbooks that I'm sure to run into support issues for in the near future).

In short, IE isn't the only browser to satisfy anymore and I share in the agony with all those web developers tasked with supporting complex cross-browser compatible designs... Even with all of this, 2009 should prove to be an interesting year with the tech industry twisted, turned, and wrung out to get every last drop of innovation into users' hands.

javascript fun

I'm going to update the screenshots with what I've found here:
http://www.panic.com/transmit/

(scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the screenshot images for the javascript effect)

I'm already doing something very similar, but I think the zoom effect does a little better visually.

Science on marijuana

Have to start with the disclaimer: I haven't smoked anything THC related since some experimental highschool days, and I in no way advocate the use of any illegal substances.

Well now that we got that outta the way.... I've been reading on my newly subscribed New Scientist about the perspective of the scientific community on the world's most widely used illicit drug. No doubt that it is harmful to heavy users, studies have shown that it is actually less harmful than smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol in comparative quantities. Moreover, since its ban Marijuana's potency, that is the rise in volume of THC per unit of marijuana, has risen since the plant is grown under constant beams of artificial lights (while grown inside in attempts to keep it from discovery of the authorities). So now that Marijuana exponentially more potent than it was in the 70’s and 80’s, it really would be in the best interest of the roughly 40% of Americans that admit to at least having tried it for the government to intervene, legalize, impose safety restrictions, and then make money from a new source of taxable profit.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126885.100-radical-alternatives-proposed-for-cannabis-controls.html?full=true

Not necessarily related to this article, but something that always bugs me when I hear about tests run on drugs is the argument that Marijuana is used as a gateway drug. It is a total cop-out! Yes, there are certain types of people that smoke Marijuana. And yes, of those certain types of people there is a higher percentage of types of users that love to test their boundaries and experiment with just how far over the line they can go. This isn't a problem with Marijuana though, this is a problem of society and the types of personalities that use illicit substances as a temporary exit or escape from reality.

As a secondary note on the matter, most of the users that are constantly testing their boundaries, will always do so, with or without permission from the government. I don’t want my opinion to be skewed that the government might take over and legalize all forms of drugs; that’s not the case at all. Legalizing a substance like Marijuana with health restrictions isn’t going to attract the crowd of people that are hell bent on getting off on something new. Its going to attract those who have either tried it before and didn’t find it all that offensive, or those that have always wanted to, but felt it their patriotic duty to obey the law and be a good little boy (or girl).

living life and getting things done

Today was an interesting kind of day. For starters, I woke up late as all get-out, then I helped the pops put in some new supports in the shed so they could store more crap. I actually really liked the whole manual labor thing. It was a really nice change from the normal all day on the laptop. I've needed to do something with my hands for a long time. Sometimes I feel like being on a computer all the time doesn't lead anywhere and in the end I'm just wasting time and burning daylight. Doing that and having finished it sparked something in me. I was able to start and finish something that someone could use and benefit from, even if it wasn't that big a project... It was a really great feeling doing something out of the norm and benefiting from the experience.

So after the minor carpentry project, we went and ate some mediocre chinese and went to go see Yes Man with Jim Carrey. First I want to say it was a really good movie. Not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but it was a movie about experiencing new things outside of the comfort zone and going out to get life instead of living in a little box. Cruising the information super highway (member those dial-up commercials?) and being the internet bum I sometimes am, doesn't fair well with getting out there and living life.

Now I'll be the first to admit I'm no fan of new years resolutions, but if there's something that has to change its going to be that I'm going to do more living. Programming, well working all the time, just makes feel like I'm constricted to places where I can plug my laptop in.

I love helping people. That's for sure, but I want to be able to meet more people and do more. Maybe I need to move to a bigger city and just start diving into new things. I'm more of a west coast kinda guy. Let the looking begin...

Editing remote files with Textmate and Cyberduck

I was trying to use macfusion to have a standard interface of working with remote files. While it integrated nicely with Finder, after loading up a new project in Textmate with all of the remote files (not a local copy, but references to the remote files) Textmate became very sluggish. After switching to another program and then coming back it would take about 30 seconds for Textmate to be useable again.

Well no more! I am now using Cyberduck for the FTP interface and Textmate to edit the text based files locally. When I save in Textmate, Cyberduck automatically updates the remote file for me.

Loving life...

I'm a New Scientist subscriber

I started doing a little digging into what I might like to do in the future with the degree in biology and found a lot of references to the New Scientist magazine website. The only problem was that a lot of their web content was for registered subscribers of their weekly magazine. It turned out to be $40 for a year of digital access to their content. This works out great for me cause I hate having to keep up with physical magazines on a bookshelf (and they just end up accumulating, otherwise I end up feeling like I'm throwing away money). Not sure why I think like that, but there it is...

So the deal is for a year I can go through and read as much of whatever they have in archive and whatever current content is in printed circulation through the site. Total win win for me... (I mean when's the last time anyone saw me without my backpack with my laptop in it!)

working on large NSIS projects remotely

One of the things I've been doing for a while now has been maintaining and updating Appian's software installers. These are pretty decent size installers: they install anywhere from 2 to 3 times the amount of data your normal Windows game might install before you can play.

Amazingly I've been able to shrink the install times down to 25 - 30 minutes (depending on the target machine's hardware), down from the 2 hours that it used to take. Even with this major improvement, there's still a couple of things to be desired:

• Faster build times (if at all possible)
• Better compression of the data
• More protection for the software installation process
• More stability on a broader range of operating systems
• Vista font issues
• faster testing (probably the longest holdup for releasing new versions of the installer)
• updating the installer codebase for compatibility with the latest NSIS release
  

From a developer's perspective there are things that I would love to do to make it easier to maintain and maintain these installations from out of the office. I have a Windows XP desktop machine in the office configured to run vmware workstation with multiple guest virtual machines: one for the installation development environment, and multiple others for testing various aspects of our software installation process. This type of setup makes it easier to back up the installer development environment, because of the many variables that are set in order for Direct Route or Territory Pro to run properly.

This is just a desktop machine that has power and an ethernet cable plugged into it. Up to this point we're still in the office though. Since I work from Stillwater during the school year now (or wherever I'm at when I'm not in school) I have been using logmein.com to access the physical machine's desktop to get into the development virtual machine to code and kick out installers. While this isn't exactly a terrible setup, it can be a bit laggy depending on the internet connection I'm working from and as a result can be a waste of time even just to modify a few lines of code and kick out a new installation to test.

I do have a couple of ideas that can at least help with the coding portion of the installer maintenance ritual. It might take a little bit of time to get all of this working properly, but I think it would be well worth the time overall, even for someone that would be working in the office.

My idea initially is to access the installer code on the live virtual machine over the internet directly on my Mac laptop over a Hamachi VPN connection. Next is once I'm done I need a quick way of kicking off the compilation process for the code I need and notification once the compilation ends (either by completing successfully, or by failing). What turns out to be the big project is how fast and what the best option is for rolling out quick web services as a means for project control after I'm ready to compile all of that code and start testing.

Just to be clear, there are several reasons why I don't carry the virtual machines directly on my laptop:

• size of the vm's
• security of the software
• security of the installer code
• easier means of integration with the internal backup strategy.
  

relearning ACL in CakePHP

I started looking into user management and access control lists (ACL) in CakePHP. I'm going to be rewriting filed away from C# .Net over to CakePHP and I figured I would do everything the right way. Up to this point every CakePHP project we've rolled has had its own custom user relationship model and tables custom to the project. So this academic approach to do things in the standard acceptable way is a little bit different, but overall going to be a great thing for any future projects.

Since CakePHP released its 1.2 Final just over Christmas and I've been meaning to jump on the rewrite, it's a good time to start hacking away on some new code.

Mamp Mysql setup lifesaver

I would have spent a lot more time trying to figure this out if I hadn't of found this on google:

http://www.fischerlaender.net/apple-mac/mac-os-x-trouble-with-mamp-mysql

started studing genetic algorithms

I changed my major over to Biology from Computer Science just a while ago. So next semester I'll start with introductory biology and chemistry. I've been researching bioinformatics and synthetic genomics as possible career options.

I've been reading some biology ebooks I downloaded a little while ago and its been really interesting. I haven't lost complete interest in programming though. I'm researching genetic algorithms. So far I started with Genetic Algorithm Tutorial by Darrel Whitley.

I'll be updating this post with my notes later.

I'm not going to blow up twitter with these...

• My car is broke again
• I'm taking a 15 hour train ride on Tuesday to go to San Antonio for 2 weeks
• I love Spore
• Seven Pounds, the new Will Smith movie, was amazing
• I need to go to the gym and run
• I need a new computer monitor (the one I've got wont work with my mac)
• I need to update the generated emails html stuff for Appian's contact forms
• I need to work on some installations
• I need to finish the update on the mass upload application for TDC
  

I need to get photoshop on my laptop to see what's supposedly so much better about PS on the Mac vs the Windows version.

My desktop has been unplugged while I was out of town last week. It would be nice if it just came back on without any complications, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

I started reading Twilight and managed to say no to everyone that wanted me to go watch the movie with them. I'm terrible about just going to see the movie and then just dropping the book afterwords.

A little stressed out lately

I've had a lot on my plate lately with both Appian and school. The occasional TDC problem is welcome, but they are normally pretty self-maintained.

Appian has had some installation problems with a new component upgrade that we're trying to deploy with our latest release of our software. For some reason this has been an especially big pain in my ass. The code is almost identical, and the paths for all the configuration files match up. Needless to say this has consumed plenty of my late night sleeping hours as of late.

I've got two tests on Thursday to worry about: one in Government (not so worried about it) and the other in Philosophy (the source of my stress woes). I've been reading the required texts, but I haven't started on a study guide for the example exam questions. Sure this is going to consume most of my day tomorrow.

Now with the time change for Daylight savings, its been getting way too dark way too fast. I'm sure that's not helping either.

logmein and different browsers on the mac

As any other technically inclined convert I've been an avid user of Firefox for some time now. I will say that I have made the switch to Google's Chrome (at least for the most part). For reasons not researched by myself yet, Logmein has a mac client that seems a separate accessing component apart from the browser itself. This little component has proven to be a little more bug prone than the Firefox plugin on my windows machines, it has worked well enough to keep me on the machines I need access to, so I've been happy.

Now back to Chrome: before I converted over to my beloved MacBook Pro, I quite fancied the UI Chrome offered. (In all fairness, when I'm in VMWare on my mac I use Chrome as my primary browser) The big setback Chrome had (from my POV) is a lack of a plugin api. As of today's date, I do not believe Chrome has an extensible api for plugin interfacing. What this translates to me is that I could not completely do away with Firefox because I still needed access to my Logmein machines.

If Logmein were to create a client component with the same cross browser compatibility as they have on the Mac, I would be a happy camper. Better yet, if Google released a Chrome for the Mac. ...oh to dream. (I'm sure it's on its way in fair time)

I'll be doing some research on these topics for an update later I'm sure.

a little automated windows administration

I started looking into some automated Windows administration over the weekend. I've never had to automate the backup of a database, but one of my clients got a little happy with the delete features of a web application I built for them, and I didn't have any automated backups for the database. So I've at least done that.

This whole scenario made me think of a new feature: Undelete. basically its a customized website for holding documents that can be privately/securely accessed by their clients. Undelete for virtually any of the files, categories, or users and their permissions would be a nice feature to have in order to remedy any issues similar to what they're facing now.

Goodbye Basecamp

So I stumbled upon Project Pier, an open source project management tool not that dissimilar from basecamp. (I actually think the project started out as a ripoff of basecamp)

So I downloaded it, installed it on one of my dev machines, and started using it for a couple of days instead of basecamp to see how it would compare. With the exception of no comments on task lists or task items themselves, I must say I'm in love with it. The UI could use some work, but the project does have a full theme system built in (at least I think I saw that out on the site somewhere) There is even some discussion of importing basecamp projects from xml, so I'm super excited about all of this.

Being that its all open source, we won't be restricted to a set number of projects or have to pay the monthly SaaS fee. Its codebase is entirely in PHP, so we'll be able to throw it on our linux hosting that we already have. The only thing that wasn't straight forward and does make less sense (from a users perspective) is that the installation requires its MySQL database server to run InnoDB instead of the MyISAM data storage engine. I can understand if it made the project easier to get started development-wise, but now that its released to the public, you would think that they would use as much standardization as possible. (my dev box's mysql server was easy enough to configure properly, but I'm sure it will be a nice little battle to talk to our web hosting platform into helping us configure our linux machine's mysql servers to run the proper storage engine) I guess in all fairness there is a 'hack' around the innodb stuff so that it will run through the myisam storage engine, but it is just that: a hack....

Well there you have it. I'm sure I'll be posting more about Pier in the near future.

This seems to be the way to go...

Installer woes

I have been working like a madman for the past few days trying to clean up some installation problems that have crept up on some old releases that are still being distributed to Appian's update client list...

One of the components of the installer has a US and a Canada version that seem to be working separately, but when we combine them to run as one process using all of the data for both versions, it starts getting a little foggy and the service isn't starting anymore for some reason.

For a while I was using some nonstandard/funky end of line characters that Windows' notepad didn't particularly care for. (square boxes instead of text resuming on the next line, but wordpad opens it up just fine... go figure) Anyways so I figured out that in NSIS I need to put in
$/r$/n
for an end of line, instead of what i've been using in c# (just the classic /n).

So I thought all was well, but now I'm finding that I didn't update all of my code like I thought I had. So I've been going through each installer to make sure that I've got everything updated with the correct end of line character...

Some of my tests have also turned up that not all of the required data for the US is installing correctly. There are a number of files that do not exist on the target machine after my installer completes.

So if I never have to reverse engineer someone else's installer just to streamline our own installation process I will be a very happy man. It pays the bills, but boy is it ever so tedious, meticulous, and error prone.

Installing XP on a Vista Toshiba laptop

I had to slipstream the sata controller driver into an nLite XP build for a Toshiba satellite a205-s4777. I've never done this before but the driver seems to have been picked up just fine. Hopefully the laptop will boot up so I can make this guy happy. It was soo difficult trying to get anything to work at all on this machine I'm really not surprised he had me take it to throw xp on it.. Everything from the mouse to any removeable media (including usb drives) needed a driver. Stuff like this is such a pain in the butt to get working...

All the drivers listed on the Toshiba support site for this laptop were Vista drivers, so I'm hoping (pinkies crossed) that all the drivers are either backward compatible (not likely) or there are XP versions of them available. I'm preemptively doing some research while I'm waiting for this to load so I'm not completely heartbroken here in about 20 minutes....

lower level

I've got plenty of work to keep me busy for a very long time, but for some reason I'm still left a little unsatisfied. Up to this point I've tried to fill whatever "challenge" void I've had by trying to just take on more work. This is a failed approach for me because I've hated "busy work" (the stuff that just keeps you busy but doesn't really put my mind to use) since I signed up for some Advanced courses in high school only to be disappointed because they just threw more math problems at us instead of more difficult ones.

So I'm breaking the convention. Zack and I both have decided to start doing some research for getting into some game development. He's got some great ideas that I think have potential to be really great, so I'm definitely excited. Game development is going to help me with my little "challenge void" mainly because it's something new and employs all aspects of computers that I've up to this point used individually on many levels.

I'm particularly interested in algorithms for some kind of custom artificial intelligence engine. So I'm going to be JP from Grandma's boy for the next year or so I'm sure. (joke. If I reach that point I'm giving anyone that knows of this permission to smack me enough to bring me back.. ha). Programming AI algorithms is something I've been interested in since I first started playing games like Doom (yeah the 1st one) and picking up the programming basics...

So far the standards that we've decided on up to this point are

• C++ for our modules
• Python for a dynamic module binding backend
• PHP for any web stuff (probably the highest level language I'm not tired of... just personal reasons though)
• OpenGL (I'm running my new Mac and the PS3 seems to be doing just fine with OpenGL rendering only)

The research is starting with me continuing to learn Python, getting more familiar with C++ (not my first rodeo), and learning a bit of OpenGL. I'm fairly confident that I'm going to end up doing the backend game logic (where I feel more comfortable and really am more interested) while Zack heads up the graphical end with Blender model rendering and things like collision detection.

What's really great is that this new little endeavor is something that is both challenging and also something we can both be passionate about.

MacPorts

I started looking into MacPorts today and it looks like it would save a lot of time in the future when I start looking into porting my C# ASP.Net to Mono. I don't think that mono would be that hard to deploy, but I think I would definitely enjoy something closer to debians apt-get package management solution...

So I went to install the release for Leopard and I got an error that (after some googling) I found was because rsync appeared to be blocked by a firewall. I haven't looked at it long enough to determine if this firewall issue is at the router level or on the local machine (more what I suspect).

Suppose when I need Mono support I'll play with it long enough to get it all figured out....

Mac convinced me to buy things I never would have before

I do think its a little odd that iTunes would not have built in functionality to remove duplicates. (I'm guessing its an effort out against music piracy) Either way its always been a pain in the butt to manage all of my music collection amongst the multiple machines that I've laid it out across. Now that I'm working primarily off of my macbook, I imagine it will be a little easier to do, but there's still the big import process of transferring all of that music from my other machines to this laptop... So I bit the bullet and bought some software that will sort out all of my duplicates and make it easier to manage all of my music file duplicates. It was 15 bucks which might be a little steep for some, but it just saved me about 30 minutes in just transferring all of my music off of my old laptop alone...

Normally I would have been interested in this as a side project (and I still might in the future). I just don't have the time to take on any more code projects at the current moment. Something about working for all the benefits a computer has to offer is starting to get to me, to say the least. These things are supposed to make life easy right?

I'm probably going to be upgrading both the hard drive and the memory in this new little toy of mine soon enough. Its a nice machine, don't get me wrong... I just have a ton of media that I like to listen to on demand. I found a 500GB laptop hard drive on Newegg for around $150 so I hope switching that out isn't going to be that big a deal... (never has been on any of my windows machines) That along with the fact that I will costantly have vmware fusion running my Visual Studio for .Net development means that I'll be using all of that maxed out 4gb of ram I'll be throwing in here.

That's the latest mac update... I think the more time I spend on this thing, the more I love it.

Things I'm learning this weekend...

I've got plenty of NSIS and C# to go over this weekend, but its been a while since I've had some time to take up something new in programming land. I've been wanting to get into Python for some time, since there's such a huge following from Google (with their app engine), django python web framework, and a general sense of adoption by the science community.

Anyways so I've been reading through some beginner tutorials and running through some code with textmate. (Textmate makes things really nice by the way)

http://wiki.python.org/moin/SimplePrograms - a list of simple applications to code in order to get a feel for the language. I went through and coded them all out by hand (I've learned that I pick things up easier with a hands on approach)

I'm sure I'll have more to rave about Python at a later date. It's pretty much the big deal in CS right now...

a late night work ramble...

I have been developing a set of installers for quite a large amount of data for the past year now. All of the releases have been stable for some time now, but there's always going to be that extra feature, or the data itself gets updated from our vendor... Anyways, through testing I've found that the installers themselves compile faster and with fewer complications after I configured a virtual machine (vmware) for NSIS development.

I have two vm's on a single machine: one I use for development and the other for testing purposes. Between the two of them I have run through an entire 500gb drive and am no longer able to shutdown the vm's and back them up so I can throw an archive backup on our file server. So I've got a 1TB drive coming in from Newegg that I'll be installing early next week to remedy this. In the meantime I've kept all of the NSIS code itself version controled in a series of SVN repositories.

I'll have to update the C# data deployment application (just a windows form app that is kicked off in NSIS as part of the installer). I've got two versions of this data deployment application: one for the installer (cleanmapcopy runs off of registry settings) and another (mapcopy offers a full gui for our technical support to use for installation troubleshooting).

We are fully 64bit OS compliant now, so the next thing to do is to figure out the difference in the way I'm successfully installing fonts in Windows XP and what has changed as far as installing fonts in Vista and Server 2008.

I'm starting to lose interest in scripting languages. It's probably just because I've been working in NSIS and PHP for I don't know how long. I just miss the feel of a full C# or Java or C++ to work with. (something general purpose that I can do whatever I set out to do in) Freedom if you will... I think Zack and I both are kind of spent on Web programming at the moment. I don't mind it as much as he does probably, but it just seems like there's so much bloat out on the web of redundant features for "this" SaaS app that are also found in "that" one too.... Kinda feels like this type of programming has lost that zeal of personal application or useful touch I once saw in it.

Ok well its time to get some rest. Going to test out this http://sleep.fm/ alarm clock I setup.

Mac Convert update

I wouldn't consider myself an Apple Pro quite yet, but I will say that I took the laptop down to the city to work at Appian in office and everything worked out just nicely. Its still a great machine and I love the way everything feels about it.

Something I've noticed: I think my fingers got a little too used to the smaller keyboard on the older laptop and I can feel my fingers stretching outside the normal typing zone to hit keys. (This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I just need to figure out what the best way to go about typing in all the key combos for all the menu shortcuts and I'm sure that it will go unnoticed in the near future...) Also the home and end keys are a little different... On my macbook pro the home and end key functionality (at least what I expect when on a windows machine) can be attained by command + (left) or (right) arrow keys... Again, little different, but definitely something I could get used to.

I went in the office today and got a stack of software that I will be working on for the rest of the year... At least I know what I'm going to be doing. ...I guess. It was refreshing getting a taste of the quasi professional environment. I really did enjoy the break from the college scene to get some real work done and feel a little appreciated. I've kind of learned that people have their own ways of showing appreciation. (I think one of my bosses shows it by stacking more work on top of me...)

After work today, we headed out over to the Cross Eyed Moose and had a few pitchers 'o beers. (Been a little bit since I've had some wheat beer) Tonight was an awesome combination of world series baseball (wasn't up for anyone to win in particular), hot tub, beer, and cigars with some of the guys from the office. Gotta wake up for class in the AM and I'm spent...

Vmware vprobes: a way to run dtrace on OS's without dtrace support

http://blip.tv/file/950760

This video from vmware is about debugging vmware guest OS's with dtrace through vmware itself without dtrace having to be explicitly supported on the OS itself. This makes things very interesting for testing almost any application in virtual environments...

Me, the new Mac kinda guy...

I purchased a MacBook Pro (no not one of the newest ones, but rather an older model) Although it might have been nicer to save up a little longer and get the latest and greatest from Apple, I decided that I would not fall subject to the group-think that is "get the newest one"...

I can say that I'm happy with what I've got. It might not have the newest gpu from NVidia, but it does have a 512mb video card anyways (which is the best card I've ever had in a laptop to date). Seeing how this new machine will be primarily used for development purposes it might still be a little bit overkill...

Now onto my thoughts of switching. So far all of my applications that I've used to develop on Windows either already offered Mac versions or were easily replaced by other Mac software (all of it open source up to this point. Hoping to keep it this way...)

I've already got vmware fusion 2.0 installed with windows xp. Suppose I could have ran Vista, but I know that XP takes up less resources and this is still a laptop...

The best thing about this laptop is what I initially feared the most: the deviant one button trackpad. I absolutely love the way this thing works. Scrolling is simply amazing and I find myself not even wanting to use a regular mouse because I cannot use the scroll on the trackpad as easily.

Another thing that I find myself thinking about, is that I have been waiting for something bad to happen, as though I was answering to a heavy backend windows kernel or something. I really like the way that this whole OSX feels like I'm making it do what I want instead of bending to the will of the machine. (it could also have something to do with the difference in the way the main menu bar is translated to whatever the current application running needs...)

Not everything turned out as great as I had expected it to. I was extremely disappointed that my new MacBook Pro is having issues displaying a proper picture on my 24" Samsung SyncMaster 245BW monitor. Not sure exactly what the issue is; the only thing I found in a quick google search was that SyncResX was a possible solution (this was courtesy of youtube, and like many, I'm not very fond of any user submitted "knowledge" gained there)

I might try the mighty mouse to see if its something I would like to work with more. (I was just so extremely impressed with the scrolling of the trackpad, I don't think I would feel right missing out on that feature by going back to a regular mouse)

So there you have it: my very short, humble opinion of my first day's encounter with my MacBook Pro.

SVN woes

So I'm trying to sort out exactly what is going on with the svn repositories for the installer code I've been working on.  The symptoms seem to be that the svn client is creating repositories that the webdav svn apache module cannot interpret because they are in a newer file system version.  I saw this because of the apache error log message:

[Fri Oct 17 15:52:22 2008] [error] [client ##.##.##.###] (20014)Internal error: Expected FS format '2'; found format '3'

and this is displayed in the browser

Could not open the requested SVN filesystem

When I go out to search on the web all I can find is that webdav svn isn't supposed to work with apache 2.2.  I do have other svn repos that were made with earlier releases of tortoisesvn and svnadmin that do work still, so I'm completely confused at this point.

What I'm doing now is testing with Wamp to see if I should switch.  Just testing on a vm right now, but hopefully it works...

---

Update:
I was able to get everything working with existing installation of the apache 2.2 web server already on that machine. I downloaded the latest stable release windows binary from http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=8100 After recreating the repository that I wasn't able to connect to previously everything started working. (I also had to update my mod_dav_svn.so apache module with the latest release from that same zip).

Server stuff

It seems like I've been doing a lot of support related stuff lately and not really digging in developing anything.  I've got a couple of projects that I've been wanting to get into, but with all the server config I've been doing lately, its been hard to get time to really dig in.  (suppose it doesn't help that I was sick in bed all day yesterday either)

Exciting news... I am supposed to get my macbook pro tomorrow, and I'm a little stoked about it.  I've had the dell laptop and homebrew pc combo for as long as I can remember now, so it will be nice to just have the one machine to use. Turning the desktop into a solaris: zfs backup server.  I've been wanting to mess with zfs for some time now.  Supposed to be a top of the line software raid solution.

As for school: I haven't been to my gov/politcs or econ classes for about two weeks.  Yesterday I had a test in the gov but I made a 90/100 so I was relatively pleased with that since I only studied for about an hour for about 3 weeks worth of information.  Gonna work on Sunday and Monday, so I am going to have to start studying for econ tonight at some point.

Suppose I should get back sneezing a little more (still not 100%) and making some money.

GPS data from a blackberry

I want to find a way to access GPS Data on a blackberry. I have a couple of ideas for mobile apps that I would like to tie into some of Google's data services. I know that there's a huge push in the newly sprung location based marketing area, but I would like to tie this into a couple of applications I plan on getting started on once my Christmas ...hrmm I mean Winter holiday... break allows for some more coding time.

Ideally for testing it would be nice to access a stream of GPS data over the USB cable so that I don't get charged for Data transmission on the device. I'm sure Sprint already wants to charge me an arm and a leg if I browse the web anymore than I already do on my Blackberry Pearl...

I found a couple of open source applications that to learn from. http://www.blackberryforums.com/developer-forum/51-updated-open-source-blackberry-apps-develop-your-own.html

Blackberry has a nice JDE eclipse plugin to develop with. So I grabbed that along with the Full JDE to make sure that I had all the source code that TonyB recommended in his answer to my StackOverflow question.

In other news I found some interesting stuff for porting J2ME apps to other platforms using alcheMo. So far it looks like it supports BREW, iPhone, and Windows Mobile. Sounds interesting enough, but I couldn't find anything to download and play with. Hopefully there's more news of this to come in the future...

School these days

Ok so I've been focusing much of my energy on work lately and I think school is starting to bite back. Not too crazy yet, but I definitely could use some sleep. Over the past week I've been staying up almost all night, getting maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep and getting back up to face the chaos that is my day and then I take a nap for an hour or two and then wake up for another all-nighter..

I have a test tomorrow, a big quiz on next Tuesday and a (hopefully light) test next Thursday.

We shall see... Better get back to the study guide I'm still working on for that Philosophy test.

IMG00093.jpg

It is either this early or this late.

expanding a vmware virtual disc

I'm going to attempt to expand the virtual disc size of a development virtual machine I use for some installers I've written. I found a gui VMDiskSize but in the notes it states I cannot resize a disc of a virtual machine that has snapshots.

For development purposes, I have various snapshots saved before and after I've made changes here or there. The snapshot manager could probably use some cleanup but its not on my priority list if I can get around having to mess with it right now.

I found a whitepaper on Using VMware Virtual Disk Manager. As always I've created a backup of the vm (which turned out to be a rather large 7-zip file) before attempting to modify anything that could render my development environment "un-bootable". (Yeah I talked to Webster and he said it was cool to make up words for blogs that no one reads)

Here's the actual documentation for the command line tool vmware-vdiskmanager

So the final command I had to run was:
vmware-vdiskmanager -x 60GB {path_to_vdisk}
(since all I needed was another 10GB on top of the already existing 50GB of storage there)

New Apple Keyboard

I went out today and bought what is probably the most expensive keyboard I've ever purchased to date.  I am going to be getting my MacBook Pro soon enough, so I figured while I was down in Oklahoma City (because I live in Stillwater now)  I might as well go ahead and get the full keyboard so I can develop a little faster at home.

Don't get me wrong, I love the keys on my dell, but it seems like I always get a lot more done when I don't have to backpeddle and find the right keys for home, insert, \, etc...  So I decided I would go ahead and get used to whatever quirks I would have to in order to jump right into the Apple scene.

I plugged this usb keyboard into my Win XP desktop and it required a reboot.  After that its been great.  It's not as touchy as my dell laptop or desktop's usb keyboard but I like it.  Maybe that whole new Apple kid feeling will wear off soon enough...  Who knows.

Talking with virtual box Ubuntu server vm

I'm having some problems connecting to a local Ubuntu server vm running on Sun's virtual box.  The vm has access to the internet (it can download and install packages via apt-get), but I cannot access the address that the ifconfig eth0 is putting out there.

The vm appears to be located on some subnet that is not reachable by my host machine.

Clear Function

http://clearfunction.com/

This is a three man web development team with good heads on their shoulders... They are doing a web application a month, and it looks kind of neat..

Some of the best designed sites online today

http://bestwebgallery.com/ - A gallery of some of the best designed sites on the web.

chilisoft asp 4.02 documentation

http://docs.sun.com/source/817-2514-10/index.html

leopard on the pc

http://dailyapps.net/2007/10/hack-attack-install-leopard-on-your-pc-in-3-easy-steps/

http://forum.osx86scene.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2008&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

photoshop: digital smoke effect

tutorial: digital smoke effect

aboveshift blog

I need to devote some time to fixing the blog at aboveshift. I believe it's still functional, but the design has broken..

Aboveshift.com needs some attention either way..

RJS Service

I spent a little bit of time learning how to create a service for MapInfo's Routing J Server using the .Net 2.0 framework. While the attempt was not in vain, it did not work on a clients machine as it did in-house.

MapInfo's RJS service install

It turns out MapInfo's Routing J Server has its own procedure for installing itself as a service right out of the box.

windows services

I wrote my first windows service today. It was relatively easy to do in C# .Net.

After building the executable, it is necessary to install the service with installutil.exe (an exe included in the .Net framework).

I expect I will be automating this with NSIS for Appian's installers.

CakePHP ajax tutorial: scriptaculous

Tutorial

possible code fix???

Turns out you need to register the helper javascript function as ajax for scriptaculous library functions???

More to come but I'm at a loss currently..

Cool photoshop collage tutorial

Make a nice collage-type print design in photoshop.

http://psdtuts.com/designing-tutorials/creating-an-old-collage-effect-poster/

some photoshop inspiration

silk screen print tutorial

http://www.screensilk.com/2007/01/full-color-screen-printing-with-photoshop/

99 resources for graphic designers

http://youthedesigner.com/2007/09/27/99-resources-a-graphic-designer-must-have#/

manual rollback of bad svn commit

http://timhatch.com/ark/2006/04/18/howto-svn-commit-rollback

peaceful

I'm enjoying the seemingly structureless musings of Daedelus.

oh and I finally picked up a copy of the last Harry Potter book.. No one has ruined it for me yet..

First cakePHP project: a CMS

I'm going to start coding a CMS in cakePHP.

Also, instead of just having a text box for the user to input information, I would like to use fckeditor. This will allow for a Microsoft Word-like interface and make it a little easier to input page content..
http://bakery.cakephp.org/articles/view/using-fckeditor-with-cakephp

mysql server advanced config setup

http://www.linuxhelp.net/guides/mysql/

mysql odbc connection string configuration options

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/myodbc-configuration-connection-parameters.html

Content Aware Image Resizing

new indie artist to check out

Vedera -- singing "For a friend"

http://www.myspace.com/vedera

NSIS development on Eclipse

For some time I've been developing my NSIS installations for Appian using Notepad++ and the NSIS code completion library for quick dev. It turns out there is a handy NSIS development plugin for eclipse that I should be using...

http://nsis.sourceforge.net/EclipseNSIS_-_NSIS_plugin_for_Eclipse

Complete with a visual tool for InstallOptions custom dialog screens for user interaction with the installer itself.

Overall, I think that NSIS is a very good alternative to the mainstream Installshield and Installaware applications. Hopefully the foreign exe's that NSIS generates don't get targeted as a minority that Vista or further MS OS's target as bad installation implementations. They are pretty "gung-ho" with their windows installation services msi directive...

Setup steps:
http://eclipsensis.sourceforge.net/index.shtml#download
(need to install this plugin on Eclipse 3.3 or later..)

PayPal credit card errors

Processing credit cards with PayPal

https://www.paypal.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_api-errors.html

Just about everything should be handled through a client side javascript validation. Stuff like

The next router I will buy..

The Linksys WRT350N

I used to do strictly Netgear products, but I've had some issues with the WNR854T Netgear router in a client's office.

Newegg's got them for 150 right now..

NSIS - .Net 2.0 check and install

I found this module that will check for and install if necessary the .Net 2.0 runtime..

http://nsis.sourceforge.net/DotNET#Including_the_Script

Looks really great. I will need it for Appian's installers..

Connection test services

I have a client that I need to monitor to make sure they stay online. I will probably need to make a two part application for this:

• A server that will send out something of a heart-beat signal and wait a specified interval to make sure it gets a reply back.
  
• A client that will answer the heart-beat at a specified interval.

If the heartbeat isn't answered, then I think there should be an event that occurs.

• The site downage is recorded to a database
• an email should be sent to parties responsible for the sites up time.
• An email should be sent to aboveSHIFT
  

MediaWiki easier???

I want to start using wiki's more often for internal document structure, but there's really no great solution out there. FCKeditor for MediaWiki

Maybe this could be a good project..

• Internal office information with access levels (you don't want marketing people into common IT passwords..)
• Media wiki would be ideal, but its just too hard to use..
• need something more like a blog interface.
• office document modification would be a plus
  
• open up and edit .doc, .xls, etc...
• Google has an ideal solution, but I do not believe its portable (exists only on their servers..)

On a side note, wordpress is starting to talk about integration with Wordress and PHP Wiki. Looks kind of interesting...

Ideas for Zencart add products structure

Make a full screen application that will allow for multiple tasks...

• Maybe there should be a bar of things to do on the left side of the screen?
• instead of tabs on the top of the window..
  

Reverse Engineering Code

A good reference on all the disassemblers and the like..
http://www.woodmann.com/crackz/Tools.htm

Media Player integration with Firefox from Microsoft's Open Source Labs

Firefox runs into issues when trying to view media requiring windows Media Player in order to work correctly. Microsoft's open source labs, Port 25, has released an exe that will integrate WMP into the Firefox browser.


http://port25.technet.com/pages/windows-media-player-firefox-plugin-download.aspx

CakePHP tutorials

sitepoint - create a notes application

CakePHP manual - create a blog

Grahambird - create an ajax task list

swik.net list of tutorials for CakePHP

CakePHP Useful tips, a blog - 21 things you must know about CakePHP

The Bakery, CakePHP's wiki site

CakeBits.net - 27 Useful CakePHP Tutorials

IBM tutorial over CakePHP

A fondness for Rails

I have been wanting to get into Ruby on Rails for some time now. I haven't really had the time to dedicate to learning the syntax of a new language, however. I've heard all about CakePHP though, and am going to start a new project in it over the course of the next few weeks. CakePHP has borrowed the Ruby on Rails MVC structure for coding projects.


http://www.sitepoint.com/article/application-development-cakephp -- The tutorial I'll be following from sitepoint..

Laptop for Tim

Dell Inspiron 6400 E1505 Laptop - $350 http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/sys/424565737.html

HP Pavilion ZE5600 laptop computer 4 sale - $300 http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/sys/422307713.html

About me: a powerpoint project for my design class

I think I'm going to start with all the places I've lived. (Google Earth)

San Antonio (Converse)
Waco (Lorena)
Dallas (Mesquite)
San Antonio again (Universal City)finished high school
Austin while finishing up high school)
Oklahoma City
Stillwater
Oklahoma City

new bands to check out:

HIJK - groove jet (new indie electro band..)

Annuals - Carry Around (some pleasant randomness)

visual studio 2005 client side script

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816166

vmWare workstation VM to vmWare Server

In order to run a virtual machine made by vmware Workstation, you must first make sure the machine is stopped completely (not suspended). Then you must open the virtual machine's image file with vmWare's Converter utility to convert the workstation to a vmWare Server compatible virtual machine image file.

Then the virtual machine should run fine under vmWare's Server platform.

Grouping .Net elements in web forms

Group all elements for account creation together by using each elements group property. This will force the TAB key to go to the next element in the group.

debian smbfs mount (linux mount windows shares)

http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/165

Eclipse switch files

ctrl + f6 or you can change the next editor function's keyboard shortcut to whatever you like..

Window->Preferences->General->Keys and select “Next Editor”.
Now select the text in “Binding” textbox using mouse and do right Click and “Cut”. Now the Binding box would be blank.
Now, press CTRL key and Tab togather and press “OK”.

sync outlook with google calendar

http://www.jakeludington.com/ask_jake/20060818_how_to_sync_google_calendar_with_outlook_and_smartphones_automatically.html

.Net smtp worker

I started working with an array of custom objects that will each contain information to send to either a cell phone or HTML accessible mail client.. This is going to be the base of the class. Just need to construct the interface for the array of custom objects..

smtp .Net mailer class

I ended up having do some SMTP authentication. In order to do this I had to create a custom Credential Cache object to tie to my SMTPClient object for the email request..

//SMTP CREDENTIAL INFORMATION
//set username and pass for smtp authentications
NetworkCredential netLogin = new NetworkCredential(eMail.SMTPLoginName, eMail.SMTPLoginPassword);
//set authenticated smtp connection network configuration credentials
CredentialCache myCache = new CredentialCache();
myCache.Add(eMail.SMTPServerName, Convert.ToInt16(eMail.SMTPPort), "", netLogin);
//assign custom credentials to this authenticated smtp request
client.Credentials = myCache;

Awn: dock for Ubuntu

I was searching for linux terminal screenshots for a Design Project for class and I came across this dock for linux: Awn

LifeHacker

Looks really promising..

Validation Error Icons

Found these online. Kinda nice..

Trac project management installed

Here's my working installation..
http://slyguy.hopto.org:81/projects/CreativeProEd/

When you get svn errors its nice to have svn bindings installed.. (feel like a moron at 2am)

Good times..

Good firm to follow for inspiration

http://www.simplebits.com/work/

designer blog

http://corriehaffly.wordpress.com/

Clean black and white design with a touch of blue

http://www.behance.net/

Color: Black and white, with a touch of blue. (not quite monochrome, breaking out..)
Edges: Rounded, (15px between content and border)

Graphics: Arrow (same shape but different sizes)
White space: Abundantly used for organization.

Graphic Design Inspiration...

smashingmagazine.com

Design inspiration for current projects

mariocarboni - yellow stripe in header for TDC Construction

http://www.anthonyphillips.org.uk/index.html - simple header for the lawyers website..

http://www.elmcottageballarat.com/?id=location - lawyer site again.. imagery outside of the box, and a map built right into the content window.

http://www.quorumseleccion.com/ - lawyer - nice color scheme, but way too busy in the header for small town feel..

XML with the .Net framework

C# XML tutorial

writing xml with xmlWriter

the value of static variables belonging to a class is shared amongst all instances of that class..
http://csharpcomputing.com/Tutorials/Lesson3.htm

mdb to mysql dump export

http://www.snapfiles.com/download/dlmdbmysql.html

Setting up an asp connection string to use a MySQL database - http://www.webafrica.co.za/kb/developers/mysql_asp_connection.html

ASP mysql connection string tutorial

---

chili soft documentation

EJB intro

EJB - java.about.com

MCrypt: PHP encryption library

MCrypt - onlamp.com

php webservices explained

PHP courses

PHP 101 from -- devzone.zend.com

Very good intro to the workings of php. Good refresher to get back into PHP.

Monodevelop on Ubuntu

Command procedures for compiling the source on Ubuntu from howtoforge.net

I am going to be using this article on wireframing as a base to redesign mainstreetduncan.com. I am wanting it to work out something like what was done here. We'll see how she goes.