I ran across an article Who owns Blog Comments today, and thought it was quite interesting. It talks about the assumed copyright protection that commenters have to their comments. This copyright protection could theoretically allow the commenter to *inherit* some of the privileges that the site has to offer.
What I am thinking of in particular is the right of the commenter to ask the site for a share of the revenue that might be earned by the site, under the grounds that the commenter's entry helped earn part of the revenue, and therefore is entitled to that portion.
Do I agree with that? Nope. I think that If a person is to comment on a blog, they are offering it as a contribution, or donation to the site, and therefore giving the ownership of the entry to the site owner. This would in turn give all content on the site to the blog owner, and would protect the site from people who are out to scam.
I went out and bought my 12" iBook yesterday. I got the sucker home, went to put in the memory, and 'hey wait'... the spot that where I was told it should go did not appear to exist. So like a good tech guy, I decided not to screw up my new machine yet by unscrewing every possible screw to find the memory spot.
One of the first things I noticed about my Mac, is that it sleeps.... correctly. I think its actually useful now. Back on my PC sleep was equivalent to *go do something else for a while because your computer is going to lock up on you*.
I took a look at the order status for my Mac Mini, and it's still scheduled for Mar. 9th... a bit longer than I wanted to wait, but I figured I could hold out that long using my wifes laptop (p2 366mhz I believe). Boy was I wrong. That thing drives me nuts! Its a good solid COmpaq, that just refuses to die. But man oh man, it does not like the way I like to have my environment (2 browsers, 1 ftp, 1 ultra-edit, mysql, apache).
So Heidi convinced me last night that I should go ahead and cancel the Mac Mini for now, and just go get an iBook. That works out well for me... I wanted the new 17" iMac instead anyways. Now I'll have more time to save up for the iMac, and one of the sidenote advantages.... ONLY 1 WIRE!!! yeah. I only have to plug 1 cord into the wall, and thats it. Thank you apple... for the little things.
Lately I've been preparing myself for the setup of my new Mac Mini (which I ordered yesterday). Things like setting up my apache configuration, mysql, php5, cvs, and now the Horde Application Framework. I think that since I will have cvs setup, It would be nice to have a cvs gui available to browse repositories. So I downloaded Horde, updated some PEAR modules, and started my installation. The directions *seemed* fairly straight-forward. Just move a couple files around, generate a conf file, and voila? Nope, apparently not. Apparently I did something wrong, or my webserver isn't quite configured in a manner that supports Horde. Either way, Im left with a pseudo installed application, and my error reporting isn't helping out either. Whenever an error happens, php keeps it to itself, and quits (i haven't set my display_error ini var yet... i know).
My end goal? My Mac Mini is going to be a home server for personal and my freelancing stuff. I want the machine to be a repository for all my music. I want personal finances to be managed there, and I want to setup a webserver where I can test my websites in a somewhat production environment. And then there is cvs. It will give me the option of being able to code on any machine that can access the repository.
I decided today to setup a cvs repository on my work machine, so that all of the pre-production cvs development gets stored somewhere. I think I should have done the repository a bit more vague though. The whole reason for not checking it into live cvs is because I don't know where things need to go yet, and I don't want to hassle anyone with moving files around in CVS... i hear its a pain.
Anywhoo, to document my first import:
Create Cvs Root Directory:
> mkdir CvsRoot
Update .profile to set environment variables:
> export CVSEDITOR=/path/to/pico
> export CVSROOT=/path/to/cvsroot/dir
(For a remote repository)
> export CVSROOT=:ext:username@machinename:/path/to/cvsroot/dir
> export CVS_RSH=ssh
Initialize Cvs:
> cvs init
Create First Repository (on machine), and get inside directory:
> mkdir repository_name
> cd repository_name
Import the Repository into CVS:
> cvs import repository_name *vendor_tag* *release_tag*
(not really sure the significance of vendor_tag & release_tag... if anyone knows, feel free to chime in)
Voila.
The wife and I decided that we should wait no longer to get one of the new mac mini's. I was tired of dealing with my craptop (which will be on sale fairly soon for a cheap price, for anyone interested in a laptop with what I think is a hard drive going bad), and my wife was tired of listening to me complain about my craptop.
So we take a look at the finances, and decide to put it on the ole discover card... On our way out to the apple store, i realize that my discover card is NOT in my wallet... which means it must be somewhere in our pile of crap to deal with in the lounge (guest bedroom). It took us 30 minutes of digging through our neatly arranged junk pile before we found it.
Then we are off to the apple store to get my mac mini. We arrive, and the first thing my wife overheard is one of the sales-persons telling a customer that the mac mini was not in stock. I thought she was pulling my leg. Certainly the apple store would have the mac mini in stock! Apparently not though. We asked an associate, and they said it would be monday before they would receive any more.
Apparently I'm supposed to wait a little bit longer for my new Mac...
This is easy. With Mac OS X, apache/php come pre-loaded, there is a mysql binary available, cvs comes on the x-code tools cd. In addition to that, I can enjoy a nice graphical interface like I've been accustomed to.
But wait, it gets better. In Mac OS X, I have a terminal at my disposal at all times, and I don't have to worry about the "blue screen of death" or even the threat of viruses (yes, I know there are viruses for mac, but they are not nearly as numerous as those for PC).
Add in a cheap software package - iLife, and it gives me some pretty cool applications that would easily cost me a lot more $$ for the PC equivalent, and the quality would not have been as good.
I think that mac even has a price advantage. I can get a solid laptop for half of its PC equivalent! Now with the Mac Mini, watch out Microsoft....
Free iPod? Oh yeah, I totally forgot I was doing that! No really. My one referral never completed his offer, and now I am referral-less. It looks like I might not be getting my iPod as soon as I would have liked to (which i guess is ok, since most all my music was stolen in October, and i'm very slowly rebuilding my collection.
Anywhoo, Its been 16 days since I signed up and my calendar reminder is popping up to tell me to cancel my magazine subscription. However, I haven't received my first magazine, or my $20 gift card... So im thinking that now isn't such a good time to cancel.
So if ANYONE wants to help me get my Free iPod, please signup and have your friends signup too!
Today started on a fairly sour note. I got up on time, showered, ate breakfast, and was out the door at a decent time... on schedule to be at work abot 10-15 minutes early (I needed to pay some bills online... why I can't do that anywhere else is a completely different story). I arrive at Starbucks to pick up my morning coffee, and I go to leave and whats this? My truck won't start? It barely even clicks? The heck is up with that?
The last time this happened was when i first started my job. The problem was due to moisture getting in my distributor cap and shorting things out. I didn't know I needed the "Wet Weather Package" on my truck to live here. Now I'm worried that this will cost me another couple 100 dollars to fix... Which pushes back my Mac Mini just a little bit longer... great.
My Dell Inpsiron 8200 bit the dust last night. It's been giving me some serious problems lately, but when I went to boot last night, it gave me a firm "NO".
Something happened a couple months ago to make my laptop start crawling, but only when tilted on anything other than a horizontal plane. As soon as I would correct it, it would speed back up. The video display driver had also been giving me hell (since day 1 almost). The crappy driver causes the laptop to freeze, and then blue-screen me at completely random intervals. So about a month ago I wiped my computer clean, and installed a fresh copy of WinXP with the hopes that maybe a clean install would solve at least 1 problem. Alas, I was wrong. The only thing I managed to do was clean some excess programs off my computer.
Well, the other night I tried booting the computer up, and it took about 20 minutes (no lie). Once it I was able to login, it told me that my account was corrupted and could not be loaded (goodbye bookmarks, mail settings, my frikkin desktop, etc) and that it would be using a temporary account. Yeah. So I logged in thinking I would try to recover my data with my jump drive, but NOOOO, the thing decided not to recognize my jumpdrive! Since I'm out at starbucks, this eliminates my only option for data recovery at that point. Not that it matters, 10 minutes of trying to get some work done, and my computer blue-screens me. I proceed to shut it down, and go home annoyed.
When I went to boot last night, it wants me to run the repair disk. So i do. It finds nothing wrong. Thanks. Thanks a lot. What do I do now? Re-install the OS, and pray to God that my other partition isn't ruined. Boy this is a pain.
Next time. I get an iBook. I backup frequently. I live happy.
Last night I went to a PHP Meetup meeting downtown at Corner Coffee. My boss, a co-worker, and some other folks showed up (oddly enough the meeting organizer didn't show up... and neither did the member that has ownership in the shop). We had a decent time. Since there was no direction, we just talked most of the time.
One of the guys I talked to at the meeting happened to start up a company called DVD Direct (cant find the website), and they are kinda like a cross between netflix and blockbuster. They setup mini stores in places you frequent (your gym, your work, hotels, etc) so its convenient for you. You can then go online and reserve the movie you want, and go pick it up. If you reserve it, its guaranteed to be in. Hence, if the movie is not in, they will not allow you to reserve it online. I think its a pretty cool idea.
Lets say I'm building this class *Manager* that acts as a database table manager (much like you would find in phpmyadmin, but more user-friendly for folk's who aren't tech saavy).
I want *Manager* to show me the contents of the given table, insert records, update records, and delete records. (pretend that my code is neatly indented...)
class Manager {
function __construct($Table) {}
function showReport(?) {} // Builds a Report with the Table Data
function insertRecord(?) {} // Inserts a Record into the Table
function updateRecord(?) {} // Updates a Record in the Table
function deleteRecord(?) {} // Deletes a Record in the Table
}
To maintain OOP principles, do I build the control-flow into the class,
function process() {
if ( something ) {
// Check for Errors
// Perform some Action
} else {
showReport();
}
}
or do I use procedural code (outside of the class) to do control-flow?
$Manager->insertRecord(table data goes here);
$Manager->showReport();
I guess that's what I get for taking several months off from blogging.
I don't really feel like I need an audience to write my thoughts here, but I do enjoy hearing what other people have to say on occasion. Granted, I am a bit of a geek, and slightly obsessed with programming & technology, so my blog entries all kinda look the same. "I found a new laptop I want", "Kyle needs an iPod", "I wrote more software". (maybe I focus too much on myself in my blog... is that necessarily a bad thing?)
I am by far, not an expert in any field or situation that I can think of. My opinion honestly doesn't really matter. I am even known to be wrong on occasion. Good thing no one comes here looking for advice.
I think I need a niche. Something that everyone encounters, but rarely addresses. Something like... yeah, I can't think of anything.
But hey, if anyone wants to know what its like to be a programmer geek, living in Indianapolis, trying to be successful, while having a family and supporting a respectible social life, then you've come to the right place.