meta_robert

Terrible, Horrible, PHP Tutorial

I’m thinking about writing one. A terrible, horrible, PHP tutorial, that is. Why not? There isn’t another one out there. Well, maybe there are lots and lots terrible tutorials, but not self professed to be so. I’m thinking very seriously about writing a tutorial as I learn. I have some programming under my belt, and even a Google widget written in PHP, but I think I could use a fresh start. My thinking is that I may learn from it as I’m forced to think deeply about what I’m doing so that I can write about it, and that others might benefit as a side effect. Of course, I’m probably just feeding my own ego thinking anyone would read it, but it would be an interesting exercise, anyway. I think I’d post it on 32Hours.com, though. That has become my experimental site, and where I posted and host my Google widget.

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Linux on the Top 500 Supercomputer list

I find it pretty amazing how many of the Top 500 are running some form of Linux.  I guess I still have a hard time imagining a supercomputer being something other than “Cray-like”  The link below takes you to the stats page showing the breakout of the Top 500 by OS Family.  It’s really easy to use the selections on the right of their page to see many more interesting statistics.  I’m just disappointed that they don’t show how many run Firefox as opposed to Internet Explorer, but I’ll bet you can figure it out when you see how few Windows systems are in the list

Operating system Family share for 11/2007 | TOP500 Supercomputing Sites

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Maybe I’m a bit, well, not right…

…but I find this Dilbert strip very entertaining.  I imagine the last line being delivered dead-pan, in a deep voice. dilbert2007111111117.gif (GIF Image, 600×207 pixels)

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Wedding Photos We’ll All Remember (Part 1) : DivineCaroline

OK, so this is not the sort of thing I’d normally post, but I really liked some of these pictures.  My wife hasn’t had a look yet, but I bet, as a woman who has been through the stress of a wedding, she’ll laugh about these.  They’re not your “normal” wedding photos.

Wedding Photos We’ll All Remember (Part 1) : DivineCaroline

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Compiz Fusion running on Linux

Here’s a cool video clip  showing off the graphics capability of Compiz Fusion in Linux (Which blows the doors off of Windows..) The best part, though, just might be the admission at the end..the video was done in iMovie!

Watch the video!

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WorldCat for Searching Libraries

I’ve only given this a once-over, but it looks interesting for research. Although, unless you are actually looking for atoms (e.g. actual paper copy), or need hard and credible sources, I’d probably still just use google and wikipedia…Search: Use WorldCat to Search Libraries. More crap that will die, outmoded like a dinosaur? I’m guessing, YES…

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Pownce: An interesting light-weight blogging / IM concept

I’ve been playing around with Pownce. My personal Pownce page is at: Pownce : Robert A. As I describe this, keep in mind that I’m 38, and not looking to get involved in some sort of race to have the most “Friends” on the internet. I’m looking for like-minded dorks nerds and geeks that I find interesting, that I can listen to, chat with, or even get to know. Now, Pownce is a bit hard to describe, but I really like the concept. It’s like an IM client bonded very will with a blogging site. You and your friends messages are posted to your site in a blog format. More than that, and something I think is an important difference: you can reply directly to a message, which gives it some of the social and conversational aspects of blogging. Group conversations can be a bit more natural. Yet another important feature is that you can “Follow” someone to get their public messages, but “Friends” are a bit more well defined. If you “Follow” someone, and they “Follow” you back, you become friends. Friends can have private chats. I’m liking Pownce. I’ve been playing with Facebook, too, but I’m thinking Pownce has it right.

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RaBlog — Who’s visiting?

RaBlog - I’ve always assumed nobody ever visited this site. I’ve started checking out the traffic using Google analytics. Interestingly, to me anyway, I get some guests. That started me wondering how people get here, and what they do after they arrive. Is it just random “Google juice?” Are people just finding my site during research, hitting a random set of “key” words I’ve used?

Something interesting to me is where people have visited from: United States, Canada, Germany, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Russia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Sweden. Another fact, most people arriving via Google found this site searching for Firefox memory related searches, and came to this article: “Limit Firefox Memory Usage”

So, you’ve actually read all of the way through this posting (or, skimmed it!) I’d really appreciate it if you spent a moment to click below on the comments link and leave me a note. I’d really like to learn a little something about you. I’ll reply back, I promise!

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“Amazon Top 10 (tech)” Google Gadget is published

Google has published my gadget. You can now find it in their directory by following this link. It was interesting to find this when I searched the google gadget directory. Interesting because I applied for it, but got no response.

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My Amazon Top 10 Application on 32Hours.com

I wrote a PHP application that pulls the top 10 tech-book sales from Amazon.com.  Well, actually I’m still working on it, but it’s completely functional already.  I’ve met my own goals.  I wrote it in a way that it was easy to create a Google gadget (if you use a Google home page) and I’ve started on a Netvibes version.  I really like Netvibes as a homepage, by the way.  You can go to 32hours.com and check out my app.  You can find it in Google Gadget form in this post.

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