The PHP Cult

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power”.

Abe was very good at saying things that rarely needed any explanation. Maybe one day, I’ll have one tenth of the wisdom he had.

“Never attribute to malice, what you can attribute to stupidity”.

There are many variations of this, it’s not as old as Ockham, but it is just as useful, if not more in day to day life.

We often see and hear of people who do a lot of things that make us angry, it’s very easy to think that the person is doing those things out of spite, on purpose or because they’re allied with the rest of the world, who is definitely out to get you.

Next time you feel someone is doing something outrageously malicous, remember, they may not know any better. Assess the damage of their actions, and then move on. Once you realize that they’re not on the same page as you, and are probably misunderstanding the issue, it’ll help you relax a lot more.

This is going to be hard for a lot of people to follow, but I am a firm believer in the human spirit, we do a lot of selfish things, and we do look out for ourselves, but I do believe in the general goodness of people, and I have faith, despite the many differences in opinions we have, we all want what we think is best for us and everyone else.

Considering the few posts made recently, regarding Telecommuting, I thought I’d put in my $0.02, adjusted for inflation.
See Cal’s Post and this awesome job opportunity.
I want to discuss the various tools and options available to the telecommuter in 2008.

Disclaimer: I don’t want to make this another post on the benefits of Telecommuting, as I strongly believe there is no silver bullet for the problems an individual or a company faces. There are many drawbacks to telecommuting, and the positives don’t always neutralize the drawbacks.

Background: I’ve been telecommuting since 2003, that’s when I decided to quit working for the ‘man’. I chose a laptop to give myself mobility. This mobility also came in the form of being single, unattached, and my willingness to drive. I drove from New Jersey to San Antonio, to Corpus Christi, TX, back to San Antonio, to San Francicso, to Los Angeles, to Boca Raton, FL, to Alexandria, VA, Birmingham, AL, to Herndon, VA to San Antonio TX.

All of this traveling was done between January 2003 and October 2005. So, for almost two years I lived in hotels, and everything I owned, fit in my Nissan Sentra. This was telecommuting 1.0, I call it telecommuting because quite often, I could work from my hotel room, they just wanted me close by, in case of meetings.

As much as I loved driving and finding new places, hotel life does get a bit tiring. So, in 2005 I decided to settle down in San Antonio. I’m sure a lot of you will wonder why I chose Texas of all places, to which I can only say ‘try it’.

Here are some tools I use to help keep my sanity, and my contract.

1. Laptop: I use a macbook pro as my one and only machine, the laptop is my primary means of income. My laptop is almost 1.5 yrs old, and it’s still more than what I need. My only gripes are:

   1. Glossy Screens: I chose the glossy screen from Apple, it’s a great looking screen, but it’s not the best in all situations (outdoors).
   2. Resolution: 1680×1050 is nice, but I think I’d prefer 1920×1200, so I want to buy the new MacBook Pro’s, but I don’t know what to do with this laptop first. I can’t logically, or fiscally justify two laptops.

   Since OS X has unix at the core, I have a local development environment for all my projects. I’ve tried out things like MAMP, MAMP Pro, but I keep going back to my old Linux roots. I have the default Apache, and a customized PHP installation, along with MySQL.

   I use subversion for my source control, though I am thinking of switching to GIT. But, whether you use GIT or SVN, it doesn’t matter as long as you use something it’s good. Basically, the use of SVN, Apache, PHP and MySQL allows me to have a full local dev environment. I can write new code, make bug fixes, document, whatever, all from the comfort of my laptop. And I never have to say
   “oh, I can’t get to that file it’s at home, or at the office”.

   The laptop alone gives me the freedom to work from home, or any other place with internet. As much as I love my laptop, I stronly urge you to learn to live without it as well. I’m a strong believer in the no laptop per meeting initiative (there should be one if there isn’t already).

   You don’t have to use a mac, or install Linux. I know people who are very happy with Windows as their primary OS/Development environment, this is development so performance is not your primary concern here.

2. Mobile Data Cards (EVDO/HSDPA): These things are awesome, and worth it if you telecommute. Now, I’m sure you’re going to ask.. but if I work from home, isn’t my cable/dsl faster and more reliable than Sprint/Verizon/ATT? Why yes it is, but telecommuting doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be in the comfort of your home all the time, nor does it mean that you’ll want to be. I spend more time at Starbucks, Coffee houses, and other places where the weather is nice, and the view is even nicer. None of these places have reliable Wifi, or wifi at all. But, my Sprint EVDO card works. Plus, for what I do, it’s awesome. I don’t upload massive files, I don’t download massive files, I upload incremental changes, ssh into remote machines, and I read the news with my RSS reader. I really don’t need a 10mbps internet connection. I need a stable connection, that lets me work anywhere. These card work all the time, and work every where I have been.
3. Good headphones: I use the V-Moda head phones, they are good enough for my ears. They sound great, and fit perfectly. They’re so comfortable that sometimes I get up with the phones still in my ears, only to be yanked down by the laptop. I’m interested in bluetooth headphones, if someone has any opinions, please share them. Anyway, the reason for headphones is because they help you concentrate. They drown out the ambient noise of the environment you’re in, OR you can turn up your music as loud as you like then. I can’t work in silence, nor can I work when other people are talking. I love listening to music when I work, it helps me concentrate.
4. An extra power cord: I have two power cords for my laptop. One is stationary and never leaves the house. The other is always in my laptop bag. This is just a peace of mind/convenience thing. I used to land in a different city, or get to the airport and find out I left my powercord at home, or at the client’s site, but no more. Part of it is due to better discipline, part of it is the intangible comfort I have when I travel, that there is always a cord at home.
5. A good laptop bag: Like a man or a woman, is hard to find. Everyone has their own preferences, I prefer to use bags that can carry things besides my laptop. I like to take pictures, and since I normally find myself in places I find interesting, the ability to have my camera with me is a huge plus. But, sometimes I want to travel light, I want the ability to take the camera out, as well as the compartments for the laptop and lenses. The bag should transform from a large laptop bearing bag, to a smaller version of it self.
   I prefer the use of back packs, but I like the style of messenger/brief case bags. So, I’m still trying to find the perfect fit, but for now I use a Targus back pack. I’ve tried Brenthaven, Tumi, Timbuk2, and InCase bags, the Targus has been with me the longest, due to it’s simplicty, and my ability to pack my camera bag in it, when I need to.
6. A portable hard drive: I have a Maxtor 160GB USB only drive, I bought it on sale for $80. I now have a constant backup of everything on my laptop. If I’m traveling, I just start the rsync before I go to bed. In case the events of the day cause me to lose my hard drive, drop my laptop, or I become a victim of the burning battery, my work is backed up. I am looking at Truecrypt, to see how I can make my backups a little bit more secure. If I lose/forget my drive, then my work becomes the property of Joe H4×0r, which is bad. I’d love to hear your opinions on this. I’m trying to find a balance between encrypting everything, and only encrypting the things I need encrypted.

I believe these 6 items, will help you, because they have helped me. I don’t want to talk too much in detail about how you should
live your day, or how you prioritize your tasks. There are plenty of sites out there to help you with GTD, Focusing, Time Tracking/management. Those same rules still apply, whether you work from home, or the office, you will still need to prioritize. You will still need to keep track of your hours, and you’ll still need to make time for the wife, kids, dogs, and most importantly, yourself.

Every now and then you see someone do something with technology that makes you go..”duh, why didn’t I think of that?”. I happened upon one of these moments, when a friend of mine showed me Awesome Highlighter. The concept is simple, it’s like bookmarking with comments, but where the comments are easy to add, and relevant. People send me links all the time, they tell me to check out a specific page, or a story, but I don’t always get the joke, or the point they wanted to make to me. Now, with this tool, I can see what they thought was relevant. I can remember specific steps I had to follow when I bookmarked a page. As a developer, I can send this to clients, or copy editors, who can pinpoint the errors on the web pages more easily to me.

This is the natural evolution of delicious, let’s see if they can keep up.

For the framework fans out there, the site is built using PHP5 with Code Igniter.

I downloaded IE 8 down to my Virtual Machine, to checkout what the fuss was about. I wanted to see this IE 7 emulation, and just general improvements to the UI. As I was playing around, I clicked on the Windows Update option in IE 8. When I went there, I saw the following page.. which I find funny, and intriguing.

Never ever write applications that depend on the version of a browser. This is the internet.

On Valentines day, I posted my thoughts on the way Apple pushes it’s old inventory out the door. A few weeks later, The Consumerist gets a tip along the same lines. Now, being a fan of the site, I’m flattered that I caught onto something before they did. I love their work, so thanks for telling more people about this little shenanigan. I obviously don’t have the eyeballs they do, the story made it to the public, I’m glad. Next time, tipsters, please give due credit, I don’t expect the staff at the consumerist to know where every story is coming from.

If you read my blog, chances are you are aware of this new fad called the internet, and this new language called PHP. You’re also probably aware of things like MySQL and SQL, and the importance of data to visitors of your website. So, keeping that in mind, I’d also like you to know about backing up this data.

As I grow my business, the number of clients I run into that do not do backups, astounds me. I’m not talking about end user laptops/desktops, but rather backups of their SugarCRM database, or their file server, or even their company website, which is powered by Drupal/Wordpress/CMS Du Jour. When, not If, the database is corrupted, or the disk fails, they have no idea what they would do then. They just hope that it doesn’t happen to them.

So I did some thinking, and decided I should write a post, and make available to the world, a simple script, which I believe will at least give you onsite backups. This is what the script does:

• Backs up each mysql database into it’s own little .sql file.
• Makes a tar ball of the .sql files.
• Copies this tarball to a remote server of your choice. (optional/requires more than editing a few lines)

The script is available to download/view here.

Change the configuration options at the top of the file, make sure everything works, and then put it in your cron. Feel free to post questions/comments in the comments section.

So, I’m in the market for a 30 inch monitor. The choices so far are between the Apple Cinema and the Dell 3007. I went to Apple’s website to see what the Cinema would cost me, $1,799 says the apple store. So, I checked Apple’s goodwill/refurbished store, and there the price is $1,499, $300 cheaper, woohoo. What caught my eye though, was the next item, they say the original price of the display is $3,299. Really? I double checked the brand spanking new one on the store, looking for “going out business, 50% off, everything must go” signs. Needless to say, I couldn’t find any. I think it’s interesting that Apple shows the price as $3,299 which was the price when these things were first announced, 5 years ago, instead of the price if bought brand new today.

I’m wondering, is this standard practice amongst retailers? Do you really want to list the first original price of an item to help get rid of your old inventory? If was to buy the same thing brand new, the price wold be only $300 more. But, looking directly at the site only, it seems the refurbished item saves me more than 50%. Is this fair?

This is from a Dale Carnegie book I’m reading, and I think it’s a very good way to live your life. “Count your blessings, not your troubles”.

At the risk of getting too personal, or philosophical, I think this is a very simple, and good way to live. It’s common sense as well, but not common practice.

Over the past 3 weeks, all I was doing was bitching about how many hours I have to work, and how I have no life.. but considering I’m a contractor, and I get paid by the hour, I should be happy that I have billable hours. Sure, some of the work is repetitive, uninteresting, and below my skill level, but considering 4 years ago, I drove across the country to find work.. having too much of it, is not something I should complain about. I’m self employed, and I don’t think I need to look for another contract for at least another year, what was I bitching about?

Now I’m also not saying I should be so happy with the amount of work, that I spend all my time at work, but I need to find the right balance, but I also needed to put my attitude in perspective. After all, I’m not finding the cure for cancer here.. it’s just a website.