Log

I'll be on vacation from today until the 15th of October (I think) and won't be reading my e-mail nor will I be performing any other means of communicating. Catch you all later.

PHPbar is a pretty nice sidebar for your browser which contains a quick reference for PHP.

I've been busy lately. I've been very busy. I've been busy at my job, I've been busy with my own projects and I've been busy sorting out some things in my personal life. As such, some things that should, aren't being taken care of:

• PROMS has been suffering from a bug which prohibits the sending of e-mail notifications on just about everything in PROMS.
• Another bug which is even more severe is causing problems with uploading files. These need to be fixed.
• ListPatron needs to be rewritten and development on it must start again.
• My Curriculum is in dire need of an update.
• My fileserver is in a state of complete chaos. Even worse: some of the stuff that should be on there is on my laptop and some of the stuff on the fileserver should be on my laptop.
• Backups of all my machines are done manually (and therefor sometimes forgotten). I need to set up a whole new backup environment that can work across, from and to multiple machines at asynchronous times.
• My development environment looks like a garbage dump. Both my code repositories and the testing environment closely resemble a big plate of spaghetti.
• I've been slacking my security. It's not quite bad enough that I wouldn't write about it here, but it could use a good polishing. Sufficed to say I haven't done a proper security audit in months.
• My health insurances need to be checked, dubble checked and tripple checked since the government is gonna change everything (for the worse) again. Maybe I should move to one of those scandanavian countries. They say health insurance policies are pretty good there. (Not to mention the women. ;-)
• A gazillion other things I haven't gotten 'round to fixing.

In about a week I'll have some time off from my job. Hopefully I'll get some stuff done then. In the meantime, I might need to follow the advice in my previous post instead of writing new log entries. Shame on me.

First thing will be taking care of my health insurance. I think I'll get around to it this weekend. Runner up is fixing PROMS. Then I can design and implement a new backup environment. In between all this I'll probably clean up my file server. Then I get to do the massive task of reorganising all my projects. I'm really looking forward to that last one.. Not!

_{Via GeekPress}

Today is the day you start your project.
Wake up. Make your coffee. Sit down. Get to work.
Now, it should be that simple. Wake up and get to work.
But there are many distractions. Mental and otherwise.
So this is NOT a to-do list. This is a not-to-do list. You don't need to check anything off, because these are things YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO.

• Do not check your email.
• Do not go to nytimes.com.
• Do not decide to organize your cd rack.
• Do not turn on the television.
• Do not clip your nails.
• Do not stare at your bald spot in the mirror and begin to calculate how much time your hair has left.
• Do not start catching up on the DVDs that have arrived from Netflix.
• Do not update your Netflix queue.
• Do not Google all your Exes.
• Do not Google yourself.
• Do not dust the house.
• Do not sweep the floors.
• Do not take out the trash.
• Do not get sucked into the argument when your significant other starts screaming about the fact that you drank the last of the milk and even though you said you would get more you didn't. Just apologize, apologize, and then apologize again. (But don't be tempted to apologize "for being such a horrible person" — that is a sign that you are getting drawn into a bigger dust-up. Stay on target with your apology, explain that you have serious work to do, and get back to your project.)
• Do not decide to make yourself an elaborate lunch.
• Do not take a nap.
• Do not change the cat litter.
• Do not decide to figure out the calorie count of your recent meals.
• Do not pay your bills.
• Do not balance your checkbook.
• Do not freak out that you have no money.
• Do not go into the bathroom and give your Academy Award acceptance speech.
• Do not put on Prince and party like it's 1999. (Well, okay, maybe ONCE, just to get you fired up about your project.)
• Do not start going through your closet.
• Do not decide to floss.
• Do not organize your spice rack.
• Do not update your address book.
• Do not make a list of things to do.
• Do not watch Oprah.
• Do not listen to NPR.
• Do not start to think you don't have what it takes to actually do your project.
• Do not read any further on this post — caught you! Stop reading now and get to work on your project.
• Do not check what time the movie is playing later.
• Do not decide to send an angry email to that annoying friend who recently pissed you off.
• Do not play with the cats.
• Do not clip your nose hairs.
• Do not start trying to organize a dinner party.
• Do not start wondering if that mole that seems a little bigger than the last time you checked it might be skin cancer.
• Do not start going through all the papers on your desk.
• Do not make a list of all the things you have to get done at work.
• Do not start thinking you are never going to finish.
• Do not make a quick run to the grocery store.
• Do not search for gray hairs.
• Do not start fantasizing about sex.
• Do not decide to make a call to your significant other to tell him or her that you don't think you've been getting any, and that you better damn well get some tonight (you know, because that one works every time).
• Do not go to IMDB to see who that actor was in that movie you saw the other night. Or what that girl from that show from way back when is doing now.
• Do not start perusing your own bookshelves.
• Do not organize your computer files.
• Do not clean out your inbox.
• Do not click into the online gossip sites.
• Do not pick your nose.
• Do not start reading old letters from old flames.
• Do not crack open a beer.
• Do not pluck your eyebrows.
• Do not to give yourself a facial.
• Do not start going through your photos.
• Do not return your phone calls.
• Do not start reading your old journal entries.
• Do not start thinking about how your project is lame.
• Do not scrub the tub.
• Do not clean the toilet.
• Do not open a bottle of wine.
• Do not start wading through all the magazines you subscribe to but never read.
• Do not decide to start a screenplay (unless, of course, that is your project).
• Do not post to your blog.
• Do not pull the ATM receipts out of your wallet and start entering withdrawals into your checkbook.
• Do not get up and keep getting yourself a glass of water.
• Do not refill the ice trays.
• Do not do the dishes.
• Do not start picking off the wax on your candle holders.
• Do not start worrying about all the time you've already wasted.

There are a million more things that could be on this list, but remember, it's not a to-do list, so it doesn't matter if something is missing — you are NOT supposed to be doing these things. Just get to work on your project.
I'm gonna go back to work on my project now. See ya.

I recently started the CodeByExample project, which focusses on me putting online all my small code examples for various languages. The main idea here is to create a large repository of small, atomic, code examples for everyday things. For instance, there's a little code snippet on how to daemonize (detach from the console and keep running in the background) a program in Python under Unix.

Just the other day, I ran into this project: PLEAC – Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook. From the website:

Following the great Perl Cookbook which presents a suite of common programming problems solved in the Perl language, this project aims to gather fans of programming, in order to implement the solutions in other programming languages.

If successful, this project may become a primary resource for quick, handy and free reference to solve most common programming problems using higher-level programming languages, and for comparison on ease-of-use and power/efficiency of these languages.

The goals of PLEAC and CodeByExample might seem the same, but they are somewhat different nonetheless. Where CodeByExample tries to focus on actual programming solutions that can be used to perform a certain task, PLEAC focusses more on basic programming language skills, such as reversing arrays, and algorithms in different languages.

It's quite an interesting project and you should definitely check it out. Doesn't seem to be progressing very quickly though.

We're next!

My prediction: When the shit hits the proverbial fan, the cabinet will get blamed because they support the U.S. in the war on terror/Iraq against the wishes of the dutch public.

Laddies! It be talk-like-a-pirate-day today! Arrrr! Shiver me timbers.

What's with all the stupid release names of FOSS projects?

Columba 1.0 "Holy Moly".
Firefox 1.5 "Deerpark"

I mean, just the trend of nicknaming releases is annoying, but the idiotic names make it even worse.

DataQ release v0.3.

Changes in this release include:

• Queues can now be spooled to persistant storage device upon certain events (queue writes, server shutdown).
• Server now logs its PID in a PID file.
• Rewrite of configuration parser.
• Various small bugfixes in server.
• Various code cleanups in server.
• Bugfix in test case 4.

I am, at times, surprised by people's inability or unwillingness to find more efficient ways of performing tedious tasks.

Sys admins: Learn to use the unix toolset (sed, grep, etc)
Windows admins: install cygwin so you can use the unix toolset on windows.
Windows software engineers: Get yourself a decent editor.
Documentation writers: Get Docbook, learn LaTeX or at least learn how to use MS Word efficiently. One does not vertically align text using the spacebar! (Nor do you make headings using font-sizes and bold)