Some Miscellaneous PHP Stuff

Some interesting PHP links I found:

• ActiveState's PHP Cookbook (not a lot there but a nice class for writing Apache HtAccess files and a really good Selection Box Class)
• An interesting SourceForge Project, PHPAGA
• A cool article on PHP Variable Variables (credit for this is 100% to Apokalyptik, not me)
• OSCommerce which I've blogged before but remains very, very cool

And, on a side note, a good friend and Java goddess (or one who knows that "Java is the one true way") has been corrupted to the goodness that is PHP.  Here's her OSCommerce shop.  I was the one who turned her on to PHP so I will take the credit on this one.  What really impressed her was the speed with which PHP apps can be built, the cheap hosting and the quantity of great application building blocks.  I say application building blocks, not components, because things like OSCommerce or phpBB are really that.

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How to Know a Professional Systems Administrator

Systems Administrators or "SysAdmins" see it all.  These are the guys and gals that keep everything going.  And they are the ones that people run to when they do something *dumb*.  Now sysadmins are people in positions of power even though their role isn't such.  I mean when you can't get your email or use your computer and the sysadmin has the ability to fix it or not, that's power.  I'd call this "contextual power" since when your system is fine then you'll walk away from the sysadmin and (once again) fail to acknowledge them in the hall when they walk by.  Now when someone has a) knowledge that you don't and b) power whether real or contextual, they are in a position to lord over you when you do something dumb.  The way to know a professional sysadmin (at least one of the ways) is this:

They Don't Make You Feel Stupid

It really is just that simple.  I've employed both styles of sysadmins and the very best know that users are users and that users are just people.  And that people make mistakes.  Heck even sysadmins make mistakes (although you rarely know about it).

And, if you think that this was written after I did something dumb and had just this experience, well ....  And, yes, Apokalyptik was a total star through out the process (and he didn't make me feel dumb).

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Bruised and Beaten

Andy over at www.347.com has an excellent article on things you should know and do if you are starting a business.  It's short and totally worth reading.  I liked this the best:

If you're not willing to finish the marathon, don't start the race.

He is so totally correct about this.  Businesses are marathons, not races.  They take time to build and once you are successful, the hardest thing to understand is that it can often take the same amount of time to be successful in a different area.  Here's an example:

1. I sold my first company, NTERGAID / HyperWriter,  to Dataware Technologies in 1996, a company which had gone public on the strength of their CD-ROM tools.
2. We were to be their new entry level web tools division.  That plan was scrapped 3 days after the acquisition closed.  (I kid you not).  Happily there was no "30 day return policy" (or perhaps unhappily given how it all ended up). 
3. On my advice the company decided to focus on Knowledge Management as it's new area.  This was in November of 1996.
4. Dataware had been founded in 1986 and gone public in 92 / 93 (if my memory serves me correctly).  It took roughly 7 years to be really successful and just barely made it.
5. The CEO of Dataware really expected instant success in Knowledge Management where "instant" might be  12 to 18 months.  We had told him up front that this was really an enterprise business and an 18 to 24 month sales cycle.  It actually has turned out that Knowledge Management is still not really successful for vendors -- to this day.  And it may never be.
6. The CEO, also the founder, had been willing to sweat it out for more than 5 years to be a success the first time.  So, why did he expect to be successful so much more quickly in what amounted to a new business?  Sure he didn't have to build a sales force, create a company, etc, but he did still have to build credibility as a vendor, learn the market and those type of tasks -- which aren't transferrable between different businesses.
7. The bottom line is that building businesses takes time.  They are marathons not sprints and it can take years and years.  While we all hear about the instant over night successes, these are the rare exceptions to the rule.  They are very, very rare.  They just make good stories for the media but they are not indicative of the reality.

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From Libby: News on the African World Summit

This just came in from a friend in South Africa.  She's a webmaster and her site has a special section on the recent African World Summit.  Yes the event where the U.S. did not do a good job (imho).  Interesting

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It's the Little Things

I spend the bulk of my time in character mode VI logged onto a Linux server in Texas (or it's in Radio) and I just became much happier.  Much happier.  How?  I changed my font from Courier to Courier Bold and all of a sudden less eye strain and all is good.  It really is the little things.  I used to fiddle with my VI color settings never being quite happy and I never realized it was the font, not the color that kept driving me nuts.

And, of course, I use Putty, the world's best (and completely free) SSH client.

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