Columbia

Here are a couple of blogs in Texas that mention the Columbia incident first hand:

• JoniElectric
• Nacanowhere

My hopes are with NASA and the families of course.

12:02:50 PM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

Indexing FTP Sites (using PHP)

If you need to index an FTP site then you should RUN (not walk) and download version 2 of Apokalyptik's FTP indexer.  Its an Open Source FTP site indexer written in PHP.  While I'll admit that I haven't looked at the code yet, Apokalyptik is damn smart and always does a great job.  He's also done a damn good job testing this puppy (I IM'd with him during the testing process).  Recommended.  [_Go_]

8:14:16 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

Tivo Getting More Expensive

As much as I like the idea of a Tivo, the monthly fees just plain turn me off.  And now the lifetime option is getting more expensive:

TiVo, which sells digital video recorder services, plans to boost its lifetime subscription fee from $249 to $299 starting March 3, according to a note on its Web site. 

...

The company did not immediately return calls for comment. TiVo's Web site did not indicate a change in the monthly $12.95 subscription fee. [_Go_]

Now I know that Tivos are highly recommend and that Scoble really loves his.  Still I hate monthly service fees.  Right now I pay them for:

• Cell phone
• Cable
• Broadband
• Dial up ISP for travel purposes
• Emailable Pager
• (and I think there are more as well)

Couldn't Tivo figure out a way to distribute their programming information more cheaply?  (Note -- I know they don't want to but bear with me).  Why not work out a syndication approach where you rely on the vast number of broadband machines / machines with cheap hosting out there and distribute the programming information onto the fan base so that they don't bear the hosting cost.  I.e. use a more peer to peer distribution mechanism.  I'm sure there are a few thousand odd customers who'd pitch in and help.  Using this approach they could cut their fees and perhaps even give people doing the hosting for them a chance to get something out of it (free service / a few bucks a month).

I just priced an 80 hour Tivo from Amazon for $349.99 after rebate.  If you go with the monthly option then you're paying $155.40 for service annually or 44% of the price for the device just for service.  And you pay that annually.  That just sucks, IMHO.

6:42:25 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

I Still Subscribed to PHP Architect

Despite my comments just now about the PDF issues, I still subscribed to PHP Architect.  Why?  Well it's only $20 (approximately) and that's cheap enough to really make it worthwhile.  If just one article from the magazine saves time then it is highly worthwhile.  Recommended.  [_Go_]

Oh and they have an RSS feed too.  [_Go_]

6:21:18 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

Php, Smarty and Tomica

I just got a very nice email from Tomica, a programmer in Serbia who is using PHP quite a bit and just wrote his first published article, an examination of the PHP template system, Smarty:

The primary goal of this article is to explain some of Smarty’s more advanced functionality, and to show you some real life examples of how you can elegantly Smarty to ease your life (ok, your work then). If you don’t have any experience with Smarty (or at least with a template system), I suggest that you read some introductory material on Smarty before you continue with this article. [_Pdf_]

Although I've never used Smarty, I think Tomica did a good job here.  I particularly liked learning about the debug log and "Smarty MX" which lets Smarty be used with Dreamweaver.  Very cool.

Sidenote: This is not Tomica's fault but I just plain HATED blogging this piece.  Why?  Well PHP Architect, the publisher, and people I really do like a lot, use PDF for their publishing format.  Since they use a two column layout I had to copy each line of this posting individually (8 times) and then manually remove 8 separate font tags.  Arrrggh !!!!  Needless to say I was lazy and left all the closing </FONT> tags in place.  A note for online publishers -- do things that readers might.  Try and copy text.  Try and search text.  Do "testing" just as if was code.  Don't assume that because you made it look pretty (and the PDF layout is pretty) that it is necessarily functional.

Second Note: Interesting.  I just tested this some more and my sidenote above was not technically correct.  Although marking a block in a 2 column pdf makes it look as if the copy function will not work correctly, it kind of does -- although you get more text then you want (i.e. paragraphs from both columns) -- at least the paragraph structure is maintained.  That said when I go to copy code out of a magazine, I really don't want to get article text as well.  Which is how it currently works with their two column layout.

6:15:48 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

How Odd -- I'm "Adult"

How very, very odd.  Some just IM'd me "You have PORNO on your Yahoo Profile".  What?  No I don't.  So I checked and Yahoo has my profile categorized as "Adult".  I wonder why.  [_Go_]

5:57:08 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

PHP Code Snippets Anyone?

This web app for storing php code snippets was just referred to me.  Looks interesting and is pretty simple to add snippets (something I really need to do) but at least for the person who referred it to me, it has bugs after you add like 20 snippets.  But it might work for you (I haven't tried it yet).  And it does look pretty useful.  [_Go_]

5:46:01 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This