Now I remember. I’m gonna try and post something each day. See what tripe I come out with by the end of the month. Hopefully it’ll be a useful selection of web development/programming tips, geek advice, mountain biking reports and teaching notes based on my Christian faith. That reminds me, I must re-write my testimony to go on a separate page.
While I wait for the backups to complete, I find myself drifting around on the internet. In my open-source meanderings (on Firefox obviously), I find this. A spiffy collection of cool tech-orientated cartoons, with one of my favourite Dilbert strips at the top.
Plus I want this. As I’ve been doing a lot of MySQL stuff recently, it only seems appropriate.
Simple - in a mysql prompt, type this:
SHOW TABLE STATUS LIKE 'tablename';
Where the tablename is the table you need to find the next auto_increment value. It should be the 9th value in the results.
I’ll admit that I’m a n00b at this. I’ve been starting on the slippery road to being a programmer, having dabbled in a little Javascript and fairly fluent in HTML & CSS. So now I find myself trying to grasp the concept of PHP programming.
Don’t forget - I’m self-taught. I’ve been working on a lot of PHP>Database interactions, and I plan to share those with you, in the interest of Open Source Software. I’ll be writing some tutes on the basics next week, as I’m on holiday, and I’ll be doing a fair bit of writing then.
Until then, enjoy! Oh, and I’ll be posting some more photography too.
I’ll admit, I am a fan of Linux, most notably Ubuntu. I started my Linux fascination when I saw the magazine, Linux Format in a newsagents. I picked it up, it had two CD-ROMs, one of which had KDE 2rc, and the other contained Storm Linux. I installed it on my shiny new £1,500 pc, an old Pentium 75 with 16mb ram. It was a strange experience, and although not lasting long, created a lasting impression on me about Linux.
Fast forward a few years, I have a Pentium 4, 1.8ghz with 512mb ram, and I spy the Linux Format magazine again, with an article on the desktop experience. Now I know that Linux has tried to evangelize a ‘desktop experience’ and that Linux as an OS is ready for the desktop. I downloaded and installed Ubuntu 5.10 (aka Breezy Badger), and ran it happily alongside my Windows 2000 install for some time. I lasted long enough to survive an upgrade to Dapper Drake. Then it fell apart again.
After this flirtation with the freedom (as in beer) that Open Source software provides, I went back to Windows XP Pro for a while. My job changed, now I am a web dev, but at home I reverted back to Ubuntu on my desktop. Granted, I still run XP Pro as a separate option for gaming, but it’s used less and less. If Halo worked on Ubuntu via wine, I would be happy. UT2003 and UT2004 work natively in Linux, why can’t other games be dev’d for it?
Ubuntu’s great. I’ve got my email, web, I can view PDF’s, watch DVD’s, check out my mp3 collection (huge!) edit my Nikon D40 pics (all my photos on the Photography page are edited with GIMP, even my Palm T|X pda syncs with Evolution…
What more do I need?
Well, access to my Minidisc player, Printer and mobile phone. But my Ipod syncs. And if I stick with Linux, I’ll probably never get another reminder to upgrade Itunes again.
And don’t talk to me about iPlayer on the BBC…. 
As you can imagine, yes. I am slightly (!) stressed. When I was at my girlfriend’s over the weekend, I found out my blood pressure had gone up, now at 140/100!! To me, that’s alarmingly high. I an anxious, feeling some effects of depression, and agitated a lot. Is it my job? My circumstances? My life? Probably a combination of all three. With the recent events of my girlfriend’s hospital visit, some high-pressure web dev jobs, and home pressures, no wonder things are through the roof.
I haven’t even thought about christmas yet. And I was supposed to be serving at the Christmas Carol Concert at church, but I’m working. I hate working Sundays. I hate working weekends full stop. Occasionally, I somtetimes wish I was back in retail. I know this doesn’t post a rosy picture of being a web developer, and I am sorry for that. But I just have the feeling at the moment that I am sinking fast. I entered this profession not actually being trained, so I was already on the slow starter then. My experience of web design was modding a few templates, let alone developing an e-commerce site using database driven Content Management Systems.
What to do? I’m uploading an incomplete site to use for a training day tomorrow. Do I feel happy about that? No. Do I have enough time to finish it. No, not unless I don’t sleep. But I have enough difficulty with sleep. 3pm this afternoon felt like 11pm at night to me. At the moment I feel like I’m in quicksand. I need to find a way out.
And I’m not sure which way *is* out…
BTW - this is in no way a slur - it’s a comment on my personal state of mind. I am aware that things are tough, and there is the prospect of improvement.
Hi all. As you can tell from the title, it’s a few new things going on. New life, for my girlfriend, as she’ll hopefully be out of hospital in the next couple of days. I’m not going into any specifics, but the op she’s just had will remove a long-term hindrance to her having a fuller life. She says shell be more annoying to me. Also, she reckons I won’t know what to do with her. I do. And I’m not saying here. (To those who thought something rude - wash your mouth out with soapy water.)
New diet indicates that I have to change my dietary habits. I have been having dietary problems for many years, and now I’m in a job where I sit a lot more, it’s harder to be comfortable. It’s not piles. It’s only the start, and I’m told I may probably have to be on this for life, which in some respects is no bad thing. I refer you to my previous posting about God and healing here. This explains something about why I haven’t sought physical healing, but I really felt God had led me to discover a reason for the problems, and to solve those, as that would be more beneficial for my life.
New Year - soon. This new year will culminate all the new things that have happened this year :
And the new year promises more. Who knows, maybe marriage may be on the cards? With whats happened to my girlfriend, we have already had to seriously look at each others commitment in our relationship. This has bought us closer, and hopefully God will bless us further. Theres many other things which could be new next year, but I’m keeping those card close to my chest, and not revealing to you, my readers.
Well, I’ve tried. To dual-boot my PC. Grub is a fantastic boot management program, and can certainly display a lot of potential in managing multi-boot systems. However, my Grub install won’t boot windows. I’ll be looking into this.
Oh and I’m ill. Mahoosive stomach probs.
I just took delivery of a spanking new 27″ widescreen monitor at work, so my web development took an excellent turn today. It’s mahoosive, just like working on a screen like on Minority Report. Without the touchscreen. Or the blue tinge.
Anyhoo, I just re-wired my PC, tidied it up a bit. Put the cold cathodes in, it’s now a vibrant blue inside. Why? Because I’m a geek. And a gamer. Halo was great last night, getting cheeky with nice and rice, but some scumbag calling themselves opm002 kept getting me a lot. It got a little frustrating… But it was still fun.
Where next for my PC? Maybe a nice new motherboard with Core 2 Quad capabilities, and maybe a Core 2 Quad processor… Oh and the board must have SLI, so I can get another of my graphics cards. I currently use an MSI Geforce 8600 GTS Overclocked, and it’s pretty good. I bet in SLI mode it would be very good, especially by my standards.
Right, onto looking at some game demos, get the latest goss.
Just upgraded my Wordpress system to the latest, and played around with the tools. Also upgraded my SEO pack for it, that should help too. Been analysing keywords and stuff, we’ll see over the next couple of months how that goes.
A note to those having problems with the memory error. Write a php.ini file and put the line:
memory_limit = 32M;
Where 32M is appropriate. I put it nice and large because my webhost is great. Then place this in the root folder of your wordpress install and try the upgrade again. If that doesn’t work, you will have to contact your webhost.
Why not post your opinion on gaming in the polls?