del.icio.us

Thu, 16 Sep 2004 0:29 UTC

I found out about del.icio.us through a post by Chris Shiflett. In short, it’s a place to store and share your bookmarks in a central location, and it has a built-in community aspect, showing who has bookmarked the same links. I’ve already got over 125 bookmarks in my collection.

After playing around with del.icio.us for a while, I’ve come up with a wishlist for enhancements:

OR operator

WITHOUT operator

More than 30 links in RSS feed
I’ve noticed that the RSS feeds show only up to 30 bookmarks. I discovered this when I subscribed to my bookmarks from Firefox 1.0PR (with Live Bookmarks) and didn’t see them all.
I’m sure others have their own wishlists of enhancements, but I think these three items would definitely increase the power of del.icio.us.

6 Comments » Permalink Tags: delicious, firefox

Notes/Slides from OSCon 2004 Session?

Tue, 14 Sep 2004 22:05 UTC

I’m looking for any notes or slides for the OSCon session “Chasing the Dragon: Compiling PHP to Run on Parrot.” If anyone has anything related to this session, please send it to me ASAP.

I will be indebted to you for life . . . or, at least, a long time . . . or, really, for about a month. I’ll buy you a beer if we ever meet up at a con.

Thanks!

Comments 1 Comment » Permalink Tags Tags: oscon, parrot, php

Artima Developer Buzz Blog

Tue, 14 Sep 2004 15:43 UTC

I’ve followed Harry Fuecks’s lead and joined the Artima Developer Buzz community.

The Artima Buzz Blog works similarly to Planet PHP in that it aggregates RSS feeds from blogs. The difference is that there are muliple channels (Java, .NET, Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, etc.) and anyone can join and add their own RSS feed.

So, join the community. It’s a great way to evangelize PHP to a lost world who need to let PHP into their hearts.

No Comments Permalink Tags Tags: artima-buzz-blog, php

MySQL ComCon

Wed, 8 Sep 2004 10:05 UTC

This morning, via Zak, I heard about MySQL ComCon, which occurs concurrently with International PHP Conference in Frankfurt, Germany. Both conferences are hosted by the good folks at Software & Support Verlag.

Zak’s special recipe for the conference is:

Recipe for MySQL ComCon Europe 2004: Take equal parts kick-ass MySQL community event and MySQL mission-critical business event. Add key MySQL community members and developers. Drop in three days in November (8th to 10th). Shake well. Serve ice cold at http://mysqlcomconeurope.com/.

I think I prefer mine at room temp, however, but that’s just a matter of personal preference.

Unfortunately, unless I take up a collection and convince my boss to give me the week off, I’ll not be able to attend, but it definitely sounds like something I’d check out.

2 Comments » Permalink Tags Tags: mysql, mysql-conference, php, php-conference

MySQL Licensing Questions Answered

Tue, 7 Sep 2004 16:10 UTC

Back in March, I mentioned a MySQL FOSS Exception drafted to allow other types of FOSS licensing models to use and distribute MySQL libraries. Apparently, questions about MySQL licensing issues continue to drive developers insane, so Zak Greant has written an article for PHP Magazine that discusses “The Top 7 MySQL Licensing Questions.”

Unfortunately for us all, I took a look at Zak’s site only to find that he’s resigned from his position at MySQL AB due to “burnout.”

No Comments Permalink Tags Tags: licensing, mysql, php

Uninformed Bloggers At Dragon*Con

Mon, 6 Sep 2004 23:19 UTC

I attended “America’s largest, multi-media, popular arts convention,” Dragon*Con, this weekend. I went a few years back, so it was a privilege for me to go again this year. There are all sorts of tracks and panels focusing on a wide variety of topics. My favorites include the TrekTrak and the Tolkien Track hosted by TheOneRing.net. However, I noticed a track by the name of Electronic Frontiers Forums, hosted by the (now defunct?) Electronic Frontiers Georgia group, which is associated with the EFF. While they offered a wide variety of panels covering such topics as “Web Cam Girls” and the “FCC Broadcast Flag,” they didn’t offer much discussion on more technical topics for the hard core programmer. Still, their discussions on Web culture did intrigue me, and since sociology and Web culture are among my interests, I managed to make it to the “My So-Called LiveJournal (.com)” panel.

Now, I knew from the title that this discussion would probably be more of a get-together for journalers to chat and compare experiences using LiveJournal. So, for starters, I didn’t exactly fit the LiveJournal mold. I’m more of a “blogger” than a “journaler,” and what I mean by that is this distinction: I don’t talk about my day-to-day life on this blog, nor am I part of a community of other bloggers. I have a blog roll, which is similar to the LiveJournal friends listings, but there seems to be more of a widespread community phenomen going on with LiveJournal and other journaling services. So, I didn’t fit in with the group.

Secondly, my interest in the discussion was purely sociological. I wanted to hear about the culture of blogging, probably from too much of an academic standpoint. But the discussion seemed bent on the usage of emoticons and factors in choosing friends. Still, while a trained sociologist would’ve undoubtedly found these topics interesting from a mere bystander’s point of view, I did not. I wanted to dig deeper to find out how these people felt about some real blogging issues, so I decided to ask a few questions.

My first question was fairly simple: “How did you first encounter blogging? What was your first experience with blogging?” The answers were also simple, if not trite. Someone told me about it, was the basic consensus. While I didn’t expect rocket science, I had hoped to hear something more anecdotal about the panelists’ experiences. This also would’ve been an excellent opportunity for the panel to open the floor for blogging stories from the audience, but it was quickly tabled for more questions.

I next asked for their feelings about corporations, such as Microsoft, using the blogging model as a way to promote and publicize key positions and products of the company and, at the same time, giving consumers a false sense of closeness to the corporation. The panelists, as well as most people in the room (and it was a standing-room-only crowd), didn’t seem familiar with this at all. I have seen countless blogs across the Internet that discuss this topic, and I have read articles about how this movement by corporations has angered bloggers for taking the blog from them and turning it into something corporate. Yet these bloggers—LiveJournalers, rather—did not seem to have any knowledge of this, nor did they seem too concerned. The attitude was more of a “f*ck ‘em” and let’s move on to the next question.

I had several other comments throughout the discussion, but my final question was about Joyce Park’s termination from Friendster for blogging and how they felt about that. Again, they were as uninformed about this as about the corporate blogging—and this is a topic that reverberated across the entire Web in a matter of hours.

I left the panel asking myself how the Electronic Frontier Forums, who had held a well-thought-out panel on the FCC broadcast flag hosted by the knowledgeable Paul Scheele, could host a panel that provided no real insight into a blogger’s feelings about major issues in blogging. Yes, there were some good moments and a few interesting lines of discussion, but overall, I felt the panel was merely an excuse for users of LiveJournal to meet each other, and perhaps that was its sole purpose. If so, it suceeded, but if it could’ve aspired to be more about social issues faced by bloggers, then it failed because these bloggers were uninformed and out-of-touch with the rest of the on-line blogging community.

4 Comments » Permalink Tags Tags: blogging, dragoncon, livejournal

Weekend At Dragon*Con

Mon, 6 Sep 2004 16:12 UTC

I just spent the past weekend with my wife at Dragon*Con. It was a great and exciting convention, complete with all the geeks, freaks, and their costumes.

My wife has a post about our experience, as well as some pictures.

Later, I’ll write a bit more on my experience at the “My So-Called LiveJournal (.com)” panel hosted by the Electronic Frontiers Forum.

No Comments Permalink Tags Tags: dragoncon

Getting PHP installation to update

Thu, 2 Sep 2004 13:06 UTC

A while back I mentioned a problem I had with seeing the changes made to PHP after running a make and make install. I couldn’t see the new build date or the changes in phpinfo(), nor could I see the new build date with php -v. I was perplexed and frustrated.

Amazingly, after I rebooted my computer, the changes took effect. This was stupendously odd. I shouldn’t have had to reboot.

Yesterday and today I struggled with the same issue on two different machines. A reboot didn’t help, and advice given me in the comments of my previous post didn’t work, either. Finally, on a whim, I tried a make clean before running make; it worked!

I was stunned and shocked to find out that it was something so simple, but I was glad that my installation was now updated with my changes.

4 Comments » Permalink Tags Tags: compiling, php