Coding

06May09

At the moment, some of the previous mentioned things are put on hold and I decided it would be nice to have a place to write some stuff related to code whenever I feel the need to do so. I have moved my daily musing to posterous.com, which allows for much faster updating and keep it all brief. For more extensive posts, this place is ideal.

Right now I am in the middle of coding a community-site idea I have. So, for the moment expect a fair ammount of coding related posts.


The Project

02Sep08

Due to some stuff I have to overthink, development on ‘the project’ has halted for a bit untill further ntice. C’est la vie.. I guess..


Hello Linux

11Aug08

For some reason XP has been buggy (and been bugging me) for a while now. It suddenly hangs for no reason. I did analytically disable or change parts to find out what it was, but no solution yet, so.. i decided to start looking into Linux again and i was amazed at how good some versions (distrubutions) allready are right now.

I will point out some distributions that show the possibilities that Linux has to offer. If we would consider the daily internet-routine’s and office-like things, there are allready a variety of distributions you could switch to today. Yes, it has become that good allready and if we talk companies, it could also mean a serious reduction in spending-costs. Ok, let’s start:

Ubuntu
This distribution started their focus to get Linux a better daily desktop experience. and it is improving fast with a big userbase.

Novel – OpenSuse
Novel focusess more towards the business with OpenSuse. It has an overal clean and productive esthetic look. Another serious contender. (promotional video)

gOS
No, this is not related to Google. The gOS distribution was build for lowbudget wallmart PC’s (if i’m correct). A very simplified desktop and although it might look very candy-like, it shows the diversity and possibilities of Linux. (screenshots)

Mandriva
The Mandriva distribution has been around for a while and also has a big userbase. It helps you along the way if you decide to make a switch. Another very social approach.

Ubuntu Studio
As the name allready says, a distrubution that derived from Ubutu. Ubuntu studio focuses multimedia and other creative media people. Just have a look.

Sabayon
Eyecandy, eyecandy and more eyecandy. Sabayon is pushing the graphical limits of linux and it can do some very impressive things. This gives you a change to see where Linux may be at tomorrow. (screenshots, youtube video’s)

Didn’t some give you a ‘Wow!’ moment?


Guy Kawasaki

25Jul08

Although I own a small webdevelopment company, being occupied with this new ’social project’, I consider myself a startup, this..for two reasons. One, it is a new project with a whole new audience and a different approach and two, I know I can still learn a lot.

Guy Kawasaki, the author of the book ‘The Art of the Start’ is a briljant and motivational speaker. If you are into webdevelopment this is something you should surely see (+/- 40 min.). If you have some time to spare.. see it as well. View the video of Guy Kawasaki about the ‘The Art of the Start’.


Open Lina

24Jul08

Very impressive! Run linux (open source) programs on other operating systems while keeping the Os it’s native look and feel. See the video or visit their website.


Speedsurfing

24Jul08

Instead of always complaining, I like to also give a compliment where one is due. This one is for my ISP who makes me feel a tad spoiled on fast servers/websites from time to time. Great connective work guys!


Should it, should we not? And if so..how? There are many ways to share your vote on a site and i decided to implement one on mine as well, since it would suit nicely. I started out with a 5-star rating, but after some consideration I decided to go really basic. Simply vote or not, plain and simple. I noticed this kind of voting also on the behance website (at the bottom) and I like it. No need to dive into thought on how many stars you should really vote. If you like it, ’star’ it,  simple as that.

Tomorrow i will be coding the member/account section.


Since i cannot reveal the name of the project for now i will call it ‘the socialproject’. Today I started to code a widget i had allready designed a while back. Since i had iterated over the design of the website I needed to do some slight design modifications. After definig all the things I would need for the widget to perform, I went to find a suiting script. I wanted to have that chique and nice Apple-like image slider (since Apple has moved it around the site, see a demo here), and it needed to be fairly small in footprint(code)

The widget is pretty much done as an alpha and it will appear in 2 versions times 2 colors. Currently it is just a static version. Later on it will be attached to the database and be able to stream new data and specific memberdata.


So..

21Jul08

I decided to pick up this blog again. I didn’t feel like it for a while, but right now a lot of new things are happening and a blog is just a easy way for me to keep track and share some stuff along the line.

I am currently working on a totally new social webproject. I first decided though to redesing my dev-envoriment. I moved all my server-related things (Apache, PHP, MySQL) away from the infamous C:\ drive and went portable (read: flexible!). So, if at any point it time XP decides to get weird on me it won’t affect my DB, which it has done in the past, and also, I won’t be needing to install and reconfigure everything again. I advice all home-developers to look into a portable dev-setup. Me, i went with Uniform server. It has a fairly small footprint and is lightning fast. My only beef (with most of these portable’s to be honest), they always have the ‘www’ inside the program’s root-folder. I’d rather have it outside the server. With a few modifications i got that all up and running the way i liked it.

So, I will be spending some serious hours in designing, planning and developing this new project and from time to time I will share the progress or any other findings along the way. Rockstar development from the Netherlands.. *cough*


OSX Flawes!

05Apr08

So, since i couldn’t remove Quicktime 7 by hand (Mac, ever heard of the case of Mediaplayer integration Microsoft once had?) I deleted library files by hand. I used Pacifist to install Quicktime 6.5. Right now my OSX install is completely corrupted. My desktop won’t play sound. If i try to turn the volume up or down my desktop resets, Quicktime or VLC won’t play, websites with flash (and audio) simply close my browser and i can’t find any results in my search to restore this and fix it. I even can’t access the preference pane anymore, it simply bombs! This audio-flaw partially crippled my OSX system.

It seems Mac isn’t all that once the system gets in trouble. I consider this a huge flaw Mac. An unexpected one, since i had you in high regards. This seriously influences my experience of OSX. That’s a bad thing, i really enjoyed OSX up untill this point.