I'm Off to the Con … Blogging Resumes Promptly At Some Point on Saturday !!!.

I'm Off to the Con … Blogging Resumes Promptly At Some Point on Saturday !!!

Well I'm off to see the wizard … Wait.  Wrong movie.  I'm off to the airport and thence to PHP-CON.  I'll be back on Saturday and that's when I'll update this blog again (I don't leave my desktop running when I'm totally gone for a while).   While I'm out, you might want to visit any or all of these fine folk below.  Each of them kicked in value content for my Software Engineering Practices for Large Scale PHP Projects presentation.  Thanks everybody, I really appreciate the great input.

• Keith Devens ö Database

• http://www.keithdevens.com/

• http://www.venticon.com/

• http://www.steelandglassworks.com

• www.surfmind.com

• http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/ | blog

• http://www.unix-girl.com/blog/

• www.apokalyptik.com

• www.natrak.net / www.drupal.org

• http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/

[The FuzzyBlog!]

Temptations from the Devil

I'm a Mac guy. There's no two ways about it. I've been using a Mac at home since 1986. On the other hand, I'm a tech guy – and that means I know how to use most operating systems out there. Given my new setup of Mac, Windows, and Linux, I'm in pretty good shape to tackle just about any problem. Tonight, when I booted up the XP box for the first time, the little evil mini-me on my left shoulder started whispering, “Hey, take a look at that. Not bad, eh?”

Nooooooo!!!! It couldn't be!! I was tempted by the speed of a fresh XP box. It was so fast, so clean, and so…Windows??

Now, let's set the record straight. I have used Windows professionally for years. I just came home to my Mac box at night. I'm perfectly comfortable using a Windows machine, until it breaks. Then, folks, I'm up a creek without a paddle, boat, or life jacket.

So many times, we are tempted by the fresh and new gadgets and gizmos. This new box is nearly two years newer than my PowerBook G4 (my primary machine) and obviously it is going to be faster. What brought me back to reality was knowing that as I installed more and more software, configured things just the way I wanted them, and began getting Windows just the way I wanted it, I KNEW that I'd catch a virus that some Malaysian college kid threw online, a service pack would corrupt my drive, or I'd be so bogged down by the standard, eventual degradation of most windows machines that I'd throw this piece of hardware into my neighbors pool.

Sigh. It wasn't really XP that I was yearning for after all – I'm just jealous of my cousin's new dual 1.25GHz G4 with dual 17″ flat-panels. It's not that my PowerBook G4 is a bad machine, it just isn't the speed demon that it used to be. Then again, neither am I.

Belkin OmniView KVM Switch

It's done. My new setup is complete. I now have three platforms, Macintosh, Windows XP, and Linux all running through one monitor. I opted for two keyboard/mouse combinations, mainly due to the slightly different key controls and a missing feature in the OmniView KVM.

Upon setup, I noticed that you cannot plug a USB keyboard/mouse into the KVM to control your entire setup. You can only plug in a PS/2 keyboard/mouse and control other setups via USB or PS/2. A bit misleading, I think, but the end result was fine.

This is going to take a bit of getting used to, but I'm already so happy to move my Linux box from a 14″ monitor to a 17″ flat-panel. The output is so clean and LOTS of real-estate. I can see my development productivity skyrocketing already.

Theme ChangesI have concluded that the world just isn't as CSS friendly as I'd likethem to be. My experiment with Brian Bell's MT-style themes wasn't a goodone. On my Windows XP box, the calendar was at the bottom and theblogroll area was invisible. On Linux, the output was jumbled togetherinto one big mass of text. Not a pretty site.I have concluded that, although CSS does have its place, dictating layoutin a cross-browser / cross-platform world isn't one of them. Instead, I'mgoing to stick to good 'ole tables. My new theme – The Woodlands.What do you think?