Oh that wild hair January 5, 2009 11:31 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life , add a commentSometimes I can’t help but think "tonight just might be the night to shave my head."
add a commentMissing Wife January 5, 2009 6:08 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Family, Of Being Dad , add a commentToday Cathy returned Tommy to college. I programmed all day while the older two children watched the younger two children. So why don’t we have any clean dishes?!
add a commentLOST Characters Find Twitter January 5, 2009 5:14 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Lost, Of Interest, TV / Movies , 5commentsIf you are a LOST fan, you’ll love being able to interact with Jack Shephard, Kate Austen, Sayid Jarrah, Sun Kwon, and Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes. They are each on Twitter now!
- Jack Shephard is @jshephard
- Kate Austen is @kausten
- Sayid Jarrah is @sayidjarrah
- Sun Kwon is @SunKwon
- Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes is @hugoreyes
You may want to follow @abcinnercircle also. You can follow me on Twitter @djuggler.
5commentsAlways more to learn January 5, 2009 2:15 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : ColdFusion, HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Programming, Technology , add a commentNo matter how long you do something, there is always more to learn. You’d think that since I’ve been doing HTML coding since around 1993, I’d pretty much know every in and out and every little tag and peculiarity regarding HTML. Not so. See, we form habits. We get into patterns. Specs change but we retain earlier hacks and assumptions. Today I learned an absurdly simple thing. Maybe I knew this and forgot. I rarely use tab orders on my forms. Most of the forms I create are very top down so the natural tab order is sufficient. In computing, counting starts at zero. But in HTML tab order, zero means exclude that form element from the tab order.
To exclude an element from the tab order, set the value of tabindex to 0. [Source, Webcheatsheet.com, How to Control Tab Order in HTML]
Because of my computer science studies, programming in PHP, JavaScript, C and so on, my inclination is to always begin with zero. Of course, my favorite web application language is ColdFusion and it always starts at one. I can only assume the Allaire brothers were originally targeting non-programmers.
HTML is about to become HTML 5. Funny enough I just traded my HTML 3.2 book at McCay’s a few weeks ago. Maybe I should have kept it and re-read it.
add a commentStart the year off with professional development January 5, 2009 9:12 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Software, Technology , add a commentIs training and professional development something you are going to get around to one day? Why not make it today? Resources abound for honing our career skills. iTunes has free podcasts from iTunes University. A quick Internet search should produce abundant articles and videos useful to whatever your line of work.
I am taking the next 30 minutes for professional development. In my case, I am going to begin learning Eclipse so that I can move away from Notepad++ and CFStudio5. This will be a step toward moving my development environment to a portable hard drive so that I can work on any machine anywhere I go. I know learning to use an editor sounds silly. In my case, shouldn’t "professional development" be about learning about new software testing techniques, algorithms, or another programming language? Not necessarily. Anything that you learn which makes you more efficient in your career or makes you more valuable to your company is professional development. Even if you already know and use Eclipse, watching these videos make teach you something you don’t realize you are overlooking. Retraining on a tool you already use and know can help break bad habits or reveal better ways to use the tool.
Update: See Darren Schall’s discovery on Eclipse workspaces as an example of using a tool for awhile and then discovering its hidden power.
add a commentFollow the bouncing ball part 2 January 4, 2009 4:55 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, House , 4commentsSo for nearly a decade, I have ignored the dripping faucet in the downstairs bath despite having a brand new faucet in a box beside the sink. On December 28th, I actually broke down, removed the old faucet, and put on a new one. Only, I didn’t reattach the drain or the hot and cold water feeds. So now, when the washing machine runs, it backs up into the cabinet under the sink. A one gallon bucket catches all the water from one wash load. Since this is getting old, today’s task was to replace the galvanized steel pipe with PVC pipe. Off to Home Depot!
Now, Home Depot and I have a love/hate relationship. I will actually swoon while walking its majestic aisles. Once I went to return something and ended up spending $100. For that matter, $100 is my magic number for Home Depot. See, I believe every store has a magic number. For instance, Kroger’s magic number is 50; I can’t go into Kroger without spending $50. Home Depot used to be 100. I couldn’t drive past Home Depot without a C-note blowing out the window. I love walking through Home Depot and imagining all the great things I could do if I only had the time, and the money, to spend on the materials.
Tommy made arrangements to be at a friend’s house at 2pm so that gave me an excuse to go get my PVC pipe. I walk into Home Depot and immediately see some pretty flowers that I think will make Cathy’s day if I plant them near the front door. Done. Remarkably, I find the plumbing aisle next and realize I didn’t collect enough information to make an informed purchase so after consulting with the expert employee, who this time actually knew his stuff, I was ready to replace all galvanized and wrought iron plumbing in the house; a total plumbing upgrade! Wisely, I decided that would require more planning. Next I explore the fire place supplies to see if they sell the wire brushes I need to clean the flue. Nay. I find myself in the insulation aisle pondering using solid foam on the cider block in the basement than losing living space by adding studs and R-13 or R-whatever. Skip. Finally I arrive at the dry wall aisle. Standing Home Depot rule: Don’t leave without drywall board if you are alone and have the van. That’s the nice thing about a Dodge Grand Caravan; it holds a 4×8 piece of board perfectly with the seats folded down and the driver’s seat slid all the way to the dashboard. Makes for interesting driving too. I head to the exact opposite end of the store and buy 25 pounds of grass seed, the plants, and the drywall and totally skip the reason I went there in the first place. I couldn’t leave the parking lot without buying 4 yellow LEDs from Radio Shack.
Got home and Evan and Amy helped me plant. I had some organic planting soil stored away and a bag of mulch from last season that was never opened and still in great shape. In 7 days, our muddy pit might actually have grass!
4commentsFollow the bouncing ball January 4, 2009 11:33 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life , add a commentI was on the computer and decided I need to accomplish something for the house. Something tangible. We bought a glow in the dark basketball net for the neighborhood kids (our kids never use our basketball goal) so I thought I’d take a few moments and hang it. So I went in the bedroom to get my pocket knife since there is tape holding part of the old net on. Seeing the Roomba I decided that it would be good to have it cleaning the floors while Evan is away wife the grandparents and I am outside. This required cleaning the Roomba and because the Christmas ornaments are on the kitchen table I had to do it on the kitchen counters which reminded me that I haven’t had breakfast. So I started cooking bacon for Cathy, Tommy and myself and remembered I needed something downstairs. Once I got downstairs I couldn’t remember what it was so I decide to write this post. Oh! It was the MP3 player so I could either listen to A Buddhist Podcast or some music. Since I’m down here I suppose I should get the Christmas buckets upstairs so we can put those ornaments and tree away. Now what was that tangible thing I was going to do?
add a commentJanuary 3, 2009 3:31 pm
Posted by utterz in : Daily Life, Podcasting , add a comment
Mobile post sent by djuggler using Utterli. Replies.
Monkfish January 2, 2009 3:13 pm
Posted by utterz in : Daily Life, Podcasting , add a comment add a comment
Is Yellowstone about to kill a lot of the world’s population? January 2, 2009 2:02 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Environment, Touchy Subjects , add a commentWell, maybe…
add a commentit’s been 600,000-ish years since Yellowstone’s supervolcano has gone off full blast…
Picture 1,000 Mount Saint Helenses…
A supereruption could kill tens of millions.
More than half the U.S. will experience ashfall, potentially fatal if inhaled.
…could devegetate a third of the lower 48 (including some of the world’s most productive farmland) for years or decades, leading to mass starvation…
Within 10 to 50 miles of the next Yellowstone vent, you’ll be Pompeiiized…
What’s the chance of a supereruption anywhere in the world in the next 50 years? Estimates range from one chance in 1,000 to one in 10,000 — hardly cause for panic.[Source, The Straight Dope, Is Yellowstone Park sitting on a supervolcano that's about to blow?]
Today’s Technical Brain Cloud January 2, 2009 11:39 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : MySQL, Programming, Technology , 4commentsHaving a stupid moment and maybe you can help. I’m trying to count how many times an employee is scheduled using MySQL. I would like to have a column that for George says "3" and for Lucy says "2" but if I group on EmployeeID and use count(e.EmployeeID) I end up with 2 rows instead of 5. How do I retain the 5 rows of data and still get a count of 3 for George and 2 for Lucy? My output will show that George has schedule Sat-Mon, Tues-Fri, and Wed-Sun and will say "George is scheduled 3 times."
CompanyID AffiliateID EmployeeID EmployeeName Schedule
1 23 11 George Sat-Mon
1 23 11 George Tues-Fri
1 23 11 George Wed-Sun
1 23 15 Lucy Sun-Mon
1 23 15 Lucy Thur-FriSELECT c.CompanyID,
a.AffiliateID,
e.EmployeeID,
e.EmployeeName,
s.Schedule
FROM companies c
LEFT OUTER JOIN subscription s
ON c.CompanyID = s.CopmanyID
LEFT OUTER JOIN affiliates a
ON a.AffiliateID = s.AffiliateID
LEFT OUTER JOIN employees e
ON ae.AffiliateID = a.AffiliateID
LEFT OUTER JOIN schedules s
ON s.EmployeeID = e.EmployeeID
AND s.CompanyID = c.CompanyID
AND s.AffiliateID = a.AffiliateID
WHERE (s.StartDate <= FROM_UNIXTIME(1227243599)
AND s.EndDate >= FROM_UNIXTIME(1227157200))
AND c.CompanyID = 1
ORDER BY c.CompanyName, s.AffiliateID ASC
I know this is not a complex SQL problem. I’ve done this in the past but today I am being dense and am stumped.
4commentsRobin Williams on Obama’s Election January 2, 2009 10:01 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Humor, Philosophy, Politics, Touchy Subjects, United States , 2commentsHow did I miss this! 2,584,449 views at the time of posting which probably means Youtube will pull it soon.
Seen on Political Irony.
2commentsWhere’s my list? January 1, 2009 9:02 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Blog, Publishing , 2commentsI toyed with getting on the bandwagon with a stats post showing all the hits and search terms and referrers used to get to Reality Me in 2008, but after looking at it, I figured out that people pretty much come here looking for information on the New Madrid fault, the RealTek 8201CL driver, and condoms.
2commentsFreezing My Bits Off January 1, 2009 1:03 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life , add a comment add a commentReality Me Wordle December 30, 2008 10:46 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Blog, Publishing , add a commentWhat do I talk about here?
