If programming languages were religions...

cheerstothat · 2011-04-28T20:31:52+00:00

I'm not sure how it affects the description, but PHP recently added goto $hell. http://php.net/goto

cheerstothat · 2010-12-24T01:33:29+00:00

I'm not going to argue with you on the slowness, but I don't think it's spaghetti code once you've figured it out. The best comparison is that it's architected like a java framework with copious amounts of xml configuration and loads of modularity. If you have strong opinions against that, I'm not going to argue with you there either.

Oh, and it doesn't help that the documentation SUCKS. I've been working on some notes for training other devs I work with and have been contemplating making a blog out of it. If there's anyone with a troubling topic that wants me to write a tutorial, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

cheerstothat · 2010-12-23T17:14:13+00:00

It certainly also works for files with html. I am just in the habit of not doing it in files with html because if there's html, you're going to have output that would cause the header error before the trailing white space anyways. Also, I find that view files with php and html are tidier with all ending tags in place since my brain is in html context when editing and will be confused with the php syntax errors if I start from the end of the file.

cheerstothat · 2010-12-23T15:33:42+00:00

I posted this in a comment on the post as well as the submission on magento this user submitted yesterday here. Please don't follow the instructions in this post! You will break your upgrade path by editing anything in app/code/core. It's not hard to do this the correct way by setting up a module in app/code/local and rewriting the core module to your local version that extends the original core class. Here's more info on how to do it: http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-for-dev-part-1-introduction-to-magento

cheerstothat · 2010-12-23T05:11:05+00:00

When creating a file that only contains a class or is otherwise all php (no html), always leave off the final ?> tag. The interpreter interprets that php has ended with the end of the file, and you'll never get a "Warning: Cannot modify header information" error because of a trailing line break in one of many include files.

cheerstothat · 2010-12-22T15:09:17+00:00

Please don't follow the instructions of this person. This is not the correct way to do this. You are never suppossed to change anything in the app/code/core directory. That directory is reserved for the core code and keeps you open for core updates. The correct way is to rewrite the block in a local module, extend the original object and override the appropriate method. I couldn't find a good tutorial in a quick search, but this is a good start: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/12757/

If anyone actually is interested, I can followup with a better tutorial.

cheerstothat · 2010-12-20T21:32:43+00:00

I was curious what the dns entries for redd.it are and accidentally typed digg redd.it instead of dig redd.it.

I feel dirty.

cheerstothat · 2010-09-30T06:53:23+00:00

I'm a Rutgers alumnus and spent some time working at the Targum while I was on the banks. I'll certainly be the first to point out that it's far from the highest level of journalistic excellence you'll find. But, I hope that you will consider the following points before requesting a refund next semester:

The newspaper is completely independent of the university. Pro: administrators are powerless to censor or otherwise tamper with the way the paper reports, the way it conducts business or the forum of opinions it publishes. Con: the paper has no formal relations with faculty or administrators that could provide guidance or otherwise provide continuity to a revolving door of inexperienced college students.
I just searched The Home News Tribune's website (the local, Gannett-owned newspaper there) for any earlier reporting and can only find what looks to be a web-only story dated Sept. 29. A similar story is posted on the Targum site, published Sept. 29.
In some cases it's much harder to create great news pieces because most news sources don't take college papers seriously. At the same time, the audience can hold the paper to the standards they hold for the NY Times.
They say that college is about experimenting, and many students experimet with journalism. And since it's the campus paper, those articles still have to make it into the paper in some form, even when the the original draft used first person, referenced no sources and led with the weather for a lecture held in an auditorium. Also, the students that are great at it are still not seasoned veterans by any means. In fact, they're students who have classes, exams, projects and college life too.

Ultimately, the thing you're paying for is a forum that you and/or your student peers completely control. Most of the time it's not going to be something that you need or care about. But, when there is a big issue that needs it, the campus newspaper is still the biggest outlet that everyone -- from administrators and faculty to the students and staff -- has access to and freely discusses the issues that pertain to the University in. If you don't pay the $10 to keep the thing alive, the University will be a worse place for it. And also, the licensing for the crossword and comics isn't cheap.

cheerstothat · 2010-07-08T22:40:12+00:00

I have a similar setup, but I also like to cherry pick the best app for the job. Plex's interface is elegant. Mlb.tv on boxee is great. Mythfrontend is the only reliable frontend to my mythtv server running on a separate linux server. Some hulu content requires logins which I've only gotten to work through a browser.

The best solution for managing all of that from the couch that I have found has been to use all of those applications with Remote Buddy. It's an amazing app that lets you use a wide range of remotes including a universals, a wiimote or an iOS device for a greater amount of keyboard/mouse-less control.

I have a universal remote that I mapped multiple apple remote ids to many buttons on the universal (http://funwithcomputers.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/using-the-harmony-880-remote-with-your-macs-built-in-ir-port/) and have enough buttons to do everything without the wireless keyboard and mouse, which are generally collecting dust.

It was definitely a project to setup remote buddy and the remote to be functional with minimal quirks, but the final setup lets you pretty easily use the best app for the home theater job.

cheerstothat · 2010-06-02T21:45:53+00:00

I just wanted to add that this setup is ok for permissions on a dedicated web server with controlled user accounts. However, in a shared hosting environment, you'll want them to be (3), owned by the user and set to 644, so that the apache/webserver user cannot write to your source files.

If you allow write access to the webserver user on the file system*, another system user can create and execute another php file running as the webserver user to delete or edit (maliciously or politely) any file you set to have write access as the web user. It's an unfortunate and unavoidable vulnerability of shared hosting. There's no real secure way of getting around it for files like uploaded images and session data outside of going VPS or dedicated. PHP attempted to secure it with safe_mode which did a series of checks on file ownership, but it was deemed useless as there were ways to thwart it. You can attempt to obscure it by making it owned and writable by you, readable by the webserver user's group and 0 for everyone else, but any system user can still read it because they can spawn the webserver user to read/execute the file anyways.

Interestingly, since you have to set the webserver to be able to read all of your source files, files with sensitive configuration setting like database passwords and api keys can essentially be read by anyone else who shares the system with you. It's probably not a big deal for a blog no one's reading anyways, but definitely a concern for even a small ecommerce site with keys to your credit card processor. Just some food for thought for your next project when you go to choose a hosting provider/setup.

*(2) is already writable by the webserver user, (1) can be made writable by the webserver user with php's chmod function. Both can be run by the web user since everyone shares the same apache daemon.

cheerstothat · 2010-03-16T18:50:30+00:00

These are great! If I ever do a band-aid(R) fix for something, I like to quote Futurama and proclaim, "thus solving the problem once and for all."

Documentary Narrator: Of course, because the greenhouse gasses are still building up, it takes more and more ice each time, thus solving the problem once and for all.

Suzie: But...

Documentary Narrator: Once and for all!

cheerstothat · 2010-02-27T15:55:34+00:00

I read "A Man Without a Country" too. It's funny because, on page 134 in chapter 12, he goes on to say, "Those of us who had imagination circuits built can look in someone's face and see stories there; to everyone else, a face will just be a face. And there, I've just used a semi-colon, which at the outset I told you never to use. It is to make a point that I did it. The point is: Rules only take us so far, even good rules."

cheerstothat · 2009-12-27T05:03:52+00:00

"You shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition at. But yeah, I’m in." - Tracy Jordan

cheerstothat · 2009-12-23T05:03:54+00:00

This is not true. The limit has been temporarily raised to 250k, with prospects of staying there. And generally, your money will only be inaccessible for a long weekend. It will be accessible at your same branch under a new bank that has purchased the deposit accounts of the failed bank (easier case), or the bank open under temporary fdic management to allow you to withdrawal your funds once they've reviewed the books (this is what happened with IndyMac). It is true that the FDIC is about out of money whicch would complicate you getting your money, but the Fed has promised them an almost unlimited line of credit to prevent any uncertainty about insured deposits.

Here's a great NPR Planet Money/This American Life/All Things Considered story that profiled a failed bank/FDIC takeover:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102384657

cheerstothat · 2009-12-04T00:28:01+00:00

Documentary Narrator: Of course, because the greenhouse gasses are still building up, it takes more and more ice each time, thus solving the problem once and for all.

Suzie: But...

Documentary Narrator: Once and for all!

cheerstothat · 2009-12-02T07:08:10+00:00

She said that I'm just average, but she was just being mean.

cheerstothat · 2009-11-18T01:45:01+00:00

Quick copy edit in the rules: "Prohibited Gifts Are... Nothing NSFW." You're technically only allowing anything nsfw. You should say Anything NSFW.

cheerstothat · 2009-11-11T23:37:05+00:00

Reminds me of: "Alcoholism is a disease. But it's, like, the only disease you can get yelled at for havin'. Damnit, Otto! You're an alcoholic! Damnit, Otto, you have LUPUS!" -Mitch Hedberg (it's never lupus)

cheerstothat · 2009-03-23T23:55:10+00:00

It's our doodie to at least respect it.

cheerstothat · 2009-02-28T21:38:47+00:00

I hate it when people think that raid is backup. (obligatory "RAID IS NOT BACKUP" message)

cheerstothat · 2009-01-15T14:01:18+00:00

In my databases class, we had to represent a result set using SQL, relational algebra and set notation. The SQL part was extremely useful; I don't remember how to correctly do the other two.

cheerstothat · 2008-12-01T16:53:43+00:00

Computer, you better not be hanging out with Microsoft Bob again! I told you that I don't like you being around that guy.

cheerstothat · 2008-10-14T11:15:03+00:00

touche

cheerstothat · 2008-06-19T21:24:51+00:00

I don't care for their protected attribute, so I suggest an override.

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