Ionrock Dot Org

Today I read a little comment from Zeldman about his reading some other designers blogs regarding the recent trend (hype even) of using css and standards. I wanted to make a comment on this but also on the blogging community as a whole.

CSS and Standards

With regard to coding with standards, I think there is a potential problem in that designers can spend too much time thinking how than place everything exactly where they want it instead of making sure placing it there was a good idea in the first place. Zeldman notes that this kind of thinking is flawed because designers should be thinking of everything, code and design alike. While I agree with this I think he missed the point. The point is that design is about design and css/standards are only a tool. I think the fear is that people will begin to think css based design and xhtml is better because it is css and xhtml. This is obviously not true and I can vouch for this because many sites I have done using only css for layout and valid xhtml looked really crappy. This had nothing to do with the code but the fact that I a not much of a designer. The short version is that we should focus on web standards, css, xhtml, etc. only as a tool. Designers learn photoshop to make good designs and designers are learning css to make good designs.

Blogging Community

If you haven't heard there is an open source community builder project that makes orkut, friendster, etc. sites. Well I went to the homepage and looked around and saw a guy I thought I knew. I did not but I did go to his livejournal. I read a couple entries and one that was very political. What struck me as interesting was a notice about his opinions were not that of Livejournal.com! I thought to myself, "Thanks for that revelation!" In any sense, blogging is kind of a paradox in that you are really one in many and yet if you want people to read your blog you need to act as though you are much more important than you may be. Take myself as an example. Do people read my site? Probably very few and not very often but I still want to try and take the time to blog. I would like people to read my blog on a daily basis and find something useful. If I don't put something useful or express my opinions in a way that is convincing then no one will read. So, in order to make my blog better I need to write as though I am some sort of an authority on whatever I am talking about and yet I am just an average geek that no one really needs to listen to. I think it has sparked an interest in myself to write which is something I don't really enjoy. So I do think it is positive but keeping perspective is probably a good idea as well. Besides, if I ever hope to be a famous something or another I have to have some text to put in the Smithsonian... yup.

I found a link to this site looking at planet gnome, Paris, 1971 - 73. It reminds me that I want to travel more. I also am thinking I need to take more photos. I think I might be more likely to take pictures if I lived in a city. I want to move...

I also just found this site of Japanese phones and the like. What is really crazy is the photos look like they are anime b/c of the glare of the glass they are all behind. It looks like that kind of fuzzy anime scene where the hero and the girl look at each other all mushy like... At least that is what I think.

I added a couple new links to my links page and I really am thinking about spending the time to get a rss aggregator going. I am not exactly sure how I will do it b/c I think I would have to do the script on my home server or something. In any sense, the new links I added are kind of unknown to me. I have really tried to find a good wealth of web design/development daily news/tips/etc. sites but they really are few and far between. I find a million different linux sites to read and there is usually planet gnome which is nice but as for web design site there are few which have a good deal of content. I guess it might mean that most of the designers who could be writing really good articles are off working instead of making their blog site a wealth of information for leeches like myself but I am selfish and I want to see more so lets start seeing some people quitting jobs and writing more articles!

I do want to apologize as well if you look at my site in mozilla/gecko. It really looks crappy and I do know about this terrible issue. I am reminded everytime I am working in linux (which is a pretty fair amount of time) that I need to fix this. I am just kind of waiting to see what oliver does with phpwcms as far as standards go so I can feel good about it. I am wanting to make sure things verify (or at least come close to it) so I am trying to hold off until I am kind of sure the frontend of phpwcms is xhtml compliant. So if you do look at this site in mozilla/gecko please send me an email at webaster(at)umemusic.com and say how much of a dork I am for not making my site work in both browsers. It will only prove to motivate me which is a good thing.

I came across this site on k10k. I realize I am being a bit of a copy cat here but everyone should check it out (the house gymnastics site). What really made me interested in it is the fact that I remember as a kid doing stuff like playing on a banister or climbing things in the house. Of course my parents would not be happy with that kind of things so it never really developed into something. It is so fascinating to see things like this actually taken pretty seriously. I think it is very impressive even though it may be a little on the silly side. It makes you wonder why you stop playing like this when you get older. I remember when I first saw extreme walking and I thought to myself how I used to do that kind of thing as a kid on the field trips to Big Trees. I would jump of the "big trees" and act like I was doing skateboard moves like any other kid at the time. Little did I know someone would have the passion for the activity to really push it forward as a pastime.

I don't really know where I am going with this but I think it is to make a comment on how people change when they get older. I know I am getting old which doesn't really bother me too much. At the same time, when I see something interesting like this that makes me want to hurt myself on the staircase, I start to think that I really do miss some things in my youth. I guess it is all relative. I have been feeling a little on the chunky side of the weight spectrum and knowing that I am very unhealthy so that probably has more to do with my reminiscing but in any case maybe I will give it a go in the hall way later tonight. Wish me luck.

I am really pumped! I have made my blog based on Blogger (hence the logo below) and integrated it into phpwcms. Well I really didn't have to do much to add it except mess with the template and include it for the article text but still I think it really works well. Also, eventually I should be able to make the editor actually edit the blog as well. I think I would like to have a script to transform the atom feed to rss and a vice versa. I have been reading a little on the subject and it looks like many people are not a fan of atom while others are diligent devotees. I can't really say I have an opinion on this since from what I have seen most news readers will read both just fine.

The next thing I really need to get done is the plugin system. I made some progress but I need to get on the stick and get something really working. Time has not been on my side and I have just been so busy. I am pretty tired of going to bed at 4 am and waking up around 8:30 am. Someday I can ease it up a bit and actually sleep.

On the music front I have been talking to Anna from Hands Up and she wants to put out a record. This is really great news because I really think she will do her best to advertise and make a go of things as far as making a label go. It is also nice to work with someone who is very kind and caring to boot so all in all I think it will be a good combo. Also, I have a bunch of UME demo songs up in the download area. They are all oggs so enjoy the free file format while it last because I will probably take them off at some point.

On the work front I am getting a few projects finsihed this weekend which is good but I still have other projects coming up which will take quite a bit of time. I hope I can find work as well over the summer, since we will be in houston rocking and not really working so I will need to pay the bills somehow. I think we also might be able to get a sublet for our apartment so that will help a ton. I almost forgot, Nittany Lion Wrestling Club will be using phpwcms come May when their current hosting contact runs out. This is exciting because they will move to a new host (Linux of course) where I can run phpwcms for them. This will save them a bunch of money (i.e. read as lose me a bunch of money) and it will make their site updateable and manageable in the future. This is always good to do for a customer.

It is funny. I have had so much todo lately and yet I am finding myself without any meaningful work I can do at the moment. Through the magic of computers I am unable to work on any projects quickly enough for it to be worthwhile. Of course there is always homework, but, I do not have any of the books needed to work on this either. I checked the phpwcms messageboard for something to do (I am an addict at this point and I just don't care) but there was nothing. So as a last resort I thought I would go ahead and do a small blog.

I found this article on css and splitting content and presentation. This is a topic that I think is very interesting because I have found the same to be true with regard to really making the division b/w content and presentation evident. Another article I found was similar as well in that it puts the web in comparison with print designers where they tweak and get very specific with all aspects of the design and production. We developers/designers should do the same and spend the time on their layouts to be sure they are standards compliant as well as structurally correct. I am inspired. I will try and redesign this site (kind of) to make sure my layout is standards compliant and that it works in all browsers since it looks crappy in mozilla and I haven't had the drive to care about it. Now I do and I have something to do for a few minute! YEAH!

Yesterday I started learning C# which from what I can tell is a very nice language that really caters to all types of programming. I am very excited about using it for some web projects in which I have to use the winblows platform. I will say goodbye to cold fusion forever hopefully. But... the only snag is Visual Studio .NET. This IDE is often times heralded as the best development suite known to man but to be honest all I see is a big fat hog of a program that has entirely too much jargon and lock in features that prevent any newbie from learning to use the languages and .NET without taking extensive training. This was the same problem I had when I first started with web design. I began using Netscape Composer which I quickly could not get a hold on. After I actually read a little about html I started using Adobe GoLive which worked pretty well for me. My only problem with it was that it constantly added markup to my code. I thought that was just how it goes and let it be at that. When I started getting into php I said this adding code has got to stop once and for all. I decided to abandon GoLive and tried a number of smaller editors. They all had their good and bad points but I eventually started using Homesite (pre-dreamweaver version). This worked really well and I really liked it. I eventually got onto dreamweaver b/c I thought I would like a more up to date version of the homesite editor (which is in dreamweaver) and I found an editor that I liked. All was good, I had control, I refused to use any dreamweaver specific crap and I was pretty happy.

Now I am starting to mess with C# and I really just want to try out some simple things and see how the syntax is. Seems pretty simple but out of 4 hello world programs, 0 worked! This is pretty crazy. I finally did find one that worked and while the output gave me tons-o-info, it was way too cryptic and didn't really tell me much on how to actually code in C#. I haven't given up though. Thankfully Penn State has got enough money to offer a bunch of personal learning tools online to its students which I reaping the rewards of.

My reason for C# is for two reasons. One, I hate cold fusion and so if I have to develop on Windows I might as well do it in a language that looks like a real programming language and acts like one (classes, objects, etc). The second part is that I really want to learn to make gnome apps using Mono and gtk#. I think Miguel is right on with Mono and I want to be a part of it in the long run so for me it is C#. Wish me luck and if Bill Gates happens to read this: Bill, please make VS.NET a little more newbie friendly for all us Linux lovers who are giving you a bit of a second chance. Thanks.

The descision has been made to redesign the UME site! I think I am planning on asking some designer friends to do the design and I will work on implementing it on phpwcms and making everything work really well. I also am thinking I will go ahead and make things all total css so I can do a css zen garden type of thing. I you read this and would like to submit a design (photoshop is just fine) then please let me know. I am excited and you should be excited too!

Well this is it! The opinion everyone was waiting for regarding the future of Gnome! Recently Havoc posted to his blog a request for discussion on the future of Gnome and where the development will go. Just in case you cannot find a link to it on slashdot, osnews, gnomdesktop.org or any of the other sites linking to it, you can click here.

The bulk of the article discussed the benefits and problems with using Java and Mono/C#. While I am a lowly web developer I like to think I have an educated opinion on the topic. I feel that C# and Mono is the only way to go. The reason being lies in the fact changing everything to Java ties people into using Java and Java only. While this seems to be no big deal in many cases I think it is not the way to include and support the community. A good example of this would be the use of Python in Gnome. If Java was it then something like gDesklets would not be possible along with a host of other projects using languages other than C.

The other side of it is that most people learn to program on the MS platform. In a perfect world this is not a problem since learning to code C or C++ should allow to you code on any platform that has a compiler for that language. The world is far from perfect so this is not the case. Java handles this problem by giving each platform a virtual machine that the code runs under making code OS agnostic but the problem (from my experience) is that you essentially have to run programs on another program essentially. This works but is not the most efficient (it kind of feels slow IMHO). With all these young folks in college learning to be C# hackers in their MIS and IST (my major) schools, it would be quite nice if they can switch to a great platform like Linux without having to relearn tons of information. If programmers try not to reinvent the wheel why then should they relearn how to create a hello world program in GTK+, QT, wxWidgets, etc. ?

The more personal side of things is that I am having to work on windows platforms more than I would like and while I mainly have messed with Cold Fusion (yuck) on these occasions it would be very nice to use ASP .NET and C# to code web pages and such. This would then prepare me to some extent to start creating Gnome apps which for myself would be very cool. So to me it is C# and Mono that is the winner in my book and I believe it will win out in the end. Since my blog is not the most thought out mediums to express opinions I am sure there are some gaps in my arguments. In any sense I am planning on learning C# so there!

We got back from California yesterday after a great week of being unplugged. It is amazing how slow time seems to go when you do not have things to do every minute of the day. With that said I am excited to get back to work and getting some projects done. I have a good deal of work to do at work (ironic isn't it) utilizing phpwcms which is good. I am getting more details ironed out for installing phpwcms and what really is needed to make things work which is good since I will need to know as much as possible for making the plugin system work. I have noticed that a ton on people are having trouble when they first try and login. They get the login screen and it shows their user as logged in. I found this to be due to not having session cookies available in the php.ini which (from what I understand) allows php to create cookies on the server side to hold session variables. Without this enabled, after the login is successful, the user log table is updated which is why you see the a user logged in but since there are no session cookies, the phpwcms.php page (the main admin page) cannot see you are logged in and sends you back to the login page. This should be pointed out in the documentation as the forum is not the best place to find answers to this kind of problem since it is really a installation requirement. Hopefully this is the problem others are having and Oliver will find a minute to update it in the docs.

Orkut

I have actually looked around on Orkut and I think I have come to a verdict that it is pretty useless. While it may be hip and kind of cool I do not see the need for it the slightest bit. Nonetheless I will continue to try and do something with it. Mostly a means a wasting a minute or two here and there, wondering why anyone even cares about it. In the mean time though, I have too much school/work/music to do so Orkut will continue to be useless to me more out of necessity than anything else. Maybe someday I can be ultra hip and millions will want to be my "friend" and read my blog but in the mean time I will be working hard to be a better geek and husband.

Spring Break is this next week! I am really excited because Lauren and I are going out to California to visit my parents. I haven't had a chance to see them for a while so it will be really good to spend some time with them. I also will get to take Lauren by my old elementary school stomping grounds. She will get to witness where I prefected my noseslides, learned algebra and where I would skateboard on the highway. We are also going to go to Yosemite for a bit. I promised her that within 5 years we would go to California and see Yosemite along with Arnold (where I grew up) so we are really excited. I will probably not be blogging or working during that time so if you do read this blog for whatever reasons (phpwcms or other), you will know I will not be available for comments.

One thing I do want to say is that I have started working on a plugin system for phpwcms which I think could work out really well. It should be pretty easy in that all you have to do to add a plugin is ftp it to a directory and register it and you are done. I was going to make it possible to upload a zip/gz file but it is not supported all the time with php so I thought it might be better to just use ftp. In any sense the ball is rolling with it so that is really good. Be back in a week!

I started playing a bit with orkut. I don't really know why but I figured since there was some hype and I was non-existant on friendster that I am obligated to check it out every now and then. I doubt it will ever catch on for myself but you never know. The thing I don't like about it is all the relationship stuff they ask you like what are your turnons and describe the perfect date. This does not apply to me in the least in relation to orkut so I find it kind of lame in my situation. I am married if you didn't know. I have a wonderful wife who is really amazing on every level. This makes orkut useful then for... well... I don't really know. But I do know one thing. I will try and remember to go to the site every now and again. I have become addicted to the phpwcms forums though so that takes up way too much time. I just can't resist going and checking for a message or trying to help someones problem. It really feels like a sickness because I will doing some sort of work for school or my job and take a second to check the message board. There is no rhyme or reason just a desire to talk about a cms which is pretty geeky. But you gotta do what you gotta do... right?