I suppose it has been a long time since I have done anything with this website.  I sorta had to take a break from all of the extra curricular activities I had going on.  I have found that I push myself too hard on my non work time and I just need to take a break from it all.

Well I am happy to say that I have gotten over all that.  I have gotten back into the swing of things and I have gotten a lot of things done in the past couple of weeks.

I am in the middle of a complete code rewrite for Podcasting Paradise.  I have come to appreciate the virtues of MVC frameworks and I decided that in order for that website to move forward, I needed to start over.  I pushed over a lot of the core changes to the code this weekend so that Google can process all of the different URLs (luckily I was able to implement a lot of 301’s and canonical URL’s so that it hopefully will not lose its page rank).  There is still a lot of work that needs to be done but now that I have a good base, I can implement the new features much faster than before.

Another thing I have started getting to know is Magento.  Professionally, my job has shifted to working with that platform and seeing what I can do with it.  Personally, I am fascinated with it and how much functionality Varien is giving away for free (and how much more they offer for around $10,000).  I am amazed by how different their code is than anything else I have dealt with before.  At this point I can say that I am familiar with using their code, however I am not quite comfortable with extending their code yet.  Within the next few weeks however, I am confident that I will be able to accomplish all of that.  One thing I am pretty sure about is that being familiar with Magento will probably be a very important part of my skill set and I am glad to be able to do that while I am being paid to do so.

One thing I was frustrated about with Magento was the apparent lack of documentation.  Having to dig through Google for what I thought would be basic answers was frustrating.  I also noticed that there was not one real good community that could support one another.  Magento Connect is alright, but I felt that it was not very accessible.  You could not search the website very well to figure out what you were doing.

So taking that knowledge with me I decided to create my own community.  The Magento Users Group.  There I will be hosting a phpBB forum as well as what I am calling the Magento Cookbook.  Like other tech cookbooks out there, it operates based on a very simple question and answer format.  Something I think will be incredibly helpful to other people.  Right now the only things inside of there are the questions I had and the answers I have found.

Then there are my other blogs, Learn jQuery Now and Learn PHP Now.  Both of which I am going to work on posting regularly again.  However, instead of 5 days a week, I will be be posting once a week.

On the less techie side of things, I am going to be going to Mexico in a couple of weeks.  I am very excited to get away from things for a week so I can really relax.  I always seem to do pretty well when I am forced to be away from my email for about a week at a time.  It’s actually pretty refreshing.

Information Week reported today that Microsoft has released a release candidate for what they are calling “XP Mode”. XP Mode allows users to run applications within a virtual Windows XP installation so that it runs without any compatibility problems whatsoever.
(more…)

Google Voice is an amazing service. It completely changes the way its users think about phone service. One can dial a Google Voice phone number and without their knowledge, your cell phone and home phone both ring. If they choose not to answer the call, they go to voicemail where the caller’s message is transcribed and sent via a text message to the receivers phone. I have had the service now for 2 weeks and I could not be happier with this free service.
(more…)

PaidContent.org is reporting that MySpace is going to be launching an email service July 22 (tomorrow) and rolling out through the end of the year. So all users would receive an email address @myspace.com
(more…)

You may already know this, or you may not.  However Microsoft really wants you to develop your websites to run on Windows.  Especially if you are an amateur developer.  So much so that they are willing to give you versions of some of their most expensive software for free.  They must figure that if you use Microsoft software for your spare time projects you will need to use it professionally.
(more…)

This is one cool plugin. This plugin for jQuery will allow you to create a before and after image that will allow you to scroll back and forth to view different sides of the image. Take a look at the images to get a better look at how it works.
(more…)

It looks like YouTube may be ready to officially drop support for Internet Explorer 6. Those out there that are still on Internet Explorer 6 will start getting a message saying that they should upgrade to a more modern browser. Honestly, I feel that this should be Microsoft’s job to force people to upgrade but it is nice to see websites encouraging its users to upgrade. Really Microsoft should just force it as the same type of upgrade that a high priority security update so that the world wakes up one day to IE 8. It may be a small PR problem for a few days, but the world will be much better off in the long run.
(more…)

This is incredibly cool. This plugin will allow you to have an on screen keyboard to enter data into a text box. It is very simple, and could have a number of uses. The best one that comes to mind is that you could provide your users an interface to enter their passwords in from this in lieu of their keyboards to help prevent any security breaches from their computers that could be infected with key logging software. It could help make parts of your website more accessible for those users that have a touchscreen only device. I am sure there are more reasons than these two, but you get the idea.
(more…)

Now I will be the first to admin that this is probably not the most necessary feature one could add to their web application, however sometimes these little features can show that your application has the polish of a mature application.
(more…)

This morning I decided to finally give Android a try. I have not really ever been able to give Android a real shot. I have heard that this one little operating system will someday be on set-top boxes, netbooks, and our cell phones (it’s original intended location). From what I briefly played with before it felt like a good cell phone OS.
(more…)