Apache, MySQL and PHPizzle

I am making the big switch...well not really. Not yet anyways. I am doing a real live evaluation though.

So far, my overriding sentiment is that it is not hard to see why Microsoft still kicks enterprise software backside. It can be a very arduous process to set up a unix server and get everything running right if you have never done it before. While an experienced engineer might scoff and chalk it up to my relative inexperience...and that may all be well and good...at the end of the day I get to decide what we will be moving ahead with.

Consider: In order to install Apache on Unix from the binary you need to have a c compiler running. OK, go out and download GCC. Oh, in order to install GCC you need 'G Make'. Oh, in order to install 'G Make' you need GCC. Wait, what? In order to install either you need to pull all your hair out, light it on fire and do a hat dance around your office. Up to lighting your hair on fire, that was all true.

On to MySQL. Hard to complain too much, when you consider what they are giving you for free. But, don't you dare try to change your Root password by running a query against the database. There is a very specific command for this important first step.

After a day of knocking my head against the wall I have a unix machine running Apache, MySQL and PHP. After some configurations I am almost ready to install a PHP bug tracking solution and test it out.

Google voice...

So far not much of a change has occurred in my life since I set up my Beta Test Google Voice account, but I am anticipating coolness squared. Maybe even cubed. I really like that I will be able to read transcribed versions of my voice mails.

Before I signed up I was sort of able to understand why Apple or ATT said no on the iPhone platform, figuring it was a competition thing. But now I am not sure what their problem is. My 20th century analog brain is sometimes quite slow to pick up on the subtleties of business in the digital age. This is probably not as as it should for a guy with my title, but I gave up trying to understand everything a few years back and I haven't picked up the habit since.

Anyhow, out of the 3 people who read my blog posts, there is one who might call me. Next time use:

Quiet nights...

I have been meaning to talk about my experience last weekend. I went to a bonfire in Amherst Massachusetts. It was great. Jackie had never done the whole pan-mass on route 9 and I was feeling energetic and I am a huge fan of being away from the city so I decided to take the slow road.

There's lots of stars in the sky. A lot more than I can see from the city. As we drove home I kept looking up through the open moon roof (at stop lights of course). I suddenly remembered a time when I was a teenager and my buddy's father brought us on a sailboat trip to Maine. There was a clear night when I laid back on a rock on the top of a hill on Damariscove Island in Boothbay Harbor and looked up at the sky for quite some time. There's even more starts visible there.

I like stars. The idea there is a flaming ball of hydrogen fusion 7 light seconds away is really impressive to me. The universe in general fascinates me immensely. I am really looking forward to my next trip outside the city so I can get a good look up there and think about the vastness of space. It comforts me, to think we are so small and insignificant. I am not sure why, but it does.

Goose hung high...

A couple of my friends are starting a clothing line...their first tee shirt is interesting...

Another Fail Blog...

This one will be particularly funny to anyone who works in advertising and has ever had to do a stock photo search.

In a strange twist, the blog has a picture of some graffiti from the wall in a local restaurant I visit. I was once there with my girlfriend really early in our relationship and I was so desperately nervous and trying to be interesting. I went to the men's room and while I was drying my hands I saw this:



I relayed the joke to Jackie and was quite relieved when she thought it was as funny as I did! It has been a long standing insider between us (until now).

Looking out...

The viral video chart this week has a new entry...with a bunch of babies on roller skates. I am not one to argue with results but my reaction to this commercial was adverse. The new Microsoft browser bit was pretty bad too. I am not afraid of vomit but somehow it just seems too far from Microsoft's identity to be real. I honestly wondered if it was an attack the first time I watched it.

While I am being negative, I truly wish that Cadbury eyebrow dance would just go away. That is the creepiest.

On the positive side, the Xbox project natal thing is really exciting. Looks like I am going to have a 'Minority Report-like' interface to my entertainment system in the next year or so.

I also continue to be impressed with how much more Chik-Fil-A does with so much less. Their approach does require lots of one important thing: creativity. While campy, their latest guerilla-like tactic is fun and it is getting results. Check it.

Have a good weekend. I am totally wiped out after visiting with marketing executives at three different cable TV stations in D.C. Yesterday.

Functional Specifications

What else is new? I have been busy. This week I am wrapping up a lengthy functional specification document, a test plan and starting a training plan. My life has become one long document after another. It may be time for me to make good on an old promise to do a series of blog posts focused on the deliverables necessary to design and develop an enterprise web site and content management system.