Disqus - Latest Comments for revjim

Re: MacOSX and “natural” mouse scrolling

Daniel — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:43:19 -0000

I had never looked at it like that. You're right though. If the notion is that it is a wheel sitting on a piece of paper, then the "natural" scrolling would be backwards. However, if the notion is that the wheel IS the paper, then the "natural" scrolling makes more sense.

I guess, in that way, it depends on whether you see the wheel as a device on top of the page, or if you see the wheel as the page itself.

Re: Mac OSX Lion vs Windows 7 vs Ubuntu 11.10

Daniel — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:53:19 -0000

Like I said, "If Apple is interested in making Mac OSX something for EVERYONE" blah blah blah. If they aren't, then my already nearly worthless advice becomes completely worthless.

Their stock has more than doubled in the past two years. It's grown by 50% since January. They are clearly doing something that people are happy about.

But, at this point, Mac OSX simply cannot be for everyone. There are too many requirements (from wallets, to hardware, to software) that Mac OSX simply doesn't meet. Windows, even if people don't like it, it suited to just about everyone. From pricepoint, to hardware, to available software, almost anyone can "get by" with Windows if they have to. The same does not hold true for Mac OSX or Ubuntu.

Re: upon a stranger’s time

Daniel — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 11:11:46 -0000

Thank you kindly.

Re: Things I hate about Zend Framework

Daniel — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 10:38:02 -0000

Zend_Db looks pretty. SQL statements are easy to read, easy to edit, and genuinely work well. However, I find myself regularly confused over what to expect as far as output from the fetch/find/fetchAll family of methods. Do I get a Row? Do I get a RowSet? What if there are no rows? Do I get a NULL, or a false, or a RowSet with count of 0? In this regard, it all boils down to expectations and documentation. I like consistency, and comprehensive documentation, especially if consistency is an issue. I also have some performance issues with Zend_DB. It seems to leak memory. When I write scripts that need to process 10s of thousands of rows, I have to write them in such a way that they only process a thousand or so at a time and then restart the PHP script, or I run out of memory, even though I'm not saving any row data each time I move on to the next.

Zend_Config is awful mostly because I can't seem to find a well documented way to get Config info anywhere outside of Bootstrap.php without pulling a getOptions and stuffing it in the registry. And that works, but it seems like there should be a better, cleaner way. And maybe there is. Maybe documentation is the issue again.

Zend_Session_Namespace only annoys me because of the trickery around trying to view the session that you've just altered. In real use, this probably isn't an issue, but it makes debugging a bit of a pain. I actually made an action called "spitoutsession" that I can pull up just to see what is in my session at any given time, which seems silly.

Zend_Application_Bootstrap_Bootstrap is awkward because there are all of these _init* methods, and apparently, even more can be created, but there doesn't seem to be any documentation indicating which ones can exist and in which order they fire. I tried to initialize a DB connection (to a noSQL DB) in the initDbRegistry method, only to find that it fires before initAutoload does. And since I needed a library to use my noSQL DB, I either had to manually require the library or deal with that DB connection at the end of initAutoload instead.

Zend_Form drives me crazy because the only way to really work with it well is through this series of arrays of arrays of arrays. On top of that, there are piles of options and it's never quite clear which elements take which options. I tried to figure out how to use it "correctly" to decorate a table row for a shopping cart display and it failed so miserably that I just used a html decorator and nearly coded it all by hand anyway (the implementation of which, was also poorly documented).

The ActionName CamelCase issue is also a matter of consistency and documentation. I made an action called getShippingInfo. But when I tried to call that action, ZF complained "getshippinginfo" action was not found. "Oh," I think, "it wants lower case.". I rename my action to "getshippinginfo". The URL in my browser was still "getShippingInfo" and I just pressed refresh. It loaded the action as expected, then complained that it couldn't find a view named "get-shipping-info.phtml". So it lowercases when looking for action name and hyphenates when looking for view name. In the end, even though I figured it all out the hard way, I opted to just use all lowercase action names and view names and URLs.

Re: an unworthy thought

Daniel — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:19:05 -0000

Thank you. That means a lot.

Re: the Reverend and Religion

Daniel — Fri, 27 May 2011 12:58:15 -0000

I believe in universal truth. As you say, truth either exists or it
does not. While personal things can be true for one person and not
another, universal truths are, well, universal. But religion is not
about "truth". It's about "belief". Those are very different words.

Re: fat free kisses

Daniel — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:41:16 -0000

Thank you so much. It means a lot. Especially coming from you.

Re: I choose not to smoke today

Daniel — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:26:44 -0000

I'm very glad to hear it.

Re: a common goal

Daniel — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:42:54 -0000

Yeah. High Real Estate plus low Job Availability equals High Barrier to Entry.

But I'm going to give it a shot.

There are some interesting neighborhoods in DFW too. So I can fall
back if I need to.

Re: lunch break

Daniel — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:10:49 -0000

That's what I was thinking... I'd get one for me and one for C and one
extra. Then ... snacks and road-food are a breeze. :)

Re: a common goal

Daniel — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:31:59 -0000

I've never had the means to be a Philanthropist. But I love the idea
of being able to build something that people I love and care about can
not only enjoy for themselves, but pass down to their kids, friends,
and family to be enjoyed for more years than I will see on this
planet.

What the council of five has going for them sounds nice. Not exactly
what I'm hoping to find and/or create, but close. I think that, in an
ideal world, there are lots of different living scenarios that better
suit certain types of people. For instance, in your situation, given
the same costs one way or the other, even single and without child,
I'd have opted for the co-living arrangement. But that's just how I
am. While "saving money" is one aspect of what I'm trying to build
here, it's not the most important goal.

On a more personal note, I believe that of all the cities on all of
Texas, Austin is the closest thing to perfect for me. And I've now
renewed my goal to get that way thanks to some help from some like
minded friends already living there. I have some stuff to work out
with my baby momma but, I'm hopeful we may soon be "neighbors". :)

Re: lunch break

Daniel — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 07:48:38 -0000

I want one now too. So bad.

Re: lunch break

Daniel — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:32:49 -0000

Those are CUTE!

Re: a common goal

Daniel — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:38:04 -0000

If I ever manage to make it happen outside of the small scale, you'll be in. :)

Re: a common goal

Daniel — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:02:09 -0000

And WOW, this "Mommy Mafia" is quite cool indeed!

Re: a common goal

Daniel — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:00:20 -0000

You know, I had no idea that the high school in The Cliff were so
good. For a Mini-Commune, proximity to an urban center (like Dallas)
is a distinct advantage. I think I'm going to have to do a little more
research and then, likely, add The Cliff to the short list of good
places to consider for this.

Re: efficiency vs multi-tasking (or, the decline of a photographer)

Daniel — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 08:15:17 -0000

Thank you for the compliment. I know for certain that I'm spending less time
on it. Its all about quality not quantity though, right?

Re: dSLR vs. Point-and-Shoot

Daniel — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:22:21 -0000

@Rob yeah... since the Micro Four Thirds platform is still very new,
quite expensive, and doesn't really have the lens choices to compete
except for very specific use cases, I left it off as a matter of
comparison for a current purchaser. It wont be long before that is no
longer the case.

Re: I know, I’ll just hire it out!

Daniel — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:04:55 -0000

I think, ideally, I'd like a 50/50 split when it comes to quick/raw
meals and complex meals. I'd like raw foods for snacks and some
non-dinner meals and, if possible, I'd like to save the "left overs"
for something other than dinner. So I'm going to try to work it into
that pattern. And, I think I'm going to go back to a food plan again.
It might help me to have it all planned out in advance.

And you're right, again. It is more about shame and less about health
or happiness. Don't get me wrong... clutter makes me FRANTIC. So I
like having things TIDY. And disgustingly dirty isn't healthy. But
popcorn kernels in the couch don't really bother me. Or, rather, they
shouldn't bother me. I think that is a shame thing. And why should it
be? I think, for as counter culture as I am, society and "their" rules
still play too strong of a role in my life.

Hmmmm... maybe 10 minute jobs is the way to go. At least that way, if
I have to leave C by herself, she's usually good to play for 10
minutes without much trouble. If I spend 10 minutes on something and
then 20 minutes with her I can easily get 40-60 minutes worth of
housework in without either of us really noticing it. I'm going to try
that tonight with a BIG job. The garage. And since it doesn't really
have a way of easily splitting it up, maybe I'll just set a 10 minute
timer and work until it goes off.

I'll look around at organic lawn services. I'd have to shuffle my VERY
tight budget to pay for it, but I have some "home maintenance" savings
that could go toward this especially considering that I'm somewhat
over budgeted here due to the relatively new nature of my house.

You give awesome advice. Thank you!

Re: I know, I’ll just hire it out!

Daniel — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:45:18 -0000

Amanda--

THANK YOU!

Bulk cooking is a good idea. Because I'm so short on time and
everything is so hectic, I rarely have an opportunity to plan that far
ahead. But you're right. It would let me eat cheaper, save time, and
bring healthy food to our table. I'm making this a goal.

And maybe you're right about the cleaning. My mom got on my case when
she dropped her phone in my couch and found popcorn kernels in there
when she dug it out. And I have a master bedroom closet, a garage, and
a spare room that are growing in the complicated nature with which
they are constructed. I'm surprised I can find anything in any of
them. And the room that the cats spend most of their time in gets
really bad because I just don't have the time to vacuum it and clean
up hair balls every other day like is needed.

Maybe I set my own standards way too high? I just like things to be
nice and clean and picked up. The picking up gets out of hand from
time to time, but that's no big deal.

Really, I think what I need is a clean sweep. I need to get everything
done, put away, organized, thrown out, etc, just once. And then I can
maintain it.

Re: circles never end… until they’re broken

Daniel — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:33:02 -0000

Save it in it's current form? Or turn it into something special that
she can wear/enjoy/keep?

Re: Disqus: The Official Blog - What features would you like?

Daniel — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:27:20 -0000

I'm not so sure I'd consider this important. The Disqus administration
panel serves this need and is less obtrusive for those that don't want
instant notification.

Re: Disqus: The Official Blog - What features would you like?

Daniel — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:22:34 -0000

Here's my vote for items #1 and #2 on DarkUFO's list.

Currently I use Wordpress and Wordbook in order to get my blog posts to appear nicely in Facebook land. It would be ideal if the Disqus Facebook application would handle this instead. This way, regardless of your blogging platform, if you use Disqus you'd have the option to post to Facebook. And, since the app would then have full visibility of the post on Facebook, it should be easy enough to bring in comments, likes, etc and, ideally, thread them inline with the other comments when possible (as opposed to showing it as a reaction, although, a reaction would work as well).

Re: Holding it Down

Daniel — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:34:18 -0000

A couple. Online dating is a strange thing. More than anything I've met a
lot of new and interesting friends. Which, really, is probably an even
better outcome.

Re: Still deciding

Daniel — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:19:28 -0000

Merry Christmas to you and yours. Give your mama a great big hug from C and
me.