me talking out loud

Yahoo! News - MySQL 4.1 Ready For Its Close-up

Finally!! 4.1 is production ready.

Yahoo! News - Hobbit-size skull holds surprises

Way cool.

Well I finally did it - I bought a copy. Got it from Amazon for a little less then $25 US with shipping. Yeah - I know - I’m in Guam and there isn’t a VUE certified center here so I can’t take the test. I personally look at it as another reference book and another way to fill in all the little gaps in knowledge I have (since I am self taught). Will I be taking the certification test when I visit everyone stateside? Don’t know - right now don’t think so since no one on island has a clue about it so why spend the $200. But I admit it would be cool to have a hint how I actually compare to others in the field - and “just because I want to”.

Anyone else have an opinion?

Yahoo! News - Mozilla vs. Microsoft

Mozilla over IE anyday

Well I have offically been spammed for the first time. Guess that means someone other then me reads this. Anyway - Sorry Mr/Mrs spammer but I have now modified the comments so your comments won’t be shown so pleasego away. For everyone else that means that your comments will get through - it will just take a little longer as I now have to clear them. What a pain. Guess I should write a little script for it - or is there already a little hack made? Have to look into that.

TaDa!!! I think I got it to work! With the help of a good friend (cnb) and a little bit of his code - By golly I think I got it to work! I will post the code he sent me later if he says its OK but basically it takes the individual strings and looks for them in or adds them to the translation array based on what is needed. It’s a slick little thing. Now all I need is the table in another language so I can make sure it isn’t just my imagination.

Oh and the function not existing…. *blush* it didn’t - I added it outside of the IntSmarty closing bracket. I didn’t realize that the prefilter and compiler were OUTSIDE of the IntSmarty class.

Well I have the majority of the IntSmarty working and have sent out the files to be translated. Still trying to get the messages sent back to the user to be translated. Keep on being entered into the language tables as the variable name not the string they contain. Waiting for the Darn cache to clear because it keeps trying to tell me that a function doesn’t exist when I’m sitting here looking at it in the code. Freaking irritating!

cnb sent me a function to use to get the error messages to be translated. Will try using it as soon as the #*!$ cache clears. (*calm down lig*). Have tried (client side) clearing the history listings, deleted the cookies, looking for a new page everytime, and (server side) force compiling the pages…. still have the cacheing problem. Think it’s time to shut down the browser to clear the session variables… Sigh - what a pain.

Well I had to walk away from it (the IntSmarty) for a bit to clear my head…. and the cache. And guess what. The page is now saving and destructing. Still am not getting the error messages but then they are placed into the $errorMessage variable on the PHP page not the template. My language table has the ‘{$errorMessage}’ being converted rather then the string that goes into it. Will try to figure out a workaround or hack later for it. For right now I am now the proud owner of a generated “en-us” table and that is enough. So I guess that means I can copy it and pass it on to be translated into Japanese and Korean. Want to do that soon so I can have it tested to make sure it all works OK.

Thanks coogle, cnb, and grout for the help! Going to leave all the debugging lines in for now so if there are problems later I don’t have to start over from scratch. Thank you to whomever created and coded “Copy and Paste”. Your a life saver.

Thanks to a friend giving me a swift kick in the buttocks I have started debugging the IntSmarty code for my server. Found a couple of problems. First problem I had was that my a_languages array was not being copied over to the cur_language array correctly. It seems that an empty element was also being added and of course it had to be in the first position. So made a little hack (that took longer then it should of since I was coding in java all weekend so my variables were all messed up - kept on forgetting the $) that simply loops through and finds the first non-empty element.

Ok once that was fixed kept on debugging because my language table still isn't being saved. Found out the lang_path from MyIntSmarty was being overriden by the IntSmarty lang_path. So I hard coded the path into the IntSmarty (don't like that but can't think of another way to do it.).

Well the language tables are finally loading... but the IntSmarty isn't destructing and saving the table. Figure it's because the server is running PHP4 rather then 5. Tried calling the destruct explicitly at the end of the page (after the display) and still no good. I thought about moving it to earlier in the code but then I would lose all the information for the display. Instead I called the saveLanguageTable function before all of the assignments for the display and it worked. Will try it after the assignments to see if I get the error messages.

Got Kayla's grades for the first semester yesterday... and it isn't bad or by any means good. Kayla got 4 B's, 2 C's, and 1 D. The D is in reading and mainly because she wasn't turning in homeworks and book reports. So needless to say she is grounded with no TV, Radio, Gameboy, Computer, allowance and she isn't allowed to read or buy any of her magazines. She will only be allowed to do homework (multiple times if necessary), chores, or read her books for book reports. I am hoping she hates it so much she doesn't do it again. The punishment (everything but TV) is to be reviewed in 4 weeks with progress reports. If she has B's it will all be lifted but the TV.

Worst part is that besides the D everything else was pretty good though Geography was borderline. And I must admit that part of the problem was Jason and I. Although we asked her everyday if she had homework - we didn't check when we should have. That too will be rectified.

Well finished my java project (3 parts) over the weekend. All in all it took me 3 days (~23 hours of coding). Not bad - considering I used classes I never had before so there was a lot of time reading the docs. I am still a bit confused over the difference between Date and Calendar but I can live with that. Wish the Docs had examples for the classes and methods - would have helped clear up a few misunderstandings but then I'm used to the PHP manual.

It's funny how I was kind of upset that it took me as long as it did until I remembered that just a couple of years ago it would have taken me the full 2 weeks to do it. Heck my first project (in C) took me 2 weeks to generate the Fibonacci numbers and it still didn't work perfectly.

Well I decided to have multiple templates for a each of my pages of my project rather then 1 big one. The first page currently has 5. I think that will be all for that one, so now I am off to start the next page (Yeah - I know... I'm slow. Been busy working on other stuff.)

Figured out how to handle the multiple levels of authorization. I admit to taking the simple way out - I will disable certain buttons based on the users authorization level (Session variable) in the templates. Wondering if I should also do something on the logic side. Probably will - just haven't thought about it. Since this is my first multi-level authorization I am more then open to ideas/suggestions.

Still haven't figured out what the problem is with the IntSmarty. Not worried about it though since I have plenty on my plate with the templates right now. As I get closer to being done with those - then 'll worry.

Well we have another typoon coming our way. See it here. We were lucky the last storm went over us but this storm seem to be heading for us. Last report is that the eye will pass about 60 miles south of us some time tomarrow.

The house has it's storm shutters up, the generator is ready to go with 15 gallons of gas stored, 15 gallons of water sitting and waiting, with tons of batterys for the flashlights and lanterns, grill bottle is full, and the camp stove is ready. Actually the only thing that had to be done was the shutters - everything else was left over from the last storm.

Work today - storm tomarrow - work Thursday. Funny how things are kind of relative.

What I was told about my project and what it is supposed to be seem to be 2 different things. I thought I would have to make a program that allows the user to create and send email campaigns to the addresses found in a customer database. The program was to be able to be displayed in multiple languages and except and store the campaigns in multiple languages. Simple (relatively) right. Now I have to create a login system that allows for 3 levels of user and a full reporting feature as well. And it figures that half the stuff they want to be able to generate reports on - I have no idea how to do. Guess it's time to bust out Google and ed-u-ma-cate myself on hard and soft bounces, click throughs for the email and URLS, how the heck to track forwarding, and a few other things - not too mention being able to log them by dates so I can display them granularly.

thinking out loud - I think I need to create a couple of tables just for tracking... Hmmm all I'm doing is incrementing... Hmmm wonder where I am supposed to "catch" this data - the server, the mail program (MTA I think it is called - gotta go look that up), at the user level (MUA - again have to look that up).

Sigh - and here I was worried about the IntSmarty.

Well this weekend was pretty busy. Got ahold of just about everyone in the family to talk (tried Donna but no one was answering the phone) . Will try again next weekend.

My little sister was going a little crazy because we still hadn't bought Kayla's bridesmaids dress for her wedding - but we fixed that. Kayla will be getting an empress style royal blue dress with a think shoulder straps (similar to a tank top) a satin blue ribbon at the high waist and an a-line skirt. Her shoes are about 1.5 inches and will be dyed to match. She also will be getting a white shawl that she can wear around her shoulders or drapped from her neck. The dress will be custom made and fit to her (it is pretty cheap out here) for about the same price as buying one off of the rack. She is VERY excited about it. I think I'm jealous because I have never had a custom fit dress.

After that it was all the normal stuff - little shopping, grocery shopping, yard work, laundry, cleaning, etc. Was hoping to go kayaking up the Ylig River but just couldn't fit it in with all the other stuff the HAD to be done. There is always next weekend.

Well yes - it was my birthday this past weekend. I am old (30+). My husband surprised me with roses in the morning and we all went out to breakfast. All in all it was a good day (except for the getting 1 year older part ).

Well I finally hooked up with John Coggeshall the creator of IntSmarty. He did see my emails and will be helping me out with my problem later. Right now he has a cold and isn't feeling to hot. Since I have a cold also - I can fully understand. My project can still go ahead until he is feeling better so no biggy.

Thanks John.

Well we had an AWESOME time in Siapan even with me having a bad cold and losing my voice. We stayed at the Marianas Resort and Spa (my company is owned by them) in the second floor suite for a VERY reasonable rate and I rented a car since my husband couldn't (Navy said the active duty people couldn't with out special permission - go figure). We basically drove all over the island and we could have easily spent 2 more days exploring.

As it was we managed to go to Bonzai cliff, Suicide cliff, the final Japanese command post from WWII, Bird Island, the Grotto, and the Hotel's Spa. Most of it was stop and see and take pictures. The Grotto however was a cave with a 100+ ft deep pool in it that opens underwater to the ocean. The water was crystal clear so you could see all the way to the bottom. We really wished we had brought out snockeling gear - but alas such is life (also the climb in and out was STEEP). So we just swam and jumped off of the rocks/cliffs. My husband had his first massage (yes a real one) - he loved it. He thought it was cool that they touched his buttocks. He wants to go again.

You can find the pictures in the gallery - here

Well I'm stuck waiting for John Coggeshall (I keep misspelling his name - I apologize) to get back to me on the IntSmarty problem. Until then I am continuing on creating the templates and code. I figure when ever he does finally reply to me and we figure it out the problem it will be something small and silly - and hopefully easily fixed. Until then - I trudge on and can honestly say I have been working on it.

Hopefully I will be able to take this experience and use it while I help with the PHP Community website.