I am now blogging for jQuery

Check out my first blog on jquery.com about Aptana IDE now including jQuery as a imported JavaScript Library.

How to run Ubuntu and Kbuntu in VMware Player

I had an itch today to run Ubuntu.  I actually wanted to see how Konqueror compared to Safari in rendering as I needed a way to test since I don't own a Mac. Since Safari is a descendent of Konqueror it makes sense that they render the same for the most part.

I started by downloading and installing the free VMware Player.

I then downloaded the Ubuntu iso (disk image) from Ubuntu's site.  I had the best luck with the torrent files.  I was able to download the 696mb iso in 20 minutes.  Since I'll be touching on it later you can also get the Kbuntu iso from the Kbuntu site.

Now that I have VMware and the iso's I need to make a Virtual Hard Disk.  I found directions online here. 

First I needed to download and install QEMU because you need the qemu-image.exe to emulate/create the virtual hard disk.

After you installed QEMU open a command window and change directories to c:\program files\QEMU or whatever the directory name you put the files.  Once you are in the directory run the following command which will allowcate 3GB for a Ubuntu virtual hard drive.

qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk Ubuntu.vmdk 3G Formating 'Ubuntu.vmdk', fmt=vmdk, size=3097152 kB



For Kbuntu:

qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk Kbuntu.vmdk 3G Formating 'Kbuntu.vmdk', fmt=vmdk, size=3097152 kB



This will create a file Ubuntu.vmdk or Kbuntu.vmdk in the QEMU folder.

Create a folder called Ubuntu or Kbuntu in My Documents > My Virtual Machines and move the vmdk file you just created in there. Also copy the iso file to this folder. Finally, create a blank text file and name it either Ubuntu.vmx or Kbuntu.vmx which are VMware Configuration files.

In the Ubunti.vmx files paste this:

config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "3"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.filename = "Ubuntu.vmdk"
memsize = "256"
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

#ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"
#ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

ide1:0.fileName = "ubuntu-6.06-desktop-i386.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
usb.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.virtualDev = "es1371"
displayName = "Ubuntu"
guestOS = "Ubuntu"
nvram = "Ubuntu.nvram"
MemTrimRate = "-1"

ide0:0.redo = ""
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d 5c cc 3d 4a 43 29-55 89 5c 28 1e 7e 06 58"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 5c cc 3d 4a 43 29-55 89 5c 28 1e 7e 06 58"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:7e:06:58"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

tools.syncTime = "TRUE"
ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

uuid.action = "create"

checkpoint.vmState = ""

For Kbuntu.vmx paste this:

config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "3"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.filename = "Kbuntu.vmdk"
memsize = "256"
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

#ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"
#ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

ide1:0.fileName = "kubuntu-6.06-desktop-i386.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
usb.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.virtualDev = "es1371"
displayName = "Kbuntu"
guestOS = "ubuntu"
nvram = "Kbuntu.nvram"
MemTrimRate = "-1"

ide0:0.redo = ""
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d cf a0 97 ef 95 ad-c2 6a 6e 62 5b f2 78 ff"
uuid.bios = "56 4d cf a0 97 ef 95 ad-c2 6a 6e 62 5b f2 78 ff"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:f2:78:ff"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

tools.syncTime = "TRUE"
ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

uuid.action = "create"

checkpoint.vmState = ""

Save the file and close it.  All you have to do now is double-click the vmx file and it will launch VMware Player and boot with the iso image as the Boot CD (you don't need to even burn a CD).

If you decide to install Ubuntu, at the end of the installation you will be prompted to reboot, before the system starts up go in and modify the vmx configuration file so that it boots off the virtual drive instead of the iso by modifying these four lines

Find:

#ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"
#ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

ide1:0.fileName = "ubuntu-6.06-desktop-i386.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

Replace with:

ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

#ide1:0.fileName = "ubuntu-6.06-desktop-i386.iso"
#ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

The great thing about Ubuntu is that it runs live right off the CD you don't even need to install it if you don't want to.  The differences between Ubuntu and Kbuntu is Ubuntu uses Gnome as it's Desktop and Kbuntu uses KDE.  Like I said at the beginning I wanted to test sites against Konqueror and with Konqueror being a KDE application it was installed by default in Kbuntu and ran perfectly right off the live CD without installation.  It can run off Ubuntu but you'll need to install Ubuntu then install Konqueror from the Synaptics Package Manager.

How NOT to market yourself on the Internet

Ok, so you made a pretty good name for  your business or yourself on the Internet.  You've pulled in some pretty big clients.  You own and maintain a website that has tens of thousands of registered users.  You're able to make ends meet with the clients you get that aren't all that big.

Sounds like everything is right in the world for you.

Here's where I start to get into the part of the post where I tell you what not to do.

• DON'T go on an Internet radio show to talk about your business and talk about how you don't have the passion for the stuff you do.
• DON'T tell everyone that you only want the "cool" clients and the rest can f*** off.
• DON'T go into detail about specific clients and talk about how bad of a client they were, especially after you just named who they are.
• Finally, DON'T publicize all of this even more by posting the show as a podcast so everyone and anyone can hear it anytime they want later on.

I'll tell you I witnessed a company do this just this week.  A company I idolized.  A company whose business model is every persons dream. 

Well it will be interesting to see if they can get through it...they usually do but man it's just a weird way to market yourself.

Real Life Enemy Territory

Anyone that knows me knows I am big into playing Wolfensteins - Enemy Territory, I even play it competitively in Leagues and Ladders.

But I stumbled across this video tonight on YouTube and was laughing my ass off the whole time...Well done.

(video)

My review of Google Spreadsheets

I needed to do a quick data grid in a spreadsheet and I decided to use Google's Spreadsheet Web Application to do the job for me.

First I copied some data from another web application and pasted it into here.  No issues.

I needed to then resize the columns to make the text fit.  That seemed to expand all the columns but that was easily fixed.

Deleted a couple of unneeded columns and added another.  In the new column I needed to multiple the column to the left by 60 and put the results in my new column.  Using the formulas I learned in Excel. =B2 * 60 did the trick.

Copied and pasted that all the way down the column and it calculated the the rows the way I wanted.  So far so good.

Now for cosmetic adjustment.  This is were I think Google Spreadsheets has the most room for improvement.  One of the nice features in Excel and in OpenOffice.org Calc is the Auto Format feature where you highlight your spreadsheet and give it a theme.  I couldn't find anything like that in Google Spreadsheets.  Oh well, it wasn't that many rows and column. I went ahead and made alternating row colors and a header color with the formatting tool.  Not to hard at all just some busy work.

Now usually in this step of making the document I would copy all the cells and paste it right into Word or OpenOffice.org Write...but when I pasted it all I got was the data, no formatting!  I was able to export the spreadsheet out to xls and I opened it in OpenOffice.org Calc.  I had to only adjust the column widths and heights and then I was able to copy and paste into Write.

So Google Spreadsheets is a great online web application but still lacking, for me anyways, the importing of data from a spreadsheet to a word processing application...maybe they will read this and find a way.

Dell Laptop explodes at Japanese Conference

Heard about this on the latest TWiT podcast. The Inquirer has the story.

I got the call this morning...

7:15 AM the phone rings...I ignore it.

It rings again...this time I get up cause I know something must be wrong. My mom has been in Albany for the last week taking care of my grandmother who was recently diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.  Wednesday of last week she was admitted to the hospital because she was becoming dehydrated.

Walk over to the phone, sure enough it's my mom's cell phone. Immediately think to myself "oh man this isn't going to be good"

"Hello?"

"Hi Ralph, I just wanted to let you know your grandmother was admitted into the ICU today and she might not make it to the end of the day."

I was stunned cause my mom said that they were only going to the hospital for IV and now this. I really didn't know what to say to her at that moment...so I listened and then hung up.

I sat there for a while then it hit me like a ton of bricks...I haven't seen my grandmother in months maybe even a year. I was supposed to go up to see her in the beginning of June but the trip got canceled when I had some car trouble.

Then the thought of regret fell upon me...if I don't go right now I might not ever have the chance to see or talk to my grandmother again. That was just not something I wanted to live with the rest of my life.
I called my mom back. "If I come up can I get in to see her?"

"Yes" my mom said.

"I am on my way"

"Ralph, there is nothing you can do for her."

"I am aware of that but all I want is five minutes to at least be able to talk to her."

"OK, just drive safe." my mom demanded.

After taking some directions down and looking up the Hospital name in Google Maps I hung up and called into work...took all I could to finish the voice mail without breaking down. I told Larry (my boss) that I couldn't bare to make the call again to Shondra (Office Manager) and asked if he could let her know.

At that point I hung up the phone and lost it as I was waking Hope up. I think I freaked her out. She had no clue what was going on and thought the worst had happened to one of the boys. I quickly told her what was going on and she gave me a big hug.

She helped me get things ready to go and I packed my laptop up for the trip...I needed to stop into work and print out the maps and directions.

While I was at work Larry spots me and offered up everything he could to help me out. I later told my mom how he offered to help me out and she said "that guy is such a good friend"...she's right..he's always there when I need help in someway, constantly goes out of his way for me.

The ride down was uneventful. I made good time arriving at the hospital with one stop in a little over 3 hours. I had to ask someone how to get to the ICU and when I got off the elevator I ran right into my mom who immediately broke down and gave me a hug.

We went down to the cafeteria as I couldn't get in to see her right away as they only allow 2 visitors for 5 minutes an hour. My aunt and uncle were there getting food and we sat and chatted for a bit and I got up to speed on what happened over the weekend.

We went back up and called into the ICU to see if we could get in. We had to wait a half-an-hour cause she was getting a bath.

Finally a nurse came in and said we could go back. We walked in and I could see her across the ICU. She was a fraction of the woman I had last seen. She had lost so much weight. She had a tube in her nose, many IV's in her hand and a mask providing 100% oxygen.

She looked weak and didn't move much but I was totally reassured when she looked at me and said “Hi Ralph” in her own way that I come to know and love. We talked for about 10 minutes reassuring our love for each other and talked about the kids and how she misses them. Then she wanted to sleep so we left to let her sleep.

I told her I loved her and I would stop in once more before I left.

About two hours later my dad and I went in to see her but she was sound a sleep.. stayed about five minutes and walked out to let my mom in. She was struggling to breathe and it was tough to watch.

I had to leave shortly after that and didn't get to talk to her again. Hopefully I will again. I am planning on going down again Friday if all goes well this week otherwise I'll be making another trip down which won't be fun at all.

But after driving 6 hours and putting up with the 95 degree heat and all the waiting in the waiting room the fifteen minutes I spent with her was worth the trip. It eased my mind and I won't have any regrets if she slipped away and that was the sole purpose of the trip.

Please pray for her. Pray that she doesn't suffer and that my mother has the strength to get through this cause this is especially tough on her.

Ruby on Rails Tutorials

After I asked about tutorials on Ruby on Rails I went searching for a few. Here are about 30 tutorials on Ruby on Rails.

Whose blogging about BarCampRochester?

Well of course besides me.

Well obviously the organizers are blogging about it.

• Justin Thorp - gave a presentation on Web Accessibility Standards for Content Authoring tools as well as help moderate the event. Justin showed his presentation on slides he created with S5, which I thought was a cool online app.
  
• Erica O'Grady - who also moderated the event gave a great presentation on Web 2.0 Web Applications that are underused.  I wrote about the ones I haven't heard about before here or you can see all of them from her delicious group. Erica also provided us with a Flickr feed of the event.  Hey where are the pictures of the BrandLogic crew?  My wife doesn't believe I attended please upload them for the sake of my marriage!
  
• SeenCreative - The final moderator/organizer.  They gave an awesome presentation about their company and their experiences and showed off their Ruby on Rails project that has been getting noticed in the online community called myBillq.com
• Larry Roth - Part of the infamous BrandLogic group that stormed into the event late and took over.  Not really, but I think you could call our entrance a classic entrance of "shock and awe".  Anyways, Larry presented some of our client work and discussed our experiences...I helped were I could but we came not really prepared. 
  

Some other presentations that are now online:

• Sam Cole presented on Bliki's and uploaded his presentation

You can keep an eye on future blog posts by watching Technorati for BarCampRochester.

Smart Cars might be a short term solution

However, I think this Hydrogen car from GM is the car of the future that is our long term solution to our dependence on oil.

(video)


digg this

What's hot now?

Obviously Web 2.0 apps are hot and all the rage.  I posted some examples of popular and up and coming apps.

But what I think is surprising to me is that Ruby and Ruby on Rails is the hottest programming language out there right now.

myBillq.com was done in Ruby on Rails.  It was done for two reasons. One, it gave the developers and the company something to program to show off their talents plus gave them experience with writing an application in Ruby on Rails.

OK it seems like it might make web 2.0 easier to program? Is that a fair statement?  What's a good resource to start understanding Ruby?

Web Based Presentation Slide Show Creator

S5 - A Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System

Web Applications

Listening to a presentation now about web applications.  Here's some of the interesting ones that I haven't heard before:

Crazy Egg - Coming soon app that will analyze your click throughs on your site with a heatmap metaphor.

Writely - online word processor

Shopify - online e-commerce solution

gliffy - online visio app

Jambo - proximity chat

Dabble DB - Online Spreedsheet (subscription based)

Bliki

Blog + wiki = bliki

Sitting at BarCampRochester

Just watched a presentation from SeenCreative couple of RIT grads that started a web consulting firm here in town.

They presented their Ruby on Rails site they did called MyBillq all Web 2.0 and really slick.

New Rocketboom out

I liked it actually Joanna Colan is a good fit on the show.

jQuery

I used to work with John Resig and Julia West before they moved on to become big wigs on their own.  They are on their way too, making waves in the JavaScript community with a new way to work with Javascript.  They are in the mist of developing a javascript API called jQuery that makes a developers life easier once you understand how it works. 

What is jQuery?

jQuery is a Javascript library that takes this motto to heart: Writing Javascript code should be fun. jQuery acheives this goal by taking common, repetitive, tasks, stripping out all the unnecessary markup, and leaving them short, smart and understandable.

I finally used jQuery last night because I needed to make rounded corners on a div. all I needed to do was include the jquery.js file, include the rounded corners jQuery plugin js file then I included these three lines of code:

$(document).ready(function(){
     $("#learn-more-container").corner("round bottom 15px");
});

which finds the div with id learn-more-container and sets the bottom corners to round with a radius of 15px.

Just that easy.  Definitely check out jQuery and see how easy it is for yourself.