I will be back in State College, PA in April to speak at the History Department Career Night. So, if any of you State College folks are around, I would love to get together with you while I am there (email me about my arrival/departure). I will be talking about my career outside of the typical History major norm (teacher, lawyer, etc) and how my studies at PSU prepared me for what I am doing now. I am quite honored and excited and look forward to seeing some of my old professors!
Archive for February, 2008
All posts written in February, 2008.
Feb
25
2008
Quick Site Backup (files and database) Via the Command Line
If you do any sort of web development, it is more than likely that CPANEL and phpMyAdmin are good friends of yours…and you depend on them. Even though those are extremely handy to create/modify databases and create backups, it is extremely helpful to know how to do the same thing by using only SSH and command line utilities.
To backup (export) a database using the command line interface (CLI):
mysqldump -p --user=username --add-drop-table database > backup.sql
You will then need to provide your database password and the exported data will go into a file called “backup.sql” which is located in the directory that you are currently in. (more mysqldump documentation
To backup your files:
tar -cvzf backup.tgz directoryname
The command will create an archive of all your files so you can easily move or store one file (the archive). More tar documentation.
Feb
20
2008
My Next 3 Wood: PING G10
It is freezing outside so I thought I would post about golf to warm up a bit. Over the last three or four years, I have replaced every single club in my golf bag. I have thoroughly enjoyed all my clubs (PING G2 irons 2-S, Titleist 975J driver, PING G5 putter), but I have not had much luck with finding a good 3 wood. Last year I bought a 2 iron to try and replace my longer fairway shot needs, but even though I can hit it really well and it had become my favorite club in my bag, I decided I really needed to get a new 3 wood this year. I met Doug at Golf Galaxy over the weekend and hit only one 3 wood before I knew I had chosen wisely: the new PING G10. My first shot – after not even touching a club for over four months – went over 200 yards and I consistently hit it over the next 20 or so shots. All I can say – is look out, my bag is now finally complete. PS – thanks to Jon for the PING hat.
Feb
19
2008
Now That That is Settled…
Well now that Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba’s President (by a letter!) and HD-DVD is dead (yeah for Blu-ray), I think we can all say it was one long awaited day!
Feb
15
2008
Add a "Pseudo" Pseudo Class Hover in Inline CSS.
I have been busy this week with a few really cool projects – one of them to create a widget for any site that will show the latest news items from a RSS feed – while not limiting the widget to servers with PHP. After putting that together, I had to add inline CSS to style the feed output. Everything looked great but I could not figure out how to add a :hover to an inline style…until I realized I could fake it by adding some basic javascript: onmouseover and onmouseout to change the font color.
<a href="file.html">Title</a
Feb
13
2008
Followup: Bluetooth Cordless Phone
I recently posted about the bluetooth cordless phone I ordered. Yesterday I got everything set up and to my surprise – both my iPhone and Amy’s Sony Ericsson something or other phone both paired without any problems and everything works quite nicely! I would definitely recommend this phone (or type of phone) to anyone who gets a lot of calls on their cell and home phones. Not to mention, the UI of this Panasonic phone (KX-TH111) is great!
Feb
11
2008
Bluetooth Cordless Phone
I was in the market for new cordless phones after being completely disgusted with the Uniden UI and came across something I found pretty interesting: cordless phones that would allow me to make/take calls from my home line and my cell phone. A and I are famous for not hearing my cell phone while at home so this will be perfect.
Feb
07
2008
super snow!
We got some super snow over the last few days and I am loving it! Yesterday we got so much snow it was a two time snowblower day which is always fun. This is by far the most snow I have ever seen here (Chicago) since moving from the Buffalo area and our streets are covered and it is getting difficult to look to the left and right when pulling out of neighborhood streets because of the big snow piles. The snow is so wet and heavy (with a good inch or so of slush under it all) that the snow blower was barely making it in some deep spots…but thank goodness we have one or I would have to abandon my car and only use the Land Rover until it melted because it is too heavy to shovel.
It was nice to be able to take a break mid-day and go out with Evan for a little bit. We took him outside in his snow suit and pulled him around in his sled which he liked (when we went fast). I look forward to when he is a little older and we can build snowmen and forts together…and gang up on Amy with snowballs. 
Feb
05
2008
check php syntax errors before committing changes.
I learned an important and valuable lesson today. Before committing code to a live server, always run: php – l filename.php to check for syntax errors if you cannot view the file beforehand. Enough said.
Feb
04
2008
mail like it should be: online.
Not that I travel a lot and could benefit from a PO Box – but there is a company out there that will take all your mail (forwarded to a PO Box), scan it, and then put it online for you to manage. Sound interesting? Check out Earth Class Mail.
