NetNinjas

Signing off

2005-07-29T21:58:00.000-07:00

Got my own domain, so goodbye Netninjas its been fun! I am now at http://blog.rubyyot.com

Mine, mine, mine, mine all mine.

2005-07-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

I signed up with dreamhost last night and now for $8 a month a domain is mine, mine, mine. Ooooohh I am so excited!!!!

See more progress on: Sign up with a web host that supports Ruby on Rails

Moving along

2005-07-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

I just added retrieve and lookup capabilities for Jots in tRuTag I just want to say that Jots has a great API. I pretty deep into del.icio.us but if I wasn’t I would use Jots instead. A very nice site all around, and written in Ruby no less. :)

Now I’m going to look at Yahoo’s My Web 2.0 and see what I can do with it. It looks like YADC (Yet another del.icio.us clone). Hopefully I will be as pleasantly surprised by it as I was Jots.

See more progress on: Continue refactoring tRuTag

RoR Hosting

2005-07-28T01:20:00.000-07:00

I think I’m going to try Dreamhost. They have a good deal. Not sure yet though. Will also need a domain name.

See more progress on: Sign up with a web host that supports Ruby on Rails

Huh?

2005-07-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s addictive, fun, and lots of people are doing it, so naturally there must something bad about it. Right?

See more progress on: Discover the evil conspiracy lurking beneath the surface of 43Things

Dinnerbuzz

2005-07-26T22:02:00.000-07:00

Dinnerbuzz calls itself the social guide to dinner and drinks, and it looks like it is a promising site. I will add support for it to tRuTag. It is a tagged restaurant review site. Thumbs up!

tRuTag

2005-07-25T22:58:00.000-07:00

I've made a first release of tRuTag on Rubyforge. I hope someone else enjoys it as much as I have.

Created one!

2005-07-25T22:52:00.000-07:00

I’ve had fun with tRuTag and hope someone else will too. It’s really just a script written in ruby but it collects your tags from various sites and creates a webpage that lets you explore them on others. You can download here

See more progress on: Contribute to an open source software project

IceWM

2005-07-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

Switched from KDE to IceVM last night and am happy with the switch. Also have started using vi instead of emacs for some things, though I still use Kate for script editing. No, I am not ready to let go of XWindows and I don’t know if I will be, though I have been using the tty windows more and more.

See more progress on: master linux

8 - Ruby

2005-07-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

The more I learn, the more I love it! It is by far the best language I have learned to date.

See more progress on: identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

Moving along

2005-07-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

I still need to work on the Rubyforge page but the program itself is coming along as you can see from the sample image. I use it for my homepage now and have a cron job refresh it every night with my new tags. It’s been fun. I think it is time to do some clean up and then release it.

See more progress on: Continue refining tRuTag

7 - Two Jumbo Jacks

2005-07-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

They are not the best hamburgers in the world, but they are big and 2 of them cost about $2.50. On days where you don’t have much money, forgot your lunch and need to eat they are very happy.

See more progress on: identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

6 - Doodling

2005-07-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

It’s faster, easier and more subjective than drawing; and you can do it during meetings. :)

See more progress on: identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

5 - The ocean

2005-07-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

There is something about the ocean that is so peaceful and happy. I love the sound of the water crashing on the ground. I love the look of the waves rolling in. Even the salty sea air smells good.

See more progress on: identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

4 - Ghormeh sabzi

2005-07-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

My grandma used to make ghormeh sabzi for me when I would visit her. It is a Persian dish of stewed lamb and greens which is served over basmati rice. It is delicious and one of my favorite recipies.

(The provided link is not my grandma’s recipe, but seems about right, though I have never made it myself.)

See more progress on: identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

Flaming Mr. Goatee: Ninjas!

2005-07-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

I had to blog this because "Brian has hit uopn an eternal truth, and that is: "I believe internet traffic to this MySpace account is going to increase considerably due to my use of the word Ninja. I mean lets face it, ninjas rule!". :)

3 - Good Coffee

2005-07-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

Maybe it is a bit stereotypical since I’m in Seattle and all, but I don’t care. I have cut so many vices out of my life, smoking, drinking, etc. I really do enjoy this one and it is mostly harmless. Good Coffee, doesn’t have to be bought from a store for $5 a cup. When I’m at Starbucks I typically get the $2 Grande drip w/cream anyway. Good coffee can be brewed at home as well. It just needs to be the right strength and have a good bold coffee taste (unlike most restraunt coffee) without being tar or too acidic.

See more progress on: identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

Pick-Axe v1

2005-07-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading/referencing the first version of the pick axe. It not exactly the same as my goal which I implied v2. But I suppose that a potion of it is the same.

See more progress on: read the pick-axe

2 - Reading technical/programming books

2005-07-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, this probably sounds a bit strange but I really do enjoy reading technical books. There are quite a few out there that are very will written. Right now I’m reading Running Linux

See more progress on: identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

Blog In Space

2005-07-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

Heard this on the radio this morning. Seems like a complete waste of perfectly good hardware. Still it got me to blog about it. LOL.

Not sure exactly what page I'm on...

2005-07-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

But I am enjoying it. A pity I’ll have to wait so long for the next one once I finish. Right now Harry has just been given detention for the second time. I don’t think that gives away too much. I am curious to see how this ends. I assume it will come back to Malfoy and Snape. I am curious to find out what happens to this year’s Defense against the Dark Arts professor to prevent them from returning next year. And why anyone would take the job knowing it’s tendency to make bad things happen to the person who does.

See more progress on: Read Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince

Family

2005-07-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

1. My wife and kids make me happy. My wife is my best friend and my kids are lots of fun. It’s not not always easy, but they are definately worth it.

See more progress on: identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

Japanese words and romanji

2005-07-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

I am slowly but surely continuing with this goal. Learned the words for what, where, how, who, when, how many and how much last night. trying word association and it is definately the only way I can remember things. I am however frustrated by romanji, I don’t want to use it, but seem forced into it since I haven’t found a way to input katakana, harigana or kanji (how is this done??) characters into my keyboard.

See more progress on: Learn Japanese

Rubyforge

2005-07-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

I’ve created a project at Ruby forge for this. It seems like a bit of over kill, but I would like input on this and my blog just doesn’t seem like the place for it. This is both a personal project and a way to learn Ruby.

See more progress on: Continue refining tRuTag

tRuTag v.1

2005-07-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

Working on the next version, cleaned up the code a bit and added output capabilites for:

http://43.Allconsuming.net

http://flickr.com

http://technocrati.com

http://43places.com

also added import capabilites for

http://43places.com

It doesn’t appear that ALL consuming has an API in place right now. Trying to use a bit of Javascript magic on the output page to determine which site will divulge the tag information. This is because the output page has become rather long. I still want to be clicking on the tag itself rather than a button to perform the action. I do have a basic stylesheet in place. I am rather happy how quickly I was able to put this together and it has only made me more eager to continue lerning Ruby.

See more progress on: Learn Ruby

tRuTag v.0

2005-07-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

I just completed my first Ruby script. Well I'm sure I'll make plenty of modifications and some fixes, but I wanted to post it up here for feedback, and the feeling of accomplishment.

What it is:
I am tagging more and more things. The majority of these are on 43things.com and del.icio.us right now. I wanted to make a script that would pull in all of my tags for these sites and create an html tag cloud foreach of these sites with a list of all my tags. Basically allowing me to browse my superset of tags on all sites.

It consists of 2 files, and XML config file and a script. For the XML config file you supply your profile information.

username is your username for the site
key is different for delicious and 43things. For 43Things it is your API key which they can generate for you. For del.icious it is your password.

I'll go ahead and distribute it under the Ruby license.

Here are the files

XML config:

<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>
<user title="jh">
<profile type = "Things43">
<username>YOUR_USERNAME_HERE</username>
<key>YOUR_API_KEY_HERE</key>
</profile>
<profile type = "Delicious">
<username>YOUR_USERNAME_HERE</username>
<key>YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE</key>
</profile>
</user>

Script

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'net/http'
require 'rexml/document'
include Net
include REXML

# This is the name of your xml.doc
$docname = "jh.xml"

class User
def initialize()
@profiles = Array.new
readdoc
init_tags
end

def init_tags
@tbin = Array.new
@profiles.each {|profile| profile.add_tags(@tbin)}
end

def readdoc
doc=Document.new File.new($docname)
doc.elements.each("user/profile") do |element|
up = Hash.new
up["type"] = element.attributes["type"]
element.elements.each do |sub|
up[sub.name] = sub.text
end

@profiles.push Profile.new(up)
up = nil
end
end

def create_cloud
output = "<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN\"\n\"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<title>tRuTag Cloud</title>\n<link rel=\"Stylesheet\" href=\"tRuTag.css\" type=\"text/css\" media=\"screen\" />\n</head>\n<body>Created by <a href=\"http://netninjas.blogspot.com\">tRuTag v.0</a> by <a href = \"mailto:jamal.hansen[at]gmail.com\">Jamal Hansen</a>"

@profiles.each {|profile| output << (profile.build_cloud(@tbin))}
output << '</body></html>'

f = File.new("tRuTagcloud.html", "w")
f.print output
f.close

end

end

class Profile
def initialize(prohash)
# not sure how to do this, but want to take the string of the object name and refer that object.
case prohash ["type"]
when "Things43" then
@site = Things43.new( prohash ["username"], prohash ["key"])

when "Delicious" then
@site = Delicious.new( prohash ["username"], prohash ["key"])

end

end

def key
@site.key
end

def username
@site.username
end

def add_tags(tbin)
@site.add_tags(tbin)
end

def build_cloud(tbin)
@site.build_cloud(tbin)
end
end

class Site
def initialize(username, key)
@username = username
@key = key
end

def username
@username
end

def username
@username
end

def key
@key
end

def add_tags(tbin)
end

def build_cloud(tbin)
@return = ""
end

def find_level(count)
String(Integer(count)./(5))
end

end

class Things43 < Site
def add_tags(tbin)
url = "www.43things.com"
page = "/service/get_persons_tags?api_key=" + @key + "&id=" + @username
validcode = "200"
xmlelement = "feed/tags/tag"
h = HTTP.new(host=url, 80)
resp, data = h.get(page , nil)
if resp.code == validcode
doc=Document.new data
doc.elements.each(xmlelement) do |element|
tbin.push [element.text, element.attributes["count"], self.class]
end
else
puts "Error code from " + self.class + ": " + resp.code + " description:" + resp.message
end
end

def build_cloud(tbin)
h = "<h1><a href=\"http://43things.com\">43 Things</a></h1>"

tbin.each { |tag|
h << "\n<span class=\"level" << find_level(tag[1]) << "\"><a href=\"http://www.43things.com/tag/" << tag[0] << "\">" << tag[0] << "</a></span>"
}
h
end

end

class Delicious < Site
def add_tags(tbin)
agent = 'tRuTag v.0'
data = Net::HTTP.start('del.icio.us') { |http|
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new('/api/tags/get', {'User-Agent' => agent})
req.basic_auth(username, key)
http.request(req).body
}

doc=Document.new data
doc.elements.each("tags/tag") do |element|
tbin.push [element.attributes["tag"], element.attributes["count"], self.class]
end

end

def build_cloud(tbin)
h = "<h1><a href=\"http://del.icio.us\">Del.icio.us</a></h1>"

tbin.each { |tag|
h << "\n<span class=\"level" << find_level(tag[1]) << "\"><a href=\"http://del.icio.us/tag/" << tag[0] << "\">" << tag[0] << "</a></span>"
}
h
end
end

aUser = User.new()
aUser.create_cloud

Next I'll post sample output from my profiles. Oh and you can create a style sheet to make the tags change size based on how often they are used. Oh and use at your own risk, I'm not responsible, etc. Have fun, I'm going to keep working on this.

Got it!

2005-07-16T23:07:00.000-07:00

Got it today and am 80 pages in. My wife and I are reading it aloud, as we have with all the Harry Potter books. This one seems to be off to a faster start than the last two. I am so excited!!

See more progress on: Read Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince

HTTP - Auth

2005-07-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

Nexp step is the del.icio.us API. I need to figure out how to do HTTP - Auth with Ruby. Time for a break. Try some more later.

See more progress on: Learn Ruby

Parsed the XML

2005-07-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I’ve now successfully parsed the XML tag list into an array of tag objects. I think that I can say that I have figured out how to use the API or at least the API call I am interested in right not. Good job Robot Co-op, yet another way I am impressed by your site. I’ll continue any progress entries on my Learn Ruby goal since the 43Things API portion of this is done.

See more progress on: Figure out how to use the 43 Things API

Success

2005-07-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Just made my first successful 43Things API call from Ruby. This is my first success with Ruby and it came in under 12 hours from my first attempt at using it. Well I’ve been using RoR for a few weeks now, but that is not exactly the same. In any case, yay!

See more progress on: Figure out how to use the 43 Things API

This is awesome, I want one!

2005-07-15T15:43:00.000-07:00

This has to be the best geek shirt ever. It has Ruby with the two dot umlau thingy. I love it!

See more progress on: Buy a Ruby: Speed-metal Coding Long Sleve T-Shirt to help support ruby-doc.org

Here it is

2005-07-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

Users like myself use 43Things, 43Places and AllConsuming. I would like there to be a place where I can view a tag cloud of my tags from all 3 sites. For extra credit

Add in user tags from del.icio.us, flickr, etc.

Make it searchable by people with similar interests.

I think these are in the API, maybe I’ll try working on this. :)

See more progress on: Add cross site tag grouping, and make it ‘meta searchable’

Learning Japanese

2005-07-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

Well I was undecided which language on my list I was going to pick up. It was between Japanese, Farsi and Spanish. I know a little Spanish already, but I think I’ve chosen Japanese over the rest since my wife has shown interest in learning it as well. Now I would like a Japanese speaking penpal that would be able decipher my attempts to communicate and tell me about Japanese culture, or whatever. I’m not having much luck with the language exchange sites.

See more progress on: find a pen pal

The jackal says

2005-07-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

I am enlightened

See more progress on: learn more about pondering the moose and the squirrel.

Become one with OOP

2005-07-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

I don’t know what type of knowledge you have of OO and I’m no guru but here are my two cents.

# Understand the basics of OO, you must understand the concepts of Encapsulation, Polymorphism, etc to program objects. If you do not, you will be programming procedural code with an OO language which is like building a house with a sledgehammer. You can do it, but it’s not the best tool.
# Make sure you know a language that you can program object oriented code. I would recommend Ruby or Java, though there are of course other great languages that support it. Try to avoid languages that had OO or object based support added on after the fact. Here is a language comparison
# Read the book Design Patterns to learn the power of objects.
# Read Martin Fowler’s intro to UML. I don’t think that UML is the greatest, but this book is good way to think more OO and I think Martin Fowler is great.
# Have fun!

See more progress on: learn object oriented programming

Everyone is doing it!

2005-07-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

I was a vegetarian for a year and loved it. I got very familiar with out local organic food store and tried lots of foods that I would not have otherwise. You would think that you are very limited as a vegetarian, but really you aren’t.

If you do it, I would recommend:

Eating organic produce when you can – Not because it is good for you or better for the planet. Because it tastes so much better!

Explore new foods – I found that I really did like tofu and that I just had not had it prepared correctly.

Check out the Moosewood series of cookbooks from the library; They are awesome!

Splurge on items at the local organic food store occationally – A realt reat especially if you feel limited in your food options. I used to get the fresh kim chi, gourmet ginger beer and baked pressed tofu.

Visit local vegetarian restaurants – even if you don’t go vegetarian, they are tasty stuff!

Try Veat – If it is still around. I think it’s related to soylent green. No seriously it is just like meat in stir fry.

I still don’t eat as much meat as I used to, but do eat meat again. I acutally miss it sometimes. Why did I stop? I couldn’t resist the double double with cheese from In and Out Burger.

See more progress on: try vegetarianism

4 Days on Rails

2005-07-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

I wish I would have read 4 Days on Rails after the Onlamp tutorial. It is a great intro and really lets you know what is going on with scaffolding anf RoR.

See more progress on: learn ruby on rails

Ready set... ummmm

2005-07-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

So I’m starting to learn Japanese and it seems a bit daunting. I’m not sure what would be the best way for me to learn. I don’t have any friends that speak Japanese, though my wife wants to learn it as well. I’ve found some web resources including a site that helps you learn Hiragana I have also checked out a book and a language course from the library. The language course (Living Language Series) seems pretty good and I have started reading the lessons and listening to the CDs. I’ve also picked up Japanese in 10 Minutes a Day which I figure is not a great tool, but may give me a jump start on the basics. The problem is that a lot of the material (other than the website) seems to be very much geared toward americans and uses the Romanji alphabet which seems like extra work. Why would I want to learn a non language to learn Japanaese? Is Hiragana any better? Katakana? Kanji? I want to learn to read and write it, but should I focus on speaking it first? Even though I don’t know anyone who does?

Things for me to ponder. I think for now I won’t worry about it too much and go with what seems fun and easy and go from there. Maybe I can make a better decision once I know more.

See more progress on: Learn Japanese

Casshern

2005-07-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

10 stars – It is rare that I see two great movies back to back like this. Casshern, directed by Kazuaki Kiriya, was a movie that I stumbled upon the trailer. It was in Japanese, but was so visually stunning that I wanted to get it anyway. I found it on eBay and purchased it for around $10. In anycase, it was an amazingly complex, artistic anti-war movie that was very timely addressing such issues as the war on terror and stem cells. It was highly stylized, but this did not detract from the movie in fact it added to the impact. In fact in the action scene I was amazed at how well the director blended real footage with a manga feel. This was truly and amazing find and an amazing movie.

See more progress on: review movies I watch this year

Shi mian mai fu

2005-07-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

10 stars – Shi mian mai fu or The House of Flying Daggers was a masterpiece of Asian Cinema.

I rented this particular movie because it was:

A cool looking movie.

Directed by Yimou Zhang.

Named for flying daggers, which is cool.
It came through on all three and was a beautiful movie with lots of all that you could want; color, martial arts, beauty and plot.

I have now seen two movies by Yimou Zhang (Flying Daggers, Hero) and have been blown away by the beauty and sadness of them both. I look forward to watching more from this director.

See more progress on: review movies I watch this year

4th of July, etc.

2005-07-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

With holidays and everything, my cookbook project is going better than my work project. Last night and this afternoon I completed the add recipe “wizard” which basically consists of 4 steps:

Create recipe with basics such as name and basic description, category

Create a list of ingredients, amounts etc. Ingredients are stored in their own table so the ingredients_recipes table is really the crux of the project. I want to be able to enter my recipes and then query the database and say show all recipies with ingredients X and Y. Or All recipes with this combonation of flavors. I hope that this will reveal something interesting and is really the driving force here. Otherwise why use RoR, MYSql and a web browser to write a cookbook on a single machine.

Create a list of instructions to complete the recipe.

Finalize the recipe with a header footer, etc.

Now I need to make all my edits and deletes work. I hope to make this easy to use so I don’t regret using this instead of OpenOffice.

See more progress on: learn ruby on rails

Manga girls are easier to draw

2005-07-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Maybe the experience of one drawing helped, of maybe girls are just easier to draw. In either case here is my second original manga drawing.

See more progress on: draw manga

Ok I tried drawing Manga

2005-07-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

I looked thorough the How to books I bought my daughter and tried a couple of their samples. Then I wanted to try my own image. I discovered a few things when I tried to draw it:

It is not that hard to draw manga.

It is hard to draw cool manga.

It’s hard to draw a guy in form fitting clothing and not make him look like a girl or a porn star.

I need more practice.

See more progress on: draw manga

Use GMail as a personal organizer

2005-07-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

GMail offers an extremely powerful system of filtering e-mail messages. By using a combination of GMail tags and filters, you can create an extremely useful personal organizer system right in your inbox.

read more | digg story

CHEESE NINJA BUSTS FOX AFFILIATE

2005-07-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

From newsbreakers.org (video available) - "A mysterious ninja crept into a live television broadcast, whizzing processed cheese toward a news team and quietly tiptoeing through their report." This must be a true netninja master.

Learning Farsi

2005-07-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

Although I have spent my life in the United States, my mom’s side of the family is Persian. They have always wanted me to speak Persian with them but I have never spent the time to learn it. I would like to, but it seems like such an overwhelming task. If nothing else I would like to be able to speak (or write) farsi with my grandfather, while I still can.

See more progress on: Learn: Farsi

I'm looking for.....

2005-07-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

This is hilarious. A couple of guys, an airport and a few extra viewings of te Simpsons and what do you get? Stupid intercom tricks. Hilarious!

Ruby on Rails, awesome web framework or dangerous drug?

2005-06-26T00:32:00.000-07:00

Rantings of a tired programmer

I have been working with Ruby on Rails for about a week now and I think that it is becoming somewhat of an obsession. It is the perfect showcase for what I am finding to be a superb scripting language, Ruby. I am amazed that I am able to throw together all that I have with a scripting language. Ruby on Rails will use scripts to create frameworks for a script based webserver to interpret files containing other bits of scripts to all come together and just work. But that is not all that I am excited about. Oh no there is much more.

As I have mentioned before, I have a project at work and one at home, both of which are Ruby on Rails. Having a work project and a home project is interesting for a number of reasons.

It majorly ups the immersion factor. I’m not able to pick up the Pickaxe at the moment, but want to push forward on this anyway. luckily there are a good number of resources out there for folks like me to learn from. Using these resources I have been able to piece together a basic knowledge of how this all works. I think my family thinks I’ve gone a little but nuts and perhaps I have, but its nice to find a technology that is such a pleasure to use.

OS wars in action. While RoR is taking on ASP.NET and Microsoft on one front, my journey into Ruby and RoR madness is really showing how open source software really shines. As I said before I am working with RoR at work and at home. The environments are quite different. RoR shines on both.

At work I have:

Windows XP Pro.

A separate database server with SQL Server installed.

A fairly powerful PC with a P4 something or other.

Internet Explorer.

My personal touch, UltraEdit32

At home I have

Linux

MySQL running on my localhost.

An old PC that was only saved from a horrible death by installing Linux.

Firefox.

A variety of text editors including VI, Emacs and Kate.

Surprisingly (or not) I prefer working on my home PC. I am not new to Linux, but would still consider myself a n00b. I’ve tried out a few flavors in the past but have never stuck with it until now. One major barrier was the text editor. I’ve been perfectly happy with UltraEdit and was only beginning to be on friendly terms with Emacs. Vi is something I still have nightmares about and will not use with the lights off. Yesterday I was editing a controller and was pissed that my old standby Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V does not work in Emacs and decided to see what other text editors I might have available to me. That is when I found Kate (KDE) and my Linux experience was once again happy. I could use all the keyboard shortcuts I already knew have syntax highlighting, everything else I could want. So it’s not Vi or Emacs; I don’t care because I am able to edit my text files again. In an interesting, yet odd, reversal in what I am used to, I am now typing ls at the Windows command prompt at work. So maybe there is hope for me becoming a Linux guru yet. :)

Back to RoR. One of the things I am really enjoing is that you can place up the scaffolding and then pick a spot and start working on it. Try it, if you don’t like it change it. Add pieces, remove pieces, flip it around. It allows you to really start tweaking it right away, and since it involves so few lines of code to do, if you hate it you can always rip it out and start over. That is something you rarely have the flexibility to do with more traditional frameworks.

My home project is a buffed up cookbook editor. I suppose I could have chosen many other ways of doing this. A document editor being one of the more traditional, but I wanted to use RoR for a few reasons.

I want to learn it.

It allows quick development.

I like databases.

I want greater control over my cookbook

I want to make something different and hope to do so by creating my own tools.

My three biggest challenges are:

Ease of use – This is supposed to make things easier, not more difficult.

Spell checking, etc – Web browsers don’t have built in spelling or grammer checking and are gnerally editing unfriendly.

Output – This one I think will be easier since it will bsically be like generating a report.

That is beside fact that I will be administering a MySQL database for the first time, using a web based technology and web browser as personal cookbook editing software and am still somewhat of a Linux n00b. To that I say, “I have what is most important to a programmer, an interest, a project and a challange.”

Speaking of challanges, my work project is basically a challange to implement functionality a co-worker would otherwise need to do in ASP.NET. If I can do it quickly in RoR I think he will support me in turning the project from ASP.NET to RoR. I think I can do it.

Many thanks to my family for their patience with me. I will update as this evolves. Goodnight

See more progress on: learn ruby on rails

Created tables

2005-06-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

Well I created the tables for my work project and I have set up most of the scaffolding. I need to do a little more before it displays foreign keys correctly. Still amazing how fast it is to get this started. I really like the scaffolding concept where you can set up the basics right away and then layer on more complexity. My work project has most of the tables and scaffolding set up as well. It is interesting to see the similarities and differences between these two projects as one is on Linux/MySQL and the other is XP Pro/SQL Server. Overall I’d say that both work equally well.

See more progress on: learn ruby on rails

TootieTails Rules!

2005-06-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

It picks up where 43Things left off and I can see how this will be a very interesting site when it goes into production. It is already. I really love the infinate level of granularity.

See more progress on: Help test Tootietails: the next new thing from The Robot Co-op

Currently doing two projects on Rails

2005-06-23T20:03:00.000-07:00

Funny, earlier today I looked jealously at bigsmoke’s post “Currently doing two projects in rails”. I was almost to the point where I had one personal project on Rails. Today at work, a team member challanged me to implement a project in Ruby on Rails by Tuesday. I took him up on it. Of course I realized afterward that the database is down for upgrades all weekend and Monday is my anniversary (and we have a babysitter!!, ok this is the real big story, but that is off topic) so I will not be working on it Saturday – Monday. I wonder if I can still pull it off. I am having fun in either case. ...and now I have two projects on Rails as well.

See more progress on: learn ruby on rails

ls vs. dir

2005-06-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I think I am starting to make the transition mentally to Linux. I still have to use XP Professional at work. Today I was learning Ruby on Rails so I was using the command prompt window and felt right at home. It was a bit irritating when I was in a directory and typed ls to see the contents of the directory and recieved an error from Windows. I remembered, “duh this isn’t Linux!”, which I think is the first time that has ever happened to me. I have had the opposite happen. Stupidly type a DOS command into Linux and receive an error, but never this. It seems stupid, but I was really proud of myself for changing my mindset. Maybe I will set up a couple .bat files for Linux commands I commonly use in Linux, so I won’t feel so out of place in Windows. :)

See more progress on: learn linux

Organization

2005-06-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

So many ways to organize cluttering my cluttered life. I’m trying Backpack At first I had no idea how it would be useful. It didn’t even have a calendar, how is it supposed to help? But today I acutally used it a couple times. Maybe tomorrow a couple more. I hope to find a way to integrate it with the Hipster PDA. That would be perfect. We will see what tomorrow brings.

See more progress on: Get organized

Completed rolling with Ruby on rails tutorial

2005-06-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

I’ve completed parts I and II of the Rolling with Ruby on Rails tutorial and now I am trying to sell it as a platform for my project. It is so elegant and simple it is amazing!

See more progress on: learn ruby on rails

trendalicious!

2005-06-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

I love del.icio.us but being a datageek wanted to know more about all of the data they are gathering. Well here is one way to look at it. It calls itself a "near real-time view of website popularity as reflected by the del.icio.us social bookmarking service. Three cheers for data geeks!

Content Rules

2005-06-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

So, the NetNinjas may not be the A list blog of the century, but I am trying my “post actual content” rule and it seems to be working. I recently posted my article about what language to learn when starting to program. I was happy with it and posted it on digg.com. It has now gotten 76 diggs and it shows up 6 times on Technorati.com. I am going to keep trying to restrict my posts to actual content and see where it goes from here.

See more progress on: Be a better blogger

Consultancy. Career path for inferior programmers?

2005-06-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

Since the burst of the dotcom bubble I don't think that anyone with a career in technology believes that things are the same. This article states that demand for coders is still on the decline and doesn't look to be changing anytime soon. One career path suggested (by this article) as an alternative for freshly graduated computer science students is consulting. This raised a couple red flags in my mind.

Newly graduated computer science, MIS or other candidates for programming positions tend to lack the ability to code actual applications. This is not to say that they are stupid, just that it takes a certain level of experience to design good production code. They haven't learned the lessons from their mistakes. They don't know that horrible sinking feeling when you realize the that bug that just brought the system crashing down was your fault. They have not suffered through hours of frustration fixing poor design caused by ignoring the principles of object oriented design. If you need examples, please visit The Daily WTF, better yet visit it anyway. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cry again.
Consultants are in it for the short term.
- If they are writing code, it will most likely be poor quality. After all, they are not going to have to live with it. They just need to demo it to prove it works and collect their paycheck. After all what incentive do they have? Any time spent in support is on the clock as well.
- If they are not writing code they will try to sell you a cookie cutter template "best practices" approach that may or may not be good for your business.
Note: Some consultants such as Martin Fowler, and I'm sure many, many others, have all of my respect. I do not wish to tarnish your good name. I am not speaking about you. You work hard and are far smarter than I could ever hope to be. However, I would not consider the bulk of technical consultants in this category.

It was always my opinion that consultants should be experienced and able to give trustworthy advice to people who are willing to pay large amounts for money it. If this article is correct, these are not the consultants of the future. The consultants of the future are simply unseasoned temp workers.

CASSHERN

2005-06-19T15:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not really sure what this movie is about since the trailer is not in English, but I would really like to see it.

Installed Ruby on Rails @ home

2005-06-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well I first installed Ruby on rails on my work PC which is Windows XP Pro. I am working on a project and would like to use Ruby on Rails. I have now installed Ruby on Rails on my Linux box at home and am excited start using it.

See more progress on: learn ruby on rails

Learning to cook

2005-06-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

Like anything else, this is never really done. It is a process that goes on and on. However based on the reactions of the people around me, I would say that I have learned to cook. I’m not sure exactly where the line was that I went from not being able to cook to being able to cook. My parents tell me that the first thin I learned to cook was from my dad. When I was young, I don’t know between 5-7, my dad would make pancakes for breakfast. he wouldn’t just make panacakes he would break out two cast iron griddles and start the ritual of pancake making.
As a child, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. I was a large only child, and we had no TV at the time, so when I wasn’t in my room playing I was usually in the kitchen with my parents. It was a social thing. Of course I was interested in this pancake ritual so I was did my best to get in my dads way while he did this. He, being a dad, realized that I wanted to be involved and over a few weekends I learned how he made the pancake batter from Bisquick. I still didn’t understand the magic or the ritual. How he turned the cream colored goo into yummy pancakes.
After a while he let me start flipping the pancakes and over time I was able to keep both griddles going, much to the shock and surprise of my Mom.
I wouldn’t say that is where I learned to cook, maybe it was were I started my interest in cooking. A few years later I mastered blueberry muffins and then when I was in High School I got a job washing dishes in an Italian restraunt. Over time I was promoted to line chef and then prep chef. Here I learned two things.

There are flavor themes (flavors that go together) and ones that don’t. For instance chicken, oregano, lemon and garlic go very well together. So if you are making something with chicken you would want to consider these other ingredients as well.

Don’t be afraid to try new things. The restraunt where I worked served a clam sauce and a Mizithra pasta. Both of which I liked and neither of which I would have thought I would have liked.

In any case my best advice is:

Start with the easy stuff.

Always be ready to learn. I find watching a couple hours of food network a week keeps me going. I especially enjoy Alton Brown.

Try new foods and then look up the recipies. Even if you don’t make the recipe, if you start looking at the ingredients you will see flavor themes in the ingredients.

Have fun

See more progress on: Learn to cook

The Sneeze - Half zine. Half blog. Half not good with fractions.

2005-06-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've made a commitment to stop or at least majorly restrict link posts, but this is to goog to pass up. This is a good example of the quality of blog I would like to live up to. It is called TheSneeze.com and is hilarious. Make sure you see series of "Steve, don't eat it!". posts they are funny. I don't share his aversion to breast milk, however I too "have been a huge fan of its packaging for years". Other things he eats include things like potted meat and Beggin' Strips. Ponder!

-- Also, it's off topic, but Blogger's spell checker didn't know the word blog. We will need to consult the ancient masters on this one.

Two days in a row!

2005-06-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

For the second day in a row I actually posted real content to my blog. Funny I am actually content in my blogging and don’t need to continue. Maybe all of the time I’ve spent surfing the net has been a kind of procesed junk food and I have now found a way to satisfy the craving with something healthy. We’ll see :)

See more progress on: Be a better blogger

Wired interview with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco

2005-06-18T15:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a great article with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. I have been a big fan of his music for a long time and I think that it is fitting that he come out with such scathing remarks about the recording industries' pursuit of people sharing music.

Back in 1993, when I was in college, a friend of mine shared some music with me. Now I had no idea what an mp3 was, I don't think that they existed at the time. We did it the old fashioned way. He put his shiny store bought CD into the stereo and I gave him a cassette tape to record on. He had wanted to expose me to some of the music that he listened to since the bands he liked were not generally heard on the radio. He put together a great tape for me. One that I wish I still had today. On it were such bands as The Pouges, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, etc. The first 4-5 songs on the tape were by a band that I had never heard of called Uncle Tupelo. I remember him telling me that I might think they were country, but they were cool anyway so he wanted me to listen to them. I hate country, but I figured I was getting free music and so I could give it a try.

I believe that the songs were Gun, Blackeye and Fall down(?). There were a couple more that I don't remember. In any case, my point is that I would never have bought these songs, but because I was given them for free. I listened to them... and loved them. In fact I spent the next couple years looking for them while I was in record stores. Of course few record stores carried them since they were not on the radio, but I found them. After some time, I found and bought all of the Uncle Tupelo studio albums. When they split up into Wilco and Son Volt I bought two of each of those as well. In the end, I spent over $100 on CDs because I was given music for free.

A great quote from this interview is "Treating your audience like thieves is absurd .... People who look at music as commerce don't understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property. I'm not interested in selling pieces of plastic. "

I think that free music is cutting into the profits of the music industry, there is no question about that. I also think that people are finding out about music they wouldn't have bought.

In most industries, when consumers stop buying their product, they improve it, create a new product, or go out of business. In other words they adapt to survive. Today's music industry's product is music, it has been relatively the same for say 50 years. MP3s came along and changed the system of music distribution and now the music industry is persecuting its top consumers.

The music industry is persecuting its top consumers because they told the music industry, "I kinda like this group, but I don't want to spend $15 on this song. I don't need to pay for all this packaging and distribution, I have found a way to get it for free. Sure I still like your products, but I think you are now outdated and need to improve. Oh, and what is with the boy bands and Spice Girls? Give me a product worth buying and I'll buy it. This format is outdated. I don't hate you, I just want to say wow again. You know, like I used to."

Espanol

2005-06-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

I took 2 years of Spanish in high school and was not very good at it. After that I learned some more at my job, but that was over 10 years ago. Now my kids are learning Spanish from Dora and I would like to be able to learn it again. The problem is that I don’t have a lot if time to devote to it with my other things. I could spend say 10 minutes a day but even then I’m not sure what the most effective method would be. Any ideas are welcome. Thanks!

See more progress on: Learn Spanish

50 books in 2005

2005-06-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

Well I’ve set a goal to read 50 books in 2005 I know that I have read some already but it is mid-year so I need to get in gear.
Books I know I have read so far this year are:

Pattern Recognition

Star Wars:New Jedi Order:Dark Journey

Star Wars:New Jedi Order:Rebel Dream

Star Wars:New Jedi Order:Rebel Stand

Mona Lisa Overdrive

In the Beginning was the Command Line

Otherland:Mountain of Black Glass

Otherland:Sea of Silver Light

American Gods

Neverwhere

I’ve probably read more, but I can’t think of any at the moment.

See more progress on: Read 50 books in 2005

How To Say No

2005-06-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

Learning how to say no can be hard, but it's something that I feel can really help you be more productive, reduce stress and do a better job with the things you do say yes to.

read more | digg story

Scrapshells.com - Free UNIX Shell Accounts

2005-06-17T14:45:00.000-07:00

Scrapshells.com is offering free UNIX shell accounts to those that would not otherwise be able to have one. An interesting idea. Perhaps I will have to sign up for one.

read more | digg story

Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out - By NEAL STEPHENSON

2005-06-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

Neal has written an opinion column for the New York Times comparing both the new and old Star Wars movies and Geeking out vs. Veging out. A great read as usual. Neal makes me proud to be a geek.

What language is best to start a career in programming?

2005-06-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked for advice on how to get started in a career in programming, I found that I had a lot to say and that it is not a simple question.

As far as what is the best language goes, it really depends on what you want to do and where you want to do it. I would say that the powerhouse language is, and has been for a very long time, C++. It is fast, widely used and very powerful. Is it the best language for you? Well that depends. C++ programmers can make a wide variety of things but the tend to make things on the hardcore application/operating system side of things. Is that what you want to do? And BTW if you are seriously, or not so seriously, considering programming as a career (or hobby) I highly recommend "The Pragmatic Programmer" by Andrew Hunt and Dave Thomas. It is an older (in the tech world) book, but the information is invaluable, it is easy to read and it will help you improve and enjoy your code. Here are a couple questions to ask yourself, they may seem obvious, but I have found them to be important and wish someone had made me ask them when starting out.

What type of programs do I want to write? - There are many many types of programs out there including games, operating systems, drivers, web applications, databases, productivity tools, etc. And there is a market for all of them, however coding drivers is more difficult and specialized and has a smaller market than writing business applications.
Where do I want to live? - This may seem like a silly question right now but think about it. When you get a career going you will be in demand by employers (if things keep improving in the tech field). The language(s) you know and the types of applications you write are in higher demand in different areas of the country. For instance Microsoft is in Redmond and a lot of Seattle companies use Microsoft products. Sun is in the Bay Area and Java is used more often there. If you are an OS coder you will most likely want to live in Redmond or go open source. Something to think about.
What is in high demand/Who am I working for? - Are you simply wanting to be a programmer and work for the company that treats and pays you well or do you have other ideals in mind. Would you rule out working for Microsoft for personal reasons? Remember Microsoft treats its employees very well but also works them hard. If you are simply happy to work programming computers, you will want to find a niche that people are paying for.
What is important, elegance or end result? - A good language is not always a successful one. Successful languages are not always easy to use. Smalltalk was way ahead of its time but was not often used. Java has many nice features that make it easy to use and maintain but it is generally slower than poop. C++ is very powerful but allows you to make some huge mistakes. Ruby (my current pet language) is not the most popular language for what it does, but has a strong community around it. You might call it a cult language. Visual Basic is easy to learn and highly supported and is integrated into nearly every Microsoft product (very useful) but is lacking in nearly other area.
Do I want to support a specific operating system? - Languages such as Java are truly cross platform. C has compilers for almost any computer and can be ported to which ever. You are not going to find VB on a Linux box. Of course there is always the web where the language is JavaScript on the client side and wide open on the server side.
SQL? - SQL is a language I use every day because I use databases. It is quite different from other languages however if you were a DBA you would have to know it. Most applications have to store their information somewhere and SQL is the language that is done with.
Status? - No matter what type of programmer you are someone will thing they are better than you simply because you use language X and create Y type of programs. Does this matter to you? What about your audience? Do you want it to be large or small? Are you wanting to run a small company or be part of a bigger one? All of these things will affect your status. Personally, I've worked in environments where I've been looked down on because I was on the low end of the coding scale and where I was the only techie person around. They both had advantages and disadvantages. When you are on the low end of the skill scale people can point you in the right direction so you can learn quickly. When you are the local code god it gets very lonely.
What experience do I have? - Apply what you already know.

I'm sure you were looking to think about all this, just asking a simple question. I do think that these questions are important when planning a career in technology.

Here are a few lists to give you somewhere to go from here:

Languages I know

Visual Basic (Including VBScript, VBA)
Java
SQL
Powerbuilder

Languges I have used

Visual Basic (Including VBScript, VBA)
Java
SQL
Powerbuilder
C++
Perl
Ruby
AWK
BASIC
ADA
Assembly
Delphi
Javascript

Languages I would recommend to someone wanting to be a programmer

Visual Basic - A decent beginner language and the brunt of the coding world will get you a sense of accomplishment when you see your code run. It is widely used and the glue of the Microsoft world. It is used widely and with .NET is the same code underneath as more sophisticated languages like C#.
Ruby - As I said this is my current interest. An amazing elegant language. Though you will want to know another language as well to find work.SQL - You won't code any applications with it, but if you are using databases you must know it.
C++ - Much of the world runs on C++. In fact most of the software you are running right now was most likely written in it.
JavaScript - If you are doing any client side web programming you need this.
Java - This is an excellent introduction into programming for the simple reason that it supports good application design which is very important.

Other things you should know about

XML
CSS
HTML
Object Oriented Code
N-Tier Applications
Databases
Refactoring
Unit Testing
Design Patterns
UML

Books you should read early in your career - I love tech books, read as many as you can.

Pragmatic Programmer - Andy Hunt / Dave Thomas
Design Patterns - Gang of Four (Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides)
Refactoring - Martin Fowler

Well there it is. My biggest piece of advice is keep learning, don't settle on one language or technology. There are many web resources that can keep you in the loop such as slashdot.org, msdn.com, oreilly.com and google.com

There is also a good essay on being a programmer here.

TiddlyWiki

2005-06-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

Here is a neat little non-linear note takeing/documentation device base on Wiki. The nice thing about this one is that it is entirely contained within an html file and it is open source. I have used this twice now to quickly generate documentation and I love it!

Computers - the bane of stupid people's existence

2005-06-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

This is a great title. Ponder it, then go to the link nd read stories of one poor workers hell. You guessed it. Working with fools.

A.P. Lawrence's Linux Skills Test

2005-06-15T17:12:00.000-07:00

These questions are intended to test your NetNinja knowledge, but they are also intended to help you learn more about Linux by examples and just by making you aware of things you might not have known about.

read more | digg story

An Interview with Linus Torvalds - Part 1

2005-06-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

Linus lives in this Portland neighborhood so locals sent him an email and asked for an interview. So what happens when Linus Torvalds sits down with a high school freshman for an interview? You get to hear what every 15 year-old wants to know about our favorite open source software developer.

read more | digg story

Cinelerra - Free Linux Video editing program

2005-06-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

Cinelerra is a powerful video editing for Linux. Unlike most of the Linux solutions out there, Cinelerra requires no emulation of proprietary operating systems, no commercial add-ons, no banner advertisements, no corporate dependencies. Best of all it's FREE!

read more | digg story

Run Linux on your Microsoft Router

2005-06-15T14:09:00.000-07:00

Run Linux on the Microsoft MN-700. These things are only like $30 on eBay pick one up and have something comparable to the Linksys WRT54G after this hack. This is one of the more interesting hacks I've seen recently for the sheer pleasure for improving a Microsoft product by removing it's Microsoftness.

read more | digg story

Star Wars Origami

2005-06-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

The NetNinjas have discovered the final frontier of geekdom. Well I don't want to call it geekdom since that might associate me with it. It takes two things that in themselves have nothing wrong with them and bonds them together in an unhold matrimony of fear and suffering. These pieces of paper do lead to the dark side. Behold, but do not ponder, Star Wars Origami.

read more | digg story

NetNinjas ancient texts uncovered

2005-06-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

Today the ancient texts of the NetNinjas have been uncovered. These secret writings have been re-discovered on the next. They will be passed on to future generations of netizens and carried into the tomes of the future! Ponder them carefully.

NetNinjas Blog celebrates 3rd day!

2005-06-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

The NetNinjas, Moose, Squirrel and Ancient Masters celebrated their 3rd day in the new blog format. Even Ancient Master Jeff stopped by to sign on. The pondering was complete and and day continued.

In the beginning was the command line

2005-06-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I am a little behind on the times. This essay was written by Neal Stephenson in 1999. That was before Y2K generated lots of work and then fizzled. It was before the .com bubble burst. In fact it was nearing the height of the phenomenon. I didn't read it then. I read it now. Had I read it then I wouldn't have had a blog to write about it in. I wouldn't have known that this version of it is a wiki formatted version though I found the WikiWikiWeb shortly after this was written. I wouldn't have posted to a newsgroup about it, though I would have emailed a few friends.

I like Neal Stephenson's work. I have read and loved Cryptonomicon and Zodiac but hadn't gotten around to reading any of his other books. This was partly because I have a lot of other things to do, partly because I read books by other authors as well and partly because part of me is inherantly lazy and would rather sit around an play XBOX.

In any case this is a wonderfull essay. He reveals his true geek colors seen in Cryptonomicon and applies wonderful writing style toward his explanation of why Windows dominates an operating system market and is not the "best", no "best" is too subjective. Windows is not technologically, artisticly or in any other way superior to other operating systems. It is however far more common. Stephenson delves into the human psyche and comes up with reasons that this happened and continues to happen.

He also comes to the conclusion that charging money for an operating system will eventually turn Microsoft into Apple. Viva Morlocks!

Neuromancer's Predictions, 21 Years Later

2005-06-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

Ted Wallingford looks back at the classic book that started cyberpunk and draws paralells to where the internet is today. If you read the book this is interesting, if you didn't, what have you been doing?

Swarm Intelligence: An Interview with Eric Bonabeau

2005-06-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

Swarm Intelligence: An Interview with Eric Bonabeau by Derrick Story -- The concept of swarm intelligence is borrowed from nature, and in this interview with Eric Bonabeau, that's where the conversation begins--with ants and other social insects. Dr. Bonabeau takes us from his childhood nightmares of carnivorous wasps to applying the theories of swarm intelligence to solving real problems in the business world.

I found this to ba a facinating article and a new way of looking at sovling large problems. Ponder!

Traffic Comparison: Digg vs. Slashdot

2005-06-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

The NetNinjas! prefer and officially endorse /. but have been frequent users of digg as well. As far as we are concerned, use Slashdot and if you have any time left use Digg.

read more | digg story

Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide

2005-06-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

The NetNinjas! want to learn a new tool. Moose and Squirrel show ways of the new ancient masters in Ruby. The object-oriented scripting language from Japan. Here is the book about Ruby from the authors of the Pragmatic Programmer (one of the best programming books ever). Ponder! (If you are into that sort of thing)

NetNinja! Productivity

2005-06-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

The NetNinjas! have studied the ancient masters and know the ways of time management. Here is the ABCDE method of organization and productivity. Ponder!

Fifty Writing Tools

2005-06-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

Looking for tips to be a better blogger/writer. Here they are:

1) Use the word NetNinjas! in every sentence.
2) Claim to know more and see all!
3) Ponder the Moose and Squirrel frequently.
4) Follow the link.

read more | digg story

Firefox fans too frumpy for Beautifulpeople.net

2005-06-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Elitist online dating website Beautifulpeople.net is excluding Firefox users. Alternative browser users report being given the cold shoulder by the site, which prides itself on only allowing pretty people (as voted by its existing members) to join. LMAO! This is hilarious. I have been banned from beautifulpeople.net for my choice of web browser. Funny I never heard of the site or cared to. Some people are soooo full of themselves, perhaps they should be targeted by the NetNinjas! The moose and squirrel will show them the way to true beauty.

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NetNinjas vs. NetNinja

2005-06-12T01:46:00.000-07:00

The moose and squirrel have spoken. The way of the Netninjas is clear. This blog is far newer and superior to the page planted to confuse and mislead the people. They knew. I know and now so do you that netninja.blogspot.com is technologically inferior to this site. This site is http://NetNinjas.blogspot.com. Why is it better? There are more NetNinjas! Of course. Why settle for old Netninja, when you can have fresh NetNinjas! The path to enligtenment is clear. Behold the Ancient Masters.

Linux Newbie Administrator Guide

2005-06-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

The Linux Newbie Administrator Guide is "A complete reference for new Linux users who wish to set up and administer their own Linux home computer, workstation and/or their home or small office network." I am now a few weeks into a Windows free home and loving it. I have a great new geek toy and my Duron 700 Mhz has a new crash free life as a web browsing / email PC. What could be better! Sure it is daunting to take on Linux head to head if you have been DOS/Windows but this site can help.

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Giant balls of 'snot'

2005-06-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

I think that it is great that scientists spend thousands of dollars to send an ROV to the ocean floor to collect snot. Maybe they could save some money and make really small ROVs that they could place in their noses to harvest it. Blech!

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The Daily WTF

2005-06-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

This is one of the best sites that I have stumbled across in a while. These examples are humorous and yet they are so true as I have found similar examples myself. Occationally in my own work. Sometimes they are the result of changes to code that weren't thoroughly thought out. If instance you split a section of code into two because of reason x (a small modification, debug, whatever because you are on a tight schedule). Later you come back and modify the copied code to look like the first. The end result is the same code twice right next to itself. Other times it is just plain user stupidity. In either case I really enjoyed this site and added the RSS feed to my Thunderbird.

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FutureMe

2005-06-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

The NetNinjas see all that will be. The NetNinjas know not why you would email yourself unless it is to remind you of a special event. Isn't that what calendars are for? I think that this is an interesting idea, but going to a site to email yourself in the future is like going to the local supermarket and handing the checker a letter to mail to you in 2010.

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The NetNinjas!

2005-06-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

THe NetNinjas! are back to recover lost cyberspace... Ponder the moose and squirrel and be one with the mouse.