Beginning CakePHP book – From novice to professional

March 2nd, 2008 1 comment »

Finally we’ll see a fresh new book from Apress written by David Golding.

Beginning CakePHP: From Novice to Professional is the brand new book about this fabulous framework. Finally a great addition to the not-so user friendly documentation.

The author says:

After poring over the online documentation, I realized there wasn’t much by way of an introduction to Cake. Most of the available resources require some sort of prior knowledge of web development to get a grasp on how to install and work in Cake. If you’re like me, you probably just want a handful of tutorials with code samples from square one that can get you up and running quickly and lead you in the right direction for more advanced techniques.

Furthermore, when asking a question on forums or chat rooms, many newbies get little help from the experts. Simple questions can get a response like, “Well, just read the online manual and API.” Sometimes we newbies need a very simple approach to the software, and this guide will do just that. We’ll start with installing Cake on a server and a localhost, what it all means, and provide some detailed code samples and visual snapshots to walk you through. By the end of the book, you ought to have a solid-enough foundation to give other advanced features a try on your own.

This manual is really welcome and I’m looking forward to get a copy of it. You can grab a couple of sample chapters at the author’s site.

Are plants the answer to indoor air pollution?

February 29th, 2008 No comments »

I came across a NASA study that shows how common plants help reduce indoor air pollution. That was pretty cool so I rushed out and bought 3 small plants for about 25$. They look cool on my desk and near the windows. Now I feel less “unnatural” and a bit more relaxed while I sit by the computer. But do they really filter out toxins, pollutants and carbon dioxide in your house or office?

The NASA Clean Air Study has been led by the NASA in association with the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA). Its results suggest that certain common indoor plants may provide a natural way of removing toxic agents such as benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene from the air, helping neutralize the effects of sick building syndrome.

Cool! But then I came across this article: Can House Plants Solve Indoor Air Quality Problems?. Sad but true John R. Girman (Chief of the Analysis Branch at EPA’s Indoor Air Division) has prepared a memo that details some shortcomings of the NASA study’s claims for the efficacy of plants. Girman’s memo responds to some of the technical issues presented by Snyder and other advocates of IAQ control with house plants.

The memo’s title is “Comment on the Use of Plants as a Means to Control Indoor Air Pollution”. Girman analyzes the notion that NASA research shows plants are effective at removing indoor air pollutants at realistic concentrations and time frames. He calculates that at the most favorable conditions, it would take 680 plants in a typical house to achieve the same pollutant removal rate Wolverton and his colleagues reported they achieved in the test chamber.

Final results are still unknown but one thing is for sure: plants are great for decoration and relaxation. I’ll get even more of them.

Beware what you write online

February 26th, 2008 No comments »

With the advent of personal sites, forums, blogs, podcasts and videocasts, we’re all exposed. What we write (so, eventually, what we think) remains. What we film and record, stays there. We are constantly leaving traces and thoughts behind us.

Almost every big company nowadays “googles” the name of the possible employee before an hire. Have you ever googled someone? I did.

There are people out there who lost their job because they “left something written online”. In 2002, Heather Armstrong ignited a fierce debate about privacy issues when she was fired from her job as a web designer and graphic artist because she had written satirical accounts of her experiences at a dot-com startup on her weblog, dooce.com.

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We leave comments, forum threads, posts, videos. We leave entire pieces of ourselves online. Beware associating your name with what you leave behind you.

The Internet Archive is one of my favorite example: they store and entire site history (check out the Google 1998 page… terrific!).

Personally, I did not like the idea of having my site mirrored with all the old styles, information and layout of this domain. There have been times when I used flipthedolphin.com as a personal homepage with very poor layout and information inside. So I decided to block the internet archive from storing copies of it. It worked and now I’m pretty fine with it.

You should also be aware of what others write about you. Interestingly I have found two articles about Online Reputation.

It’s an interesting reading. If you have a blog or a website, check them out. And remember: never write something you would never say personally.

Jerry Speaks. Still no Microsoft – Yahoo!

February 6th, 2008 No comments »

from the Silicon Alley Insider.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang wisely emerged from his bunker today, updating Yahoo’s worldwide workforce about the Microsoft offer via an email message and patting them all on the head.

…as we’ve said, no decisions have been made about microsoft’s proposal. our board is thoughtfully evaluating a wide range of potential strategic alternatives in what is a complex and evolving landscape. and we’ve hired top advisors to assist through the process.

Meanwhile, the value of Microsoft’s buyout offer is dropping, which will actually make it more easy to rebuff.

Follow this on the Silicon Alley Insider.

What’s going on with my wordpress theme?

January 13th, 2008 No comments »

I’ve changed wordpress theme. Right now I’m using Sandbox 1.2 which is a semantically rich and meaningful theme.

The Sandbox is a theme for themers. It has the ability to be easily skinned, so beginners will feel comfortable styling it since they only need to know CSS. More experienced designers will drool at the rich semantic markup and profusion of classes, dynamically generated by a few functions.

I’ve also downloaded the Blueprint CSS Framework and put the folder inside the Sandbox theme folder.

So what?
I’m going to create my own theme step by step, day by day. Adding, moving, customizing stuff and so on… I really don’t have a clear idea in my mind, right now, but things will be sorted out as I move on editing the layout of this site.

Keeping an eye on the “100 Excellent Free Wordpress Themes” post by Smashing Magazine, I’ll start writing down the features I want/need and the overall style I want to give to my theme.

I still don’t know if I’m going to release it to the public or not because probably I’ll keep using it on this site to get that “personal identity” on the web.

Entrepreneurship Links and Articles

December 11th, 2007 No comments »

2007 is coming to an end. Time to make up your mind about your own future. These articles will help you in the process.

“Quitting your job and going it alone is one of the biggest–and riskiest–decisions you’ll ever make. So I think it would be worthwhile to unpack some of the statistics on entrepreneurs.” – Thinking of starting a business? Know the risk

“Tough question. Certainly if you look at your neighbors with real wealth, you’ll see a lot of entrepreneurs: Half the families with a self-employed breadwinner claim a net worth greater than $336,000, and folks who make it big push the average for such families to more than $1 million. Then again, you could meet more than a few business owners in the waiting room at bankruptcy court. In between are lots of people hustling for every buck. Unless you get past that stage, you’ll likely make less than you do now, says William Gartner, who teaches entrepreneurship at Clemson University.” – Would you be better off as your own boss?

And here you are with some other interesting links:

How to destroy the Web 2.0 look

December 3rd, 2007 No comments »

There’s quite misunderstanding around the net on what web 2.0 really is. We really have to separate the “look and feel” of a website from its purposes. Indeed we should separate websites and services altogether. Web 2.0 has nothing to do with webdesign (take a look at del.icio.us or gmail, no “web 2.0 look” there).

Today we talk about the “design” part. What’s wrongly referenced as “the web 2.0 style” or the “without personality style”.

Elliot Jay Stocks extensively talks about this in his “destroy the web 2.0 look” presentation. He talked about this topic in the “Future of Web Design” speaking at New York, almost a month ago.

Snap2Object has an interesting post on this too with many pictures of common “non web 2.0″ graphic elements.

Obviously there is also an “Analysis of Web 2.0 Design & Layout Trends” at StyleIgnite. Take a look, you may find it interesting.