2006 was a great year for me. I got to experience working at a big web company, started blogging more often and took some interesting courses at school. I plan to keep up with that for the most part, but overall I will be taking it easy while working hard. There’s no need to overwork myself taking 6 classes. Continue Reading »

By now you are probably waiting for the final part of this web app series so you can actually begin putting something together from what you’ve learned in Part 1 and Part 2. I won’t disappoint you then. I wrote an example web app available for download at the end of this article. Continue Reading »

The day I’ve been waiting for has come. Media Temple has launched the next version of their dedicated-virtual server. I have been using a (dv) 2.0 for about a year now and can’t wait to start using the new version of Plesk that comes with the (dv) 3.0. I just got off the phone with (mt) and will be migrating asap so if you see any downtime for whatever reason that would be my bad.

In Part 1 of How To: Code Your First Web App, I covered the basics of setting up a MySQL database, connecting to it with PHP and then I introduced a few functions to create and manage users. At the end, I briefly went into setting up the header file which will be used with every file created from here on out. The next step is creating the main files that Continue Reading »

In some crazy blog meme, I’ve been tagged by Glenn and Ralph. So here goes… 5 things you didn’t know about Stammy. I won’t be tagging anyone as I find that these little memes get annoying, just as Mr. 1938 does. Continue Reading »

There’s a lengthy discussion going on at Lifehacker about software that their readers have purchased this year. In the spirit of that post, I decided I might as well chime in and list the applications I have paid for this year or am planning on purchasing next year. Continue Reading »

In its most basic form, a web application is typically comprised of multiple files utilizing PHP and MySQL technologies on a LAMP server. PHP provides a powerful means of carrying out your web application’s functions by way of server-side scripting while MySQL is used to store information in a database. In this series of posts I will be showing you how easy Continue Reading »

24ways.org, the amazingly helpful and interesting “web geek advent calendar” organized by Yahoo! employee Drew McClellan, has finished for 2006. The 24 article run began on December 1st of this year and ended today with Dan Cederholm’s article about gravity-defying page corners. Continue Reading »

It appears the Russian AllofMP3.com has been handed a hefty lawsuit by the RIAA “on behalf of EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music, and Warner Music.” The lawsuit somehow justifies a cost of $150,000 per song downloaded from the site since October 2006. AllofMP3 carries something like 11 million songs so CyberNetNews calculates that out to roughly $1.65 trillion. Continue Reading »

Pingdom is giving away a year of site monitoring service on their blog to anyone that signs up for Pingdom by 6am EST Saturday. They are giving away many accounts - “the equivalent of at least $60,000″ worth of service. I reviewed Pingdom last month and was very pleased with their interface and offerings.

Keeping in-line with last year’s successful Happy Holidays Contest, I introduce to you the second annual Happy Holidays Contest. I got a lot of great suggestions and comments with the last contest. Last year I gave away a year of free Media Temple hosting on their (ss) shared server. However, a lot of things have changed over at Media Temple since last year. Continue Reading »

Tech consulting has become a thriving industry for several key reasons. First off, there are many businesses devoid of any direction to establish an efficient workflow. It only takes a few steps for small businesses to effectively utilize currently available online technologies and services. Unfortunately, similar to SEO work, technical consulting can be very expensive - often too expensive for the startup or small business. This article aims to help you benefit from this gap and provide affordable technical consulting aid to small businesses. Continue Reading »

Opera 9.1 was released today and utilizes phishing information from PhishTank to provide real-time fraud protection. The new fraud protection goes beyond the anti-phishing capability introduced in earlier Opera releases. Check out the new features in 9.1 for yourself.

Cisco announced a new line of VoIP iPhones sold under their Linksys division. Yup, they’re stepping on Apple’s toes a bit but rightfully so as Cisco has owned the iPhone trademark for a while now. Apple fans have been awaiting an Apple “iPhone” of sorts for a long time but it seems like Linksys was able to deliver before they could. This leads me to conclude that when Apple releases their phone it will have a cheesy name like MacPhone.

SEOBook, a well-known site for all things search engine optimization, has recently published a comprehensive glossary. Their SEM glossary breaks down several hundred terms often used by those in the Search Engine Marketing know. In today’s review, I will be exploring this resource in more depth and figuring out Continue Reading »

Adobe Labs released the first Beta of Photoshop CS3, optimized for Intel processors, yesterday. I downloaded it as soon as I got settled in NYC and I must say I am loving the improvements. In addition to the tremendous speed gains, the interface is slightly tweaked and seems a lot more streamlined. There is also Continue Reading »

Microsoft has devoted months of research, testing, customer feedback, and refinements into their new homepage design. The focus of the new design was usability as many users had complained that the old design was difficult to nagivate, which I can agree with. The updated look also fits well with the upcoming Vista OS. WordPress.com also launched a new design.

Philips has recently added some spice to online trailers after a partnership launched with MSN. Philips and MSN unveiled a website showcasing trailers with Ambilight functionality. Philips is well-known for their Ambilight series of televisions that emit a halo of light behind the set according to the dominant colors on-screen, dramatically enhancing the viewing experience. Continue Reading »

My last final exam just wrapped up this afternoon and I’m finally starting to relax a bit. Finals went well, I think, so hopefully I made Dean’s list again. I’ve been doing some last minute holiday shopping online - Amazon has been having some great deals in their gold box and customers vote sections recently. The deals get updated at 3am EST so if you want to catch a deal you’ll need to stay up. I was able to snag a digicam for 53% off this morning. Continue Reading »

I love flickr. I really really do. No longer do I litter my hard drive with gigs and gigs of scattered photographs kept in folders all named some variation of 101MSDCF. I keep my 5,500+ photos easily accessible on flickr, organized with photo sets and abundant tags. So how can you add on to flickr’s greatness for a phenomenal gift for the flickrite in your social ring? You’re about to find out. Continue Reading »

DealNews has a comprehensive holiday shipping guide informing shoppers of shipping stats from various online stores - such as the last day they can get free shipping at Apple or Amazon. In addition, DealNews has a comprehensive gift ideas section. I have an upcoming post regarding more unique gift ideas so stay tuned.

MacHeist began selling their ridiculously underpriced bundle of OS X apps today. One-fourth of the money made from MacHeist goes to a charity of your choice.. and it seems like MacHeist will be helping out many charities this year. They have already made $10,000 for charities and it has only been half a day. Continue Reading »

Mac users rejoice! Release 0.8.6 of the VideoLAN client media player supports Windows Media Video 9, Flash video as well as improved H.264 decoding. This means you won’t have to rely on Flip4MAC for your WMV needs. The updates don’t just stop there either - there’s a handy Continue Reading »

I just finished my last blog post for Intel’s Blogger Challenge. The Intel Blogger Challenge started at the end of October and aimed to get the opinions of “rising stars in the blogosphere” on a number of issues. The last prompt was rather interesting, asking about my thoughts for the future of technology. I focused on the maturing of wireless technology and internet connectivity. Here’s an excerpt Continue Reading »

The Save the Internet blog reports that Congress has dismissed Senator Ted Stevens’ anti-net neutrality bill. The bill would have been one of many bills aimed at giving massive telecommunications corporations the ability to charge extra fees to guarantee that certain websites operate faster than others. That is, some sites might be excessively slow on purpose so the Continue Reading »

Low on cash but overflowing with mad technical know-how? Why not give your family and friends the Gift of Safe this holiday season? Gift of Safe is a holiday site created by OpenDNS encouraging people to try their great offerings that deliver a safer and faster web experience. They even have a few stories about people like me that want to protect loved ones online.

In the first real YouTube feature update since the Google buyout, YouTube has introduced the blog-worthy quick capture. In addition to the video toolbox that helps amateur ‘tubers improve their video recording skills, quick capture adds to YouTube’s convenience, letting users record directly from any camera connected to their computer - including iSights. Continue Reading »

I just wrapped up 2 final projects for my interaction design and information design courses today, taking a huge burden off of my shoulders. I figured I would show you what I’ve been working on at Georgia Tech. The final project for my interaction design class was a group project with 2 other students. We had the option of creating a multi-player game, multi-user interactive narrative or Continue Reading »

APC mag reports that Microsoft Office 2007 makes use of Microsoft Office Open XML Formats, however there is nothing “open” about these formats to Office for Mac users. As I blogged about back in April, Microsoft is making use of four character file extensions such as .docx, .pptx and .xlsx. It seems like Microsoft wants to spur an industry-wide movement to XML based formats.. but why not use the already established ODF, Open Document Format? Continue Reading »

December is here and the holidays are in clear sight. If you haven’t kick-started your holiday shopping on Black Friday, I’ll be sharing a few unique gifts you can pick up for the techie in your life. I tried to avoid obvious things like iPods, Tivos and Slingboxes. This post was spurred by a meme started by Devin about what 5 gifts I would like to receive myself - but that wouldn’t make for an interesting post considering it would include car things like Eibach Pro Kit springs and Maximum Motorsports Caster/Camber plates. Continue Reading »

Inc magazine has published an interesting conversation with Flickr co-founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield. They reminisce about the very beginning of Flickr, how they came up with the name and how they had originally planned on making a game. Flickr has grown into an amazing service and I feel lucky I got a chance to spend my days at Yahoo! working in the same bullpen as Caterina.

There’s some interesting discussion going on at Ronald Heft’s blog regarding the Parallels virtualization software. Parallels software has become very popular among Intel Mac users, letting them simultaneously run Windows. The latest Parallels beta has a spiffy Coherence mode that lets you run Window applications on your OS X desktop and not be confined to a little window. Ron talks about how Parallels has been working hard to add more Continue Reading »

Yes, I just made that term up but I bet there is already someone out there that goes by that title. From years of providing 24/7 tech support to family, extended family, friends and readers that email me, I’ve honed my support skills. Today I’d like to expand on an idea that has been tucked away in my mind for a long time. I Want to be a Celebrity Technology Consultant. I’m not talking about just e-celebs either. Continue Reading »

I found a great deal on a 10th Anniversary Mustang Cobra brake kit so I ordered it. The brakes are much larger than the 11-inch rotors on my 2002 Mustang GT’s stock brakes. The Cobra brakes have 13-inch Brembo rotors, much larger calipers as well as stainless steel brake lines that don’t expand under pressure. I wasn’t too familiar with working on brakes and bleeding the system but luckily my roommates are well established car heads. Check out the pictures in this photoset. Continue Reading »