Jackson's Blog

I just ordered a box from Dell so that I can install Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP on it. I think it’ll be a good investment because I think Linux is a very important OS to learn and get under your belt. Another reason why I want this box is because my current set up with GoDaddy requires for me to access my database via a web-based interface, which is very annoying because of the fact that there are page refreshes, slowness, and time outs.

I think this box is a good investment because it’ll one, increase my understanding of my developer environment, and two, give me quick and response test environment to work off of before deploying my code.

Although I find it sad that this new box cost only a fraction of the price of the PC I built back in 2002 and will perform far better than it, I’m looking forward to it.

Just when I thought was onto something, the project got shelved for another one of more importance. The importance isn’t based on how technical it is though, just in terms of priority to the company.

Yay… My new project is to play, I mean work, with the Google API 🙂

Today, I am to write a simple script to allow the data in one database to be migrated to another database. It doesn’t sound that bad. I’m sure other projects will soon follow.

So we encountered some security issues today, although there is little you can do against a person who is ultra determined to hack into your system, there are many things you can do to deter him. You can employ an account based restriction, ip address based restriction, browser based restriction, and many more other ways.

I think the best way to fight hackers is to learn how they’re hacking the system, and then prevent that method from working properly. Today’s hacker’s alert was brief, but I learned a lot. Now I’ll know what kind of things to keep in mind when designing secure code.

My boss wants me to replace the existing logic in our relativity system with his new logic. Looks like AJAX will have to wait once again.

So close, yet so far away. After hours of skimming through books at Borders, I’ve managed to find and purchase, in my opinion, a pretty decent AJAX book. Now I know what AJAX is. AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML. Basically, it is Javascript that pulls info from a server and updates the content of the webpage without a refresh. Without some sort of database or server, it’s just Javascript; and that (Javascript) I know.

 Unfortunately, AJAX is going to have to wait because I have switched back to a shelved project. I can’t wait to finish the shelved project though because playing with AJAX is going to be awesome. I’m going to spend some time either leafing through a PHP book on programming design patterns and structures, the AJAX book, or my website. Decisions, decisions.

AWESOME! I just updated my boss on the project and he’s going to think about it for a while, and in the meantime I got reassigned to learn and code a new AJAX component for our client server interface. I’m very excited.

The magic word for today is pollution, database pollution to be exact. Due to the technologies that I’m working with, the data returned can’t be fully relied upon. So basically I’ll have to determine if it’s even possible to rely on this unreliable data. It’s going to be interesting… very interesting indeed.

I started work at my new company on July 2, 2007. Since then I’ve been put in charge of and finished programming a business intelligence application. There was some guidance on what technologies to implement, but besides pointing me to where to look, they didn’t need to do much else. I’m very excited about how my script provides some of the data that our company uses, and it’s very possible that much more is going to be built upon that foundation. I’ve also learned a lot in regards to multi curling, and it is often implemented in my scripts. I’ve coded scripts that interact with APIs in both the URL based parameter transmission and SOAP based transmission.

After completing a bunch of projects in a more than satisfactory time frame and manner, I’ve been put in charge of helping further the relativity component of the company. It has always been a desire of my company to have internationalized relativity, and they have put me in charge of it. Working with internationalization is both interesting and frustrating. It is interesting because relativity is a very important thing to the company and if I expand it, I grow my company’s market by many folds, but at the same time, it’s very hard to develop due to the fact that I’m working with an alien language, alien requirements, and all the unfamiliar things that can go wrong between the interaction of my code, the alien language, and the APIs.

 As with any project, I hope it is super readable, super efficient, and done super fast.