my so-called blog (redux)

I’ve got Google Desktop on my work PC; the Sidebar feature is really handy. Don’t much care for the rest of it (mainly because I use my Mac for most everything; the PC is just for VMs and Outlook really) but that one feature I wish was available on the Mac.

Trying to think through the data persistence thing I wrote about - not going to use PHP for the next Really Big Project(tm) I’ve got going on (probably Java, actually) but it’d be neat to get it going anyway just for the challenge. I may not use memcache like I thought though, since there’s not really any security in memcache. The code is pretty easy; I may just prototype a PHP-based solution and backport or something or whatever.

I’ve got an amex card now. Kinda interesting - like, credit without the credit. Other stuff abounds!

I found Propel today. The reason I found it was because I was looking for something somewhat similar to what Enterprise Objects do in WebObjects - basically, instead of writing SQL code I want to pass a bunch of variables (or an array, whatever) to an object and have it store it in the appropriate locations and take care of uniqueness and relationships where necessary. Propel does most of that. You can define the database schema in XML and Propel will automagically generate classes for you. It does introduce a compilation step, though. It also supposedly does persistence, but I haven’t gotten quite that far into it. The only real complaint I can see with it so far is that it doesn’t use PEAR DB or PDO - it uses its own thing called Creole - which limits its RDBMS support, and its architecture doesn’t lend itself quite as well to interfacing with things that aren’t RDBMSes (like XML files or LDAP or whathaveyou).

FWIW, PHP has something neat that’s being built into it that’ll do a lot of this too - SDO. It’s much the same concept as an EO but it’s part of the language (sort-of, it’s written in PHP) and should allow interfacing with stuff that’s not a relational database.

Still researching the ideas. Got some projects coming up at work that will lead me into dealing with this stuff more and more; in addition, it’ll be helpful when I start working on my stuff again (which should be Real Soon Now). Using either of these will save me from writing one myself, which would be excellent since I would end up getting stuck on writing a search engine that handles relationships between dissimilar data sources and all that haughty nonsense.

As an aside: dual monitors on the Mac Mini is out. I tried hooking up a dual-link (VGA+DVI) cable to my Mini - when you go to choose resolutions, it bongs confusedly when you tell it to refresh displays. The reason it Really Won’t Work: the port on that thing isn’t dual-link so there can only ever be one screen active at a time. When you choose a resolution not supported by your DVI display the VGA port kicks in and makes an attempt for it. Kinda sucks. Need a different monitor.

So I went ahead and got the Mighty Mouse. The buttons are a bit hard to get used to - the case plastics for the mouse (with the exception of the scroll nub) are exactly like the ones for the regular Pro Mouse, meaning the entire top shell moves when you go to click. This is not a bad thing. It is however somewhat easy to misplace your fingers and click and miss the touch sensor in the mouse, or be off and left-click when you mean to right-click. And I’ve activated Exposé too many times by accident. Other than that it’s a good mouse - the scroll nub is very useful, though it requires some time to get used to as well.

so I bought both the Mighty Mouse and the PowerBook so I’m now pretty officially broke. Then I have that speeding ticket to pay and hey my license plates are expired too! So, all in all, I’m glad I’m working the couple jobs and dealing with the contract work. I am quite looking forward to being able to work mobily, as my couch is far more comfortable than this dumb student desk thing.

Interesting stuff: the “mini-ERP” that I’ve had to work on/implement on and off over the past 3 years is coming to a head again and hopefully this time around I might be able to do some really cool stuff with it. It’ll be my first time (^_^~~) working with web services and SOAP so that’ll be exciting. Debating whether or not to use WebObjects for development of it - it’d be a good in to get an Xserve in the rack over here, as well as getting a lot more comfortable with Java development. I’m also going to force in some time to get some work done on WebCash. I really really need something like it. Really. Badly. Lucky I’m not overwithdrawn every month badly.

So I’m thinking of getting this. (This is after I buy an old powerbook and a new Mighty Mouse.) Looks neat. Need to get some new desk-type devices as well.