Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • FreeNX is cool

    If you ever need to access a CentOS (RHEL for that matter) server remotely, use FreeNX. It’s very easy to install, just follow the instructions on this page: http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/FreeNX Just a note, you can leave the authentication via password (assuming you have a strong one) instead of a key-based pass-through authentication. The instructions are still…

  • Gotta love Ubuntu

    I manage many Linux servers (CentOS) but never tried or considered to use Linux on desktop as a main option. Today, I tried Ubuntu on an existing Vista PC and installation as a virtual machine without any partitioning is the bomb. It makes trying out Ubuntu (in additional to Live CD) a breeze, really simple!…

  • Aluminum MacBook review from a PC guy

    I’ve been using PC for a long time and only played with a Mac occasionally. I had doubts before the switch. But last month was the first time I fully switched to a Mac. It took some time to get used to the new keyboards, but other than that, I love it. The convenience of…

  • alias with argument in bash shell

    Instead of running “ssh -p 1234 -l shelluser serverX.example.com”, you could do “myssh serverX”. To do that, you can put this into your .bash_profile as an alias: sshas() { ssh -p 1234 -l shelluser “$1”.example.com; }

  • 2 tips – Check PHP syntax and SVN move multiple files

    This is what I have in my .bash_profile. It check for all the PHP files, recursively, for any syntax error. alias php_check_syntax=’find . -type f -name \*.php -exec php -l {} \;’ This other tip is to move multiple files in SVN. You can make it a script if you want. for i in *.test.php…

  • TextMate – Search in project

    Several issues I would suggest to the developer: 1) When searching, there is no status/progress indicator (or the button flashing very lightly that I do not notice, but a turning icon would be much nicer). For a large project with over 1000 files, one would wonder if these are all the result or it’s still…

  • First snippet customization in TextMate

    After reading the manual and view the bundle, customization is quite powerful in TextMate. This class declaration should be trigger by typing “class”, then press Tab key. It automatically your full name using finger/whoami and set the date. Pretty neat eh! /** * ${4:Description} * @package ${5:default} * @version \$Id\$ * @since `date` * @author…

  • XAMPP vs. doing it your own

    Thinking that I would have more control by setting up the packages by myself, I was wrong. After running into the problem with pre-installed PHP by MacOS X Leopard does not have GD, IMAP and other components, I tried playing with fink, MacPorts and manual compiling. LAMP still rules and not “MAMP” for good reasons.…

  • Convert from PC to MacBook for a developer

    With the new nicely looking MacBook and an old PC, plus some decent deals on Amazon, it’s a good time to switch. After a couple days, this will be a productivity improvement. Many packages are available and ready to use, like svn, httpd. Here is maybe a list of things I did for a conversion:…

  • CakePHP – Simple User Registration

    After doing some initial readings on different PHP frameworks, including CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Symphony, Zend. I’m digging deeper into CakePHP with an open eyes for fresh ideas and other developments. To start, CakePHP is slow, quite slow (backed up by Rasmus’s benchmark at froscon). It also has not taken advantage of more object-oriented syntax and methods.…

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