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March 31, 2005
Comic contest
I'm almost ready to start the comic strip. I'm still having issues coming up with a story line, however. With that in mind, I've decided to create a comic with no captions, and let everyone come up with their own lines. The most creative will get their stuff put into the actual comic. Post your submission in the comments section.
Posted by ed at 11:33 PM | Comments (1)
Site logo updated
I've updated the site logo/banner. It's large and in charge!
~out...
Posted by ed at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2005
RHEL 4 and CentOS 4
Recently, I had downloaded the 4 iso files that make up Red Hat's newest flagship operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Currently in version 4.0, it is the most complete and robust enterprise Linux distributions to date. The only real downside to it is that you must purchase a subscription to the Red Hat Network to be able to take advantage of the software and receive updates.
This is all fine and good for those of us who have access to a business who can afford things like RHEL and the Red Hat Network, but what about those businesses that want the power of RHEL but either can't afford or don't care to purchase the RHN? The answer, as I've discovered today, is a distribution called CentOS.
I've been under the impression over the past few years that there was basically two versions of Red Hat Linux: Fedora and RHEL. Fedora is the bleeding edge, the latest and the greatest kind of distribution that allows Red Hat to work out the bugs of software before it's put into RHEL. Red Hat Enterprise, on the other hand, is the slow but stable distribution, which is often more favored by corporations for product life and support options.
The other day, I learned of another distribution that I had heard mentioned before, but had never really looked into it at all, but now wish that I had. CentOS is essentially RHEL, but without the support options that typically are required with RHEL. Instead, there is a YUM repository that provides software updates as necessary, and all of it is free.
What's even more interesting is that this distribution *IS* Red Hat Linux, like the way Red Hat Linux used to be. It's the full fledged deal. It's the workstation, the personal desktop, and the server distributions. It's the true stable version that Fedora aims to be. There are even packages in the distribution that still contain the name Red Hat, but the CentOS hackers go a long way to remove any traces of the Red Hat name. By the looks of things, it's an on-going process.
Anyhow, since I haven't done a screenshot in a while, I figured I'd do one for everyone to see what CentOS looks like:
~out...
Posted by ed at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2005
Terri Schiavo
Out of all the things I've either heard or read about regarding Terri Schiavo, none have really explained who she is or was. Despite all of the media circus regarding this case, it seems that no one really cares about who she is.
I found this on MSNBC today. It's a great read.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7290818/
The first real time I've heard any media or blog ever mention anything about Terri as a person was here. I found it to be an enlightening read, and I would recommend everyone take a look at it.
~out...
Posted by ed at 12:44 PM | Comments (1)
March 23, 2005
My Wiki is Wikied
I'm trying an interesting new experiement on my website ... I've gone wiki. I've created a wiki for edengelking dot com, and I call it Wikied ... Wiki and Ed put together (har har).
The way that this came about is rather simple. I've been wanting to create a how-to for some time now. This how-to that I've had floating around in my head covers a wide scope of things, ranging from Linux to scripting. This wiki allows me to create it as I go. What's really interesting is that the concept is 180 degrees from that of my blog, where I only accept posts from myself (or Amanda if she ever tries it). The wiki will allow visitors from all over to all comments, thoughts, and such ... and even fix my screw-ups and butchering of the English language if so desired.
So, I welcome anyone who's interested to start using Wikied. You can find it at http://wikied.edengelking.com/.
Enjoy!
~out...
Posted by ed at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2005
The Perl saga continues
I spent today working on the Perl script that I mentioned in my post from yesterday. As I previously mentioned, alot of stuff continues to come back to me as I continue to work on my scripts. But I have come across things that I've never done before, so Google has been my friend. It's amazing the things that you can find with a simple Google search.
For example, I was having an issue with getting duplicates of the same data. By doing a Google search on "delete duplicate data perl", I was able to come up with a good site that gave me all of the information that I needed to continue with the project. Seems that the easiest way to do this simple task is to create a temporary table and copy the existing table into it while deleting duplicate data. Here's an example:
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temptable AS SELECT DISTINCT * FROM realtable;
This causes SQL to create a temporary table called "temptable" and to be filled with the data from the table called "realtable". Now, since I had this data transfered over, I needed to delete the contents of "realtable" by doing the following:
DELETE FROM realtable;
Now, that command deletes all of the rows from the existing "realtable" without deleting any of the columns or other important information, like indexes and primary keys. I was then able to re-insert the data from the temp table with the following command:
INSERT INTO realtable SELECT * FROM temptable;
Now, "realtable" has all of the original data that it originally contained, minus any of the duplicate data. I have hit one minor issue, however, which should be pretty simple to fix but I'm too tired to fuck with it. In "realtable", I have a column called ID that is a non-null primary key integer that auto populates when data is entered into the table. The problem stems from this auto integer. When the data is copied from "realtable" into "temptable", it's copying the ID column as well.
So what's the big deal?
Well, if there are duplicate rows, they're going to have different ID numbers. The "SELECT DISTINCT" literally looks for rows that are exactly alike. Since these rows have different ID numbers, "SELECT DISTINCT" considers them to be unique and looks over them. The fix should be simple however ... I should be able to leave out the ID column when transfering the data and everything should be all good. I'm just too lazy to do it tonight.
...
Yeah, I'm really going to have to write up a SQL how-to one of these days ...
03/23/2005 - Update: I've fixed the issue I had discussed. The problem was exactly what I had mentioned in this post: the table was including too many columns. The fix was pretty simple. Instead of using the wildcard, I created a new variable with all of the proper fields and plugged in the variable to the existing temp and accounting SQL commands.
~out...
Posted by ed at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2005
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
Happy 27th to my bestest fwiend, Steven! I tried calling him 3 times today to wish him a happy birthday, but got the voicemail on every call. Hopefully he got one of the messages.
~out...
Posted by ed at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)
Perl rawks my werld
I've been messing around with Perl since Kyle and I first got into the Web hosting business back in 1997. My first major step into Perl came by the way of CGI scripts and making modifications to scripts I found on the Web. Matt's Script Archive, although small at the time, really helped me learn my way around Perl by deconstructing the free scripts he made available. It's nice to see that he's still around.
Over the years, I moved on from Perl to other languages. After Perl there was VB, then Java, then came PHP. I've pretty much stuck with PHP over the past 6 years or so mostly because I haven't ventured out from the Web side of things much. I do tend to venture back into one of the forementioned languages from time to time based on a project that I'm working on at the time. I recently refreshed my VB skills while working on an Access database while at WHAS.
Since starting at SkyWay, I've had to make myself re-learn Perl. It's been roughly 6 years since I really put any effort into trying to make anything happen with the language. It's taken me a few weeks to get my feel back for it, but I've definately been making some headway the past couple of days.
It's amazing what you can remember after putting some effort into doing something that you haven't done in a while. I guess in a way it's like that old cliche of riding a bike. You never really forget how to do it, it just takes you a little bit to remember exactly how you did it. That's exactly what's happened here with me and my Perl scripting. I started off slow, with alot of "now, how did this work?" kinds of questions to today, where I was more like "oh yeah, I can do it this way." It's a great feeling remembering the things that I used to be able to do and to have them come back to me like they have. Just had to brush away the cobwebs a bit.
I'd love to say what exactly it is that I've been scripting on, but that's still hush hush for the time being. I'm thinking though that I may write up a couple of Perl how-to's, if for anything, to serve as a reminder for me in the future when I forget how to do things in the language again.
Oh yeah, this comic also rawks my werld.
~out...
Posted by ed at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2005
Spring is here and I haven't been blogging much
I was just reading something on MSNBC that explains why today is officially the first day of spring. It's the same deal that gives us leap year. At the most basic explaination, our calendar system isn't perfect (what is?) and adjustments are made because of it.
So, with that being said ... I wish you all a happy 1st day of spring.
Now, on to other newsworthy notes and things ...
SkyWay has finally gone over the preverbial "hump" to getting our new platform launched. We're closer than ever, and it's really getting to the point where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Soon, I'll be able to tell everyone what exactly I've been doing over the past few months since I left WHAS. I don't like keeping people in the dark, but this is an extremely cool project. It's definately broadened my horizons as an IT person, to be sure.
Amanda celebrated her 24th birthday on the 8th of this month. I didn't post anything about it mostly because I've been too damn busy to post anything at all. Tomorrow, the 21st, is Steven's 27th birthday. I plan on giving him a call this evening to wish him the best, as I doubt I'll be able to call within a reasonable hour tomorrow.
Oh, here's another interesting tidbit of information.
Amanda and I ordered a couch in the middle of last month, which was supposed to be delivered on March 2nd. The 2nd came, and they didn't have it, so the delivery date was pushed to March 14th. They didn't have it again, and pushed the delivery date to the end of the month. This didn't set well with me at all, as I see it as a kind of fraud. On the 2nd I called them up and told them I wanted the delivery fee refunded. They agreed. On the 14th, I called and spoke with them again and demanded 25% off the total purchase price. They disagreed. I threatened them with legal action and continued to call. They finally gave in and agreed.
So, we have had a total of $350 refunded to us on our couch that we still haven't received yet. If it doesn't come in by the end of the month, then I'm going to ask for an additional 25% off the total purchase price. This is going to continue until either I have a couch, or I have received all my money back and I have a couch. I'm not normally a dick about these kinds of things, but in this case I'm being a very nice dick.
Oh, Post Cereals has started making Fruity Pebbles with Splenda. I can once again have one of my all time favorite cereals without the guilt of sugar indulgence. Although the Pebbles cereal isn't the best example, there have been quite a few cereals lately that have come out with low-sugar counterparts to their originals. A good example is yet another one of my childhood favorites, Cocoa Puffs, which actually have 1/3rd of the amount of sugar as the regular cereal. It's all because of Splenda, which I'm sure is slowly poisoning my system much like the way Equal is.
Posted by ed at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2005
Welcome to new visitors
Come on in. Take your shoes off. Y'all come back now, ya hear?
Posted by ed at 08:19 AM | Comments (0)
March 02, 2005
Oh ... My ... Gawh
I ordered a new 19" LCD monitor last week. I wasn't expecting anything special, mostly because it cost under $300.00. Amanda called me at work today and told me that it came in, which was two days earlier than I was expecting.
I hooked the monitor up as soon as I got home. I nearly wet myself.
Outside of Kyle's super-dooper dual 19" Sony monitors, this is the coolest monitor I've layed my eyes on. It's also the coolest thing I think I've ever purchased for my computer. I've been wanting something bigger than 17" for a long time. I purchased my original 17" MAG monitor back in late 1999, and was using it until just this last Christmas when mom purchased me a new 15" LCD monitor.
I loved the 15" monitor, but realized that I honestly needed something a bit bigger. Since February was a good month for us, we had a bit of money available and Amanda prodded me to get myself a new monitor, as long as she got the 15". After thinking about it for a few days, I finally made the plunge to purchase a new monitor.
I definately don't regret making the purchase now.
~out...
Posted by ed at 06:58 PM | Comments (1)