For more than a month now I have been working in my new playpen with the Laravel PHP framework. I figured this would be a good time to take a moment to discuss my initial impressions of it, particularly in comparison to Codeigniter, the other framework I have experience with.
Just as I was complaining that I lacked ideas for a project to work on to prove my development skills an idea hit me. One drawback that I see in starting the development of any project is getting things setup. Especially since I haven't done a lot of in-depth programming lately. This post describes what I chose to work with (Laravel, Eclipse, GitHub, and an Ubuntu server in a VM) and hurdles faces in just getting setup to do the actual dev work.
For more than a couple of years now, I have been wanting to learn how to develop mobile applications and made a couple half-starts with Android app development. My biggest hurdle, with any project, is coming up with an idea of what to create. While I lack the creativity to come up with an idea (great or small) of what to do, once I have that idea I am usually able to bring that idea to fruition. Back in July, the idea of creating a random job title generator was born.
For the last few months I have been making a half-assed attempt at finding a web development job. I say half-assed because I look at some job board each day to see what is new and submit applications or resumes to those I think I qualify for. There is be a lot more I could be doing to improve my job search efforts and increase the likelihood of landing a job I want. These other activities include working on independent projects to stay current and attending events and social groups in an effort to do some networking. The first one I’m trying to do more of.
Some months ago I read Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter. This book and how much I enjoyed reading it shows just how much of a computer geek I am. I have used and programmed computers since I was eight years old. When I was a teenager I started to become interested in viruses and hacking.
If you visited this site during a three day period in the middle of July you would have found it to consist of a single page supporting the liberation of Iraq. I am not a terribly political guy, especially not with foreign politics, so the single page message was not me. Hackers (or script kiddies perhaps) had managed to gain access to my CMS and defaced my blog. Why this site, one that gets two visitors on a good day, I am still unsure. When I noticed I quickly put things back right and figured the events would equate to a source of blog posting material for me.
For a year and a half, on my Android phone, I’ve been using Google Now. It is an app that utilizes all of the data that I allow Google to know about me, my search queries, calendar events, location, and traveling habits to provide potentially relevant information before or as I need it. With my recent trip to Colorado, I’ve seen more features of Google Now become visible to me. A friend and I at times discuss the app and wonder if it is really cool or kinda creepy (but probably both).
A friend asked me to take a look at a laptop he “bought from a guy at home depot for $20”. He wanted to see if I can get it setup and running for him. At first I was afraid he was suckered into buying a stolen laptop. After playing with it for a few minutes I realized that he was in fact suckered, but the laptop likely wasn’t stolen. Instead this list began to form in my mind: “Signs that your laptop is a klunker”.
A friend recently asked me my opinions on where he should focus on in terms of getting into the tech industry. He’s wanting to self-teach while he prepares to go to school to earn his paper degree. I wrote up my thoughts on what the current market demands are and what he can focus on. I figured, it served as a good summary to post here.
