Too much, too fast

July 22, 2010 By 1 Comment

I haven’t had much free time now that I’m running Panoptic full time, but I just want to throw out what I can remember I’ve done just this week alone:

  • Filtered 2008 and 2007 Department of Labor data for Form 5500, creating Excel spreadsheets of the results for a client.
  • Clean up 19,000 splogs from a misconfigured WP MU 2.8 installation, dropping some 130,000 tables in the process. Upgraded to WP 3.0 afterwards.
  • Fixed a SEF URL issue in Joomla! using the sh404SEF component. The site has translations managed by Joom!Fish, which added some complexity.
  • Replaced a client’s Flash-based photo gallery with jQuery and the GalleryView plugin.
  • Started creating a completely customized theme for X-Cart based on provided designs. Got clean URLs working with X-Cart on Lighttpd in the process.
  • Upgraded a client’s WordPress to WP 3.0, scheduling some training hours to walk them through how to use it properly.
  • Migrated a client’s bbPress forum with 5,000 posts to Simple:Forum with InfusionWP. Had to write my own converter script to do the import.
  • Building a customized Amazon EC2 AMI that will run Oracle and AOLserver for a client.

And, it’s only Thursday …

I know I’m seriously under-selling myself at the moment but I need to build up a solid list of excellent testimonials and references before I can seriously charge market rate for the kind of skills I have. I’ll say this: Elance has been a fantastic resource for me, better than all the other freelance job websites out there.

Okay, enough of this. Back to work …

Filed Under: Panoptic 1 Comment

Annoying change in MacOS X 10.5+ Samba clients

July 16, 2010 By 1 Comment

So, my friend Jason asked me:

Why are my MacOS X 10.5+ Samba clients ignoring the “force create mode” and “force directory mode” settings for the share on my Samba server?

He was trying to setgid the directory and force files and directories to be group writable (i.e., “force create mode = 02770” and “force directory mode = 02770“), so that different users creating files and directories on the same share volume that belong to the same group can all write to to them. However, his MacOS X 10.5+ clients were able to ignore these settings somehow.

Turns out, this is a known issue:

The summary is that as of MacOS X 10.5 Leopard, its Samba client uses CIFS UNIX extensions to manipulate permissions, which Samba servers currently don’t enforce restrictions specified by the older “mode” settings. The work-around is to disable these CIFS UNIX extensions on the Samba server by putting “unix extensions = off” in the [global] section of your smb.conf file.

Filed Under: Open Source 1 Comment

Straight No Chaser at Harrah’s in Atlantic City, NJ

July 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

One of the things that I do with my limited free time is sing in a Barbershop chorus, the Ridgewood Cavaliers of Harmony. I love a good harmony and a cappella music really brings that out.

Straight No Chaser at Harrah's

Last Friday, our friend Daniel Bauer treated Sam and me to the opening night of Straight No Chaser’s new show “With A Twist” at Harrah’s in Atlantic City.

While they don’t sing Barbershop, they’re an awesome a cappella group and seeing them perform live was just magical. They’re performing here in New Jersey through August, so don’t miss this opportunity if you’re in the tri-state area.

Filed Under: Music, New Jersey Leave a Comment

Charlie’s got her own blog

July 7, 2010 By 1 Comment

I can’t believe it … ten years ago, she was just a little shrimp on an ultrasound image, and now … my oldest daughter, Charlene, has her own blog.

Last night, she asked if she could have her own website, and I told her, “We can work on one tomorrow.” I figured if she wasn’t seriously interested, she’d just forget about it. This morning, she didn’t forget about it, and wanted to start working on it before heading off to camp! So, I set up the DNS and installed WordPress 3.0 and let her pick out a theme to start, and set her down to write her first blog post. She didn’t have more than a few minutes to write it before having to head out the door for camp, but I think she did great.

charlene.shiobara.com on 2010-07-07

I’m really excited for her! I think she’s going to have a lot of fun exploring the available themes and learning how to customize them. It could be a great opportunity for her to make the leap from playing around with Scratch to learning PHP.

Filed Under: Family 1 Comment

Using MySQL Meta Data Effectively at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010

July 5, 2010 By 2 Comments

Since Oracle owns MySQL through its acquisition of Sun, more Oracle conferences are providing MySQL content. This past Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) Kaleidoscope 2010 conference from June 27 through July 1 had a whole dedicated track for MySQL.

Using MySQL Meta Data Effectively - title slide thumbnail

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to speak on MySQL metadata, titled “Using MySQL Meta Data Effectively“. Here’s the abstract:

This presentation discusses what MySQL meta data is available including the ‘mysql’ meta schema, the INFORMATION_SCHEMA (I_S) tables first introduced in MySQL 5.0 and extended in MySQL 5.1, storage engine specific INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables, as well as techniques for writing your own INFORMATION_SCHEMA plug-ins. MySQL also provides a number of SHOW commands that provide easily formatted presentation of MySQL meta data. Dossy Shiobara will also discuss some of the limitations and performance implications of the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.

Paper first page thumbnail

You can download the materials from my session here:

Filed Under: Geeking out, MySQL, Open Source, Oracle 2 Comments

Walking the virtual streets, looking for a good time

June 24, 2010 By 4 Comments

Now that I’m back to freelancing full-time, standing on the virtual street-corner waving at people looking for a good time with their web projects … it’s been interesting. The good news is that there’s still plenty of work out there to be done. I’ve been looking for work all over the web, and here’s some of my observations:

Elance

elance-dot-com.png

Elance is the gold standard of freelance project marketplace websites. Sure, there are a lot of jokers out there with “champagne tastes and beer budgets” that you have to filter through, but there’s also lots of legitimate work that people are looking to get done. Competing against foreign currency leverage is difficult, but there are buyers out there who aren’t only shopping by price alone. There’s no coincidence that I’ve made the most money through Elance so far, out of all the various places I’ve tried to source work from.

Freelancer.com

freelancer-dot-com.png

If Elance is the gold standard, then Freelancer.com is the bargain basement. There’s a constant stream of new projects showing up, most of them not even worth looking at, and the Indian mass-bidders have pretty much automated away the usefulness of the site. Still, I keep an eye on it just in case. I’ve only generated 1/10th the revenue on Freelancer.com as I have on Elance, so far.

Guru.com

guru-dot-com.png

Ah, good old Guru.com, there were great projects being posted to it in the late 1990′s, but the site’s functionality hasn’t improved in 10 years and the quality of the projects being posted have also declined. I’ll still check it every now and then, but I don’t expect it to lead to any real work any more.

Craigslist

craigslist-dot-org.png

Let’s not forget Craigslist, the proverbial junk drawer of the Internet. Don’t go expecting to find anything of real value there, but you might be able to turn a few tricks, and there’s likely to be less competition by Indian low-ballers.

***

Overall, this week has been encouraging and discouraging in its own way. I’m only making 20% of what I need to be in order to stay doing this full-time, but I am getting some decent work and it’s trending upwards. Just gotta keep hustling and shaking, smiling pretty and getting out there.

If you’re looking for short term help, almost doesn’t matter what as long as it can be done remotely, let me know. We’ll work out a good price and I could definitely use the work.

Filed Under: Employment 4 Comments

Looking for WordPress, Drupal or Joomla help?

June 9, 2010 By 1 Comment

Are you looking for help with your WordPress, Drupal or Joomla-based website? Having trouble customizing your theme? Need help installing or configuring a plugin? Would you like to have a custom plugin written to do something you need?

I’m once again looking for work, and in the meantime, I’d be happy to lend a hand to folks who need it. Let me know if you’ve got something you want me to take a look at for you, and we’ll work something out.

Filed Under: Open Source 1 Comment

Can mind maps help me?

June 5, 2010 By 2 Comments

I guess I’ll let a picture do the talking …

Can mind maps help me?

Am I missing anything?

Filed Under: Geeking out 2 Comments

The only constant is change

June 2, 2010 By 1 Comment

At 9:30 AM this morning, I was informed that my employment was terminated. Once again, I’m a free agent, and its time to start hustling again. If we’ve talked about work opportunities in the past, now is the time to take those conversations to the next step.

Over the next few days, I’m going to do some deep thinking about what kind of services and products make sense for me to offer given today’s demands. Even with the depressed economic situation, I know that there is still more work to do than talented people to do it – the challenge is identifying what I can deliver better than others.

The second half of 2010 is going to be very exciting and I’m looking forward to crushing it
…

***

Suzie, my younger daughter, at seven years old, loves to ask me if I can put songs on her iPod Nano. She loves to dance, and often hears songs at the dance school that she likes and wants added. Today’s request was for Let Me Think About It.

I like the song – the music is awesome. But, after having a quick chat with my wife, we both agreed that the lyrics are totally not appropriate for Suzie to be listening to over and over. She was a bit disappointed when I told her that we didn’t approve of the song’s lyrics and I wouldn’t put it on her iPod, but I did say that I would be looking for a copy of the instrumental version without lyrics and if I can get it, I’d be happy to put that one on her iPod, which made her happy. So, I went and found one on the Intertubes and now she’s got a copy of it.

Filed Under: Employment, Observations 1 Comment

May God hold you in the palm of his hand

May 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Today, we laid to eternal rest a dearly beloved son, brother, father, uncle, cousin and friend.

Carl Mirasola

May 27, 1966 – May 22, 2010
N40 50.2556′, W74 8.812′

We are all very fortunate and blessed, having known Carl for his too brief stay with us. Let us honor his memory by trying to live “a little more like Carl would.” Life is too short to do anything but love each other with all our heart and mind and body.

Filed Under: Obituaries Leave a Comment
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