Diving into linux
(warning nerd alert below)
Over the past few weeks I have been trying out some different linux configurations (debian, suse, and red hat) all on some reasonable hardware. I think its important that developers of any field dive into and setup a linux install… be it any distro. It give you a really good sense of using command line tools and can really drive home the differences between server side/ client side languages and techniques.
If you own/use, mac parallels is a great application to get started and play around with some linux distros without needing a dedicated machine. I have had the best luck so far with unbuntu and openSuse. Later this week I will post my install/usage feedback on all the distributions so far. Along with some instructions on getting a LAMP stack working on unbuntu in a couple easy steps, and getting vnc,ssh, and ftp configured and running locally. Nothing beats having a local test environment to test in before they go public.
Adventure Walk.
So… tonight I took a stroll to the local place where I buy my beer…. I see a rather young looking girl in the store, not old enough to drink by any means she politley comes up to me and says “excuse me” as she is eying some beer in the fridges.
I leave the store and walk about 2 blocks and run into this girl again, she starts a conversation about the fact that she just got back from denver, so I pry a little further into her trip, she tells me she ran away from home and got caught by the police. As I am walking I notice a missing child poster….. the picture on the poster looks familiar….. oh yeah cause its the girl that is chatting with me. I point this out; she grabs the poster rips it up and says “yeah these are no longer needed”.
She seemed like genuine character that was just didn’t enjoy living her in chicago, she cited that she just wanted to be outdoors. and this my friends is what happens when you go to the liquor store at 7 p.m. on a sunday.
Remember that Garden in a matchbook from a couple days ago….. yeah its growing.
Looks pretty good….
Weekend in Photos
Thursday - dos equis party at the muesum of science and industry.
This party was awesome and so random best part of the night as being able to join in a drum circle for like 30 minutes. My only complaint is there were awesome DJ’s and no one dancing.
Friday/Saturday - UOI
I helped my friend down at UOI re-finish a frame it was hard work but totally worth it. I also got some super cool stuff at Art Mart (http://www.shopartmart.com/) I got some cool cards and a garden in a matchbook (we will see how it grows). I got home back to chicago later that night and watched “Ghost Ride the Whip” a documentary about the hyphy movement in the bay area.
Sunday - Farmers Market/Herb Garden
I rolled to the wicker park farmers market, and found some really great dill pickles and some marble pound cake, later I went to home depot to get some Basil and Rosemary plants to start my indoor herb garden. I have been staying in way more these days so with that I’ve been doing more and more cooking. I think fresh herbs will really help with that.
Working from home today…. its friday and the weather is kinda gloomy outside so I think its appropriate. I have been doing a lot of night working from home as of late, which means going to the office 11-530 coming home eating maybe a nap and then work a couple more hours, followed by a small hang, followed by coming home and working some more.
Breaking the day into 4 hour blocks of coding has helped me gain some focus and let me knock out things like a task list as opposed to just being more freeform. I also ran across this method (a stack trace) while debugging my latest project and it has really helped me track down some things (method down below).
try {
throw new Error('StackTrace');
} catch (e:Error) {
trace(e.getStackTrace());
}This will help find out the path of methods that any function has been called by, really helpful!
Fire Jam + Happy Village
Every once in a while I stumble upon a gem of something to do in the city. Last night my friend Garret introduced me to something called fire jam… it is a festival of fire throwers, twirlers, jugglers and breathers. It happens up north from me at montrose beach once every full moon through the summer months. info here
My next gem of a thing to do… Happy Village I can not say enough about how awesome this bar is. Every wednesday or tuesday I like to stroll into this place and get a couple games of ping pong in, YES ping pong at a bar. Its a great neighbor hood bar with decent drink specials and free ping pong. info here
