Dumb Web Programmer

Still no page rank

2009-03-16T16:47:00.000-07:00

I just checked CheckPageRank.net and my page rank is now "unknown".

Guess this year's target for this blog is to get a decent PR.

I hope Entrecard can help out in that aspect.

Entrecard credits back on the Market again

2009-03-16T16:39:00.000-07:00

I read with interest from Entrecard blog that they have decided to offer cash for Entrecard credits. Previously they forbid any sale of Entrecard credit on the open market but now they are offering to buy back credits from members.

That is indeed good news as it gives the Entrecard credits additional value besides just being used for exchange of ads.

Dumb Web Programmer is Number 1 in Google!

2008-11-21T14:35:00.003-08:00

Despite being not active in blogging I did a vanity search and found "Dumb Web Programmer" keywords referring to my blog in Google.com (not google.com.my but in Google.com !!).

In fact no. 2 position also refers to this blog. Looking at the reference link, I can't believe the article is in 2005! I started that long ago?

Anyway it's things like that will fuel my interest in blogging. Let's just hope Google doesn't pull the plug on the Blogger.com project (like what they did to LIVELY) !

Google shuts down lively

2008-11-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

When have you seen Google shut down any of it's program? I certainly have not. They usually try things and leave their projects out there to see whether the ideas will stick to the wall or not. Even if the idea does not catch on and is not successful they leave it running.

Lively in case you don't know it's sort of like a Second Life idea of Google to break into the space of virtual worlds. They started it in June this year and I thought it was a promising idea then and I still think so now. So it's curious why Google should just stop it.

This is the first time Google pulled the plug on one of their many pet projects.

Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it's the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people's lives. But we've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.

Google cutting losses and cancelling it's bet ?

I guess this means times a really getting bad. A software financial giant like Google being frugal is not a good sign at all.

Obama is now President

2008-11-18T23:05:00.001-08:00

Now that US has a new President, let's hope that the impending doom of recession won't hit us so hard. Barack. Do something positive ok?

Prices of petrol is down at least. But stupid busses still have not reduced their ticket fare. They raised it when the price of oil was up.

I think we are still going to head into a recession. Just hope our Government will not wallow in denial and be creative to help the man in the street (namely me!) out.

Google Giveth, Google Taketh

2008-11-18T23:01:00.000-08:00

Damn you Google. At first you gave me PR1 then you take it away.

Damn you 1000x.

Why Google? Why?

Google gave me PR1

2008-07-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

After reading 5xmom blog saying that there was a PR update I checked and lo and behold I'm now a PR 1.

After so many years here. Finally I'm PR 1.

Now what?

Just joined Entrecard

2008-06-25T01:22:00.000-07:00

A friend recommended that I join Entrecard to try to revive this dying blog. Well here I am. I am IN Entrecard. Created my own card.

Ok. Now what?

Happy New Year 2008 !!

2008-01-08T03:05:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year

2008

What's your new year's resolution this year? Mine would be to make more money online and quit my dumb programming job.

WTF!! Jordomedia is stealing my content

2007-11-22T22:03:00.001-08:00

Someone by the name of Jordomedia is stealing my content. Damn you. Go to hell. Jordomedia sucks! Steal this content I dare you.

Newbie shock

2007-11-22T22:00:00.001-08:00

Haha... today at lunch time I briefed my "just graduated with degree" colleagues how wonderful the company is.

Yeah you work till midnight and take cab home while paying 50% expense all by yourself. Of course the company 'reward' you with pizza dinner or KFC. That's considered compensation for staying late. When the company bring in the 8 Million dollar deal they celebrate by buying everyone RM 200 new chairs. WTF!!! Give us at least 2 months bonus lah!!

8 Million in pure profit and you cannot reward your programmers at least 0.1% of that profit ??

I've wasted 4 years of my life in this office. Not going to waste anymore. I tell them all the other dark secrets the companies has. Ha ha.. cruel aren't I. Ruined their lunch ...

Sour grapes towards paid bloggers?

2007-11-22T21:55:00.001-08:00

Of course there is sour grapes. It's these paid bloggers that make the Internet become like jinjang rubbish dump. Don't talk about quality post when you write about insurance, mortgage and pay day loans.

WTF I don't have a rank!

2007-11-22T21:44:00.001-08:00

I just found out my blog don't have a rank. WTF!!

I thought this blog is so old it should get at least a rank of 3. Anyway, one of my friends told me that unranked still better than PR 0.

Haha at least I know my blog got more quality than those rubbish Pay For Post bloggers.

What's this about PR 0 ?

2007-11-18T04:31:00.001-08:00

Malaysian cry babies that's what you are!

So what's the big deal in getting PR ZERO for your blogs. I saw the list of PR Zero bloggers. I think you guys deserved it. Spammers all of you. Diluting the blogging world with stupid credit card, loan, mortgage spam!

I rank No 1 and No 2 on Google

2007-11-18T04:22:00.001-08:00

See ?

I am so proud !!

Newbies coming in to work

2007-11-18T04:03:00.001-08:00

Haha.. I see some dumb new graduates joining my company of a sweatshop. They are so full of energy, full of wonder. I was like them once. Little do they know the perils of work that lays ahead of them. They don't know about the evil youth sucking energy this work industry has on young programmers. I pity them. Maybe tomorrow I will get close to them and share with them what I know about this evil sweatshop.

PHP 4 is dead!

2007-07-18T06:26:00.001-07:00

Wow just read from PHP.net first page and also from LiewCF.com website.

PHP4 is dead! Long live PHP5 and PHP6!!

I'm still struggling to learn the object oriented features of PHP5. I hate it that Java also has this feature but I don't know how similiar it is from PHP OOP.

Forced to do Java

2007-07-18T06:24:00.001-07:00

Damned!!

My boss just pushed me to do Java. Just because I did well in finishing a PHP project fast and now free of other projects he orders me to join a Java team to do some java work.

I hate that. I was working hard so that I'd have the extra time to pick up PHP frameworks like CakePHP and Zend frameworks.

Come on man... my title on my name card is PHP developer. What to do? No choice unless I'm brave enough to go out and look for some other PHP job. Still, I have jobstreet window open while I'm blogging this :)

Bosses with lousy timing

2007-05-07T01:58:00.000-07:00

Really a black Monday today. Got hit by lots of bug fixing right after sitting at my desk.

After the weekend my mind was slow but I manage to clear up the crud after some perseverence just in time to go for lunch.

While walking out the door to go for my favourite cap fan shop, the boss stops me!

Got some 'ideas' to run thru me since I finished my work way in advance. Of course since this is the big boss I cannot say "later boss, need to eat first".

When he was finished it was already 2.30pm and my stomach was growling something fierce. Pleased with himself he let me go. Of course the boss already had eaten before he came to lay his 'ideas' on me. Liaaa ma!! I wanted to shout. But just smiled and walked out to Mc D since all the vege from the cap fan shop is finished already. And by the way, his ideas were totally stupid and impractical. I'd like to see the programmers face when he presents his ideas to them :) Luckily that's not my department.

The Dumb Web Programmer is Back!

2006-11-22T04:16:00.000-08:00

Wow my last blog post was 6 months ago. I've been dead to the online world for that long!!

Well, I'm back and I will chronicle my battle with the biggest injustice in life known as full time job tyranny. :)

technorati tags:Dumb, Web, Programmer, Back, Again

What happened to LiewCF.com?

2006-05-08T00:24:00.000-07:00

That was the old liewcf website. (really old :))

This is what I saw today (8 may 2006). What happened? The problogger forgot to pay his webhosting charges? Domain name expired? It's been replaced with some generic page.

Yahoo supports PHP!

2006-02-23T23:55:00.000-08:00

This is the link to http://developer.yahoo.net/php/

You can find useful links to implement PHP calls to Yahoo services!! and then some...

Ideas in Adsense placement

2006-02-05T03:45:00.000-08:00

I visited LiewCF.com and find that his idea for Adsense placement ingenius.

He highlights two of his "hottest" articles and continues it with the Adsense ads.

The effect is that it blends into one big block of text link which has the top half linking to the real contents of LiewCF own site and the other half which is actually Google Ads. It almost fooled me into clicking the other Adsense links thinking it was LiewCF content.

Will implement it in my other websites. I'm sure the click-thru rates are pretty high for ads like this.

USD100 notebook

2005-11-22T02:00:00.000-08:00

Speed: 500MHz

OS :a 'light' version of Linux

Screen : two-modes color or black-and-white display for

view in bright sunlight at four times normal resolution,

Power: AC adapter or via a wind-up crank

10-to-1 crank rate- one minute gets ten minutes of power.

The laptops will be rugged and probably made of rubber.

4 USB ports

Wi-Fi

cell phone

1GB of memory

Internet
Each laptop will act as a node in a mesh peer-to-peer ad hoc network
allowing internet sharing on a single online connection.

Man I wish they will make this a reality soon. It will surely close the 'digital divide'. Imagine our kampung kids using USD100 notebooks !!!

More info from PC World Article and developer MIT Media Labs

Oracle - List all tables

2005-11-17T01:22:00.000-08:00

Ok I'm using Oracle databases with PHP scripts for the first time. I'll start posting my 'personal notes' on Oracle + PHP.

List all the tables used in the current database that is open:


select table_name from user_tables

Still using DOS

2005-11-11T02:28:00.000-08:00

Here's one of my DOS batch scripts that I still use to backup my source code

Can't imagine after all these years I'm still using DOS batch file and DOS Rar to help me with my daily backup.

useful because it compresses all the files in a folder using RAR and names the compressed file according to the date (yyyy-mm-dd).


@echo off
cls
echo Backing Up RHB Fin files
echo =============================
rar a -m5 -r c:\backup\rhbbackup%year%-%month%-%day% c:\www\rhbproj1

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:GetDate yy mm dd
::
:: By:   Ritchie Lawrence, 2002-06-15. Version 1.0
::
:: Func: Loads local system date components into args 1 to 3. For NT4/2K/XP
::
:: Args: %1 var to receive year, 4 digits (by ref)
::       %2 var to receive month, 2 digits, 01 to 12 (by ref)
::       %3 Var to receive day of month, 2 digits, 01 to 31 (by ref)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
setlocal ENABLEEXTENSIONS
set t=2&if "%date%z" LSS "A" set t=1
for /f "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=(-)" %%a in ('echo/^|date') do (
  for /f "tokens=%t%-4 delims=.-/ " %%d in ('date/t') do (
    set %%a=%%d&set %%b=%%e&set %%c=%%f))
endlocal&set %1=%yy%&set %2=%mm%&set %3=%dd%&goto :EOF
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Firefox quietl first birthday

2005-11-09T18:40:00.000-08:00

It's PC Mag no. 1 tech product of the year and of course many techies favourite browser.

I love FireFox!!!

They celebrated their very first birthday rather quietly.

Firefox quietly celebrates first birthday

Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
November 09, 2005, 12:00 GMT

'I don't think there will be a big party, as we are all very busy putting the finishing touches to Firefox 1.5,' says the president of Mozilla Europe

The open source Firefox browser was launched a year ago today, but the celebrations are expected to be low-key.

Here's a funny conversation I had with one of our company's customer.

Customer: "Your program got error la in IE".

Me: "Huh?? You still use IE ah ?? That Spyware magnet??"

Custommer: "Here in office everybody use IE. Boss don't like to use funny browser like FireFox. IE is defacto browser - industry standard".

Me: "Ok. Your funeral. Let me fix the error and send back to you .."

Dumb Web Programmer under Dumb Project Manager

2005-10-21T01:23:00.000-07:00

I used to write code that is template based
where programming code is separated from html.
My favourite templating engine is Smarty.

Hey that's how web programmers like me keep my sanity.

Mixing PHP+HTML is ok for small projects but really
is stupid for a large system we are developing.

But lately since we got a new project manager that has
no idea on good software engineering principles (things
that you learn in first year of a computer course
whether at diploma or degree level).

Heck, I'm a DUMB web programmer and even I know that.

This dumber than dumb project manager just wants things
fast. We realised even showing him our code one day that he
doesn't care about code maintainability - either that
or he is just ignorant of the fact.

But I don't care now since we are being pushed with tight
and impossible deadlines to meet. Staying past midnite
on a Friday night is not my idea of fun.

So from now onwards I've been writing rojak coding mixing
PHP with HTML in one file. I don't care.
And it is effective!! I seem to be churning out code twice
as fast and my project manager is impressed.

My project manager don't care as long as deadlines are
met. Of course the system will be a pain in the ass to
maintain later on.

Why do I care?? I will be gone in oh.. say 6 months time.

LiewCF and Kah Soon, I'll be joining you guys problogging by
then hopefully.

Whatever happened to LiewCF

2005-09-26T06:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a solid 48 hours since the problogger Liew CF posted a blog entry?? Usually he will post a few articles per day.

Note: I noticed that 10 seconds after posting this I got a spam post on my comments.
Somebody wrote some API hook to Blogger to spam comments. Sheesh!

Opera Mobile on USB

2005-09-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

By now everybody would have known opera 8 is totally free (no ads).

This website www.Opera-USB.com tells you how to put Opera into a thumb drive.

All you need is a thumbdrive min 32Mb - but nowadays tell me where can you find a USB drive LESS than that??.

Super cool as I can take my personal preferences wherever I go. Oh yeah can throw stupid IE away :)

PHP is alive!!

2005-09-07T01:08:00.000-07:00

It's so depressing to think that the programming language I specialise in, PHP, is rare and little used in Malaysia.

However all that changed last week. I got two calls from head hunters looking for PHP programmer.

I will most probably leave my current job which have banned internet from the office. I don't mind getting any other PHP programming job as long as they give me internet access to do my R&D.

Programming- It's a dog's life

2005-07-28T02:01:00.000-07:00

After being a programmer for several years I really feel old, tired and plain fed up
with this life.

Don't get me wrong. I love programming and have a good pay but the company I
work for is just too money minded. Heh! What am I saying ? Of course companies
have to money minded to survive in this cut throat business.

But lately I'm seeing more projects being brought in and me being overburdened. It's
like a cheap sweatshop here - just like a factory workers - we churn out code after code.

Finish one project and another comes in. Long briefings on what to do. Tons of documentation to go
thru. Hundreds of bug-list to fix when the final code is launched for testing.

To add to the burden, all programmers' Internet access has been revoked.

The bosses and share holders don't care about reputation as they get in more and more new projects
while the rush for completion results in more errors and bugs in the final production codes.

All my superhuman efforts in meeting deadlines is not really appreciated. Some of the codes
that I thought were ingenious just go unnoticed.

Our present customers are getting angry but they don't care... as long as they can get new customers.

Man, I know this is definitely the way to long term corporate death. So just waiting for the day
this company keels over.

However, from the profits so far collected I think this company may outlast me. It's a dog's life...

Test Blog

2005-07-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

Test blog message sent from email.

No Internet access.

2005-07-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

That's what the company said today.
Man how am I going to do any work without any internet access?
Sure, HR have a point that Internet is the big time waster as
many employees just browse aimlessly at company's expense.

But what about a web programmer like me? I've lost access to my
favourite Guru on the net - "Mr Google".

I've brought up my predicament to my bosses and they say that
I can do my R&D later at lunch or after work using our
pathethic "public PC".

I am seriously thinking of leaving the company now..

And oh, I'm blogging this from my handphone at my own cost.

What the hell is BlogShares?

2005-06-25T02:54:00.000-07:00

I did a search for "dumb web programmer" (that's me!) on Google and to my surprise I was listed as No. 1.

However it was listed indirectly thru BlogShares. What the hell is BlogShares.

It looks like a blog directory with some strange way of valuating blog sites.

Movie Review: Madagascar

2005-06-24T02:05:00.000-07:00

Finally got some free time to go out and watch a movie!! I even missed Star Wars because of my work. You can thank my boss for the late nights...

Anyway I watched the movie below. (Forgive me as the below is the best pictures I can get - its for mobile phones wall paper !!)

Madagascar is perfectly fun and cute.

It’s definitely more entertaining than the likes of Robots or Shark Tale.

I loved the scene where Alex the Lion gets hit in the nuts.

I question some scenes where we see cute little animals get eaten though.
Is that suitable for 5 year olds :)

The Penguins are the funniest creatures IMHO.

Now, entering the wild brings out a very interesting conflict.

Alex, the lion (Ben Stiller) has to fight his natural urge to eat his friends when his steak supply is suddenly non-existent.
Poor Alex has to exile himself to keep his friends from becoming his snack.

But it comes at the end of the film and only plays out and everything is humky dory.

The holes??

1. Did you notice that they were mostly on the beach most of the time.
2. Where are the other lions? Are they no lions in Madagascar?

Hmm... can't put up pictures of the film as I'm unsure of the copyright thingy.

Anyway, I put up some 'pictures' from my affiliate membership to a mobile phone content account.

You don't have to (or under any obligation) to click anything here. I just included it here as eye candy relating
to my 'movie review' that's all.

Javascript: FrameBreaker

2005-06-24T00:18:00.000-07:00

This is javascript to break out of a frame. Useful if some website 'wrap' your content within their own frame. Place this javascript on your first page (usually index.htm /index.html) and break out of someone else's frame!

<script language="JavaScript">
   
</script>

Blogger: How to replace Blogger Favicon

2005-06-21T01:19:00.000-07:00

You know the blogger favicon. See below:

I was tired of that Blogger favicon and was wondering if I could replace it with my own.

So I went about the net to find ways to do it. You know what? It was pretty easy.

Here are the steps:-

1. First I created a simple logo icon that contains my initials - DWP. (Dumb Web Programmer lah !!)

2. I used PaintShop Pro but you can use Windows Paint too I guess.

3. After that, I google-searched "Create Free Favicon Online" and found this great website:

http://www.chami.com/html-kit/services/favicon/

4. I just uploaded the picture I created (50x50 pixel GIF by the way) and I got my very own favicon created.

5. Next I just added the following HTML code in my Blogger template:


< rel = "shortcut icon" href="http://www.yourURL.com/favicon.ico">

6. I didn't have my webspace so I uploaded the favicon into a friend's website. You could use some free webhosting space.(Geocities doesn't work as they filter out .ico files)

That's it!!

Get rid of the boring B logo.

You can see the result above on your browser address bar.

PHP: Bad words filter

2005-06-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

Some stupid person started posting abusive words in my company's tag box (shoutbox) recently so I had to write a simple PHP function to find and replace all the bad words.

Here it is. Not pretty or even efficient but it works!


function filter($string) {
 $badwords=array("ass","babi","asshole","fark","celaka","pantat","bastard","bitch");
 for ($i=0;$i < count($badwords);$i++){      
   $string = str_replace($badwords[$i],str_repeat("*",strlen($badwords[$i])),$string);     
 }      
 return $string; 
}

Example usage:

$post = filter($post);

Palm iPod killer?

2005-06-15T02:06:00.000-07:00

This is an IPOD killer!!

The first time I read it in last week's Computimes, I didn't know what to make of it. Was it a PDA ? They didn't call it a PDA. Was it a MP3 player like the iPod?

But it can view movies too.

It has an internal hard drive just like an iPod. Over 4Gb worth of space.

Then I read the specs.

Oh .... it has a Palm OS and have software like DocToGo
- so it's "just" a PDA but jam packed with features.

The very first PDA that shipped with a hard drive was thhe Sharp
Zaurus SL-C3000 but it was only available in Japan.

Then came iPod as the very first MP3 player with a internal hard drive.

My first looks: Very Impressive!!

It weighs only 6.8 ounces but jam-packed with features that include:-

416MHz XScale processor
65MB of RAM
4GB hard drive
480 x 320-pixel
3.9-inch TFT
SD slot
802.11b
Bluetooth
plays MPEG and AVI video
plays MP3 audio
Palm OS 5.4.
USB cable interface

Negatives :-

probably the price : US 499 (Around RM2000).
Battery not swappeable - that's a big boo boo in my books. Cannot change battery when in middle of listening to song.

PalmOne markets this as a "notebook alternative" and it's pretty cool.

Still with the shortcoming of no extra battery, the LifeDrive is now no. 1 on my wishlist. I will get it at the end of the year with my bonus (provided
there is one :)

Related reviews and links:-

Mobile Tech Review
CNet Review

Funny Gif

2005-06-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a funny animated gif:

sent in by my friend Vickneswaran

Got indexed by Yahoo in 1 day!

2005-06-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

Wow!! I got indexed by Yahoo! in less than 24 hours!!

Can you believe that??!

I didn't even submit my sites anywhere. Funny thing is Blogger is by Google but I have not been indexed yet by Google. Did Google submit my site to Yahoo! That's a strange thing to do...

Well anyway I'm proud that I'm the no.1 in Yahoo! Search for Dumb Web Programmer

How long will it last? I don't care. Took a snapshot to remember it forever :)

google-income

2005-06-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

Ah my first 3 cents from Google Adsense. Ok. Ok.I know it's a mere 3 cents but I just have to document my first online income. I am excited!!

Wow! And all the tools I used here are free. Only real resource I've used is TIME which I've lots considering how many hours I spend in aimless browsing from site to site.

He he... from now onwards I'm going to spend more time blogging!

Thanks to Liew Cheon Fon of LiewCF.com for getting me excited in the first place.

Google trying to be like Yahoo!

2005-06-13T03:13:00.000-07:00

google-personal
Originally uploaded by dumbwebprogrammer.

Google in an effort to make their search engine more personalised for users is shifting direction from a search engine with simple and basic bare features which made it famous (and also appealing to many users like me) to a more complex page layour. Think my.yahoo.com

You can take a look at it here. Now you can include personalisation such as GMail, Weather, Movies etc just like in Yahoo!.

LiewCF.com

2005-06-13T00:42:00.000-07:00

liewcfweb
Originally uploaded by dumbwebprogrammer.

Now this is probably one of the best resouces I've found on the web for my web related stuff as well as online money making tips!

Hail to the master of "Making Money in your Sleep".

Just can't believe that people can really make money online just by blogging and posting some Google advertisement.

I just registered with Google Adsense and hopefuly I can earn some pennies too. Will report my earnings if any here...

Hail to the online money making guru - Liew Cheon Fong (LcF).

His describes his site as "Probably the best Malaysia tech blog of latest news, gadgets, freeware, tips and tricks…"

But I think of it is "The Best Malaysia tech blog of latest news, gadgets, freeware, tips and tricks…" !!

Though I think his grammar needs a bit of work.

It's "Malaysian tech.." not "Malaysia tech.."

But then again who am I to correct his grammer :)

flickr - Photo Tools for BlogSpot

2005-06-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

flickr
Originally uploaded by dumbwebprogrammer.

Learning how to use free online tools to post picture on my blogger(blogspot) account.

Tried Flickr (a company by Yahoo!). It lets you uploads pictures easily for free as well as lets you include the pictures into your blog.

I see that it works well here!

Anyway, quite cool for a dumb web programmer like me. What is surprising is that BlogSpot is by Google and Flickr is by Yahoo! - two of the biggest rivals in the search engine industry having their products work hand in hand with each other!

To be fair it's Yahoo that's playing catchup in the blogging arena and it has features to update posts into Google blogger to have the pictures included.

Still, it's an irony of sorts.

Introduction

2005-06-12T21:10:00.000-07:00

Hi. I am a dumb web programmer. I am still learning the massive amount of knowledge needed to be a good web programmer. Hence this blog. It serves as a journal for my learning experience and also reference to problems I managed to solve but most probably forget the next day :)