After leaving Canada it was time to set up some projects and learning. Having programmed in PHP for a few years, at a hobbyist level it was time to step it up and bite the bullet and jump into the long avoided frameworks. A quick touch back to Django had me scratching my head again at the challenge of learning a new language alongside a framework methodology I had no idea about.

A friend of mine from Germany recommend that I take a decent look at the CakePHP framework and after getting my head around why I would abstract my functions out into an MVC structure I got going on building up the projects that I had started by nowhere near completed.

My podcast hosting project got off to a decent start, blazesyn.com, but then hit some big walls, of which I plan to get around in the new year. This got my CakePHP and PHP skills up to much stronger level. My partner, after killing her University degree came down to Australia to live, landing in May. We took some time out, and travelled around Brisbane and down to Melbourne, enjoying the time together to make up for time lost. However the holidays slowly ran down as the bank dried up.

In the mean time I stumbled on an idea while on Holidays, an idea that I had roughly three years ago, but the plans fell through due to costs. It was a decal/signage business purely online. Luckily I had built up my CakePHP skills and got straight to work on wedecal.com which has been going strong. We’ve invested a decent amount of money into advertising and we’re seeing the return slowly climb as the repeat business kicks into effect.

Then I got lucky, I received two expressions of interest for full time work through this blog at jotlab.com. One position was working remotely for a fashion website in Sydney. That fell through, poor communication, which is something you simply can’t have when working remotely. I pulled the pin on that one, but as soon as I did a new opportunity opened up. A local advertising agency contacted me, again through this blog, saying they’ve been following my topics on CakePHP and they would like to offer me a full time position as a CakePHP developer in Brisbane.

I jumped at the opportunity. The workplace was a pad, it had a BBQ area, a swimming pool and the whole place was a decked out church! What’s more they put on a free lunch and beer every Friday afternoon, that’s my kind of work environment. The profile of the clients was jaw dropping and the projects were always challenging. I was on a three week trial then the work ran out. I was back to looking for work.

It was job time and I was sending out resumes to pretty much any web development or web related job I could find. The replies came in, recruiters were calling, positions were opening up and everyone was interested, but not on the terms I wanted. Then I got a phone call from the church of CakePHP, they wanted me back, this time it was I writing for a full time position, and that’s where I am now.

As for development, I am aiming to getting a bit deeper into the CakePHP core. Understanding the inner workings and what seems to be a large array of undocumented CakePHP functions. Besides that I really want to get into Ruby on Rails. It was a bit unnerving to see the CakePHP team split as a core dev moved to create his own branch/framework based on CakePHP3. If i do get extra time it’s onto iPhone development, however one step at a time.

And that is my year of 2009, in terms of development, work and travel. As for next year, our concentration is on moving closer to our workplaces and visa’s. Let’s hope Australia deals us an okay hand for 2010.

But nevertheless they got back to me, and I’m doing just as I was before and more. I’m in a really excellent position. My co-worker is miles ahead of me in terms of experience with web programming and he understands my position and in turn delegates jobs that are just a little outside of my comfort zone, non-stop. So I’m constantly learning and developing more advanced apps. So yes, I’m always digging through documentation and buying books. I pretty much get up early in the morning, arrive up to an hour early at work, study some bit with coffee. Work all day, drive home, and study my books!

Otherwise we’ve been taking it easy. My partner, who is on a working holiday visa here in Australia is finding it very tough to get any sort of job. We started out trying to get her on track with a her desired career path but none of the companies wanted to hear about it, simply because she was not an Australian resident. With that, we have been striving for just about any work, retail, receptionist, office work and even cleaning. She’s got a degree, a ton of experience, well mannered and presented and just has the best attitude to make things happen, and yet still no luck. If you want to help her out, or know of anyone that could give her a chance that she deserves, so she can stop handing out hundreds of resumés check her out at www.lizzyinbrizzy.com.

What I’m currently looking into now is source code versioning with Git and setting up git repos and access control via Gitosis. Also learning all the PHP functions i can and understanding how to extend CakePHP methods to be more DRY and MVC endorsed. Also this Lithium by Nate Abele, I do want to check this out sometime soon, however had a quick look at the documentation, and didn’t really see much there yet. But alas, the weekend is coming up haha

And with that expect a lot more code snippets and reviews of books coming in the near future! As always if you have any questions or comments please let me know, I’m always up for helping.

For example “Why Microsoft is afraid of Linux” or “Why Mac users have bigger penises” or “How Obama hates Microsoft” or “Steve Jobs has made the bagel into a new icon for Apple”. Seriously you “journalists” need to stop spreading rumours, blowing up speculated ideas into perceived facts. From now on, when i see a dickhead post come through my reader of which the title pisses me off, I am going to post the title here:

• Three Reasons Linux Will Win in the Future
• Apple Vs Microsoft: iPhones and iPods Banned at Gates’ Home

The main point of getting things done and getting things done well, is to get ideas and thoughts out of your mind that do not need to be worked on and can be completed in the next 2 minutes. For all other ideas and tasks, they should be written down in a systematic order contained in a system that your mind trusts that you will look back on and review regularly. This is the key. You simply must have a notebook, a spreadsheet, or any other form of notation tool that your mind trusts that whatever you store in it, it will 100% be looked back upon. If you don’t trust that you will look back on it, then your mind will constantly be juggling all these ideas, sorting them, figuring them out all at once. What you are left with is a mind that is working on 10 different calculations at a time, instead of 100% for the task at hand.

So what i use to get things out of my head and into a system i trust are two tools:

1. A Notepad
2. Things

That’s right! I could tell you how exactly i use both of them. But instead i simply use the notebook for immediate notation, when I’m out and about or need to visualise an idea to scribe, and then dump it into Things! However i think it is more important you get both of these tools, and start using them however you want to. This way you will be more free minded about how to insert and track items, instead of sticking to a strict regime of how to get things done according to the formula of David Allen. The main point is, write ideas down, don’t think about them again until it’s time to get it done!

Hi,

Checking in from Blurb. Wanted to make sure you received your book. If not, please contact customer support. We couldn’t find you in our system, so not sure you filled out a support form. Or maybe your Blurb username is different than your twitter handle.

– Kathy

My response to this was:

We have received the parcel yes, after over a month of waiting for it. We received it via UPS delivery. However this was extremely late, the parcel went all around Canada, and they were very difficult to deal with. We waited for them pretty much everyday we organised a time and place for them, and sometimes they would be 3 hours early, sometimes they wouldn’t even show up at all. We finally got them to drop it off at the right time. However we were no longer at this destination so a family member received it for us.

Being in London, Ontario Canada the package had to arrive very soon, as the recipient (me) was flying back home to Brisbane Australia. So we had to send the parcel registered express post, the fastest and most expensive postal method Canada Post offers. They guaranteed it to arrive the following Monday, which was the day before i left. It didn’t show up. I am now in Brisbane Australia and the parcel arrived the day after i left in London Ontrario Canada. So now we have to pay for it to get shipped to Brisbane Australia.

All in all we have spent money on three different shipping services when originally we paid for a premium service from you Blurb. We have spent alot of money on the UPS expedited service, then Canada Post Express and now further Canada Post Air Mail! This easily makes the shipping far exceed the cost of the book.

Now my girlfriend opened up the package and said the book is in amazing quality and in perfect condition, which i am surprised about going around UPS and Canada Post so much. However it is yet to make it to its final destination.

This problem all arose because we were expecting the delivery of our book from you on the 26th of December. But was then promised many more dates of delivery. Had of we known that the book was going to be delayed in production, and that UPS were so unorganised and unprofessional (they even lost our location of the book at one point), we would of got it sent to our London, Ontario Canada location.

This whole ordeal has had my girlfriend in tears and in utter disappointment with your service, UPS, Canada Post and even here self. Every step along the way where the delivery time was unknown and even lost, she was in tears. Although your support is excellent, you go out of your way to solve customer problems, you and your delivery partners have let down my girlfriend to the point that she feels she has failed as a person because she still hasn’t got her Christmas gift to me yet. Of course this isn’t directly your fault, we simply feel ripped off.

Because our ordeal was incredibly hard on us i feel that i should spread our experience with others so they don’t have to go through the same process. We have received 2 vouchers for $10 off each, but then again, would we really want to use them? Considering we still don’t have our package?

Thank you for your reply,
Your customer service is excellent.
Its just a shame the rest of the service wasn’t, perhaps this time, up to the same standard.
Richard

Gunpowder tea production dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907) but it was first introduced to Taiwan in the 1800s. Although the individual leaves were formerly rolled by hand, today most gunpowder tea is rolled by machines (though the highest grades are still rolled by hand). Rolling tea leaves into gunpowder tea renders the leaves less susceptible to physical damage and allows them to retain more of their flavor and aroma. In addition, it allows certain types of oolong teas to be aged for decades if they are cared for by being occasionally roasted.

When buying gunpowder tea it is important to look for shiny pellets, which indicate that the tea is relatively fresh.

via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_tea

I bought mine from The Tea Haus in London Ontario. Which is a cool place and the girl was very very helpful!

I’ll pick up from where i left off. We were meant to hear back from UPS the following day, after being promised the delivery over a phone conversation with UPS on Monday the 5th of January. The package did not show up, in fact they didn’t even know what to say as to why it hadn’t shown up yet. Anyhow we were unable to take any calls the following day, however we did not receive any messages in our message bank either. This is where Blurb steps in. I will admit that Blurb has attempted to help us track down the package. The funny thing is the marketing director left a comment on one of the blog posts, yep the marketing director and not customer service; goes to show Blurb doesn’t want their name tarnished by a dodgy delivery service. They have e-mailed us a couple of times now and outlined that it was an act of God, i.e. bad weather, that has left us Book-less.

This act of God thing we could accept. It even made me rethink my approach to the matter, until we received a phone call this morning. It was UPS. They said that they were sorry, the weather being bad and all and that they would be able to deliver it this morning. A day too late, as we are no longer in Saskatoon but have moved on from the holidays back to London, Ontario! We asked if they could ship it to Ontario instead, they said no, as it was out of their hands and we would have to fit the bill. Deciding we didn’t want to ship with UPS anymore we said deliver it to the Saskatoon address and we will have it shipped to Ontario via another delivery service. Quite upset we felt that the issue would be resolved finally.

Five minutes later and we get a call back. Its UPS again. Thinking they had come to our aid and would ship it to us for free in Ontario they present us with another problem. They were about to deliver our parcel but wait…. They can’t find it! They said they can’t find it, can’t locate it, but think it’s back at its origin in a warehouse! Perfect. As far as i can see it this is out of Blurb’s hands, and even out of UPS’s. The hard thing is i am leaving back for Australia in under 2 weeks. It simply isn’t fair that we should have to get the book, which is 3 weeks late, delivered to an address that we aren’t at anymore, pay it to come out west, and if our luck continues the way it is, ship it to Brisbane Australia. Shipping costs alone would have to be triple what the book is worth. In addition to all that, watching all these videos of UPS deliveries being thrown across the street, i am quite certain now that what was once a book, would simply resemble a ball of scrunched up paper!

Blurb has attempted to help us, although it is out of their control, their service (which includes delivery) has let us down. I’m sorry Blurb, it might not be your fault, but UPS has let your service down quite greatly. We have been granted two $10 off coupons for our next blurb purchase. This however wouldn’t even come close to the expense of shipping the book across Canada again and then further onto Australia. We asked for a book to be delivered around Christmas. We ordered and paid for it on 16th December. Its now heading towards the middle of January. We feel ripped off.

I hope everyone who is reading this will keep our experience with both services in mind when they decide to order through Blurb or ship via UPS. To the marketing director of Blurb, i intend to e-mail you soon, we have been travelling and packing as you no doubt have read above. To people following the story i will post photos of the lost book as soon/if we ever receive it.

Zazzle.com

After viewing the book we found out that the book was further delayed, they offered us $10 off our next book that we order off them, yeah right. The book was finally shipped on the 30th of December, via Expedited UPS service. Expecting the book to arrive in two to three days later we monitored the whereabouts of the package very eagerly. It came to the 5th of January, where the book was via our tracking meant to arrive. It didn’t. We called UPS and they assured us it would arrive after the weekend, on the Monday; promptly on the Monday. Waiting around the house all day, no package. We called UPS at 4pm on Monday, they assured us it would come on the day and deliveries go to 8pm, yeah right they do. 

8pm came. No package. We called and they had no answer. They simply asked for our contact details and someone would call the following day as to the delivery of the package. We are over it. Tomorrow we are flying to another province in Canada, and now we will have to pay further shipping costs to mail ourselves the package. We spent most of the day Googling videos on UPS, how their delivery staff throw packages across the street to the doorstep. Entertaining, but just another reminder why we will not be using any of UPS services, ever. In fact i will boycott the services of UPS and refuse to purchase any products from any company that ships via UPS.

As to Blurb. Well i know they are an online service, that however does not remove the fact that they must provide a degree of service that customers will be content with. We certainly are not content with a $10 coupon. Firstly they shipped late, they broke their shipping promises, and they ship with UPS. So what will happen next? We will wait for the package, if it is in anyway damaged via Blurb’s quality of service or the UPS man throwing boxes across the street i am going to go on the biggest anti Blurb and UPS rant of all time! Use this information in this post as merely our experience with both services, competitors feel free to distribute this information in anyway you see fit!

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Just one can of the popular stimulant energy drink Red Bull can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke, even in young people, Australian medical researchers said on Friday.

The caffeine-loaded beverage, popular with university students and adrenaline sport fans to give them “wings”, caused the blood to become sticky, a pre-cursor to cardiovascular problems such as stroke.

“One hour after they drank Red Bull, (their blood systems) were no longer normal. They were abnormal like we would expect in a patient with cardiovascular disease,” Scott Willoughby, lead researcher from the Cardiovascular Research Centre at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, told the Australian newspaper.

Red Bull Australia spokeswoman Linda Rychter said the report would be assessed by the company’s head office in Austria.

“The study does not show effects which would go beyond that of drinking a cup of coffee. Therefore, the reported results were to be expected and lie within the normal physiological range,” Rychter told Reuters.

Willoughby and his team tested the cardiovascular systems of 30 young adults one hour before and one hour after consuming one 250ml can of sugar-free Red Bull.

The results showed “normal people develop symptoms normally associated with cardiovascular disease” after consuming the drink, created in the 1980s by Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz based on a similar Thai energy drink.

Red Bull is banned in Norway, Uruguay and Denmark because of health risks listed on its cans, but the company last year sold 3.5 billion cans in 143 countries. One can contains 80 mg of caffeine, around the same as a normal cup of brewed coffee.

The Austria-based company, whose marketing says “Red Bull gives you wings”, sponsors Formula 1 race cars and extreme sport events around the world, but warns consumers not to drink more than two cans a day.

Rychter said Red Bull could only have such global sales because health authorities across the world had concluded the drink was safe to consume.

But Willoughby said Red Bull could be deadly when combined with stress or high blood pressure, impairing proper blood vessel function and possibly lifting the risk of blood clotting.

“If you have any predisposition to cardiovascular disease, I’d think twice about drinking it,” he said.

(Editing by David Fogarty)

via Red Bull drink lifts stroke risk: Australian study | Health | Reuters .

1. Somewhere on your computer make a file, i called mine .twitter
2. Go into your terminal and make sure the file is executable by running:

   chmod +x .twitter

3. Next up open your file with a text editor, i used vi. You can open it up in terminal with:
     
   vi .twitter

4. Next up paste this in the file, by making sure you’re in insert mode by hitting the “i” key and pasting in”:

   #! /bin/bash       

   echo -e "Please enter your tweet:"
read tweet
curl -s -u yourusername:yourpassword -d status="$tweet" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml > /dev/null

5. You will need to change your username and password. Hit escape to get out of insert mode. Scroll over to the username and password and change them with the insert mode to insert your own twitter username and password
6. Press SHIFT + ZZ to save the file
7. Now run the file with:

   ./.twitter

   and type in your tweet, check your page to see if it worked!