I think many people who use PHP don't realize that on most installations, adding "s" to the file extension (i.e. file.phps) turns the file into a source file. I believe Bill Humphries may be one person who doesn't realize this.
I've posted instructions for the Wonder Wash, which have been requested by a few people in the comments to my previous Wonder Wash post. Thanks to Hanna Bachman for typing up the instructions and sending them to me.
iTunes willl support podcasts. del.icio.us has added postcasts for tagged MP3 content. Jon Udell is working on using del.icio.us tag overlap as a recommendation engine. When these are all put together, we will have customized listening channels (internet radio without the ridiculous license fees), with the ability to broaden our listening horizons at whatever rate we choose. I'm looking forward to that.
Over on the Los Vivos website, you can now download MP3 tracks of our first (and last) album of original songs. This is an album we were making to give to friends, family, and fans, as well as potential show locations. I sort of killed that last part by leaving the band before the album was complete. But they already have me replaced with a great guitarist, so I look forward to future Los Vivos shows, at which you will likely hear these MP3s, less my songs. I think the songs turned out pretty nice, and now they make a nice collectors item commemorating the Los Vivos that was.
I've been living in Des Moines and working at Integer for a few weeks now. I haven't written about my initial impressions, nor much of anything else here, mostly because I still don't have internet access at home. Qwest neglected to send me the first DSL modem I ordered, and has still not sent me the second. Monday will mark the second 'five business days' ETA, but I'm not holding my breath. I already strongly suspect they don't take their "Spririt of Service" motto very seriously. So my only internet access is at work, where I spend most of my time, well, working. I could probably find time to write weblog posts at work, as my schedule has been fairly flexible so far, but I haven't written much yet. I did write my previous post at work, as I came across the information while looking for OSX screen readers to test accessibility for websites.
That's a pretty good summary of the job so far: I get to make websites, worry about things like accessibility, and feel free to wander off now and then on tangents like the proper pronunciation of SQL and GIF. It's a fun job, and I look forward to Mondays, especially during this first month as I have little to do and little money with which to do it outside of work.
My first project was a database and interface for tracking postage costs at Integer and billing them to the employee or client as appropriate. I would point to it but it's an intranet site, plus it hasn't yet been implemented. I got to play with a neat auto-complete text field for that, which I'll probably clean up a bit and post here for others to use at some point, as I haven't seen the same functionality elsewhere.
I'm now working on the administrative side (not the side you can actually see) of the Pella Pressroom site, as well as a section of the Iowa Council for International Understanding site, which will be the first thing I do at work that anyone outside Integer can see.
The apartment is good too, as is the city, what little I've so far experienced. Right now I'm sitting at Java Joe's Coffeehouse, where I've been sitting for a few hours using their free WiFi and eating their only-moderately-overpriced food. Earlier today I was sitting on one of the benches near the Crusoe Umbrella and sucking up the surprisingly free, though somewhat flaky WiFi from a nearby hotel.
Once I get an internet connection at home I'll post more here on the weblog and fix up the site. Once I get an audio input box and find more space to store online recordings, I'll start posting more music. Once I get a new camera, I'll post more photos. In general, once I get out of the debt I went into through not working for a couple weeks and then moving, I will start to figure out how life is going to work here. But it's pretty good already.
With all the new features in OSX 10.4 Tiger, and now the controversy over Apple's move to Intel chips, few have noticed that Apple has quietly taken sides in some old technology debates: how to pronounce GIF and SQL. In brief, the debates are whether one should say "jif" (the peanut butter of choosy moms) or "gif" (like gift without the "t"), and "sequel" (like the second version of a movie) or "es cue el." The latter debate is a little more important (or a little less ridiculous) as it affects not only how you pronounce the acronym, but which article ("a" or "an") you use before, so it comes into play even if you never say "SQL" aloud. Out on the battlefield, Steve Olsen has obviously spent a lot of time expounding the virtues of "jif" pronunciation, while the SQL debate is largely muted by MySQL's declaration:
The official way to pronounce "MySQL'' is "My Ess Que Ell'' (not "my sequel''), but we don't mind if you pronounce it as "my sequel'' or in some other localized way.
During my interview for my new job, I became conscious of my own internal pronunciation when I referred to "my sequel" and everyone else had been talking about "my es cue el." But I managed to get the job anyway. And with the release of Tiger, Apple confirms that I was right. In the new VoiceOver screen reading utility's "Pronunciation" section, Apple has added pronunciations for "GIF" ("jiff") and "SQL" ("sequel") as well as "GUI" ("G U I" - not "gooey") and a bunch more. You can change these pronunciations, but you can no longer run "an es cue el server" or create "jiffs" on a factory Mac.