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Review: mediatemple’s MySQL Containers
2007-06-27 23:05:38
Here’s yet another mediatemple post — they just keep on rolling out the goods, it’s hard not to love them! This time I’ll be reviewing their MySQL Containers which were released during their last Grid system update four months ago but I’ve only had access to them now. What is a MySQL Container? If you’re thinking of running a large social network or a lot of sites that will perform a lot of database queries (*cough* Wordpress), then performance would be greatly improved by having a machine dedicated to managing a database. A MySQL GridContainer is just that. It gives you isolated RAM and CPU for your own databases. These resources are not shared with anyone else and is therefore protected from other users and their applications. After all, you don’t want your site knocked offline because someone else on your shared hosting crashed your shared database! Extra Features MySQL Containers aren’t just a fancy name for a dedicated database


Review: Backup Data Online with Mozy
2007-06-26 23:04:29
Yesterday, I mentioned Mozy as the program that I use to do backup data online. I’ve used several different online backup services in the last couple years and I’ve been using Mozy for over a year now so I feel I can write a decent review of it. What is Mozy Mozy is an automatic remote backup service for Windows and Macs (sorry, no Linux support yet but if you’re using Linux I’m sure you’d much rather use rsync anyway). You schedule Mozy to do backups of whatever data you select and it will perform incremental backups (meaning only changes are updated) so backups are fast and you can easily rollback to any prior backup — sort of like Mac OS X’s Time Machine feature. Backups are encrypted on your computer with a strong 448-bit Blowfish encryption and are then sent to Mozy’s servers through an 128-bit encrypted SSL connection. Your data is fully secure and if you wish, you can specify your own encryption key so even Mozy can’t hav


Wordpress Blog Hacked!
2007-07-02 21:07:34
I’m sure some of you noticed this earlier but my blog was hacked. I’m not sure how, but I’m working with (mt) to get to the bottom of it. I’ve restored it to the latest backup point I have handy since I don’t have access to the most up-to-date backup at the moment. If anyone has any information, please let me know! Stay tuned! Update: All posts and comments restored, let me know if anything is missing or broken! none
Read more: Hacked , Wordpress

Month in Review - June 2007
2007-07-01 22:04:31
Let’s keep this one short and sweet because it’s my girlfriend’s birthday today and I don’t have too much time to spend on this! Last month’s goals: Increase Alexa ranking into top 70,000 64,336 — woohoo! Increase RSS readership above 250 222 — but it’s been over 250 a few days… Increase Technorati ranking into the top 6,000. 3,077 — sizzling! Maintain a post a day! 29 posts — off by 1 post… again! Earn at least $50 (non-affiliate) from Text-link-ads and Review-me. I’ve earned nothing… I think I give up on them. Perhaps it’s time to look into alternatives! Publicly launch an interesting little site I’ve been working on! SurfHandsfree.com - Launched and is being used… albeit not by many people! Write some more product reviews Reviewed: mediatemple, Mozy, and more mediatemple Write more about Ruby on Rails I’ve actually diverged from this a bit as I’m working on an exciting new project in PHP/MySQL (something I’m more familiar with). So I didn
Read more: Month

Prevent Comment Spam
2007-07-01 22:00:05
Any Wordpress blogger can tell you what a pain it is to go through their Akismet Spam filter to identify any false-positives (real comments that get identifed as spam). In a week, I used to get about 500 comments that gets caught by Akismet which isn’t a lot compared to some more popular blogs. Within these comments, I’d say approximately 1% of them are false-positives. Sure I could’ve ignored them but I feel every comment is an important one that shouldn’t be overlooked! Here are possible solutions to this problem: Bad Behavior A couple weeks ago I wrote about how I installed the Bad Behavior plug-in to prevent unwanted traffic to my site (i.e. spam bots). Well it looked like it worked! In this past week I’ve only had 50 comments in the filter, that’s a big difference! Captcha Now I could have easily installed a Captcha tool but I’m sure that would annoy a lot of the regular readers and commentators. (Captchas are the “enter the following jumbled letters to prove
Read more: Comment

8 Fun Facts About Jon Lee
2007-07-06 22:42:39
I got tagged by Samanathon, Nathan Drach and Ms Danielle to list 8 fun facts about me so here goes. I don’t consider myself a boring person but I had difficulty coming up with all eight! This is how it works: Each player must post these rules to begin the meme. Each players starts with eight random facts or habits about themselves. People who get tagged must blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog. 8 Facts to Know About Jon Lee that You Don’t Really Need to Know but Some People Tagged Me So Here We Are… I don’t own a car - public transportation, walking and cycling for me! It’s both environmentally friendly and cost efficient. I do have a driver’s license though. I’m fluent in English and Cantonese, semi-fluent in Mandarin, French and American Sign Lan


Would You Turn Down $10,000?
2007-07-05 19:59:46
Ever since I started this blog, I’ve been getting offers from people and businesses to help with design and development. Since web development isn’t my full-time job but rather something I enjoy doing in my spare time, I’ve been turning down these offers. I was not ready to drop everything else in my life to work on a week-long project for a couple thousand dollars. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had several people approach me for help with implementing a feature or with a bit of programming. I was very glad to help and offer advice and would never think of taking even a dime for it since it only took a moment of my time. Temptations So last week I was approached by a new startup company (who wishes to remain anonymous until launch) to develop a dynamic website with a custom content management system (CMS) and a sophisticated but optimized PHP/MySQL backend. They needed a complete working site within a month’s time (that includes design, development,


Game Break: Best Defend Your Castle Games
2007-07-04 22:50:44
Defend your Castle , Defend your Base, Defend your House, Defense Games etc. These would be my second most favorite genre of flash games next to Tower Defense games. Although this genre is similar to Tower Defense in that you try to eliminate enemies as they rush towards their objective, the difference is that it is you yourself that does the killing as opposed to towers. Generally, you gain money from the enemies you kill and you can use this money to upgrade your weapons or to buy automated weapons to help you defend your castle/base/house. Here are in my opinion, the top 5 best “Defend Your Castle” style games: The Last Stand If you liked the movie 28 Days Later then you will surely love this game. The Last Stand puts you in a barricade against hordes of zombies during the night. And during the day, you go scouring for better weapons and other survivors (to help defend against zombies and increase chances of finding weapons). This game involves a little bit of movem
Read more: Break

Wordpress Blog Hacked!
2007-07-02 21:07:34
I’m sure some of you noticed this earlier but my blog was hacked. I’m not sure how, but I’m working with (mt) to get to the bottom of it. I’ve restored it to the latest backup point I have handy since I don’t have access to the most up-to-date backup at the moment. If anyone has any information, please let me know! Stay tuned! Update: All posts and comments restored, let me know if anything is missing or broken! Update 2: After a bit of digging, some other people have had a similar thing happen to them and they say the “Wordpress Database Backup” plugin has a security hole and is to blame.  No definites on this yet but I’ve deactivated it just in case. It’s ironic because it is that very plug-in that let me restore my blog to its original form. none
Read more: Hacked

Month in Review - June 2007
2007-07-01 22:04:31
Let’s keep this one short and sweet because it’s my girlfriend’s birthday today and I don’t have too much time to spend on this! Last month’s goals: Increase Alexa ranking into top 70,000 64,336 — woohoo! Increase RSS readership above 250 222 — but it’s been over 250 a few days… Increase Technorati ranking into the top 6,000. 3,077 — sizzling! Maintain a post a day! 29 posts — off by 1 post… again! Earn at least $50 (non-affiliate) from Text-link-ads and Review-me. I’ve earned nothing… I think I give up on them. Perhaps it’s time to look into alternatives! Publicly launch an interesting little site I’ve been working on! SurfHandsfree.com - Launched and is being used… albeit not by many people! Write some more product reviews Reviewed: mediatemple, Mozy, and more mediatemple Write more about Ruby on Rails I’ve actually diverged from this a bit as I’m working on an exciting new project in PHP/MySQL (something I’m more familiar with). So I didn
Read more: Month

Prevent Comment Spam
2007-07-01 22:00:05
Any Wordpress blogger can tell you what a pain it is to go through their Akismet Spam filter to identify any false-positives (real comments that get identifed as spam). In a week, I used to get about 500 comments that gets caught by Akismet which isn’t a lot compared to some more popular blogs. Within these comments, I’d say approximately 1% of them are false-positives. Sure I could’ve ignored them but I feel every comment is an important one that shouldn’t be overlooked! Here are possible solutions to this problem: Bad Behavior A couple weeks ago I wrote about how I installed the Bad Behavior plug-in to prevent unwanted traffic to my site (i.e. spam bots). Well it looked like it worked! In this past week I’ve only had 50 comments in the filter, that’s a big difference! Captcha Now I could have easily installed a Captcha tool but I’m sure that would annoy a lot of the regular readers and commentators. (Captchas are the “enter the following jumbled letters to prove
Read more: Comment

PHP Tidbit: Efficient Loops
2007-06-30 21:59:26
Loops can save a lot of redundancy in your code by performing a particular task over and over again. However, to keep the loop as efficient as possible, here are some tips to follow. Note that these tips apply to many programming languages, not just PHP but examples are given in PHP code. 1) Avoid nested loops if possible. Nesting loops is sometimes necessary but if possible, it’s best to avoid them. Each nested loop exponentially increases the number of iterations required.2) Avoid functions in loop heads Here is a very common inefficiency that I see. It goes something like this: for ($i=0; $i<count($myarray); $i++) {    //do something } using the count() function in the header of your loop requires the array to be counted every interaction. Instead, do the count once, store it in a variable and use that instead! $numelements = count($myarray); for ($i=0; $i<$numelements; $i++) {    //do something } 3) Don’t go through the same loop twice If


Regarding Google’s Supplemental Index
2007-06-29 21:57:25
Google ’s Supplemental Index is a topic of constant debate amongst SEO (search engine optimization) fanatics. A month ago, I had over 500 pages in the supplemental index. Since performing a couple of little fixes, I am proud to say I’m now down to 5 pages in the index! If you’ve never heard of Google’s Supplemental Index, here’s a short little intro. If you have, I’d like to hear your views on it. What is Google’s Supplemental Index? A lot of people view Google’s supplemental as the place your pages goes to when Google believes it is duplicate content, untrusted or just plain useless. Why is the Supplemental Index Important? Whether or not your page is in the supplemental index can mean the difference being on the first page of Google or the 30th page for a particular search term. How do I check how many of my pages are in the Supplemental Index? You can preform a simple Google search as follows, replacing my domain with yours of course: site:jonlee.ca *** -view Or as


Review: mediatemple’s MySQL Containers
2007-06-28 21:53:12
Here’s yet another mediatemple post — they just keep on rolling out the goods, it’s hard not to love them! This time I’ll be reviewing their MySQL Containers which were released during their last Grid system update four months ago but I’ve only had access to them now. What is a MySQL Container? If you’re thinking of running a large social network or a lot of sites that will perform a lot of database queries (*cough* Wordpress), then performance would be greatly improved by having a machine dedicated to managing a database. A MySQL GridContainer is just that. It gives you isolated RAM and CPU for your own databases. These resources are not shared with anyone else and is therefore protected from other users and their applications. After all, you don’t want your site knocked offline because someone else on your shared hosting crashed your shared database! Extra Features MySQL Containers aren’t just a fancy name for a dedicated database machine. They also come with several


Efficient Akismet Spam Moderation
2007-07-10 20:51:21
Two weeks ago, I talked about ways to prevent comment spam on your blog. Most of them required installing some sort of plug-in or tinkering. Near the bottom of that post I briefly mentioned a Greasemonkey script that can make your weekly task of moderating spam comments much more efficient. The script is called Auntie Akismet and it requires the Greasemonkey Firefox plug-in to be installed first (installation link). If you don’t have Greasemonkey installed, I highly recommend it since it can run a lot of scripts to modify behavior of different sites. For example, it can integrate Google Reader into your Gmail. What it Does What Auntie Akismet does is truncate your spam comments so that no comment will be longer than a line. Most of the time, you can judge by the first line of a comment whether or not it is spam. By doing this, you can view many more comments in a smaller area. I’m sure you’ve all seen those long comments that are almost essay length. To get an
Read more: Moderation

Google Twin Quest Update
2007-07-08 21:53:16
If you’ve been following my blog for a while or have noticed my Google Twin Quest tracker in the sidebar, you’ll know that I’ve been on a quest to defeat my Google Twins since March. For those that don’t know, your Google twin is a person (or persons) that come up when you search your own name in Google. A few weeks into my quest I was already in the first position on Google.ca but 8th on Google.com. For the past couple months, I’ve been fluctuating between 4th and 5th place, consistently behind the British trio of S Club 7 Jon Lee, Feeder Jon Lee and Jonathan Lee Recruitment. Recent Advances This past week I made a sudden surge into the second position, behind Jonathan Lee Recruitment. I have no idea why their company is still ahead of me. They don’t have as many link backs nor is the word “Jon” anywhere on their site. Perhaps it is because they have a higher pagerank, or that their company has been around since 1978, who knows. I
Read more: Update

Review My Web Development Blog - Batch 1
2007-07-07 22:55:36
It took 4 months but I accumulated my first batch of reviews! Nice4Rice - Review (still accepting rice) BlissLogs - Review Tax Back - Review Cherry Fashion - Review Enkay Blog - Review The winner for the best review this batch is definitely Jason Spence from BlissLogs. His review was not only comprehensive but he taught me all about playing in Peoria. As the batch’s winner, he gets his link in the header of my blog as the “Featured Blog” until the next batch is released. Hopefully it won’t be another four months! As for the prize, I picked a blog out of a hat (just kidding, I used a random number generator) and the winner was Cherry Fashion. The prize for this first batch is an iPod sock! I’m afraid the sock is blue so it might clash with the “Cherry” theme… sorry… To get your chance at winning a prize or becoming the “Featured Blog”, check out the official rules. blisslogs, nice4rice, review my blog
Read more: Development , Web Development

10 Tips for Prolonged Computer Usage
2007-07-13 23:05:55
We’ve all had to pull that all-nighter either to cram for an exam, finish a project or just because you had a brilliant idea you didn’t want to let go of. Whether you are writing, programming or just surfing, prolonged use of the computer is not healthy especially if in a dimly lit room. Here are some tips to maximize efficiency, minimize discomfort and recover quickly. These are personal tips, no scientific backing here! Room Lighting This is a matter of preference but I can’t stand to work in a really brightly lit room when it is dark outside. It just doesn’t sit well with me and I find that I concentrate better when the room is dark — maybe because there are fewer things to look at. Change your Editor Color Scheme If you’re doing programming or word processing, using light text on a dark background puts a lot less stress on your eyes than a black on white background. If you can’t get use to it, see the next tip. Monitor Brightness This
Read more: Computer , Usage

Review: Agile Web Development with Rails
2007-07-12 22:54:25
When I first decided to learn Ruby on Rails, I came across two book recommendations on the official Ruby on Rails site. The first book is an introduction to web development with Rails, called Agile Web Development with Rails. The second is called Rails Recipes which includes many tutorials on using Rails in various situations. Not sure how deep I had wanted to dive into Rails, I only bought the first book. I ordered mine (second edition) from Amazon and came out to about $25 US after tax and shipping. When it arrived, I was surprised at the size of it. I mean for only $25 I expected a nice compact introductory book but instead it came in at a hefty 700+ pages! Talk about bang for your buck. The Authors Agile Web Development with Rails is written primarily by Dave Thomas (not the late Wendy’s founder) and David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of Rails). Dave Thomas is of The Pragmatic Programmer fame (another book which I own and highly recommend). His pragmatic philosophy of


Motivating Commercials to Learn Another Language
2007-07-11 20:30:50
When I mentioned that I speak quite a few languages (not all fluently though), I got some pretty positive reactions! If you’re looking for a good reason to learn another language, here are some motivating commercials that might inspire you: That last one is my favorite one, when I saw it on TV, I couldn’t stop laughing for a while. You have to understand a BIT of French to get it. Everything he says you learn in an introductory French class. Here’s a translation of what he’s actually saying: Hi, my name is Bill Where is Pierre? Pierre is in the washroom. I work in a dance club. Open the window, free. Raspberry Juice! Mmm… Library! Here are three other commercials that I didn’t find as funny as the ones above but are still related. Warning on that third one, there is some explicit language! commercial, funny, videos
Read more: Commercials , Motivating

See Who’s Sharing your Shared Hosting
2007-07-16 23:24:33
Many websites on the internet are hosted on some type of shared hosting. Shared hosting means your site is hosted on a server alongside other sites, in essence, you’re sharing the same server. Do you know who you’re sharing your hosting with? Why does it matter? On a shared hosting server, your resources are shared amongst sites on the same server so if you experience major slowdowns or constant server crashes, it might be one of your fellow webmasters that is to blame! I mean, who’d want to be hosted beside a very high traffic site or a very resource hungry unoptimized site right? Also, there could be some legal concerns if there is inappropriate content hosted alongside your site on the same server. It’s best to be on the safe side and alert your web host of any suspicious activity from your server before things get worse! How to Check Who’s Sharing Your Shared Hosting To see who you’re sharing your website with, you could ask your web host,


Am I Psychic or What
2007-07-15 22:12:06
Just yesterday, I said I had a feeling I would win Gary Lee’s iPhone giveaway since I only ever win useless things. Well as luck would have it, less than an hour after I made that post, I find out that I won the world’s thinnest mouse from John Chow, the G4 Slim Mouse. How’s that for something useless! This little engineering marvel fits inside your laptop’s PCMCIA slot and when unfolded (supposedly quite the challenge), it becomes a corded optical mouse that is apparently uncomfortable to use. The mouse has two buttons and a touchpad scroll wheel, much like the one on laptops or on the Logitech V500 which I also own. Given the small size, I can only imagine how uncomfortable this mouse will be for prolonged use. I think I’ll stick to my Trackpoint, thank you very much. Although dubbed by the maker as The Thinnest Mouse Ever Created, Newton Peripherals actually came out with a similar mouse a while ago, the MoGo Mouse. Here are the differences betwe
Read more: Psychic

FTP Transfer - Binary vs ASCII
2007-07-18 22:57:18
Any web developer out there has their favorite FTP program as a major part of their web development arsenal. Whether it be FireFTP, CuteFTP, WS_FTP, Filezilla, SmartFTP or any other FTP program, they all have a setting that allows you to set how you wish to transfer your files. What is Transfer Mode Transfer mode is the method in which you wish to send your data to your server. Options are either ASCII , binary or automatic. (Binary in this case does not exactly refer to 1’s and 0’s). I’m sure 99% of users will have their transfer mode set to either binary or Automatic. Myself, I have it set to automatic, but do you actually know what the difference between ASCII and Binary is? I’ll spare you the technical details but here’s the general rule: If you can open the file in Notepad and understand it, then transfer the file using ASCII mode. If it’s a bunch of random unintelligible characters in Notepad, then transfer the file using binary mode. F


Bored at Work? The World’s Longest Jokes!
2007-07-17 21:27:24
If you’re bored at work and have a lot of spare time, here are two jokes for you. Now these aren’t your regular one liner jokes — these jokes rely heavily on character and plot development. They are also perhaps two of the longest jokes in the world! Joke Number One Joke Number Two (Not as long as the first one) I assure you that making you read through the whole thing is not the joke itself. There is an ending punchline but I strongly advise you not to skip to the end and ruin the joke! Disclaimer: I make no claims as to how funny the jokes are. funny, joke
Read more: Bored , Jokes , Longest , World

Review: G4 Slim Mouse
2007-07-20 22:58:00
Here is the promised review for the 2P Slim Mouse which I won from a John Chow contest last week. It arrived at my house in only 2 business days from across the country! I guess he can shell out the extra couple bucks for Xpresspost since he makes over $10,000 a month on just his blog alone. First of all, I apologize for the picture/video/audio quality since all I have with me is my camera phone! The Slim Mouse and Accessories The mouse came in a very nicely designed box. Inside was the mouse itself, along with a nice “leather” case and a slim and small but usable mouse pad. Also, there was an instruction manual that was invaluable in figuring how to assemble the mouse! To my surprise, John Chow had signed the mouse; he mentioned in his e-mail to me that he had signed it but I thought he was referring to the shipment package. I’m not sure how I feel about this; on one hand, it makes it a nice souvenir item but on the other hand I think it kind of degrades th
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