Archive for March, 2010

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Code for Coder

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

As some of my readers (Hi, Mom!) know, I took a position in town as a full-time PHP Developer. Now, let it be known, I've developed PHP sites since 2001, but my professional positions always were titled "Web Designer/Developer." My new position is "Internet Developer"- notice the lack of the word "Designer" in that title. I have a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) and am a designer, but my passions have been in writing website code.

Up to now, I never understood the distinction of "web developer" and "web applications developer." Web Applications Developers look at writing code from the super-geeky application-as-a-web-service side of things. Whereas, a web developer (as I've known it) looks at writing code to support the functionality of a website.

<crickets>

Look! It's simple- think of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Bill Gates (application developer) represents the super-geeky coder that writes code because they can and creates things that are useful like spreadsheets and word processors. Steve Jobs (web developer) is that super-slick geek that creates apps that are cool looking and easy to use (because he understands the user experience).It might not be the most useful app, but it sure is shiny!

I guess in that analogy, I'm Bill Gates... CRAP!

Still, my goal is to create a useful and productive app that you'll WANT to be in, not because you have to be in it!

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Posted in Geek Culture, Geek Technology | 3 Comments »

Geek Out!

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Went to see "Alice in Wonderland" in 3D. It was good. It was Burton at his best. but...

LOOK WHAT'S COMING OUT!

SU-WEET!

See the Trailer [here]

Posted in Geek History | No Comments »

Have a Mac? You Have a Web Server! Part 3: Find Me, Please

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

DynamicDNS will help the world find you!

Unless you have a special situation setup with your Internet Provider (Comcast, in my case), you most likely don't have a static IP address.

"A static huh-what?"

Every computer on a network (the internet is the world's largest computer network) has a number address (right now, my home address is 76.100.200.2). That's all very interesting and everything, but no-one wants to remember to go to 207.171.166.252 to shop at Amazon or 17.112.152.57 to buy their new Mac or iPod. So what the early internet big-wigs thought up was a naming solution. Domain Names were a way to humanize the cold and ugly IP Addresses. Domain Name Servers are all over the internet and all they do is map domain names to their IP addresses. So when you type in http://www.amazon.com, you're being directed to a server(s) with the IP address of 207.171.166.252.

Are your eyes glazed over yet? Look! Heres a picture!

Ahhh... a Snuggie will take you away from those nasty IP numbers.

The problem is, you need a "static" (aka- non-changing IP address) for the DNS servers to find you. My IP address that Comcast gives me for my computer changes about once a quarter. If I want to point phpirates.com to my home computer, I'd need to pay $29 a year for DynamicDns's Custom DNS Service. I tried this and it works very well. I install the DynamicDNS app onto my mac and it updates their servers with my current IP address every day. Their DNS servers then know where to direct people when they go to phpirates.com.

You can also use their free service if you don't care what your domain name is. They will assign you one of their domains (in my case, brucecreative.blogdns.com) and you can use that for FREE!

Conclusions & Caveats on Running a Public Web Server at Home

Before you go off and setup your wildly successful Blog on your home Mac, keep this in mind- you are opening your computer up to massive cyber-attacks! If you are going to do this, I recommend you use a Mac you do not rely on for production. Let's put it this way, if you don't feel you could safely erase your web server's hard drive and not lose anything vital, I wouldn't use it to host live and very public websites!

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

...aside from that, have fun ;)

Posted in Geek How-To | 2 Comments »

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