x + 3 ≅ language

As a web developer, I swear by jQuery. The library has done wonders to make JavaScript both fun and usable, two words that I never thought I’d use to describe it when I was first learning to use JS. My approach to learning jQuery has always been somewhat haphazard, though, learning the little bits I need here and there to do what I need to do at the time.

That’s no way to live as a professional web developer, though, so when Packt Publishing asked me to review their new jQuery book, it seemed like the right time to receive a more thorough education in the library.

Learning jQuery 1.3: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple JavaScript Techniques, by Jonathan Chaffer and Karl Swedberg, aims to provide a thorough introduction to jQuery. It walks the reader through techniques for DOM traversal and manipulation, event-handling, animations, and Ajax. After several chapters of detailed examples, the book concludes with an introduction to using and writing jQuery plugins.
More…

I’m in the process of migrating most of my sites from DreamHost to BlueHost. Putting the reasons for the move aside (<cough>uptime</cough>), DreamHost has one major advantage over BlueHost: easy-to-setup SVN. On BlueHost, SVN isn’t installed, so it took a bit of research to figure out how to do it. I found installation instructions in a few places, but (1) they were all for version 1.4.6 (1.6.4 is the current version) and (2) they didn’t quite work for me. So, here’s how I went about it:

cd ~/src
wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.6.4.tar.gz
wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-deps-1.6.4.tar.gz
tar xzf subversion-1.6.4.tar.gz
tar xzf subversion-deps-1.6.4.tar.gz
cd subversion-1.6.4
./configure --prefix=$HOME
make
make install
cd ~
mkdir svn
cd svn
svnadmin create MyRepository

Pretty simple, overall. Subversion handles all of the dependencies automagically. The only non-standard bit there is the --prefix=$HOME to install it in my home directory (where I have write permission).

Now I can check out my repository with:

svn co svn+ssh://myUserName@mydomain.com/home/myUserName/svn/MyRepository

Notice the use of the svn+ssh protocol. BlueHost doesn’t have mod_svn enabled for Apache, so you can’t connect using HTTP.

Thanks to the Subversion / TortoiseSVN SSH HowTo and these instructions for remembering SSH passwords, I was able to save a session in PuTTY and use those settings to connect using a public key, so I don’t have to enter a password 400 times to check out the repository.

A brief personal note: I have left my job at Ball State University so I can have more time to pursue my career as a freelance web developer.

For about two years, now, my wife and I have been building up our business, Adelie Design, Stephanie doing the design, me doing the coding. Business is good—good enough that working nights and weekends isn’t enough anymore (and doesn’t leave enough time to see the family!). So I’m “retiring”, which is to say that I’ll be staying home and working 40 fewer hours each week.

I’m glad to be leaving, but it’s been a pretty good four years at Ball State. To my colleagues and friends there: thank you. I hope to remain involved in libraries, and especially the code4lib community. Hopefully I’ll have some free time I can devote to “fun” projects.

If you, reader, know of anyone needing a web developer or designer, please have them contact me.

I recently decided to halfheartedly stick my toes back into the Linux waters. It’s been about six or seven years since I last played with it. At the time, I was a music student with an interest in computers, and it ended up being a little over my head. So now, a little wiser (I hope), a little more knowledgeable, I wade back in.

Rather than wiping a hard disk, or even dual-booting, I opted to go with a less committed approach. I’ve set up a virtual computer to run within Windows Vista. I tried Microsoft Virtual PC first, but I never got past the boot stage (on several Linux distributions) before it collapsed into a whimpering heap of self-contradiction. Not dissuaded, I gave Sun’s VirtualBox a try, and it worked admirably.

So I now have Linux Mint 6 installed within VirtualBox within Vista. From what I’ve read about the distribution, it’s a lot like Ubuntu, with a few additional tools to make it easier for the uninitiated to use. I have two monitors, so I’ve pretty much just dedicated one to displaying Windows and one to displaying Linux.

So far, my experience has been pretty good. For basic basic usage (i.e., Internet browsing, word processing, etc.), it seems as easy to use as Windows. mintInstall, the software installation program that comes bundled with Linux Mint, makes installation of the thousands of common software packages very easy, and apt-get fills in where mintInstall leaves off. I had XChat running happily withing moments, something I still haven’t figured out how to do on Vista. I still have a bit of learning to do inside the terminal, but I’m making progress.

As I run across obstacles, I’ll try to post them here (with their solutions, I hope) so I can remember how to do things again later.

Dear Congress,

Don’t just do something, stand there!