This is possibly my favorite thing about the framework, the ability to use as much or as little as you would like. It gives great flexibility and allows you to include parts into a currently existing project.

To get started, you need to tell your PHP application where zend is, in addition, starting the autoloader at this time really makes life easy. The following code does just that:

With these two items in place you can just begin to call Zend Classes and Functions without another thought about it. I put this in my included header.php file, where I have all kinds of includes. Now my functions are available to me wherever I am.

To start your form it is very easy.

That is is, we have started a form. Everything else will use the newly created $form object and go forward from there.

Next, you must add attributes and elements to your form. I found certain parts of this very poorly documented. I wish there was a list of acceptable options, etc for each form addition type but there isn’t. Maybe I should just not complain and write it, but I digress. Adding attributes is rather easy

Now adding form fields, a couple options here, both quite easy. First is to just use the $form object and add directly:

The arguments passed to the addElement method are type, name, array of  options.

The second option is to create a Zend_Form_Element object and add that to the $form object:

The last bit, actually rendering your form. Some caveats here, Zend Framework components can be used outside of the Zend MVC environment, but you still must define a view in order for the form to actually come up. If you do not, you will get an exception. It isn’t hard though, the following will do it for you:

Viola! The form magically appears in front of your eyes. A couple things to remember, anything that can be attribute of an HTML form of input elements can be added to the Zend_Form in the options array. This includes, value, class, specifically defined ID, etc. I will be using Zend_Form much more often. It is so easy to get forms together quickly and easily.

Ubuntu has really made these updates easy with the do-release-upgrade command, part of the update-manager-core package. Running the command does pretty well everything for you, and all you have to do is follow a couple of on-screen instructions.

The first server to update was a public webserver. It sits in the datacenter at Xmission, and houses several websites, a database server, and some dns services. This was on ubuntu 8.04, and I was migrating it to 10.04. I logged in from my house via SSH, ran the do-release-upgrade command and we were off to the races. I rebooted afterwards, and waited about 5 minutes. Sure enough I can even SSH back into the box. Then I realize that the upgrade removed my MTA and Database server as part of cleaning up unused packages. Really seems silly to me that is would do that. Thankfully just installing the database was enough, all the databases and users, etc. were still there. Then a fight with apache to actually read the virtualhosts and serve them right. I don’t know what I changed, but it worked.

The second was a backup server onsite. It was at ubuntu 9.04, but with two release upgrades I was running strong on the LTS. Everything else just seemed to work, so that was an easy done.

Last machine was an internal webserver, running some intercompany webapps. It also served as a MTA for the office, allowing copy machines to send mail. It has been the real pain. Upgraded remotely via ssh and it never came back after the reboot. When I physically got to the machine to check it out it was saying something I have never seen before. Grub was complaining that it couldn’t find /dev/mapper/root-device and would drop me to a busybox shell. But I could see /dev/mapper/root-device from the shell. I fought with this for a while. After something like 100 restarts I got the bright idea and just typed ‘exit’ at the busybox shell. Guess what!!! The machine started fine! I have no idea what the machines damage is, but from now on I just type exit when restarting the machine. Thankfully the server doesn’t restart very often, in fact, this update was the first time in 1 1/2 years that I have restarted it. But my trial was not over then. Last large issue was the /etc/network/interfaces file. It kept the old file, but then would not work right. Weirdest symptoms, I could get to the machine fine from 2 of our 5 subnets and the computer could not get to the outside world. I fought with it a while and finally just disabled one of the interfaces and renamed some of the alias’ and away we ran.

I guess the moral of the story is, no server update ever goes smooth. Thankfully I am done for two years.

I then found http://www.arsgeek.com/2008/01/15/how-to-fix-your-windows-mbr-with-an-ubuntu-livecd/ . I thought to myself, how perfect is that? I know that the ubuntu disk will run, and then I can perform the changes I need and away we go.

Some changes since the writing of my reference article. The ms-sys package is no longer in the repositories. If you go to their website you can download source and do a quick make, make-install.

After you have done that the rest is easy peazy. Once again, linux saves the day.

After some searching I found http://www.pcidatabase.com/ . This website can just search by Vendor ID or Hardware ID and give you the information that you need to get stuff fixed. I have used it a couple of times and found it very helpful.

So, I finally got around to installing Debian on my home desktop machine. I have been holding off because I am lazy. So far everything had worked, but I had a weekend off and away we ran with it.

First, I did have two little issues. I installed lenny and my update to squeeze crashed and burned. Once I used the Testing installer all was well. Also the installer didn’t like hooking to the wifi even though my wireless driver is included in the kernel as the ath9k driver. Aside from that this was the smoothest install I have ever had. Ever. Of all time.

Some things that I really liked. Once I installed the system I was up to date and running full steam ahead. No need to update and wait and download everything. That was already done as part of the install. Usually there are some configuration things and little get it together issues. Once I associated my bluetooth keyboard and mouse I have not had to do anything else. Everything has just fallen into place.

Also, rolling releases are just an awesome idea. I can stay on testing and I will always have an up to date system. Furthermore, the packages in the repositories are not archaic, but actually quiet up-to-date.

All in all, I am very pleased with my Debian install.

Lets first examine what happened in California’s proposition 8. A proposal was made. Supporters of both sides campaigned by every means that they could to gain even more supporters. Voters turned up at the polls in record numbers to cast their vote on an issue. The votes were counted and like every contest one side lost and didn’t like it.

Regardless of what side of this issue you are on this is what happened. The issue could have been about changing all roads to be painted white instead of black asphalt. To do white would allow more sun to be reflected and city tempratures to come down. To leave it black would cost less and actually prevent accidents because the sun wouldn’t reflect in peoples eyes from the road. The cycle is the same, proposal, campaign, voters, and counting. It has been going on for a long time.

This process of rules being established by vote of the people is the foundation of a democratic society.

Now this is where I get scared. Yesterday the federal court overturned California’s proposition 8 and all I see is people praising this wonderful decision and how awesome it is. I saw it tweeted, on facebook, in newspapers and radio programs. It was even hailed as a huge justice on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ by one of the judges. But what were they praising? The were praising that the democratic process just got overthrown.

Yep, my whole concern with this issue is regardless of how I vote if I don’t do it the way ‘they’ want, my vote will get the ol’ heave-ho and ‘they’ will have it however they want. It doesn’t matter the issue folks. It could be about what color to paint the street. Nope, you did it wrong, and we are going to repeal it. Tough crap!

The fact that people are thinking that this overturning of the law is just about marriage is absolutely beyond me. This could be about anything you find important. From school budgets to gun control to whether to go to war. If you don’t do it the way ‘they’ want they will just find a way to get it done anyways. I think that George Carlin’s words say it best. Basically, ‘they’ don’t care about you, ‘they’ will do whatever ‘they’ want.

What I would rather see, what I am shocked is not happening, what should be done is have everyone on either side of this issue protest with big signs that say “Stop F***ing America!”. Later, we can all play part of the democratic process again. Get a new bill proposed that overturns a previous bill, campaign our hearts out, and then have the voters come out. When it as all done, we can count the votes and see where it stands. Until then, I guess a whole bunch of people are really happy being raped over by Uncle Sam and the broken American System.

Case and point: Today I am using a Toshiba Laptop that has a Intel Pentium Dual-Core 1.6 GHz processor and 2 GB of ram. Now while these two figures alone do not give us a perfect picture of expected performance any machine with these components should be just fine.

I clicked the start orb, then on control panel. Ten minutes later the control panel came up. Ten minutes. I sat there waiting for just the control panel. I then selected ‘Network and sharing’, another 3 minutes. After it finally opens all looks fine there, I now need to add a printer. Go back to Control Panel. After 7 minutes of just sitting there with that blue donut whirling it finally did something. Yes folks, a flash of a blue screen and the computer restarted.

I wish that I could take this computer and do one of two things, install something else, like my favorite free operating system, or downgrade to Windows XP or upgrade to Windows 7. But alas, it is not my computer. It is the personal computer of a co-worker who needs access to certain things on our network. I won’t go into the pain of this running windows Vista Home Premium and that connecting even to drives in our active directory is a hack at best. That will be a post for another day.

The other photos all ended up blurry because it was dark. But these were pretty good.

Lets look at a completely hypothetical example:

A: Hey, hows it going? Haven’t chatted in a while.
A: Wanted to ask you if you still had that car.
B: Hey, hows it going? Yeah, it has been a while.
B: What are you up to?
B: Yeah I have the car, Why?
A: I am fine, just up to the usual, Work.
A: boss is really on my nerves.
A: Was wanting to know if you wanted to sell the car.
B: Oh man that sucks! I hate my boss. Work is the pits.
B: I wish I could quit my job.
A: Oh man I know. Work is awful.
B: So you like the car? I need the money, I could sell it.
A: I hate it, it is always on my nerves.

It is at this point that confusion comes in. By looking right at the chat it looks like person A hates the car and it is always on his nerves. We can look at the two conversations seperatly and see that each is a logical, straightforward conversation.

A: Hey, hows it going? Haven’t chatted in a while.
B: Hey, hows it going? Yeah, it has been a while.
B: What are you up to?
A: I am fine, just up to the usual, Work.
A: boss is really on my nerves.
B: Oh man that sucks! I hate my boss. Work is the pits.
B: I wish I could quit my job.
A: Oh man I know. Work is awful.
A: I hate it, it is always on my nerves.

A: Wanted to ask you if you still had that car.
B: Yeah I have the car, Why?
A: Was wanting to know if you wanted to sell the car.
B: So you like the car? I need the money, I could sell it.

Each is a self contained conversation.

Has anyone else noticed this in their own chats? It seems that I am not totally alone in my findings, there is a facebook group about it. It seems too the only way to not have it happen is to wait what seems like an obscenely long time for each question to be asked and answered back.