So work on the database is going well. Today I got the database to insert new books (this is harder than it sounds, because it involves three tables, and inserting multiple records into the same field of one of those tables.

If anyone wants to see, lemme know and I’ll send you the link.

Next step, creating a registration page, so I don’t have someone dump crap into my database or delete everything, thus ruining my hard work. (Not a problem right now, because once I’m done designing I’m going to purge the database and re-import my data before I, like, actually start using it.)

The search function for my database is done for now. Yay me!

Next up: how to add more books to the database, which means updating multiple records from a single form. Then I want to start linking the database to the book portion of my website. Unless I can figure something out, that may be a whole lot of drudge work.

We’ll see.

But for now, it is totally past my bedtime. If I want to keep my depression under control, I need at least 7 hours of sleep a night. I often feel like a toddler, going to bed so early, but it’s better than the alternative.

Read PHP/MySQL Book.
Type Code.
Read PHP/MySQL Book.
Type Code.
View Code.
Curse Code.
Fix Code.
View Code.
Curse Code.
Read PHP/MySQL Book.
Turn Page.
Curse Self.
Type Code.
View Code.
Sigh.

I may have mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been trying to learn php & mysql.

I decided that my project would be a book database, to go with my book website. Because I’m learning this on my own, all I’ve managed so far is to create the database, and create two different searches. Doesn’t seem like much for two weeks of work, but trust me, it was plenty of work!

I’m working on figuring out how to display multiple authors and genres, as opposed to what I’ve got right now, and I’ve got some ideas, but it looks like this is going to be a long term project.

My ultimate goal is to create better searches and have links to pages and reviews. But as I’ve got almost 2000 books in the database right now, it could be slow going.

On the other hand, I’m pretty excited about what I was able to do, and figure out on my own, with only four massive tomes, and brief assistance from one coworker and one husband.

phishing \FISH-ing\ noun
: a scam by which an e-mail user is duped into revealing personal or confidential information which the scammer can use illicitly

“Phishing” is one of the many new computer-related terms that have found their way into the general lexicon over the past decade or so. Its “ph” spelling is influenced by an earlier word for an illicit act: “phreaking.” Phreaking involves fraudulently using an electronic device to avoid paying for telephone calls, and its name is suspected of being a shortening of “phone freak.” A common phishing scam involves sending e-mails that appear to come from banks requesting recipients to verify their accounts by typing personal details, such as credit card information, into a Web site that has been disguised to look like the real thing. Such scams can be thought of as “fishing” for naive recipients.

Of course, I assume that the majority of people who find their way here already know what phishing is and how to avoid phising scams. However, you can look at this as a reminder to educate those around you who don’t know about or understand phishing, so that one day we won’t have to receive 487 phishing e-mails a day.

Okay, I am seriously thinking about ordering this.

Smashing a computer with a hammer is almost a good as throwing one off the roof of the building.

In case you were wondering what I’ve been doing, I’m still plugging away at php. Went completely through one book and am currently going through two others. Unfortunately, I seem to be generating as many questions as the books are answering. On the bright side, I’m much more comfortable poking around WordPress now, since I’m starting to recognize things.
For work, I’m learning Photoshop while rewriting the documentation for our Photoshop Basics class (cropping, sizing, resolution are the main points. Easy.). So it’s pretty much an orgy of software self-education in my brain.
Which reminds me–if anyone knows of a good resource for creating htaccess files for Apache–please let me know.

</geek>

At least the West Virginia front.

I’ve been learning PHP like a mad-woman. I went through a pretty basic book, so now I think I’m the equivalent of someone who can point at objects and name them, and gets the gist of what other people are saying, but would be completely unable to have an in depth conversation on my own.

However, I’m learning. (Notice the countdown on the sidebar. Of course in 26 days I have to come up to something new to count down to.)

And speaking of languages, here’s some time wasting for you…

(more…)

Well, I have the majority of work done on the Books section of my website. Things don’t look much different, but I’m hoping that the file sizes will be smaller, and that might make the load times faster.

Might.

The other house cleaning was cleaning the actual house. Specifically the basement. We filled about 10 half-empty paint cans with kitty litter to put them out in the trash, Michael threw away the vast majority of stuff his mother dumped on him (we’re not having kids, so we really don’t need his christening outfit) and generally got rid of a LOT of stuff that had been shoved into corners and not so much in the corners but more in the way from the work we did on the basement in the fall.

It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to actually move around without constantly running into boxes and cans and bags all full of junk.

Of course we also have a pile of stuff to go to the computer recycling center, to the everything else recycling center, to Christian Help, and to the used bookstore. It never fails to astound me, how much crap we accumulate. Three boxes of journal articles and class notes went out. Old text books from undergraduate school (though for some reason I kept the organic chemistry model kit). I’ve still got an entire box of craft supplies that I’m wondering why I kept, except that it’s all usable. (Anyone want a box of craft supplies? I don’t have the space to either sew or do crafty things right now.)

So my vacation hasn’t been overly relaxing so far, but I did get to spend the better part of two days with my aunt and uncle, which was very nice. There’s a huge difference for family visits centered around family events (weddings, birthdays, etc) versus nothing planned and you can just sit around and talk. As much as I like weddings and birthday parties, I prefer the later kind of visit.

I have to say that despite the fact that it’s been a frustrating evening for dealing with computers, none of those frustrations are related to WordPress. Everything with WordPress is simple and straight forward and as customizable as I’d hoped it would be–after learning the basics of php that is.

Now I just have to see what happens with the comment spam.

And the old pages should redirect here. If you run into difficulty, please let me know.

Otherwise, now that I know enough php to be dangerous, I’m going to do a little bit of work on the site. So expect cursing to continue for the foreseeable future.

I believe it says something about how compatible Microsoft makes their products, that I have to convert my “What’s New in Office 2007” to an Office 97 – 2003 file, and then open the file in Word 2003 in order to convert it to a pdf to make it available to our users.

Just saying.

And I’m still not caring much for Windows Vista. I have a 9 month old laptop, and some features of Vista won’t work on that computer. I admit they’re not necessarily important features, but still.