One man’s voice

The Microsoft ZunePhone

Posted on October 31st, 2007 in Funnies, Geek Stuff | No Comments »

Seriously, you know you want to rush right out and get one these bad boys. As soon as they come out that is.

Throw Away Three

Posted on October 30th, 2007 in General, Personal Messages | No Comments »

So the kids and I, a long time ago, developed a card game that was intended to help us pass the time while being enjoyable for all of us. Being as we are all nerds and love to learn, we turned it into a math game. I want to share this game with you here.

How to play
The name of the game is Throw Away Three. It can be played with up to six players and requires one complete deck of standard playing cards. A person designated as “the Dealer” shuffles the cards and deals our five cards to each player starting with the player to his/her left. Each player looks at their cards and tried to make the strongest hand (see See how to Score below) they can with what they have in their hand. If the player wants to, he/she can throw away up to three of their cards in exchange for up to three new cards. After this initial round of “throwing away” the hands are tallied for scores and written down.

For the next round, the game is played in exactly the same manner with the exception of the position of “the Dealer” is now moved one place to the left. This is carried on for 10 rounds after which each players score is added up and the player with the highest score wins the game.

How to Score
Each numbered card in the deck is valued at the number shown on the card. Face cards and Aces are valued as follows:
» Jacks are worth 11 points
» Queens are worth 12 points
» Kings are worth 13 points
» Aces are worth 15 points

A hand with no doubles, triples or quadruples would be valued like this:
Hand: 3-5-7-9-K
Score: 3+5+7+9+13 = 39

Any combination of multiples cards of the same value are valued at the sum of the same cards times the number of cards that are the same. So if you have a double of a card, the score for that double would be the value of the two cards added together times two. Same goes for triples and quadruples. Here are a few more example:
Hand: 6-6-8-8-10
Score: (6+6) * 2 + (8+8) * 2 + 10 = 66

Hand: 4-4-4-8-J
Score: (4+4+4) * 3 + 8 + 11 = 55

Hand: 5-5-5-5-8
Score: (5+5+5+5) * 4 + 8 = 88

Conclusion
Throw Away Three is a great game for learning math, spending time with family and friends or just passing time having fun. I encourage you to try it with your kids and see how fast they get at simple arithmetic. And I would bet you will get a little better at the numbers as well. Enjoy.

Customizing Subversion Permissions

Posted on October 29th, 2007 in Apache Server, Geek Stuff | No Comments »

I spent the better part of the morning this morning learning how to set up Subversion to allow anonymous checkouts of repositories while maintaining authentication requirements for checking in. It was quite a learning lesson, but the Subversion book and several Google searches actually get things working the way I want them.

Anyway, what I had to do was modify my httpd.conf (this could potentially be done in the subversion.conf, but I have virtual hosted my svn repos so I made these changes in my httpd.conf) to change the way permissions were being served. Keep in mind that I am not usering svnserve to serve up my repos but am using Apache instead. The changes that I made to httpd.conf were inside the <Location> block set up for the virtual host for my subversion repos and look like:

<Location /repo-url-path>
  DAV svn
  SVNParentPath /path/to/repos

  # Taken from the sample on path based auth
  AuthzSVNAccessFile /path/to/repos/auth/authz

  # Try anonymous access first, resort to real
  # authentication if necessary.
  Satisfy Any
  Require valid-user

  # How to authenticate users
  AuthType Basic
  AuthName "Everah Projects Code Repositories"
  AuthUserFile /path/to/svn-auth-file
</Location>

As you can see, I created an AuthzSVNAccessFile named authz and put it in a directory called /auth/ that was off of my repos directory root. I then added the SVN instruction to use that file in my httpd.conf.

The next step was to add the Satisfy Any and Require valid-user lines after that but before the AuthType information. This tells SVN to look for permissions in the permissions file and apply those as described in the file. Then SVN is allowed to open up access to those that have it and require validation where it is required.

After I created the authz file I made it look something like this:
# Make groups for easier addition later on of permissions to contributors
[groups]
devs_all = robert
devs_padlock = robert

# NOTE: The repository name in the section header is the directory
# name off of /path/to/svn-repos/
#
# The path portion is the section of that repo. In this case, / means
# the entire friggin thing.
[TestRepo:/]
@devs_all = rw
* = r

[CodeRepo:/]
@devs_padlock = rw
* = r

[SecureRepo:/]
@devs_all = rw
* =


Once this was done, I restarted Apache and the changes were in effect.
[root@myserver /]# apachectl -k graceful

And now I have a Subversion install that allows for anonymous access to some of my repos while others still require authentication. And the repos that allow anonymous access still require authentication for checking in.

Sweet. I like being a nerd.

Singing like a little boy

Posted on October 28th, 2007 in Funnies, On Children | No Comments »

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I was able to understand my son well enough to converse with him. Mostly that is due to the fact that my son is only two years and three months old. But some of that has to do with me just not understanding babyish.

So today it struck me. My son is very musically inclined. Not that this should come as any major shock to anyone. All of my kids are very advanced for their ages (I am not bragging on my kids - well, yes I am - but my kids really are advanced, and I am not saying just because I am their father). I was reminded of this again today as my two year and three month old son was singing complete songs all over the house today. No, not parts of them. Entire songs. From memory.

And if that wasn’t enough, he was also humming the tunes of several Flamenco pieces that I listen to in the car. Yes, humming them. In tune.

Man, where was this talent when I was a kid? My children are mind blowing. And they seem to blow my mind daily.

Not so lazy Saturday

Posted on October 27th, 2007 in General, Getting Out, On Family | 1 Comment »

So I am sitting at Carl’s Jr. with my four youngest kids thinking what a busier than normal day it has been. I like being busy and all, but today was a little busier than I’d hoped it’d be.

It started out easy enough with me waking up to a rather nice good morning kiss from my wife. And that is about the last thing I remember.

I had to go to the store to get stuff for breakfast. Then I had to make breakfast. And I had to clean the dishes and half the kitchen.

After that I had to clean up after breakfast and get the kids ready to take a drive. Which we did, to Best Buy so I could get an adapter for my iPhone that will let me use my Bose headphones to listen to my iPod. Then it was off to the barber for some hairs cutting before heading to CJ’s for burgers and play place.

It’s all good though. If I get nothing else out of this day I will always be able to say that today wasthe day that Rebekah, my 10 year old daughter, ate a Six Dollar Burger with fries and a coke faster than I ate my little league burger. I am astounded, yet horrified at the though of my future food bills.

Drawing a blank on colors

Posted on October 26th, 2007 in CSS, Geek Stuff, Web Development | No Comments »

I am so having designers block right now. I have this great little idea for an online journal (no, not a blog, though it could seem like one) but I cannot find the right color scheme for it.

Every now and again I go through this. I start off with what I think it the base color scheme, then when I go through various hues and such, my inspiration just leaves me. And so I am left with the frustration of seeing gray no matter what colors I am looking at.

I thought that I might like Greens at first. But I cannot make green work. So I looked at Reds. Then looked away because I have never been able to do anything with red.

That brought me to my old favorite Blue. But I have done so much blue that the thought of using blue for something else makes me sick. So I considered orange, but the only colors that works really well with orange are gray and blue, so that kind of threw that out.

So now I am stuck looking at Webby 2.0 type colors. Pinks, light blues, neons, etc. And that has even less appeal to me.

That being said, I think I am going to take a few design days off and see if I cannot find inspiration elsewhere. Like at Starbucks. Mmmm, Starbucks.

Being proud of my daughter

Posted on October 25th, 2007 in On Children | 1 Comment »

Kids are amazing. I have said it before, I will say it again. It may get old for you reading it, but as for me and writing, not so much.

Yesterday after church I went to the kids church to pick up the girls. As Sarah walked out of the 5th and 6th grade class I noticed she was reddish, looked to be sweating and was walking rather quickly at me. Then, out of nowhere she just started talking at me. Really fast.

Now it wasn’t like a bunch of chimpmunks hopped up on Maple Syrup and Krispy Kreme donuts sucking on helium ballons. But it was pretty close. It was only after I calmed her down that I was able to make out what she was saying. Apparently she has really wanted this part in the childrens church’s upcoming. And she found out last night that she got the part. And that she would be performing it. For three nights in November.

Yes she was stoked. But she needed me to talk to her drama team leader to make sure we would be available for the dates they are doing the skits. I still need to check the dates, but I think no matter the date, Sarah will be on fire to perform in this skit.

The role that she was dying to get, you ask?

The devil.

I *heart* jQuery

Posted on October 24th, 2007 in Geek Stuff, Web Development | No Comments »

I have been playing around with the jQuery library for the past few days at work and I have to tell you, I am loving it more everyday.

John Resig put together a great little application in jQuery. It is fast, small (the compact version), very responsive and freakishly easy to use. Couple it with the many plugins out there and you have one excellent, speedy web development tool. And in this era of “Everything Ajax has to be golden” nothing gets you to the lofty position of web guru like a great, prebuilt and widely-supported application framework like jQuery.

If you really want to play a good bit with the application, I say you head over to the jQuery Interface Elements site. As far as plugins go, this one set of plugins will totally unleash the full power of jQuery. Plus it has some freaking cool demos.

Anyway, add this to your web development arsenal. It will certainly come in handy at some point.

Learning to say yes, er, yeah

Posted on October 23rd, 2007 in Funnies, On Children | No Comments »

Kids can say the darnedest things sometimes. Sometimes they say the absolutely wrong things at the wrong times. And sometimes they say something completely contrary to what they want to say without knowing what they are saying because they just haven’t learned to say what they mean to say.

Take my son for example. No, don’t take him. I mean, consider this about him… up until this past Monday, when he intended to say yes, he would say no. When he intended to say no, he would scream no loudly into your face until you understood that he meant no. Then on Monday life as I know it changed.

My son said “Yes” when asked a question. Whoa man, that was odd. I thought for a second the Earth had stopped spinning. Just to be sure I asked him the same question and he looked at me, smiling, and replied “Yes”. Hot diggity, the boy is learning!

But then something happened the boy did not intend. The boy learned almost immediately to say “Yeah”. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!

Sure as sheep are white, this evening I asked him something and he replied “Yeah”.

If ever there was a challenge to the theory of evolution, this is it. He went from not knowing “Yes” to knowing it to growing out of it in a day. At that rate, if we really did come from monkeys, all the monkeys in the world right now would be astrophysicists or something like that.

And they would all be saying “Yeah”.

MyLifeJournal.net

Posted on October 22nd, 2007 in Bible Studies, Geek Stuff, On Faith, Web Development | No Comments »

So I had an idea the other day. I haven’t shared this with my wife yet because, like many of the ideas I have had in the past, she knows in her heart that this idea will fizzle like the rest of the ideas I have ever had. No, I don’t need to ask her if she feels this way. She has cause to based on my past. That said, let’s move on…

A few months ago we decided as a married couple that we would start a life group. A life group is essentially a bible study that acts as a sort of extension of the church. It is not church as most know it, and it is not just a bible study as many know it. It is a branching of the church into the homes of those in the church in an effort to reach out, minister to and love on the unchurched. These have also, in the past, been known as cell groups and home groups.

Well, we decided that now is the time for us to ramp up to hosting one. We set our start month as January of 2007. We attended the first meeting of the church to those that feel led to do this. And we bought journals to begin our journaling process.

Sidebar: One of the things that is strongly encouraged (not required, but encouraged) is using the Life Journaling techniques developed (I believe) by Pastor Wayne Cordeiro. The journaling process walks you through the Bible in a year if you read the selected devotionals every day. In fact, it takes you through the old testament once and the new testament twice. It is a great resource and it is used as by our Pastors as a teaching tool to the leaders of the life groups.

So as I was journaling the other day I thought to myself “Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to have access to my journal no matter where I am?” And then it hit me (like many other ideas I have had) that I could built an online Life Journal for myself. Then it quickly hit me again…if I can do it for me I can do it for others.

So I decided that I am going to do it. I have already begun the DB architecture of it. I will be working on integrating the codebase into Padlock. And I should have something usable fairly soon. And rest assured, when I do I will link to it from here.

And I will tell my wife that it is ok is she wants to kiss me for finishing something.