Mark Watson

Overkill?

2010-04-27T00:00:00-07:00

Overkill?

27 Apr 2010 – Colorado Springs

I recently built a new computer (and by recently I mean sept. of last year). I
built it because my laptop was getting old. It was a first generation MacBook,
upgraded slightly to have 2GB ram and a 500GB hard drive. It’s decent for the
vast majority of stuff I do, and I still use it every Saturday to code python or
PHP on, but I wanted something little more powerful for my day to day work.
And I must say – it’s nice to have a powerful computer.

Needed?

I think most people really don’t need a super powerful computer. For doing
simple tasks an massive desktop is overkill. However, for coding, I think it’s
really needed.

IDEs and Virtulization

I think the biggest reason it’s needed is for IDEs and virtulization. Having
plenty of juice to run Microsoft’s latest power hogging visual studio, or run
several operating systems at once is really something that’s not just nice, but
almost needed.

It’s Cheap

All this power didn’t really cost me that much money. for a little over a grand,
the same price as a nice laptop, it’s easy to build a custom computer with
crazily overclocked 6gb triple channel kits, i7 processors, etc. Then just drop
some Linux on there and you’re all set ;)

CRUD in Codeigniter

2008-01-14T00:00:00-08:00

CRUD in Codeigniter

14 Jan 2008 – Denver

So a while back I started using MVC PHP framework called Code Igniter. The framework is really pretty basic, and unlike cake or rails, it doesn’t automatically do much for you in the models. So to make CRUD stuff easier, I created a basic parent model that does all the work. You can get it from gist.

To use it all you have to do is put the file in your libraries folder and then do something like this in your model:




  <?php
  class Something_model extends MY_Model {
  	function __construct()
  	{
  		parent::MY_Model();
  		$this->default_table = 'some_table';
  	}
  }

And then you’ll have access to things like “$this→Something_model→get_all()” all for free right in your controller. :)

First Post

2008-01-11T00:00:00-08:00

First Post

11 Jan 2008 – Denver

Hey everyone this is my very first post to my new blog. If anyone cares, I blatantly ripped off all the code and blog engine from Tom Preston-Werner. The site is basically a GIT repository (they just got a new site that’s so pretty, you really should look if you haven’t already…) and uses the Jekyll blog engine.

…

Oh, and the layout uses some the oh-so-cool boilerplate css engine. Awesomeness!

Disqus Comments with Jekyll

2008-01-11T00:00:00-08:00

Disqus Comments with Jekyll

11 Jan 2008 – Denver

So I just started this blog using the jekyll blog engine hosted over github. It worked out very nice, and I loved the flexibility. After setting it up tho, I realized it’d be nice to have comments on my blog. So here is a short little tutorial on how I set up my blog to use disqus.

It’s actually really simple to do, and I wouldn’t even bother writing a post about it except that I want to try out my shiny new blog engine… All you have to do is go and sign up for a disqus account. Then follow the tutorial for adding it, but just use the generic code. Paste snippet #1 in your post template file (layouts/post.html) so people will be able to see your comments. Then just add in snippet #2 right before the main layout (layouts/default.html), and you should be in business.

I haven’t really got into using the disqus api or ruby gems that are provided, but I’ll update if I get around to it. For now enjoy some sick comment awesomeness. ;)