Better Explained

This site is totally awesome. It's aim is to help you truly grok a topic - from Math to Business and even some programming stuff in between!

Check out this bit on demystifying the natural logarithm.

A note on being interviewed

I had a brief interview yesterday that was not what i expected it to be at all: i had one idea in my head before the interview, and left with a completely different one. The problem was that i didn't take it too seriously, the result being that i wasn't prepared enough.

The main crux of the interview was that i work alone - I don't have much experience working with teams and the tools that teams rely on to make their work possible. That's a pretty big negative for someone looking to put together a core team!

Another realization that i had is that people who work in teams, speak in a specific way. I suspect they think in a specific way too. The result is that it's easy to pick out the non-team guys from a mile away.

Is this a no-win situation? This is the part where it's important to know what you're all about, and what you want to get out of your career (and your life for that matter).

I recognize in myself that i have a series of weaknesses that would jeopardize future opportunities. The problem to date has been my complacency, my lack of self investigation. Without this inward inspection I've let some things slide because I'm in a pretty comfortable place and just haven't been hungry enough to scratch around in the dirt for a bit.

Going back to the interview with a new sense of self-awareness, i can quite comfortable argue that my lone ranger approach up until now has given me unique growth and my own tested opinion. And it's exactly this kind of experience that i can bring to a team - a solid test-driven set of practices that does not just follow in convention.

The point being, know what you're about. Recognize your weaknesses. Embrace them. See what lessons they have to teach. Consider what lesson they might still provide.

Tech4frica

When tech conferences are organized within a hop-skip range of where i live it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy feelings towards the organizers.

So far the speaker line up for Tech4frica looks pretty good and i'll definitely be attending.

Git in my eye

Okay, so Linus Torvalds has struck again as GIT gains more and more traction each day from GitHub to 37Signals.

I can no longer ignore this distributed manifestation and will start playing around with switching from svn to git on one of my own projects. In the mean time, a gift from our friendly neighbourhood backpackers.

Open source push email and calendar

Who needs MobileMe when there's an open source solution waiting to be lovingly integrated into your business - funambol

Update!!
Came across a neat alternative: PostPath

gem install mysql

Let's pretend you have installed mysql with yum on your fedora box, and you want to install the mysql gem so you can take advantage of it's c binding goodness.

With giddy excitement you bash away at the keyboard and run the following command:

gem install mysql

But wait, what's this? An error the likes of which would consume small children given the chance:

checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no

checking for main() in -lm... yes

checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no

checking for main() in -lz... yes

checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no

checking for main() in -lsocket... no

checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no

checking for main() in -lnsl... yes

checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no

*** extconf.rb failed ***

Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of

necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more

details. You may need configuration options.

Fear not! For it probably doesn't know how to find you mysql_config file. Try something along the following lines:

sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/lib/mysql/mysql_config

The location of mysql_config may vary depending on your system installation.

SELinux: PERMISSION DENIED!!!!

Doing a Rails app installation on Fedora Core 8, I kept getting "Permission Denied" errors.

I checked file permission, wept, begged and even went on a holy walk to try massage this problem into oblivion.

As it turns out, there's this dear little linux feature that came free of charge with my fedora installation: SELinux (Pronounced "seeeed-OF-eeviel"). This gem of a feature enforced security policies, which need to take your rails app's location into account, which you can do as follows:

chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /path/to/your/app