Nchabazam,

The beta looks solid. I'll likely upgrade a day or 2 after it ships as long as the gems I use are still compatible.

#1: done but can't connect to the internet through the repeater (guessing firewall issue, will investigate tomorrow)...not the easiest process in the world (I thought a couple of times I had bricked the device...had to use failsafe mode once)+need to read up on networking
#2: done, needs to be carried over, hooked up and configured a bit (network setup+install libreoffice+firefox+transfer data)
#3: for tomorrow

Rather amazing how inefficient I can be at adminy stuff especially anything that involves networking

WhatHaveWeHere(well, Well, WELL);

80 chars/line or whatever works fine in languages like python. But java/c++ etc are very verbose languages. I try to stick to around 100 chars/line except when splitting is too awkward.

Do you often work with HTML or something?

You don't happen to work with the same company I have to deal with on a daily basis, do you?

Trust me, you don't want to be the customer...

I was recently upgraded to an Alienware at work. It was the old boss's computer, but he's out of town for several months. It's a massive step up from the standard issue Dell's that I was stuck using. This is my 4th computer in 6 months. Of course, I am working with 200 x 10,000 Excel sheets, which is plenty large enough to crash anything.

Everyone in my department -- except for me -- builds their own computers, and the ongoing joke is that the Alienware computer is the finest in high-end lighting one can find anywhere. When they talk hardware and all the nice things they are building, I just ask if they have nice lights on the computers they build. It is actually quite interesting to listen to them talk about the hardware and the process, in the same way that listening to Mexicans talk when they accidentally drop an English word.

****

Is there any way to make a 200 x 100,000 database run fast? I thought of a different strategy to attempt to fix the speed, but this didn't seem to work either.

I broke the database down into smaller parts. One table is the null table, which is cruft I don't need to use but sort of needs to be there for place-holder columns. The second table is a bunch of defaults that never change. The third table is all stuff that changes once in a while. The fourth table is pictures. Since so many items share pictures, this should mitigate repeating values and reduce it down to under 10,000 rows.

I then wrote a view to extract all of the data, but it still takes about 30 seconds. If I export, it takes several minutes. The use-case is a bit difficult to explain, but I needed to be able to use the data for two different upload files, so I had to create 2 views over the collection of tables. I may be able to use these tables for other views. The plus to this is that I can use only one table to export two things I need. I originally attempted to use two tables for each item so I can select * and go from there, but this didn't work out at all.

loooool

Nm, misread post.

Power supply I had initially bought with the Pi but that got shipped late arrived today...unplugged the old one, plugged this one in and it booted right away. I guess I found the problem

anyone messed with Yeoman for front end? it can generate pretty slick templates combining node.js, angular, twitter bootstrap, bower, etc

check it out: www.yeoman.io

who wouldn't want this?

stop pretending excel is a database?

who wouldn't want this?

Awesome. A bad power supply can trigger some really bizarre issues.

Question: I'm getting paid an hourly rate to consult on a start up's website.

We just deployed, and I'm just hanging out in my APT while a few people ask me questions randomly about the site (a couple people doing admin stuff) via a chat website.

You guys charge for the time where they're working and I'm available? Or just kind of say meh, I only answered questions for like an hour, charge an hour?

I'd be on my computer either way, and it's not a big nuisance... but seems like me being available is necessary, regardless of whether I walk to the office or not.

if you're on-call then it's billable imo

You typically bill actual work hours and "on call" hours separately, the latter have a lower rate

It all depends though you can always be on call and never bill for it and treat it as customer service of sorts (lawyer etc)

I think if they told me to come to the office and answer questions, I'd bill that full rate. Given that I'm just working on my own stuff and answering some questions, I'll probably bill like 2 hours (so functionally a lower rate as clowntable suggests).

Having to be in front of a computer instead of skiing or something makes it somewhat billable imo.

Yes and you have to be very careful with this stuff since it tends to turn all your private life into work because you're always on call if you're too nice about it. So I'd rather bill on the high side first time around or tell them it'll be more expensive in the future etc.

I think anything between not billing and billing full rate is acceptable. Seems more like a business decision based on the customer, your time, etc.

I agree with Clown though in that you have to be careful with the precedent you're setting.

Started watching Indie Game: The Movie tonight (I've seen it before) to try and grind out some steam trading cards. It has gotten me interested in learning code (again).

I played with Java a while ago so I know more about Java than other languages. Last night I found a free Udemy course on C# so I'll probably go through that. I also found a pdf of "Head First Java" so I'll probably go through that.

I've seen Notch programming Minecraft in Java and also saw him using Dart (?) during the Ludum Dare contest.

I don't have any direct direction on what I would want to do, but I think it would be cool to create a game.

But secondly, in an imaginary world, let's say I wanted to become so good at coding that I could apply to Google, Facebook, etc. Which languages would be best for that? Which ones are highest in demand? I'm not saying this would realistically happen, but if I was to just dive in and immerse myself in coding, which would be the best way to go about doing that?

Lastly, for whichever language that is, are there any standard books that could I could follow along on my computer? I have watched videos on Youtube from thenewboston (on Java). I don't find a lot of other tutorials to be very good.

I have Eclipse for Java, and to follow the C# course I will be getting Visual Studio (I think is the name off hand). The C# course is estimated to take about 4 hours.

Heard Facebook has some D in production. That would open some eyes.

I will will when they start pretending to pay me.

Actually it is a databases I'm building at work. I got select * from view to run in under 20 seconds now. That generates 200+ column tables. The export takes a long time.

I would try to think of a project you want to do and are interested in completing. It should be something that you're interested in. Whatever that project is, someone can steer you in the right direction for what language to use and then start your learning from that perspective. You'll be trying to complete this goal you've set for yourself.

Examples:
Android app = learn java
iOS app = learn C/Obj C
Windows = c#
web page = lots of choices.

Once you have learned one language, picking up others is not difficult. You could peruse job listings at that point, see what interests you and then focus on learning that. Don't get too hung up on learning "the best" language now because if you end up doing some serious work, you'll probably have to try a couple anyway.

I could come up with a very simple game, but I'm not really sure how I would turn that into something tangible.

So there is a difference between C, C#, Obj C, and C++? I'll probably go through the Udemy course on C# only because it's pretty short. I could do that in one night and get a feel for it.

My impression is that you're saying to pick one and just go with it? I'm pretty partial to Java only because that was my first language that I spent the most time with and saw Notch programming Minecraft with it.