Tids and bits

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PHP MySQL and encoding

So here we go with new site design and all, and one thing that drives me up the wall is the encoding mess.

I have a hungarian lanuage blog, sitting in MySQL using utf-8 encoding. Wordpress reads it perfectly, in MySQL every special character shows up correctly.

Then I try to read it with PHP - page encoding: utf-8 -, and it says the text read is ISO 8859-1, and it shows a garbled mess with every special character replaced by a question mark in dark square.

So I have to salvage the Wordpress code and see how it reads the post content without messing up everything.

Book recommendations

In the last two months I have read some new books, and I would like to recommend some of them. Just in case you don’t know what to read.

1. Eric Evans: Domain Driven Design
   A sensible approach to software and system design, with the goal to keep the model and the code in synch. I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it’s a good book.
2. Donald A. Norman: Emotional Design
   On the three levels (Visceral, Behavioural, Reflective) of design, why do beautfiul things work better, and why does he have an impossible to use tea pot.
3. Joyce Wycoff: Mindmapping
   An introduction to mindmaps, what they are, how to use them, and why is it better to make notes with coloured pens.
4. Soren Lausen: Software Requirements - Styles and Techniques
   The book promises practical advices, has some really good examples, and useful tips, and templates.

Diving into jQuery

This week I started to learn the secrets of jQuery. The reason is that I want to do some nice effects on my Fractured Bloughts and the main site - like the a rollable featured post link like the BrandfordMagazine with the Lead Article/Recent Post/About This Theme part -, and this seems a bit simpler and less memory/bandwith heavy than Flash.

Flash is not an abandoned idea, but that is a bit more difficult, at least for me, jQuery is “just” coding.

If you want to learn more, check out the jQuery Home and the jQuery UI Home, there are some really neat things there, including a lot of Demos and Tutorials.

My adventure with Apple

Got an iPod Touch two weeks ago.

Yesterday it died.

The Apple has skin that’s black.

Struggling

I have to admit that currently I am struggling. Struggling with all the stuff I took upon myself, with work, with keeping in touch with people.

Without going too personal, I just want to apologize to everyone that are waiting on me, be it an e-mail, a post, a visit, whatever.

Sometimes you make a bad decision, and by the time you realize you made a mistake you are in the middle of a commitment which can not be left until the contract expires.

Sometimes the best company, and the good money can’t compensate for the feeling of being utterly useless and working on totally aimless things.

And that can take you down quite a few notches.

Ok, lack of vitamins, exercise and such helps a lot with it, too.

The Sound of Silence

OK, the reason for not writing anywhere, not on my blog, on Tumblr and even owing a post to Zoli Erdos: first I had the flu, then I had a visit to France then my crooked grown wisdom tooth blown up, so basically I am a wreck.

Hard to write when you fight a toothache. But soon. When I can see.

Officially got the flu

Confirmed by the local medic I got the flu. Fixers are delivering the neccessary supplies to fight the effects, while I spend the days mostly offline under the duvet.

Cheers.

Sick

I was totally ran over by some taint, so no coherent thoughts from me for the time being.

I hope it will pass pretty soon, I don’t like when my head plays “independence” day.

Cleaning up

I am cleaning up. Giving away clothes I don’t use, giving away plush animals I got for Christmas, Easter - there is at least one plush rabbit in every basket -, throwing out old papers, magazines, newspapers.

I am definitely a keeper otherwise. I still have the first metal cone I made on the turning-lathe in high school, and everything I got, old postcards, Matchbox, you name it.

So, a couple of sacks and boxes, and then the place will be rid of old stuff I never use actually.By the way, it seems to be a habit lately, as a lot of people on Plurk stated that they are doing the same thing.