HartlessByDesign

So, my well used WD 160GB portable drive started clicking.  I heavily use it to store my web development files and when the clicks started, I became very nervous.  So, I did a search for a new drive.  Well, as I often do, I impulsively bought the WD My Password SE 1TB drive from Amazon thinking, wow that much space, so portable and decently priced! (It was as much as my 160GB I bought two years ago).  I began nightly backups (wonderful tool rsync is) until my new drive arrived. 

It finally arrived yesterday.  I was so impressed with my slick, little drive with so much data capacity.  I quickly reformatted (to ext3 of course) and synced my files from the old to the new.  Then I had the wake up call.  I picked up the drive to move some cables around and bam, connection was lost and bye bye all unsaved data.  What the crap?  Turns out, the slightest little touch of the cable causes it to lose connection, and I do mean the slightest touch.  Wouldn't mind it so much if this wasn't a portable drive.  Who designed this thing?  They should be fired.

Dear Family and Friends,

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!  We hope that 2009 treated you well and that 2010 will be full of new mercies and blessings. 

It’s hard to believe that we have begun our third year in Houston, Texas.  We are far from becoming true “Texans” though.  Thus far, we have resisted buying over-sized vehicles, using phrases such as “fixin to,” calling all non-alcoholic carbonated beverages coke or buying a Republic of Texas flag.  Despite Texas' attempt to indoctrinate Alan with Texas government and history this past spring, we pretty much remain Virginians with one exception.  We've become yellow-bellied when it comes to the weather as we are in jackets when its only seventy degrees!  We can't complain though as seventy degree winters are quite nice.

We celebrated our fifth anniversary this past week which is another hard to believe.  At this rate, we'll be celebrating our 50th before we know it!  There has been some bumps along the way, but each year has truly been more fulfilling than the previous.  We both eagerly look forward to what the Lord has planned for our lives as we grow old together.

Pancho and Felíz are doing quite well.  They are as crack-headed as ever but have been fun and good little companions.  We couldn't imagine life without them.

Last year at this time, things at work were uncertain due to the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.  Alan's department was closed and thus he was transferred into a new department created post Ike.  What was directly caring for patients turned into an eight hour day desk job.  After several months of working behind a desk while locked behind bars, Alan had just about enough.  He finally started to apply to local hospitals closer to home.  By the grace of God, he busted out of prison in March when he accepted a job at Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital.  He is now working on a medical/surgical/telemetry floor and loving it.  Not only is it just ten minutes down the road but also a much better working environment with a lot of opportunity. He has already been awarded two bronze pins for patient recognition and is the co-chair for the hospital's Clinical Informatics Committee.  

Eda still loves her job at Clear Brook High School.  It has been a bit of a change in pace this year as the school district decided to change from a block schedule to a seven period schedule.  This year she is teaching several pre-advanced placement courses in Spanish and has been recognized for her talent by being a finalist out of hundreds of teachers for the HEB Teacher Recognition Award.  The highlight of her year has been her role as the advisor to Clear Brook's CRY (Children Rights and You) chapter.  This is a national organization that fights for the rights of children.  Clear Brook's chapter has been involved in several community services including adopting local families to provide Christmas gifts and volunteering at the Boys and Girls Harbor.

Speaking of the Boys and Girls Harbor; we have had a couple opportunities to serve through our church and through CRY.  It is a temporary home for 4-18 year old children whose parents are not able to care for them for whatever reason.  These little guys are full of energy, smiles, and hope despite their dire circumstances.  We wanted so much to pack them all up and bring them home with us.  It is heart breaking knowing that most of them do not have a home to go to for Christmas. If you think of it, please pray for these little guys.  We hope to become more involved with this ministry over this next year.

We pray that God blesses you greatly in 2010 and that He shines His Light upon you.  We love and miss you all!

With Love,


Alan, Eda, Pancho and Felíz.

I'm always on the search for a decent piece of software to help track the time I spend on various coding projects for clients.  Before I found Tasktop, I was already using Mylyn tasks to plan out items I needed to do for various projects.  But I used a timer no my phone, then manually recorded the time into another project tracker such as Zoho Projects, JForce, or Trac.  A pain in the you know what if you know what I mean.  As I usually do when I have had enough with my current method of doing things, I do a google search to see if anything new presents itself.  Well, this time my search led me to Tasktop and I was sold as soon as I tried the trial.

Tasktop is not the perfect solution for me.  The perfect solution is an all-in-one project tracker, invoice and quote manager.  The project trackers above fall short and/or are expensive for small-scale freelancers like myself.  However, Tasktop has solved my time tracking issues and has made it very convenient to code for clients within Eclipse and track billable hours.  And, if I use a supported connector, Tasktop will keep my tasks and time in sync with various project trackers! 

I'm not going to layout all of Tasktop's feature as you can head over to Tasktop.com to see and experience it for yourself.  However I will layout a couple of my favourite features.  

1) I love the feature that opens all the windows you were working on when you deactivated a task.  This makes sure that only windows (editor or built-in browser) that are pertinent to the task are open.  It is such a convenience and a time saver!

2) I live off Google calendar and Tasktop allows syncing tasks as calendar events to my calendar!  It will even display the current events in the bottom left hand corner of Eclipse.  It gives you the option to sync the due date/time and or scheduled date for the task. 

3) Of course my most favourite and the reason I found Tasktop to begin with, is the time tracker capability.  I can add/edit/remove time items to be billed.  The ONLY thing I do not care for and have communicated to Tasktop is the way the "No Task Active Time."  Basically it tracks the time that Eclipse is open but a task is not activated.  However, I'm bouncing back and forth between items for clients and I have not found a way to tell it to divvy out  no task active time between the clients appropriately.  So, I'm forced to just ignore it.  Myabe I'm configuring it wrong, I dunno.  I hope I am and will be enlightened soon ;-)

Anyway, Tasktop pro is $99 bucks but for me, it is well worth it.

I like it.  Looks much more professional and not so "bright and bubbly."    I like the label drop down where I can select as many labels as I want by selecting or deselecting the check boxes then clicking Apply.   Rows look more tight as well.  The colors are more tame and appealing.

I was looking forward to themes but I like the new look so much, now I really don't care.

Do you like the new look?  Why or why not?

Dear friends and family,

We hope this letter finds you well.  Last year when I sat down to write this letter, it was on our back porch under sunny skies and 75 degree weather.  Today, I am bundled up in my warmest fleece because its 34 degrees - For Houstonians, that’s cold!  Don’t fret though, they are predicting 72 degrees for Christmas day and we’re OK with that.

I guess we are officially Houstonians since we have been here just over a year now.  Pops helped to start off 2008 with excitement for us.  I got a call from him in the first half of January – he was in the hospital.  He had driven himself there the night before after suffering through five days of abdominal pains.  Turns out it was appendicitis.  They removed it just before his 80th birthday.  Within six weeks he was back to his old self working full time in his shop and as spunky as usual.  We are thankful for God’s healing hand in his life.

For Alan’s birthday in February I decided to kidnap him and take him to Austin to check out the music scene.  I guess I shouldn’t quit my day job since it was brutally cold and we just couldn’t get into the bar hopping, music scene.  Instead we both got nasty colds and spent the weekend running to wal-mart to buy cold medicine.  Happy birthday Alan…

For Spring break we were blessed to have Nana, Sally and Ashley come to spend the week with us.  We took in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  That was a great cultural adventure for all – Thank goodness Nana and Sally yanked me away from the pooping cow just in time!

The school year ended well and before we knew it our summer travels had begun.  We met up with our dear friends the Hamptons (the elder and younger ones) in San Antonio.  It was great to spend time with all of them and to take in the sights.  Shortly there after we embarked on a two week road trip with the dogs up to Virginia.  Along the way we spent some time in Savannah, GA sightseeing, Wilmington, NC visiting Alan’s little brother Ethan and in Monroe, NC with our friends the Quinns.  The time in Virginia went quickly, but we are thankful for all the friends and family we spent time with.

The big news maker for us has been hurricane Ike.  The school year had barely begun and we were out again for what we thought would be a couple of days for this “minor, category 2” storm.  We took my parents and the dogs and evacuated to San Antonio for a couple of days just to be safe. Thankfully my parent’s home was spared and they had power as soon as we returned.  We lost a tree and power for about a week, but the weather was cool and it was a good time to reflect on God’s goodness and provision. Many others were not so fortunate.  We were out of school for two weeks because there was no power, 39 of our 40 schools were damaged, many students’ homes were uninhabitable and there was simply too much debris for the school buses to move around safely.  The hospital where Alan works was severely damaged.  It took in about four feet of water.  We were very fortunate that he was paid for the time that he could not return to work, and that he still has a job.  Nearly 4,000 employees of that hospital system have lost their jobs.  Again, we see God’s graceful provision in our lives.  Things will not return to normal at that hospital and Alan plans to start the job search in January. All in all it’s been an adventurous and blessed year.  We even got some SNOW here in Houston a couple of weeks ago.  The kids were thrilled to make snow men (even though it required scooping up all the snow on the block).  It was a great way to lift spirits here during the Christmas season. Most of all we are grateful for God’s gift to us in His Son Jesus Christ this Christmas season.  For despite the circumstances of the word around us and the burden of our sins, God gave us redemption and hope by faith in His Son, Jesus, born to us 2,000 years ago.  We pray that you would be able to fully enjoy this most precious gift during the Christmas season.

With love,

Alan, Eda, Pancho and Felíz

I recently came across jFusion, a powerful and revolutionary Joomla component to bridge Joomla with various softwares.  I started testing out its plugin for vBulletin (the forum software used on this site).  After posting some questions, hacks, and suggestions, I offered to help out in developing the vBulletin plugin.  I was soon afterward invited to join the team!  I, along with another gentleman named Haythem, will be maintaining the vBulletin plugin.

 We have already made huge leaps in getting the vBulletin plugin working well with Joomla!  The next release of jFusion (set for December 25th) will include the newly enhanced vBulletin plugin!  But if you can't wait, check out our SVN at http://code.google.com/p/jfusion.

I decided to upgrade my version of Eclipse to the latest, 3.4.  I have a 32bit laptop and a 64 bit desktop.  I hate having to maintain two copies of Eclipse so I maintain one 32bit version of Eclipse on my jump drive.  Obviously, this poses some problems with my 64bit desktop.  There a ways to get a 32bit version of Eclipse fully functional on a 64bit OS.  With 3.3, I had no problems doing this.  But with 3.4, I ran into some new issues.  Specifically with getting the Aptana plugin to work properly.  Nothing in the aptana perspective would display and it would crash with errors relating to it not finding a suitable xulrunner.

 This is how I ended up doing it.  I used parts of the how to found here on the Ubuntu forums posted by linuxed.

1)  I downloaded the following packages: 

Eclipse
libnss3-1d 32-bit
xulrunner-1.8 32-bit
libnspr4-0d 32-bit
libstartup-notification0 32-bit
libhunspell-1.1-0 32-bit

2)  Install the following via apt

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs ia32-sun-java6-bin

 3) Create a temporary folder lib32

mkdir lib32

 4) Extract the above packages, then extract data.tar.gz in each of the library packages.  

5) Copy the following files from the corresponding packages' data.tar.gz to the lib32 folder you created

libnss3-1d: usr/lib:

• libnss3.so.1d
• libnssutil3.so.1d
• libsmime3.so.1d
• libssl3.so.1d

libnss3-1d: usr/lib/nss:

• libfreebl3.so
• libnssckbi.so
• libnssdbm3.so
• libsoftokn3.so

Copy all the files in usr/lib for  libnspr4-0d, libstartup-notificaton0 and libhunspell-1.1-0

6) Place the entire xulrunner folder in the lib32 folder

7) Place the entire eclipse directory wherever you want to run it from.  For me, it was my jump drive.  For you it may be /opt, /usr/lib32, or whatever.

8)  Copy the entire lib32 directory to /usr/lib32

sudo cp -R lib32/* /usr/lib32/

 9) Create the following file:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/eclipse

 10) Place the following into the file and save it

export PATH=/direct/path/to/eclipse/installation/:/usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/bin:/usr/lib32/:$PATH
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib32/xulrunner/
cd /direct/path/to/eclipse/installation/
./eclipse $*

11) Make it executable

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/eclipse

 12) Run eclipse from either the application launcher or a terminal

To get Aptana installed and working, do the following

1) Open Eclipse and intall the SDK.  Click Help->Software Updates.  click on the Available Software tab and type in"eclipse sdk." Click on "Eclipse SDK" and then install.

2) Once installed, restart eclipse.  Then go to Window -> Preferences -> General -> Capabilities  and check "Classic Update"

3) Go to Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install. Select " Search for new features to install" and click next.  Click "New Remote Site" and add "http://update.aptana.com/update/studio/3.2/site.xml"

4) Click Ok then Finish.  Install Aptana.

5) Restart and you should be good to go!

Comment below if you have any questions or run into roadblocks.

So I work for UTMB under Correctional Managed Care (CMC).  UTMB is about to layoff 4000 jobs due to the devastation caused by Hurricane  Ike.  CMC has promised that our jobs are safe.  Because, our hospital was attached to UTMB on Galveston Island and the political battles going on, we will not be able to get back to the way things were for who knows how long, if ever.  Thus, we are getting bounced around.  Our job duties have changed multiple times thus far.  Come Monday, they will change again. 

For many, this change comes as huge inconvenience.  Many will be forced to take huge pay cuts for they will go from nights (with shift diff) to days.  For, many it will be a lifestyle change because we will be going from a matrix (working a few days on then having a few days off) and some from nights to a Monday through Friday 8 - 5 job.  For many, it will be difficult because of family obligations that were met under the old schedule but will not under the new.  It will be difficult because many are in school and were used to having certain weekdays off to study, go to class, complete assignments, etc.  But now, all will change.

However, we still have a job when so many come this month will not. And that alone should overshadow all the inconviences stated above.  Yet, so many people cannot for whatever reason see that and continue to wallow in their sorrows and inconveniences.  I don't understand it.

We have all been promised that once things are back in order, we will be reuninted as a team, better yet,  a family.  But it will take time, maybe even months. We must learn to count our blessings, focus on the positives, stick it out and move on.  We must keep in mind that "this too shall pass."

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.  ~Proverbs 31:10

My wife is so excellent. She is so patient, loving , caring, supporting, and sacrificial. I am so undeserving of such an excellent wife! But now that I have her, I would not trade her for all the jewels of the world, the world itself, or even the universe!

So I stumbled upon assembla.com back in the early stages of phpScheduleEm and instantly fell in love.  At the time I was hosting my own SVN/Trac server but was a pain because of issues with my ISP.  I did a search to see if there were any services out there to host svn/trac for me.  During that search, I happened to stumble upon assembla, a feature rich site full of tools for the software developer.

At the time, assembla was completely free.  But just within the last week they are beginning to roll out a subscription based service and making all future free acounts public.  They are charging $2 per user and $3 per gigabyte of space used.  I immediately bought a $100 dollars worth of subscription credits.  The price was absolutely unbeatable for the services I get.

It is at assembla.com where I keep track of all my tasks, bugs, and features and host the latest code.  Users do not report bugs here, but I put the bugs into the trac system once they are confirmed for this is strictly my development workspace.  (Bugs should be reported using this site.)  I use eclipse to develop my applications which has a mylyn trac connector which allows me to easily manage my tickets as I'm developing.  Eclipse also allows me to manage my svn repository.

Anyway, I digress.  I highly recommend assembla.  It not only provides svn and trac but a slew of other services such as Mercurial, Git, time keeping, wiki, milestones, tickets, files, chat, and other to collaborate between users developing the same project.  The space interface is customizable giving it the look and feel of however you want.  I have not had any problems with it thus far except for the minor detail of not being able to edit a comment of a svn commit.  I've contacted support and will hopefully get this worked out soon.

Check them out!