Date: 02/11/05 (MySQL Communtiy)    Keywords: programming, sql

I basically taught myself programming so majority of times my code isn't as efficient as it could be.

my question is w/ sql statements... if i only need say 1 field from a table should i use

"select X FROM table"

or is

"select * from table" as efficient

i know common sense is pointing me to the first example but it never hurts to ask. also what happens if i need like 4 or 5 fields out of 10... would that be the same situation as if it were just 1 like the example above?

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mysql/48500.html

Date: 02/17/05 (Web Development)    Keywords: programming

A friend of mine got this puzzle to solve. Anyone have an idea what code it may be:

16*+ 3$0+ 288;08

I know it's not a programming thing was just figuring programmers think differently. Thanks for any help

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/webdev/173003.html

Date: 02/08/05 (Web Development)    Keywords: php, programming, mysql, database, asp, sql, jsp, web

Ok, I've got a question for all the professionals out there. I've been looking for a while now to get into server-side web programming (PHP, ASP, JSP, SQL) for a little while now. While I do have experience working with these things working on personal projects, I have no professional experience. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on what I can do to more effectively represent myself in this way.

In terms of skills, I'm talking a heavy PHP/MySQL background, with a focus on content managers and database served content.

Just hoping someone might have some pointers. Feel free to ask me any questions.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/webdev/170943.html

Date: 01/19/05 (Asp Dot Net)    Keywords: programming, web, spam, microsoft

I know this is spamming the group, but I really wanted to get the word out (as late as it is) about our great presentation tomorrow. Please accept my apologies.

****************************************************
ST. LOUIS VISUAL BASIC.NET USER GROUP MEETING NOTICE
****************************************************

Date: Wednesday, January 19, 2004
Time: 6:15 - 9:00 PM

Asynchronous Programming

by: CARL FRANKLIN

Door prizes available!!

Location: Three City Place, aka The Microsoft Building. From 270, exit Olive, go east. Turn left onto City Place.

***************************************************************
MEETING LOCATION CHANGE
***************************************************************

We are moving. We will be meeting in the main meeting room on the 11th floor of Three CityPlace.

***************************************************************
MEETING DETAILS
***************************************************************

Did you know that you can take advantage of multithreading in the Microsoft .NET Framework without having to explicitly create new Thread objects? You can call web services, print, and do other yawn-inducing tasks asynchronously using the Asynchronous Programming Model in the Framework. There are issues with synchronization, however, especially when calling async methods from a Windows Form. In this talk Carl will walk you through the issues and give you some really useful code that you can implement to make your components thread-safe for Windows Forms applications.

Some of you might know the name of Carl Franklin from his .Net Rocks internet radio show. You also might be familiar with his training services. No matter how you know the name, now's your chance to meet the man.

Visit www.stlvbug.org for more information.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/aspdotnet/24118.html

Date: 12/17/04 (Asp Dot Net)    Keywords: programming, html, asp

I posted this to Experts Exchange first and have yet to get anything back so I'm hoping some fellow LJers can help me out. Instead of typing everything again please visit the following link to see if you have any suggestions for what I am trying to do:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Programming_Languages/Dot_Net/ASP_DOT_NET/Q_21245567.html

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/aspdotnet/22030.html

Date: 10/25/04 (C Sharp)    Keywords: programming

For the longest time, I just plain haven't understood what interfaces were about. Today I decided it was high time to find out. I found two links that finally got it through my thick head:

Working with Interfaces in C#

A Twisted look at Object Oriented Programming in C# - Interfaces

Recommended reading for the curious.

Lerch,
now off to implement IEnumerable interface in one of his business layer objects.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/csharp/19550.html

Date: 09/24/04 (College Textbook)    Keywords: programming, java

Bought from New York University:

Introduction to Java Programming
(Fourth Edition) With Brand New CD

Author: Y. Daniel Liang
ISBN: 0-13-100225-2
Publisher: PRENTICE HALL- Pearson Education, Inc. Copyright: 2003, 2001, 1999, 1998

Condition: Used/New - CD, body of book, and spine in perfect condition (no markings, highlighting ect.) Covers have slight creases, front two and back two pages have moderate creases.

Price: Bought for $60, asking $20 + 5 for S&H

Questions? Want pictures? Feel free to e-mail me-
skittercat at hotmail.com

Thanks!

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/collegetextbook/8523.html

Date: 12/14/04 (Offshore Programming)    Keywords: programming, software, offshore, technology, microsoft

Can Offshore Programming Thrive in Russia?

By Alexander Osipovich, Russia Profile

Every weekday morning, Tatyana Burtseva flashes her ID to the guards at the entrance of the Kurchatov Institute, where the Soviet Union developed its first nuclear bomb. But after walking through the institute's wooded grounds and entering the modern, corporate office building where she works, what she does is not top-secret. Burtseva is currently working on a project for a U.S. client - Boeing, America's largest maker of commercial aircraft. The 26-year-old software tester is one of over 850 employees at Luxoft, one of Russia's leading companies in the field of offshore programming. Besides Boeing, Luxoft has tackled software projects for major corporations like IBM, Microsoft and Deutsche Bank.

In 2003, the Russian offshore programming industry earned total revenues of $546 million, according to figures compiled by CNews Analytics and Fort-Ross, an association of Russian software companies. The same report projected growth rates of 30 to 40 percent for the next few years, meaning that the industry could cross the $1 billion mark by 2006.

These rapid growth rates, and the prestigious nature of the industry, have not gone unnoticed. President Vladimir Putin has mentioned offshore programming as a promising agent of economic diversification, while Leonid Reiman, the minister of information technologies and communications, has touted the industry in public appearances. "We have a tremendous number of highly qualified professionals," he said during a recent address to the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia. "Our task is to convert this human potential into a new source of national income."

But the Russian offshore programming industry faces some daunting challenges. Above all, it pales in comparison to its better-developed cousin in India. According to NASSCOM, an association of Indian software companies, India now earns $12.5 billion a year by exporting high-tech services. This represents close to one-fifth of the developing nation's total exports. For many Western executives, the term "offshore programming" is virtually synonymous with outsourcing work to India, while Russia remains an obscure, second-tier competitor. This has led to a great deal of soul-searching in the Russian press about whether Russia can catch up to India.

Can Russia Catch Up?

In the eyes of many experts, the greatest asset of the Russian offshore programming industry is the high quality of its technical specialists. The Soviet Union left behind a world-class system of science education. As a result, Russia now has up to 40 percent more scientists per capita than Germany, France or the United Kingdom, and 20 times more scientists per capita than India, according to Forrester Research. Russians have won numerous gold medals at international programming competitions. At this year's ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, the best-known event of its kind, the winning team was from the St. Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics.

This pool of scientific talent has led several Western companies to open wholly-owned offshore development centers in Russia. Such companies include technology leaders like Intel, Sun, Motorola and Siemens. Intel alone has over 800 Russian employees, mostly based in Nizhny Novgorod and the former closed city of Sarov. According to Alexander Palladin, a spokesman for Intel in Russia, they solve difficult problems for the company's research and development wing. "In the eyes of Intel's management, Russian specialists are very highly regarded for their scientific knowledge," he said.

Unfortunately, Russia is not so blessed when it comes to business skills. A frequent complaint is the lack of English, although this has improved in recent years. When it comes to project management, Russian firms have a reputation for letting their programmers' creativity take precedence over good business sense. In some cases, programmers have been known to delay a project until they can achieve technical perfection. Other problems stem from a culture clash between Russian firms and their Western clients. "The biggest difference is that Americans devote more time to communication," said Alexander Sambuk, quality director at Luxoft. "Russian project managers need to learn to communicate more with clients, and not just stew in their own juices."

Another obstacle to acquiring new clients is the small size of Russian firms. Russia's largest offshore programming companies, Epam Systems and Luxoft, have less than 1,000 employees each. This is small potatoes compared to the largest Indian firms, such as IT giant Wipro, which employs over 27,000 people worldwide and has annual revenues of $1.2 billion. Smaller companies have a hard time marketing themselves and are less attractive to large corporate clients. Given this situation, it might seem that the market is ripe for consolidation. But firms have been reluctant to merge, says Kirill Dmitriev, managing director of Delta Private Equity Partners. "Each one hopes to develop by itself, but economic logic mandates that they need to consolidate," he said.

Perhaps a more intractable problem is Russia's negative image in the West. Russia's reputation as an unstable, crime-ridden society makes it a hard sell to wary customers. "This is a country where there's a war going on, where [former Yukos CEO Mikhail] Khodorkovsky is in prison, where terrorists are killing children in Beslan," said Dmitry Loschinin, CEO of Luxoft. "Obviously, this affects us negatively."

Loschinin also believes that Russia's education system could be better suited to today's IT market. Although it churns out an impressive number of physicists and mathematicians, it rarely teaches them the most up-to-date technology skills. "What we receive is a half-finished product that we need to spend some time finishing," said Loschinin.

Another problem is that Russia's education system produces programmers in all the wrong places. Thanks to the legacy of Soviet central planning, some of the nation's top scientific talent resides in far-flung cities like Tomsk and Novosibirsk. Less than a quarter of Russia's programmers live in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the offshore programming industry is concentrated. The result is that wages are high and jobs are plentiful in the two capitals, while out in the regions, programmers are underpaid or jobless. The logical conclusion is that programmers should move to where the jobs are. But Russians - for a variety of legal, economic and cultural reasons - are often reluctant to move.

A City Of Programmers

The offshore programming industry is taking steps to attract them. IBS, the holding company which owns Luxoft, is planning to open a "technopark" in the town of Dubna, a one-hour drive from Moscow. According to Loschinin, programmers will be enticed to move to Dubna by a package that includes jobs, mortgages and a pleasant, academic living environment. "We want to create a city of programmers," he said.

The Dubna technopark will not be alone. The IT and Communications Ministry will soon launch technoparks in St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk, with tax breaks and an up-to-date communications infrastructure, says Reiman. These ideas are not new. A decade ago, India used similar policies to stimulate the IT industry in Bangalore. Today Bangalore is the center of India's offshore programming industry; the city is often called the "Silicon Valley of India."

The Russian offshore programming industry is emulating India in other ways. It recently formed an analogue to NASSCOM, the Indian software association founded in 1988 to promote the nation's IT industry. RUSSOFT, which recently merged with Fort-Ross to become the predominant association of Russian software companies, has been following a path blazed by NASSCOM in the 1990s. It puts on "road shows" in the West to promote Russian firms, holds training events and lobbies for improvements in government policy.

There is clearly a need for lobbying, because government policy is unfriendly - if not hostile - to offshore programming companies. Valentin Makarov, president of RUSSOFT, says that companies face a crippling burden from taxes and regulations. For example, to export $50 worth of software, companies spend an additional $30 on paperwork and taxes. This drives up their prices, making them less competitive, and keeps many in the "gray" zone. Makarov argues that this is bad for everyone. "Our task is to make companies go white," he said. "Companies want this, because you can't live under the constant threat of tax investigations. This prevents you from signing deals with foreign corporations."

Yet Makarov insists that he is not looking for tax breaks, which are controversial due to their widespread misuse in the 1990s. Instead, he wants the government to adopt a more streamlined and rational tax structure. So far, however, RUSSOFT's lobbying efforts have produced few results. "Our government isn't used to dealing with associations - just with oligarchs and individual companies," he said. Nonetheless, Makarov is optimistic. He believes that the industry will gain more influence as it grows in size. In terms of the total value of its exports, it has already surpassed the Russian automobile industry. Soon, Russia will earn more money by exporting software than by exporting nuclear technology.

Makarov predicts that the Russian offshore programming industry will grow until it reaches annual revenues of $2 billion but, from then on, growth will level off unless the government provides substantial support. He points out that the governments of India and China (another up-and-coming offshore service provider) are extremely proactive in boosting their nations' IT sectors. For example, they pay for companies to participate in international trade shows - something that the Russian government has never done.

So can Russia catch up to India?

Most experts doubt that Russia can beat India in terms of volume. But in terms of quality, Russia already presents a strong competitor. According to a 2001 report from the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, Russian programmers are well suited for complex projects. "Indian programmers... do not have such wide experience with different technologies," said the report. "Their experience is typically limited to working in large software development factories." Makarov thinks that Russia cannot compete with India or China on cost, but in the niche of high-end solutions, it could become a world leader - as long as the industry gets government support.

"We can't do it ourselves," he said.

Oct 27, 2004

Source: http://www.u-blog.net/offshore/note/145

Date: 11/08/04 (Offshore Programming)    Keywords: programming, offshore, technology

Calculated Risk

As corporate interest in the cost savings and benefits grows, CIOs prepare to manage the risks and pitfalls of offshore outsourcing.

Several years ago, a CIO from a large financial-services institution began outsourcing a hefty portion of his legacy-programming resources to an overseas provider. And with expected savings of 40% to 50%, who could blame him? But strangely, this early adopter's savings never fully materialized. After replacing his onshore programmers with an offshore staff, he had to hire managers to maintain the engagement, adding costs. Then the CIO realized he'd need a larger percentage of onshore programmers than originally projected, further reducing his expected savings. In fact, after he accounted for the turnover from the offshore teams, his anticipated windfall of 40% to 50% had shrunk to less than 20% in all.

This CIO is in good company. Corporate interest in offshore outsourcing is huge, as the size of the market attests. But the reality doesn't always live up to the hype. Many companies that have embraced the practice haven't realized the promised savings; they're now wondering if and when they'll see the real value from their offshore investments.

For some companies, offshore outsourcing's initial appeal lies purely in the numbers. Success is measured by the ability to reduce costs as much as possible. It's not hard to see that by paying $20-plus per hour in India versus $80-plus in the United States a company's savings can be at least $60 per hour for every position outsourced. That math can be misleading, however. Instead of the 80% cost savings that those hourly rates suggest, companies are reporting far lower numbers. According to a recent AMR Research report, companies using offshore resources for development projects can see no savings at all or up to 50% savings. The majority report savings in the neighborhood of 25% to 30%.

What happened to the rest of the anticipated savings? As many CIOs are beginning to realize, outsourcing decisions based solely on hourly rates don't necessarily result in real cost savings. Hidden costs arise when a company doesn't first build a strong engagement-management experience, outsourcing industry expertise, technical knowledge, and a method for overcoming cultural and communication barriers.

By all accounts, outsourcing is a long-term investment, and it requires a serious commitment in order to reap the maximum benefits.

A December 2003 report from Forrester Research said most companies go through a four-stage migration period that can last from 24 to 60 months. Those expecting a quick, six-month project with few to no challenges would do well to rethink their strategy.

In their search for savings, many companies mistakenly assume that a single offshore provider can be successfully deployed on any and all IT projects. Instead, CIOs need to first analyze their IT-application portfolio based on business criticality, user interaction, complexity, and maturity. Only then will they have the knowledge to outsource their projects to a provider with the right skills and expertise to deliver successful results.

There are several types of offshore-outsourcing companies (see Indian Market Booms, But Changes Loom). The most prominent are the traditional offshore providers, such as Indian companies Infosys Technologies, Tata, and Wipro Technologies. Many offshore pure-play companies have narrow portfolios of services.

Then there are the large global integrators, such as IBM and Accenture, which recently developed offshore capabilities. These companies don't yet have large presences offshore, but they've developed experience managing engagements between U.S. companies and the offshore businesses and are quickly hiring staff offshore. Other consultancies have gone for a more hybrid approach, creating large divisions offshore.

Matching the right segments of work to the appropriate provider is the best approach to realizing the maximum savings from offshore outsourcing. We recommend that companies choose at least one provider from each category.

Managing IT projects successfully has always been a struggle for IT organizations, as the alarming rate of IT-project failure attests. A 2003 Standish Group survey found that 66% of outsourced projects are either canceled or materially off-target due to poor program execution, leading to additional costs in areas such as lost-opportunity costs, unrealized benefits, increased labor costs, and increased vendor costs. Unfortunately, outsourcing your IT initiatives doesn't make these problems go away. Using offshore programmers--who may lack business acumen and methodologies to extract accurate and detailed requirements--possibly can result in significant costs downstream. The repercussions can range from adding more--and expensive--local management to overcome the offshore team's lack of business experience, to late delivery, lost functionality, and fewer benefits realized from the investment.

Offshore outsourcing sometimes creates additional requirements and program-management challenges. Effective management is critical to improving the odds of success and overcoming the risks associated with IT-project failure. These risks--lack of clear business objectives, executive support, user involvement, and scope management--become exacerbated when the users and programmers are up to 8,000 miles and multiple time zones apart. Poor program management costs 25% to 35% in the concept-to-design phases, and 15% during the implementation phase. These costs reflect the additional management resources required to fix the problems.

Calculated Risk 

There has always been an inherent conflict between the IT-services provider and the company contracting for services. This conflict stems from how the client pays for services--whether the contract is time and materials (T&M) or fixed price.

The issue is risk as one side tries to push most of the risk to the other. The vast majority of the revenue for major Indian offshore providers and integrators is derived from T&M contracts. These companies prefer a T&M contract because the risk shifts to the client, on which any project-overrun costs fall.

On the other hand, a fixed-price delivery model puts the onus on the service provider to get the right requirements, manage scope, and estimate and manage the project. This helps to insulate the client against the risks that can erode savings.

The fixed-price model also makes the service provider a better partner, as it's in the provider's best interest to get the project done--and done right. The provider's methodology and experience are critical.

Sophisticated clients look for providers that not only offer fixed-price contracts, but also attach results to fees. Measurable business results are replacing metrics such as service levels as a way to ensure that companies achieve real business value.

Defining measurable business results isn't easy. However, the benefits of defining them up front are high. Consider this example: If a company ties some portion of the contract to a 20% reduction in the cost of servicing customers using online channels, the provider will be motivated to achieve that result, as long as both risks and rewards are tied to the objective. The client wins because the provider is aligned with its business goals and hires the best people who can bring the greatest level of industry knowledge and business processes, as well as creativity and innovation--something clients have complained that many offshore businesses lack.

Don't bank on immediate payoff, however, and do bank on some heavy lifting when switching to offshore. CIOs must factor in significant ramp-up time for offshore projects, during which costs can actually increase. According to Meta Group, lags in productivity can add as much as 20% in costs to the offshore contract.

Part of that lag lies in the need for staffing overlap as the home team hands off to the offshore programmers. But there's more: All offshore providers have two rate schedules: offshore, which is the rate charged for work done overseas, and onshore, meaning the rates charged for the consultants that must come on-site during the transition period. The onshore rates are significantly higher and usually rival internal IT costs.

We've found that clients invariably underestimate the number of onshore staff required to make a project successful. This leads to inflated expectations of savings at the onset of a project. More than half of the revenue generated by the large Indian offshore companies is derived from onshore-staff augmentation.

Managing The Contract

To ensure the outsourcing engagement's success, companies must build an oversight organization to manage the process, a reality that's bound to add money to the mix. The oversight organization can account for as much as 5% to 16% of the overall engagement costs. Why so much? Typically, the oversight staff earns higher salaries. Managers often serve as business liaisons to the offshore provider and as quality-assurance officers to the overall engagement. In addition, somebody has to be in charge of sourcing and contracting personnel and managing the project from the client side. This facet of outsourcing is lucrative enough to generate a new business niche.

While moving specific functions and departments offshore can help save money on labor, the cost of reducing onshore staff must also be considered. It costs money to move displaced personnel to other departments. However, the most significant costs spring from layoffs. Companies must factor in the cost of severance and job-search support for its displaced workers.

Furthermore, your intellectual property goes out the door, too, when you replace in-house staff with an offshore provider. With offshore outsourcing, some of your go-to people may now be gone and any survivors will probably need time to adjust to the changed landscape.

What's more, outsourcing an application can have enormous impact on a multitude of supporting systems, hindering a company's ability to adhere to certain standards of customer service and regulatory compliance. Other hidden costs are generated as a result of compensating people with higher salaries--key IT-management staff, for example--as they oversee the transition.

Offshore outsourcing is the wave of the future for IT. Done right, it can result in tremendous savings and add significant business value. However, a bit of due diligence up front and a better understanding of how to avoid common obstacles can make a huge difference. Understanding the true total cost of ownership, segmenting your IT-application portfolio, and sourcing appropriately against those needs will let CIOs achieve real savings and help further business goals. And that, after all, is the true bottom line.

Sheeroy Desai is executive VP and chief operating officer at Sapient, a business-consulting and technology-services company based in Cambridge, Mass.

Source: http://www.u-blog.net/offshore/note/138

Date: 10/19/04 (Offshore Programming)    Keywords: programming, software, offshore

Russian software exports may reach $2 bln in 2006

MOSCOW. Sept 24 (Interfax) - Russian software exports may amount to $2 billion in 2006, Russian Information Technologies and Communications Minister Leonid Reiman said.

Speaking at a press breakfast at the American Chamber of Commerce on Friday, Reiman said that at the moment there are different estimates of the volume of IT exports from Russia. According to official estimates, they currently amount to $300-$350 per year. "However, including the gray market this figure is estimated at $500 million per year and higher," the minister said.

He said that according to the experts, annual growth in the Russian market for offshore programming amounts to about 70%. As a result, given this growth dynamic, exports of software from Russia in 2005 may amount to $1 billion, and in another year - $2 billion," the minister said. "This may become an important contribution to the task of doubling GDP," he said.

Source: http://www.u-blog.net/offshore/note/133

Date: 03/04/05 (Algorithms)    Keywords: programming, web

I have been tinkering with Satisfiability solvers of late, but they all take input in CNF format and as my logic is not always of that form, I have a question: do you know of any algorithms to transform an arbitrary AND/OR tree into a set of CNF clauses? Can the result be shown to be minimal (cannot be done with fewer clauses nor fewer variables per clause), or is determining if a boolean logic relation between inputs and an output is minimal an NP-complete problem in itself?

On another note, it seems one can factorize in pseudopolynomial time by dynamic programming. Run the Sieve of Eratosthenes, but for each discovered prime, assign that prime to multiples of it that haven't been assigned to something else already. Then, starting at some number within the sieve, divide by the number assigned to it (which is one of its prime factors) and recurse until a prime is reached.
I don't know if this is common knowledge, though it seems simple in retrospect. It might be interesting as I didn't find any mention of it on the obvious web searches.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/algorithms/49222.html

Date: 03/04/05 (WebDesign)    Keywords: php, programming, css, html

i doubt you can do this.. but i was wondering if there was a way to use any sort of programming to text wrap between 2 columns.

i have a page with 2 columns of text, side by side, and i don't want the white space at the bottom. however, since text is displayed differently on different platforms [mac and pc] i have to just leave it and increase the padding an paragraph set up specifically for the pc. i still have the white space and i can't stand it.

so, i was wondering if anyone knew of any code to text wrap in html, css, js, php - anything - between columns.

thanks :]

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/webdesign/820379.html

Date: 03/05/05 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: programming

I was thinking of heading over to the local computer show this weekend and picking myself up a copy of Flash 4 or (if they have it) 5. I tried Flash MX but never even got to use it because it kept freezing my computer so I had to uninstall it.

I got this computer on my 15th birthday, and I upgraded it to a (very crappy) ATI RADEON 9200 PCI graphics card. And I'm planning to upgrade the RAM, but not any time soon.

I'm not taking up animation as a job or anything. Animation will be a hobby. I'm thinking of going into something like computer programming or something underground like a government watchdog group.

Besides, I doubt many companies use Flash as an animation tool like they use C++ for game programming. So yeah, it's best to start with the basics before stepping up to the big leagues, orВ else you'llВ be repeatedly smashing yourВ head against a brick wall.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/computergeeks/620977.html

Date: 03/08/05 (Java Web)    Keywords: programming, asp, web

I personally find the article by Richard Grimes on the state of .NET technologies very informative. It is comical to note some of the rants against him in the post and in the comments at http://weblogs.asp.net/danielfe/archive/2005/02/22/378343.aspx Some of it are plain hilarious like: "And really, let's face it, every programming language has a problem. Yes, .Net [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/some-thoughts-on-richard-grimes-article-on-net/

Date: 03/11/05 (Web Development)    Keywords: programming, asp, web, hosting

Been LJing for several years now and with my web design aspirations increasing, I figured I'd look for some good Web Design related LJ communities to join.

I attempted a CompSci BS degree at the University of N. Florida, which didn't work out well and I left basicly hating programming. "Just because you're good with computers doesn't mean you should be a CS major" was the lesson learned.

What I have interest in is web design. I've been maintaining a homepage for many years (and am working on a bit of redesign to it lately) - http://www.geocities.com/JL_Stinger/ if you're interested, though I don't consider it terribly impressive. Quite frankly, if I had to do it all over again, I would've gone for a web design program of study in the first place, but that's a long story...

Can anyone recommend anywhere good in Florida, or failing that the southeastern US, for a web design degree? There seem to be very few places that offer them, and practically none that offer a BS degree in it. If I was doing it all over again, I'd probably go to the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale (or Atlanta or wherever), but that's just too much cost right now.

For that matter, how important is a degree in the web design field, especially a AS vs BS? Do most places only offer a AS because that's all you really need or what?

Can anyone recommend a good free hosting site? GeoCities isn't what it used to be, but I don't know any better place to move my site without paying money (which I'll do eventually, but not yet).

Any particular advice anyone cares to share with someone trying to really get into the web design field?

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/webdev/179768.html

Date: 03/29/05 (Mozilla)    Keywords: programming, web, google

Link to online O'Reilly store.

Have the .chm file (e-book), 2.74MB. Would anyone like a copy?

"Firefox Hacks offers all the valuable tips and tools you need to maximize the effectiveness of this hot web application. It's all covered, including how to customize its deployment, appearance, features, and functionality. You'll even learn how to install, use, and alter extensions and plug-ins. Aimed at clever people who may or may not be capable of basic programming tasks, this convenient resource describes 100 techniques for 100 strategies that effectively exploit Firefox. Or, put another way, readers of every stripe will find all the user-friendly tips, tools, and tricks they need to make a productive switch to Firefox. With Firefox Hacks, a superior and safer browsing experience is truly only pages away. The latest in O'Reilly's celebrated Hacks series, Firefox Hacks smartly complements other web-application titles such as Google Hacks and PayPal Hacks."

Heh. Clever people ;)

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/267739.html

Date: 04/06/05 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: programming, database, java

Hello, I'm new here.

I have a quick question.

I'm doing research and wanted to know of the two programming languages (C++ and Java), and two databases (Visual Basics and Oracle) which do you think is the most "in demand" in the IT industry.

And if I had to choose one of the four to concentrate on which would be around in the next decade? And with what applications?

Basically what would you get certified in to help you land a good IT job.

Any information you could provide me would be fantastic. Thanks in advance.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/computergeeks/653597.html

Date: 04/06/05 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: programming, sql, linux

Hey all -

my work has offered to spring for a programming class for me. I mostly do junior system admin. type stuff now so better shell scripting would be great to know but i'd like to branch out more into simple programming. everyone at my job is a hotshot perl coder and i'd love to be able to write perl. but perl programming classes dont seem to exist.
does anyone have suggestions on what kind of beginner class i should take?
or if youre in philly: where i should take it would be nice too.
also i'm not looking to go the self taught route on this. i usually learn better in a non classroom environment but i've been up to my eyeballs trying to teach myself linux, bash and zsh, sql, postfix, networking, hardware and bunch more, so i'm looking forward to some classroom type structure for a minute.

thanks!

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/computergeeks/654071.html

Date: 04/13/05 (Java Web)    Keywords: programming, html, xml

I have heard that Python is a great programming language which is so much superior to everything around etc. The following code in python is touted as the world's smallest p2p client & server. # tinyp2p.py 1.0 (documentation at http://freedom-to-tinker.com/tinyp2p.html) import sys, os, SimpleXMLRPCServer, xmlrpclib, re, hmac # (C) 2004, E.W. Felten ar,pw,res = (sys.argv,lambda u:hmac.new(sys.argv[1],u).hexdigest(),re.search) pxy,xs = (xmlrpclib.ServerProxy,SimpleXMLRPCServer.SimpleXMLRPCServer) def [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/python-a-recipe-for-cryptic-code/

Date: 04/14/05 (PHP Development)    Keywords: php, programming

Hi,

I am quite new to this community. I just started programming in PHP and got interest. I felt free to join this community.

I need some help for writing code in PHP...

I want to write a code to generate thumbnails of all pictures in a directory. My server supports PHP 4.3, but i don't know whether my server supports GD or not.

Without using GD is it possible to write such a code? if yes, then how?

Please help me out....


Thanx everyone

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/php_dev/54054.html