John Reel’s Blog

As part of my experiment to be able to work more effeciently, and work off-line, I’ve setup my laptop for coding.  This is also neccessary because the Internet connection in our house keeps briefly disconnecting, making working directly on a server rather challenging.

Mostly so I don’t forget what I did in case I have to do it again, I’m documenting it here:

1) Platform: Apache, MySQL, PHP 4.x using Xampp For Windows.
This is the platform on which we develop applications, so I needed to duplicate it on my laptop so I can run/test the applications we write locally.

2) IDE: Eclipse Platform
I’ve been coding in VI, a unix text editor, directly on our server since 1992.  I’m finally stepping up to an IDE (Integrated Development Environment), and chose Eclipse for now.

3) Debugging: Zend Debugger Eclipse Plugin
For debugging PHP scripts.

4) Javascript Editing/Debugging: Aptana Eclipse Plugin
Aptana has some very interesting tools, which I need to look into more.   This plugin apparently adds jQuery and EXTJS support, which are the two javascript libraries we use in our development.

5) Versioning: Subversion Eclipse Plugin
Still getting this installed, but should have it working soon.

Already have the current side-project I’m working on on the local machine and working!  Now, I just have to learn to use Eclipse!  Shouldn’t be hard.

Please help me to setup my experiment.

I want to eventually travel and work from anywhere, which means I won’t always  have an always-on high-speed Internet connection, something that I’ve had at my disposal for well over a decade.

How can I do what I need to, without being connected 24×7 as I am today?

With the exception of online radio, all I really need to do on-line is write, upload and test code, read and write blog posts, and e-mail.  Everything else on the Internet is just distraction, eating up precious hours of my life that could be spent, um, living.

To prepare myself for being able to do this, I am going to do an experiment and see how long I can go without having a persistent Internet connection.

Here’s my theory for this experiment:

Writing, uploading, testing code
Right now, I do a lot of my coding with VI and terminal emulation.  (I had given up coding, leaving it to programmers I hire, and I should go back to that.)  Until I do give up programming again, I can setup my laptop with everything I need to run my code locally and just upload it when it works.

What do you recommend as the best platform for coding, debugging and testing PHP/MySQL software on my Windows XP laptop for distribution on a LAMP platform?  (Free or commercial.)

Writing blog posts
There are various free and cheap Windows software packages for writing blog posts and automatically uploading them when you are connected.  I don’t have to do it directly in WordPress online as I am right now.

Links to blogging software: Smashing Magazine

Any suggestions on the best one to use, again for Windows XP, free or commercial?

Reading blog posts:
With RRS aggregates, whenever I’m connected, more news can be downloaded than I can read in a day.  And really, most of the blogs I read I don’t really need to read anyway.  But, they are good for inspiration here and there.

I know nothing about this.  Any suggestions for Windows XP software that will automatically download blog posts when I connect?  How about forums as well?

E-mailing:
The time management skills taught in “The 4 Hour Work Week” mandate that I only check and respond to e-mail once or twice a day.

I currently get my mail from gmail, hotmail, and my own webmail on my domains.  I could continue to do that, but I’d be happier if I could do it all offline and upload it, while still being able to access my email from any computer.  Perhaps an IMAP connection for my work emails with Outlook, and continue to use online accounts as they are.  Thoughts on the best solutions?

So the only Internet I need is a single trip a day to an Internet-enabled cafe. While I check and respond to emails, my code and blog posts can upload, and the blogs I read can download.

The benefits of this are that without an Internet connection, I won’t be distracted by constant e-mails coming in or long instant messaging conversations.  Instead, if I’m at my computer, I’m being productive, and I won’t have the option to just while away part of my life aimlessly surfing, learning things that I’ll forget the next day anyway.  And, I get a nice social break once or twice a day at the cafe around the corner when I do connect.

It will be an interesting experiment to see if I can go without the Internet.  Your feedback will help me get started, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks!

The history of GoTryTHIS 2.

1. In July 2006, I launched GoTryTHIS, which did very well.
2. I promised a free update for multi-domains.  At that point, the code was already done, and apparently just needed tweaking to make it reasonably fast.  A month of development and version 2 would be out.  No problem.
3. Turned out, we had to totally rethink how to make it work.  It took a long time of R&D and over $100,000 to create… for a FREE upgrade!  On top of that, another few hundred thousand dollars went into related technology.
4. During that process, a major disaster struck, and our full-time programming team was taken away and reassigned to other projects, without notice.
5. The combination of the costs and loss of staff almost put us out of business.
6. After some delay, I got back the key developers and continued to work with them on GoTryTHIS2.
7. I thought it was nearing launch several months ago and in testing with real client’s data, we discovered that it wouldn’t load when there were millions of click records.  We spent the last few months redesigning the database and now it loads quite fast.
8. As of last week, it is in regression testing to make sure nothing else was broken in the process.  We are also going through all the setup and upgrading processes, testing them.
9. It should be ready for select testers to use it safely in about a month, but I’m not making any promises.
10. While all this was (and is) going on, I’ve done a few other things to keep money coming in to support all this development.  I continue to experiment with various things and see what sticks and what doesn’t.  That has in no way slowed down the work on GTT2.
11. At some point, we’ll start selling the new version, and we’ll give everyone who has version 1 the upgrade for free, as promised.
12. Version 2 really was supposed to JUST be the addition of multiple domains in one interface.  The free upgrade is really version 3, with a much more powerful interface.
13. I am going to switch it to a recurring payment structure for new customers and for anyone who wants further updates.  This will ensure that we can continue to provide high quality support and also continue to keep the programmers that we need, adding new features full-time, now that all the R&D and hard stuff is out of the way.

This has been a long haul for everyone, especially myself.  I hope that the new version makes it up to you all, whenever it does get released.

Thank you,
John.

Congratulations to Simon and Cheryl! 

They had their baby yesterday, a healthy girl they have named Ivy.  All went very well.