• Dec 21, 2005

    SitePoint's New Book - Run Your Own Web Server Using Linux & Apache

    SitePoint has just released another book, Run Your Own Web Server Using Linux & Apache, which is looking to be quite a winner for those of you who want a complete guide to setting up your development environment for LAMP development. As an Advisor over at SitePoint Forums, I am getting this book for free (yay SitePoint!), though to be honest I have been neglecting my duties over there.

    Anyway, just a little publicity for SitePoint's new book (disclaimer: I have no obligation to SitePoint to promote the book) - I really think it looks promising for those of you looking to run your own LAMP setup or even budding system administrators, as it seems to cover a whole lot and SitePoint's books have been known for being immediately of practical use. It costs USD39.95 and comes with a Fedora Core 4 DVD, Linux Quick Reference Poster and a collectible SitePoint-branded bookmark(!).

    Enough said though, because the book hasn't arrived yet. If I do have time to read it (though it isn't very relevant to me now), I may give it a once-over review (no promises).

  • Dec 21, 2005

    Moving to DreamHost

    I'm gonna be moving the codefront.net domain and the hosted services (Web, email, database) to a DreamHost account soonish. The current VPS is just too under-utilized at the moment, considering I am no longer using my SVN repository. Plus, DreamHost supports Ruby On Rails now. Expecting soothing server migration woes, which would be a relief from development stuff at work.

    Update: Migration complete!

  • Jul 30, 2005

    An extension for a bigger Back button in Firefox

    Phil Wilson has quietly created an extension that gives you a bigger Back button in Firefox. It's charmingly named "Fitts' Back Button" too.

    Bigger back button in Firefox


    I'd blogged about this previously and this is in fact in Firefox Secrets (on page 191, with due credit given, of course).

  • Jul 30, 2005

    Plugging Firefox Secrets

    So here it is, the inevitable "author plugs his new book" blog post. In the last months of 2004 and early months of 2005, I was spending a good number of my evenings after work writing what was to become (and now is) Firefox Secrets. "Writing" being a broad term used when tasked to churn out a software book - I'd say that almost 50% of the time was spent fiddling with Firefox, tracking elusive things down, verifying that things I intend to say actually work, and taking screenshots. For those of you who were regular readers, you know how I love to put up screenshots in blog posts, but I tell ya, it kinda gets old after awhile. (Thankfully, MWSnap is an amazing screen capture tool that's freeware to boot.)

    Firefox Secrets photo


    I'd like to thank SitePoint for approaching me with this offer to write a book on Firefox, considering my (non-)experience in book-writing. The content of the book was initially intended to be geared towards the non-technical Firefox user (as proposed by SitePoint), but we (SitePoint actually) decided to rebrand it as a "Secrets" book when they discovered that my submitted drafts weren't that much of a plain old technical manual but more of a "stuff you don't know" kinda book. Honestly, I never really warmed to the idea of writing another "blah how do I use Firefox" grimoire so the rebranding is for the best.

    So, what's in the book? Well, this table of contents should give you an idea. SitePoint also included a nice little CD-ROM with Firefox, Thunderbird, and extensions and themes that I've mentioned in the book material. I tried my best to include everything for both new and experienced Firefox users, so there should probably be something in there that interests you. For those of you who want a preview of the book, check out the You Don't Know Jack About Firefox! article over at SitePoint.com, or download the sample chapters (PDF format, requires email address).

    Acknowledgements

    I've acknowledged these same people in the book, but it bears repeating here.

    I owe it all to SitePoint for making the book come through, even though things weren't all that smooth-sailing. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write about Firefox.

    Asa Dotzler, for being an awesome technical reviewer for the book, thank you. Asa's reviews relieved me of several misconceptions, and I even picked up a few secrets from him (and yes - these secrets appear in the book).

    Dear blog readers, I admire you for tolerating with my absence and sticking around even when at times I seem to have died and left my blog in an owner-less limbo. Thanks for reading as always.

    Last but not least, the Firefox community: developers, evangelists, users, all of you. Firefox is the success it is today (and a wonderful browser to boot) because of you guys.

    Elsewhere, on Firefox Secrets

    I'll be keeping (and updating) a list of blogs, articles, and other miscellanous web stuff that talks about Firefox Secrets here.

  • Jul 28, 2005

    Getting back on track

    It's been a while since I last blogged huh? Well, I actually was back, until a particularly unfortunate incident with my VPS where the database tables for WordPress got corrupted (likely due to overflowing backups and running out of space) threw me off track and got me real grief-stricken that I lost my blog template/theme and a couple of posts (I've managed to restore the template/theme since).

    Excuses, all. I'm horrified that I've actually allowed my blog to fall into a state of disuse and disrepair. I'm back and I hope to stay back. But first I've to clean up all this crud that's on my blog (comment spam, Trackback spam, etc.).

    Public Service Announcement
    I lost a post entitled "Ooh look at this old website I dug up". I believe I offered something to the person who guessed correctly, but I only have Jed Brown's comment in my email. Whoever guessed first before Jed did, please do send me an email (chuyeow at gmail dot com).

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