Microsoft and PHP (via a Yahoo! Merger)

Matt Mullenweg asks, “If Microsoft were to buy Yahoo, I wonder if that would have an impact on PHP?” I think that everyone will have to say, “Yes.” on some level. There are two ways that this impact could take place:

1) PHP is challenged to compete with other languages in the market, that’s either ASP, Ruby, Perl, Python or some new language that comes around. JSP could be re-written to be easier (ha! Like that’s going to happen). PHP is going to be challenged by these languages, at least one of which is tied into Microsoft.
2) PHP will be challenged because Yahoo! needs more of something to deal with their demand. If Microsoft is after Yahoo! for revenue/ad related things then the engines running the machines will be left alone over time. People will adopt PHP (or whatever language) because of its functionality. I personally think that WordPress is a compelling reason to use PHP, Yahoo’s use of it is not as strong as WordPress’ because its easy to get your hands on the source and learn PHP from it.

Yahoo! has a commitment to PHP at present, unless Microsoft dumps their entire staff in charge of making Yahoo! what it is, its going to be a slow transition if it were to change over to .NET/ASP. Industry leaders in the web development/software development community are at Yahoo! working on code and making choices, if Yahoo! loses interest for them they’ll move somewhere else and employ their killer PHP skills there.

PHP libraries like PHP Cake (which I’m using for a new project) make using PHP fun and easy. I think PHP will be around for years to come because of what it is: fast, easy and powerful. I hope Microsoft causes PHP to change, Yahoo! or not. I also hope that Yahoo! opens up more than their YUI library so that coders can learn PHP stuff from them as well.

Thanks Matt for the interesting question!

Thankful Thursday: Frenz

I’m grateful for my friends.  I’ve got friends around the world and its pretty humbling that people would be in any way interested in my life.  I find that people still want to talk to me even though I’m a complete nut case 😀  What’s even more amazing is that my friends look out for me at times, pray for me many times, joke with me and put up with my wacky sense of humor.  I’m thankful for you folks – its an honor to have you call me friend.

Postmodernism Rears Its Ugly Head

I’m a closet philosophy geek/logic person.  One of the biggest problems with philosophy is that its personal, you believe what and the way you do personally [or at least that is what I believe ;)].   One of the bigger problems is the philosophical positions called postmodernism.  Postmodernism says that you can’t understand me.  I can’t understand you.  Postmodernism doesn’t work well in politics:

http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2496657.ece

This article is graphic and disturbing.   I can’t understand how a judge would let someone be immoral by the culture of the nation that these immigrants moved to.  Its not postmodernism on my part, its just sickness in the justice system.

This Could Happen to You

After having the same pair of sunglasses for 4-5 years I finally misplaced them.  They could even still be in my possession, I just don’t know it.  So yesterday I went to the Southlands mall and purchased a new pair.  In the process I shopped a few stores.  Upon going into the ‘Sun Glass Hut’ which sounds like a good place to get sunglasses, I was greeted by a young man who was eager to help me get some sunglasses.  Or so I thought.  Here’s the exchange that took place:

SGH: “Can I help you find a particular pair of sun glasses?”

Me: “Yes, I’m looking for a pair of glasses between $65-$75 with glass lenses.”

SGH: “That may be hard to find here.  Have you looked at these…” [shows me some glasses that are $120.]

SGH: “These are $120.” [picks up another pair and repeats the same mantra: $120.]

Me: “What can you show me that is in the $65-$75 range with plastic lenses?”

SGH: “We don’t have anything like that either.”

Me: “You could have told me that before when I asked you about the glass lenses.”

SGH: “Yeah, I guess I could have.”

Doh!  Morons.  Customer service is sometimes losing a sale by being honest but gaining sales over the long term through honesty or helping people get what they want.

This Post Contains Too Much Information

I mentioned a few days back that I was having some medical issues. This post is going to outline those issues and I’m also going to keep a running tab within this post to outline exactly what I’ve got, what my symptoms are, and what I’m going to be doing about my medical problem. To keep you from throwing up in your mouth by revealing it all here its going to require you to click the ‘more’ link to see the rest of the post. As a legal disclaimer I wanted to state that this is my own blogging of my own experience and should not be considered medical advice. Don’t sue me if you read this, use some of the ideas in here and it doesn’t work for you.

Continue reading →

Crying Myself in Circles

This morning we went to the zoo to have some family time and to get out of the house.  At the zoo there is a carousel.  Upon installing Abby upon a black panther (the feline mammal and not the ethnically oriented militant, political group as you might have suspected) I noticed how big she was getting.  She’s not my little baby girl any more, she’s turning into a girl, soon to be followed by teenage girl and so forth.  I said to Abby, “You sure are getting big.”

Abby replied, “I sure am going to miss you when I get married, dad.”  I began holding back as many tears as I could in the manliest fashion possible.

Dishwasher Installation Tip

If you’re going to install a dishwasher by yourself without the aid of a plumber: make sure you know what your doing.  Or, alternatively you could do what the guy who lived in our house did and install it yourself and hope everything works.  Its been two years that we’ve been in this house and I’m not thrilled to report that our dishwasher stopped draining correctly, in part because the guy installed it without taking into account that the hoses and tubes, when installed incorrectly, are guaranteed to siphon dirty water back into the dishwasher at some point in time because gravity and physics have a tendency to be constant.

Stupid laws of science. 😉

Thankful Thursday

Our friends the Mason’s have been going through an ever-delayed adoption process.  Every time they think they’re close the Chinese government appears to delay things.  Louanne had borrowed from her friend the title, “Thankful Thursdays.”  But it got me thinking: this blog needs more thanks.  Much, much more thanks.  So today I’m going to start my own ‘Randy Gets Thankful” post.  If this were a blogging Meme think about how much better Thursdays might be if we had more than Lost-Vivor to look forward to in our scheduled reading time.

This week I’m going to be thankful for my health.  I’m going through some irritating medical issues at present and when it all comes down to it, my problems aren’t fatal and I’m not going through cancer treatments or worse.  My wife is understanding and supportive and my girls are often snuggly.  My extended family is just as supportive and they pray for me and chide me about things periodically keeping things real, but with an eternal perspective.  I’m thankful for my family!

Frontier Airlines: Big Business Means Little Customers

I have flown on Frontier Airlines for five or six years now, not so much in the beginning, but the last three years have seen almost all of my airline travelling business go through them.  They were generous in the beginning and their staff was friendly and accomodating.  I would not get the level of service that that Frontier offered from any other airline with any consistency (and most definitely not for the price).  However, in the last year they’ve gone ‘big business’ on me.  The bottom line and making money now in larger amounts is apparently more important to them than my long term business.

I’m a very loyal consumer.  When I have a bad experience I very rarely cut off my business with a company.  Sometimes I’ll go back a second and even third time to make sure it wasn’t an off-day, or a new employee that threw me for a loop.  When I have a good or better experience with a company or restaurant I often tell people about it and readers of this blog have gotten ‘an eyeful’ of reviews.  Frontier has gotten many recommendations from me in the past by word of mouth and by forwarded emails to others when they’re running a special.

Not so much any more with Frontier.  I’m going to shop around and if they happen to have the better deal I’ll take it, but my loyalty is no longer with them unless after contacting customer service they’ve rectified the situation.  Employee attitude can make a company or break a company, and the employees that I have dealt with on the business side of things have just been lousy the last year.  I’m sorry to have to break from my loyalty, but there comes a time when this sort of thing happens and sitting around to be treated like a number is only permissable from the government – they’re the only ‘legal’ monopoly.

Dear Teachers

Dear Teachers Around the Globe,

Please stop having sex with your students.  Seriously.  I’m tired of reading the headlines only to discover that this week no less than [editor: insert the exact number here] teachers had sexual/lewd/non-educational extra-carricular  activity with students. There is no gain in these women having an adulterous affair (at least those whom are married), the students engaging in sexual relations with people often significantly older than them, and for goodness sakes: those students will be ostrich-sized at school [SIC]!

I don’t know what holes are in your moral fabric, but if you find that your moral fabric was purchased at Victoria’s Secret and you’re having a hard time keeping your body a secret from the students… get a job at the IRS, you’ll be much less tempted there and you’ll be further away from students!

That is all.