Origin of Old Familiar Phrases

This on comes from the 'Hey that's interesting' bucket.

The site Neatorama has a post entitled 'Origin of Familiar Phrases.' The post covers phrases like: 'stump someone', 'put on your thinking cap' and 'slush fund'.

Cheat Sheets for Programmers

Here are some cheat sheets that I found useful this week.

AJAX

• Microsoft AJAX Cheat Sheet

MISC

• Quick Reference Cards (Covers multiple topics: Programming, Databases, Administration, Editors, and more)
• Progamming Handbooks and Cheatsheets (Covers multiple technologies)
• .NET Cheat Sheets (Covers multiple topics: Formatting Strings, ASP.NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005 Built-in Code Snippets, and links to other cheat sheets)
• Developer Cheat Sheet Compilation (Covers multiple topics: Database, Programming Languages, OS, and more)
  

SUBVERSION

• Subversion Cheat Sheet (Open-Source source control)

GOOGLE

• Google Cheat Sheet (List of all Google services and tools)

CSS

• CSS Cheat Sheet

Regular Expressions

• Regular Expression Cheat Sheet (.NET)

Helping Out a Fellow Programmer or How I Learned to Love the Code Again

This week I found out that a guy I work with is a brand new programmer. He has some experience working with ASP.NET in the VB language. I have had a couple of conversations with the guy to evaluate his technical skills. It is confirmed, he is a new programmer. He is also eager to learn and seems to be fairly bright.

I have started him off with a programming challenge and a reading assignment. For the programming challenge, I went over to the Sphere Online Judge website to grab the problem 'Life, the Universe, and Everything' the classical problems page. The reading assignment is from the MSDN website: System Namespace, Object class, Console class and Introduction to the IDE webpages.

My personal opinion is I should also do the programming and reading assignments I am giving out. I am doing this for two main reasons. The first being, I don't want to over whelm the guy with information. The other reason is to make sure I also understand the material. I have discovered an interesting benefit of working with this new programmer. I am being forced to think about code in different ways. I need to be able to explain the code to someone else and I am also thinking multiple ways that the code could be written.

This is going to be an adventure.

Firefox Tips and Tricks

On Monday, I learned a few tricks, tips and optimizations for Firefox.

The first item is Widefox (Firefox for the widescreen generation). This optimization works well on my laptop. I am still getting use to the new layout. So far I like it and seems to help me be a little more productive. Setting up Widefox is composed of two major steps, installing the TabMixPlus add-on and configuring userChrome.

Next I applied several tricks and tweaks for Firefox the was posted on Lifehacker. I followed several of the tips listed in the blog post and the comments for the posts. My two favorite posts so far are: Force links to open in the background and Geek to Live: Top Firefox 2 config tweaks.

The last tip I have is to learn some keyboard shortcuts for Firefox. You can get a big list of keyboard shortcuts from the online Firefox help page. My style is to learn a few keyboard shortcuts and use them for a week or two before adding more. The two shortcuts I use the most are ctrl+W to close a tab and ctrl+L to select the location bar.

PowerShell Resources or How I Learned to Love the Command Line Again

The other day a friend was showing off some tricks he learned about PowerShell. PowerShell is a new command ling shell and scripting language from Microsoft.

When I start learning a new tool I like to create a small reference library of resources. The following list is a mixture of websites, blogs and blog postings that I have found useful or interesting.

• Windows PowerShell
• Windows PowerShell Blog
• The PowerShell Information Centre
• Scripting with Windows PowerShell
• PowerShell Quick Reference & Graphical Help File(chm)
• The PowerShell Guy
• PowerShell Secure Remoting
• TechEd Webcast Available – PowerShell: The Future of Server Administration
• Free Powershell book and other Powershell info
• PowerShell CMDLET Visual Studio 2005 Item Template
• Microsoft Command Line Standard
• PowerShell: how to unit test your cmdlet
• Asynchronously execute PowerShell scripts from C#

Some thougths on paying off the mortgage early

Over at the website Get Rich Slowly the is a posting entitled 'Ask the Readers: Is It Better to Invest or to Prepay a Mortgage?'. The article has tickled my brain. The posting has multiple quotes from different finical gurus layout support for their view on paying off the mortgage early. Right now in my finical life Dave Ramey's advice makes a lot of sense to me.

There are several finical and tax benefits to a mortgage, most along the lines of the value of the house increases over time. The issue at hand suggests we need to look closely at few basic areas: How soon to retirement? What are your post retirement plans? How fast the value of the house is increase in comparision to the mortgage rate? What opportunities are we lossing out on when paying off the mortgage at an accelrated pace? The answer to these questions should lead a person to an acceptable answer.

I personally feel that it is better to get your finical house in order before you tackle the issue of paying off the house. I also think that paying off the mortgage should be near the end of your personal finical plan.

Free Technical Books

Update 2007.05.06
Learning Perl the Hard Way
Free On-line Linux Technical Books and Tutorials
Threading in C#
XNA Book
Asterisk: The Future of Telephony



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General Progamming

• Programming Languages by Scott F. Smith
• The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond
• How To Design Programs: An Introduction To Programming and Computing by Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flat, and Shriram Khrisnamurti
• How To Think Like A Computer Scientist: Learning with C++ by Allen B. Downey, Paul Bui, Jonah Cohen and Charles Harrison
• Programming from the Ground Up by Jonathan Bartlett
• Google, Amazon, and Beyond: Creating and Consuming Web Services
• XML Programming: Web Applications and Web Services With JSP and ASP
• COM and .NET Interoperability
• The Software Development Book by Mark Watson

C/C++

• C Programming Tutorial (K&R version 4) by Mark Burgess
• C++ Programming by Sharam Hekmat
• How To Think Like A Computer Scientist: Learning with C++ by Allen B. Downey, Paul Bui, Jonah Cohen and Charles Harrison
• Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming Using C++ by Peter Müller
• Style Guides for C and C++ compiler by Christopher M. Lott
• C++ A Dialog Programming with the C++ Standard Library
• An Introduction to GCC for the GNU Compilers gcc and g++

C#

• Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in C# by Bruno R. Preiss
• Dissecting a C# Application: Inside SharpDevelop

VB / VB.NET

• Programming VB .NET: A Guide For Experienced Programmers

Java

• Processing XML with Java by Elliotte Rusty Harold
• Introduction To Programming With Java by David J. Eck
• Introduction to Computer Science using Java by Bradley Kjell
• Inside The Java Virtual Machine, 2nd Edition by Bill Venners
• Data Structures and Algorithms With Object-Oriented Design Patterns in Java by Bruno R. Preiss
• Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, Second Edition by Java Look & Feel Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Python

• Learn to Program Using Python by Alan Gauld
• Dive Into Python: Python for experienced programmers

LISP/Scheme

• Common LISP - An Interactive Approach by Stuart C. Shapiro
• The Scheme Programming Language, Third Edition by R. Kent Dybvig
• Common Lisp the Language, 2nd Edition by Guy L. Steele
• Practical Common Lisp
• On Lisp

Unix/Linux

• The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond
• Linux Newbie Administrator Guide by Stan, Peter and Marie Klimas
• The Linux Cookbook - Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use by Michael Stutz
• Everyday Linux by Kathy Miles and Ethan Metsger
• UNIX Text Processing (UTP) by Dale Dougherty and Tim O'Reilly (and the staff of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.)
• Linux Kernel in a Nutshell
• Advanced Linux Programming

General Computing

• A Short Introduction to Operating Systems by Mark Burgess
• Wirth's compiler book freely available
• PLANET ZIKRI has a huge list online books
  Loads of Programming Tutorials
• Programming ebooks
• Computer-Books.us

O'Reilly's CD Bookshelf

• Mirror 1
• Mirror 2

Perl

• Teach Yourself Perl 5 in 21 days by David Till
• Writing Perl Modules for CPAN

PHP

• Practical PHP Programming
• A Programmer's Introduction to PHP 4.0

Ruby

• Mr. Neighborly's Humble Little Ruby Book

Mathematics

• Online Mathematics Textbooks
• Abramowitz and Stegun: Handbook of Mathematical Functions

Squeezing more out of GMail

The gang over at makeusof.com has a post entitled 'Gmail Craze: 30 + Tools and Hacks for Gmail.' There are some great customization and productivity tools and hacks in the posting. The tool 'GMail Manager' has saved me time. I am able to manage multiple GMail accounts quickly.

2nd Annual St. Louis Code Camp

Brain Button announced the '2nd Annual St. Louis Code Camp' on his blog. Please visit www.stlcodecamp.org for more information and to register.

Ways to Reduce Eye Strain at Your Computer

The "Lighting Blog" has a posting of "22 Ways to Reduce Eye Strain at Your Computer."

After reading the article there are some changes I will be making at home and work. Several of the items I all ready do, like keeping the monitor at arms length. There are some other environmental changes I will need to make, like adding an additional lamp or two and reducing the overhead lights. I think I will also change the font and font size on my computers.

Collection of University Podcasts

Found this collection of podcasts from several different Universities. I am always looking to increase my knowledge into various areas. Since I play podcasts back at two times normal speed, listening to lectures are fairly painless.

Open Culture: University Podcast Collection

List of .NET Languages and .NET Language Projects

C# Online.NET has a "list of .NET language and .NET language projects." The post claims to be a complete list but a quick scan tells a different story. If you know of any other .NET languages or .NET projects please add it.

New Line Cinema puts Peter Jackson on the Blacklist

SCIFI.com is reporting that Robert Shaye, head of New Line Cinema, will not let Peter Jackson direct another film for New Line Cinema.

As I understand it, Shaye is upset with Jackson because Jackson is suing New Line Cinema. The lawsuit is over an accounting issue on the movie "Fellowship of the Ring." It appears that there was some anomalies that surfaced from a partial audit that Jackson would like answered.

After reading reading the posting on SCIFI.com entitled "Shaye: New Line Blacklists Jackson", I am inclined to believe that New Line Cinema is shooting itself in the foot. Peter Jackson has proved he can make money and produce a multiple good movies. Are these not the qualities a movie studio would want in a director?

On a personal note, I am interested in seeing what Peter Jackson can and would do with the "Hobbit". I think New Line is making a big mistake not wanting to work with Jackson. I am hoping Jackson will get the chance to direct more movies and he gets the opportunity to bring the "Hobbit" to us on the big screen.

Starship size comparison chart

For all the sci-fi geeks, check out this "starship size comparison chart."

What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

For the last few months, I have been working on improving my eating habits. My basic plan is to reduce the amount of food I eat and to eat less processed food. So far I have lost 15 pounds just working on changing my eating habits. Over at "wiseGEEK" there is a neat post on "What Does 200 Calories Look Like?"