Jimmy Z

Google just released a new toolbar (version 4) for Internet Explorer today. Among the new features of the toolbar is bookmark management. I had suggested in the Google-Firefox-Extensions group back in October that they create some sort of bookmark management toolbar so that you can easily access and manage your bookmarks from any computer.

Well, I can’t really say that it was my suggestion that influenced them to put it in the Google toolbar, but at least I know that my idea was a good one. I can’t wait until the toolbar is released for Firefox 1.5.

Yesterday I ran into the strangest bug while trying to install Wordpress 2.0 on our production server. When I tried running the install.php script, Firefox was prompting me to save or open the php file rather than display the webpage. If I saved or opened the file it was completely empty. Internet Explorer just gave me a page can not be displayed error, but I wasn’t getting any kind of error from the script.

So, I began disecting the script. I found it odd that if I only left in the code that would execute upon running the first step of the install, it showed up just fine. If I put the rest in, I got the blank page. Well, I began including small sections back into the script until finally I got a Fatal Error out of memory message.

My production server had a memory limit of 8M. When I changed it in my php.ini file to allow 16M, the script ran perfectly.

I hope this helps someone else who is trying to solve the blank install.php script problem. It is extremely hard to debug when the program gives you no error.

I have finally decided to jump into the wonderful world of Wordpress. These blogs probably will not become Wordpressed for a while until I can find a good way to transfer all of my posts over to Wordpress 2.0 from Blogger. Does anyone know a good way to do this?

Last night, I began reading the book “Love Is The Killer App” by Tim Sanders. He says something about sharing new ideas that I think is very true. He states,

If you have a great idea for running a business, and it is adapted throughout your industry, your idea is more, not less, valuable. Value today derives from an idea that everyone has accepted, and then competition sets in to perfect the execution of that idea.

I think this has been a problem that I’ve run into a lot in the past. I have thought of something that I think would be really cool, but I wouldn’t dare tell anyone about it because they might “steal” the idea. Now I still think there are some things that you should keep private, but I think I need to loosen up a little bit and share my ideas more freely with other people.

It is really cool to work for Provo Labs, because I get to see Paul Allen, a very successful entrepreneur, follow the principles taught in this book. He says that it has brought a lot of happiness that had been missing from his business life prior to reading this book. He bought each of us a copy and gave them to us at our company mixer yesterday.

So far, I love the book! It reads really fast, and is packed with good information. I’ll probably blog more about it as I get further into the book.

Hey, just thought I would let you all know that every once in a while you can win free giveaway contests. I got a package in the mail on Saturday and I didn’t know what it was. It turned out to be a free book titled “The Power of the Purse.” I will be reading it and posting a review here.

Has anyone read this book?

Last night, I began reading the book “Love Is The Killer App” by Tim Sanders. He says something about sharing new ideas that I think is very true. He states,

If you have a great idea for running a business, and it is adapted throughout your industry, your idea is more, not less, valuable. Value today derives from an idea that everyone has accepted, and then competition sets in to perfect the execution of that idea.

I think this has been a problem that I’ve run into a lot in the past. I have thought of something that I think would be really cool, but I wouldn’t dare tell anyone about it because they might “steal” the idea. Now I still think there are some things that you should keep private, but I think I need to loosen up a little bit and share my ideas more freely with other people.

It is really cool to work for Provo Labs, because I get to see Paul Allen, a very successful entrepreneur, follow the principles taught in this book. He says that it has brought a lot of happiness that had been missing from his business life prior to reading this book. He bought each of us a copy and gave them to us at our company mixer yesterday.

So far, I love the book! It reads really fast, and is packed with good information. I’ll probably blog more about it as I get further into the book.

Using 3M’s Post-it Software Notes has really helped me become more organized. As a web technology guy, there are so many things that I need to do, fix, update, submit, etc. By using these virtual post-its, I have been able to organize my thoughts, and the things I need to do.

I keep a master ToDo note with all of the tasks that I need to accomplish. Then I create new notes listing the tasks I need to accomplish to get the master tasks done. As the sub-tasks are complete, I just erase them, and then I trash the whole task related post-it.

This is a very light product in that it doesn’t take up many system resources. You can configure it so that you see a little post-it note pad down in your windows task-bar notification area, and you just click it for a new note.

If you do not wish it have another program on your task-bar, go to preferences and select “Taskbar notification only” under the Notepad display. Do not select “Desktop only” as you will lose all access to the program preferences and the ability to create new notes. I had to remove the program and re-install it to get that functionality back.

It seems to be a great, simple program. It is free, and you can get it from Downloads.com

Does anyone else know of a better program? Or another way to increase productivity?