Stephan Miller
Building Websites, Traffic, and Income
Pentaho and Apatar, My Two Strangely Named Free Data Friends
- Image by rickbradley via Flickr
I have to admit that cool tools like these will eventually make certain types of programmers worry about job security. But I see it as a tool. I have an idea about the movement of data that will make me money and then I have to figure out the way to get that done. You see, I deal with masses of data for the most part. They make me money.
How to MacGyver Yourself Some Software
Other working titles for this article were “Guerilla Programming” and “How to Build Rube Goldberg Apps”, but I had to make a choice.
I fell into programming because I was broke and bored, and I knew software would speed up some of the things I do, so I learned a few languages. All you really have to learn is one major language and then you can write code in a lot of the rest, because most of the common languages are very similar. At least that has been my experience. I started with Basic on a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, wrote shareware in Visual Basic 6, then went to the web with PHP. Along the way, I’ve played around with Ruby and Javascript.
Getting Closer to the Clouds
I decided to write a post about cloud computing, because I am using less and less of my own resources and more and more of what is freely and cheaply available on the internet. It saves time, money and space.
You may be using the cloud without knowing it. If you use webmail like Gmail, an App like Picnik, or host your blog at WordPress.com or Blogger, then you are using the lower levels of cloud computing. You are taking chores and storage and moving them from your computer to a place online where you can access them from any computer and as time goes on, from your phone also. I host my own blogs for the sake of control but I really on Gmail to hold all my database backups.
Build It and Give It Away
When I started in internet marketing, that’s what we called in back in the olden days, I was all about getting paid. And 5 internet years is equal to about 2 dog years which comes out to about 7 human years. So, I got it right, 5 years ago was the olden days. Now when I hear the term "internet marketing", I do get a creepy vibe, like I just opened my self up for spam and autosurfing sites that were built with 90′s design, 8 colors and a table.
Rabid Patience
Usually my day to day activities give me enough material to write about, especially when I break things. There is no better fuel for writing than outright bitching or lightly veiled bitching. After all, I right about what I do and I break a lot of things jumping right in. Programming doesn’t give me much material though. I might right a post on how to do something in Filemaker or PHP, but that’s not the type of post that will help my average reader. It’s good for search engines hits though.
Follow Me