Klevo blog

I am amazed with Hardy Herdon. It’s the best OS I’ve ever used. The only thing that was bugging me is that I was not able to install x64 version of Zend PDT. In my opinion it’s the best free PHP IDE around. The solution is very easy trough.

1. Download Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers from Eclipse downloads. It includes all the plugins PDT needs. You’ll be missing some with the vanilla Eclipse.
2. Run it, and go to Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install… Click Next and add a new remote site. Name: PDT, URL: http://downloads.zend.com/pdt
3. Thick the new remote site and click Finish. When asked to choose which plugins to install, be sure to deselect the debugger. It’s not available for 64bit systems as far as I know and you’ll get an error proceeding with it.
4. When you finish the process and restart Eclipse you’ve got it working.

This guide assumes you have 64bit Java working on your system. On Ubuntu it’s just a matter of installing a package in Synaptic.

When you leave your blog not-so-very-updated for some time you’ll start to notice some bad things. Traffic slowly declines and the more you don’t post the lazier you are to write something new. But I don’t want to talk about that.

I made quite a big decision lately – I left the college (willingly). My main reason was that I was, with time, more and more interested and occupied by my freelance career. It escalated to such a point that I had to make a decision. Stay in the school or left and fully concentrate on my business. I chose the later. There was no reason for me to stay – I was simply bored in school. There was very little useful knowledge that I was gaining there. Our programming classes, the only ones that I enjoyed at least a bit, became a joke in the 3rd semester. But I don’t regret my time spent there. I met a lot of great people and learned something too.

I am quite excited. Finally I can concentrate on things that I really enjoy doing. I am confident that this is the right way for me to go, but, well, time will tell.

I am happily moved to my new home for more then two weeks now. I was both lazy and occupied to write something. But right now I have a good reason. I bought a new hard drive and guess what? I installed Ubuntu on it to dual boot with Windows. It was not that new to me, because I was playing with Ubuntu before but that changed when I installed XGL and Compiz. I was simply amazed. In the area of 3D accelerated user interface Compiz can not be compared to XP not even Vista. Take a look at this video but you really have to experience it first hand to see the potential. One thing however still keeps me from using Ubuntu for my everyday work. Font displaying. Clear Type is so much better that everything that can be set up in Ubuntu (yes, I tried various guides how to make this better). This really is important to me because texts are the thing I look most at when behind a computer and they have to be as smooth as possible. So I’ll probably stay with Windows for some more time, but I feel it won’t be for long.

The summer holidays officially ended for me. Tomorrow I am moving to a new flat in Bratislava where I study. The school is starting around the 18th of September but there are some things that needs to be done there before. I will be offline for a few days, until my provider connects me. This will be terrible but I survived two weeks on vacation during the holidays without the net so I know how it is like I have some articles started and I hope I’ll finish them during this time. Stay tuned!

I would like to share some great books I have read recently or I am reading right now. If you have something to do with the subjects mentioned here I definitely recommend these.

PHP 5 Power Programming

You think you know PHP? Maybe after reading this book you’ll change your mind. This is an extensive journey trough PHP 5 written by the people who know it best. There are a lot of useful code examples and the whole thing is quite amusing to read. The book passes 1 Million downloads so far and they estimate that 1 in 5 PHP developers have this book. Not convinced yet?

Code Complete (second edition)

Everyone who ever touched some production code should have this one. This book covers everything from application design to naming conventions. Every page offers pragmatic insight gained through years of effective coding experience and continues to be the principal handbook of software construction success for its practitioners. Project leaders should read this book cover to cover, and then purchase a copy for each of their direct reports. You probably have at least heard of it. This is a must.

The Zen of CSS Design

Another bestseller. For everyone who does web design. The last chapter really nails it. The CSS development of 5 designs from CSS Zen Garden is explained here step by step. I learned a lot from this one.