A Letter From A Canadian .NET Samurai

Posted by on February 3, 2012 10 comments

The web development industry is a very cruel playground. You have to keep up with the latest technologies in your chosen programming platform or at the very least, have some level of familiarity enough for you to  know where to find the resources to study when push comes to shove. One day you feel like a Jedi ready to take on the Empire, all-powerful and ready to embrace the dark side and the next day you are a quiet little boy with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead sitting on his favorite corner inside the cupboard under the stairs, masturbating.

Of course there are some aspects of a programmer that will never fade with the times like problem analysis, problem solving etc. But the constant need to learn and study the current technologies used will always be present.

If you are a first year Computer Science student reading this and thinking that all the studying and sleepless nights will only be in college and after that it’s all sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, I have one piece of advice for you: Take the blue pill and fuck the Matrix!

You’d be better off working for the government. That’s where all the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll come from (wink!).

Having said all those things, I would like to share to you an email from my former boss. Read on:

 

Its been a few years since I last sent out a document of what skills are needed to be a real programmer
these days. So I am going to sum it for you because I know you are studying at home because you don’t
want to wake up 5 years from now wondering how you ended up as the CEO of the family sari sari store.

I have outlined the followings skills into what I THINK going forward based on employability and level of
expertise you need to be a rock star programmer.

Critical Must Have Skills

——————————————————————————————–
- English Language (speaking Visaya all day will only guarantee you are always someone else’s bitch)

- Fluent in developing multi-tier applications in an enterprise stack (.Net or Java). This means you
know the best practices for developing UI + Business Layer + Data Layer. Of course we use the .Net
framework here but there are lots of companies that pimp the Java stack (IBM, Google, Oracle).

- Fluent in using an enterprise data storage provider (Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL if using SP maybe). Meaning
you know how to normalize a design, lots of experience with writing queries, database backup and
infrastructure strategies, indexing theory.

- Fluent in web development (HTML4/5, CSS, Javascript, JQuery, etc). You can be a programmer without
being knowledgeable in this area but you lose out on 50% of the jobs. Its akin to a girl not giving
blowjobs. Half the guys won’t go near that ass if they know this. Ask Ted.

- Project management. If you don’t know how to design and manage a project you will always work under someone who does. So if you want to be the HNIC (Head Nigger in Charge), you need to study at
least one recommended book on this topic. Also you actually need to develop a few projects from scratch
by yourself.

- Design patterns. If you can’t name 5 design patterns off the top of your head, you are not a software
developer, you are simply pretending to be one.

- Cloud programming. The world is getting smaller, development cycles are becoming shorter, the cloud is
the future whether you agree or not. You need to understand how it works at a basic level to a very
least. Knowledge of the big cloud providers such as Windows Azure, Amazon S3 and Google App Engine
(GAE).

- Scripting Language. There is a LOT of work that is done with scripting where you don’t want to pull
out a full blown compiler to generate an exe. If you want to do game scripting, scraping websites, quick
and dirty file scripts, 3d scripting (think blender), etc, you are going to need to learn this. You can
get by without it but you miss out on the benefits. Python is probably the most popular one out there.

- Good estimating skills, if you tell someone you’ll have it done in 1 hour and 3 days you are still
working on it, time to go work for the government.

- Common Sense. If it takes you 3 hours to do something that takes a real programmer 5 minutes, you not
only don’t have common sense but your fucking hopeless too. If you are going to program something you
should know in the first minute or two how long it will take and if there is a better way to do it. I
have to split a string based on the position of the commas. Instead of wasting half your morning playing
with loops and parsing characters, you should have been thinking there is a better way to do this and
been on google after the first minute finding about the split function.

- Testing. If you don’t know how to test your application, it doesn’t matter how good your app is if it
doesn’t work as intended. You should know how to test your application. Not all apps need to have unit
tests. If fact, most don’t. Before you write any good, you should have it in your head how you plan to
prove that it works correctly. Example, “will my website handle 100k people a day?”, “does this report
show the correct numbers?” How do I know they are correct.

 

Nice to have Skills

—————————————————————————————————-
- Some artistic design skills. It helps if you can mock up something without going to designer to make
every template you have to do. Knowing some basic theory about typography and color matching also helps
limit the “Are you fucking stupid” comments that are sure to be thrown at you if you put dark text on a
dark background.

- Photoshop, Flash, Silverlight, Maya, Blender, Unity, Premiere, Final Cut Pro. There are still a lot of
development going on where the programmer has to have knowledge of these items. Think interactive
websites, gaming, hollywood, porn.

- Low level programming. A lot of cutting edge libraries and stuff is still done in C, C++.
Understanding these languages will not only allow you to easily integrate with systems built on these
languages, it gives you perspective on higher managed languages.

- PHP Unless you plan on working for Facebook or working on WordPress for bloggers for a few meager
pesos, this isn’t going to help you much.

- iOS and Android SDK. There is a possibility that one of these two mobile frameworks may take over the
world and the sooner you take time to learn it, the faster you can reposition yourself in the new world
order.

If you are reading this and going: “holy fuck! I have so much to learn” or if you just graduated from
school, you need to put the foot to pedal. If you have been in the development arena for five years and
still saying holy fuck, I got something to say to you: Can I get a bagger at Cashier 6?

 

What have you got to say about that? I would love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a comment.

Creating Your Own Blog 2: Getting A Web Host For Your Blog

Posted by on January 26, 2012 5 comments

 

This post is brought to you by the letter “S”. S for Sumo who is now in the big web server in the sky called Dog Heaven. You will be missed by one extraordinary girl who shall remain anonymous. :(

Good day, Ladies and Genitals! Welcome to the second installation of the “Create Your Own Blog” series. Today we will be talking about purchasing (renting?) your own Host Server (Web Server or whatever the fuck you want to call it). As you all know, the service that I recommend for web hosting is HostGator simply because this is the one I use for hosting bloggerbynight.com and so far I haven’t encountered any problems or issues with the hosting. The customer service is world class and their website’s purchasing system is very easy to use.

Note: The song that I’m listening to while typing away the first paragraph of this post is Back To The Old House by The Smiths. Depressing. I’m in one of my Sylvia Plath moods again. (argghhh!!!)

Let’s Get Started!

I. What Is A Web Host?

Simply put, a web host (or web server) is a computer located somewhere else in the world. It is a place to store your website pages and files so other people can view it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Think of it this way: The domain name is the address of your house (ex. 221 Baker Street) while the Web Host is the house itself.

II. Purchasing A Web Host

Note: Click on the images to enlarge…. bitch!

A. Go to Host Gator’s website by clicking this.

B. Click the “Web Hosting” tab.

C. Select plan.

There are 3 plans to choose from. The Hatchling, Baby and Business plan. I picked the Baby plan because it allows me to have unlimited domains in case I decide to create more websites in the future and it’s cheaper than the Business plan.

Go ahead and click the “Order Now” button of your chosen plan.

D. Enter In Your Domain Name

1. Since you already purchased a domain name ahead of time (assuming you’re a follower of this series. If not, start here.) go to the second box labeled “I Currently Have A Domain Name”  and enter in the domain name you purchased.

2. Enter in the coupon code:

TedMartin2012.

Important Note: Using the coupon code above will not only give you a 25% discount, it will also give me a commission from the sale. If you choose to do so, thank you very much! I will now have money for Friday night (a.k.a. Hooker Night).

3. And then, click CONTINUE TO STEP 2.

Enter In Your Domain Name

E. Enter Billing Information

1. Choose your billing cycle. In my case, I paid for 12 months in advance.

2. Enter in a User Name.

3. And a Security PIN number (you might want to note these down for future reference)

F. Payment

Enter in payment details and choose a payment option. I used a credit card for this. You can also use your PayPal account if you have one.

G. Create Account

At the very bottom of the Billing Information page you’ll see your order summary details. Click on the Create Account button.

H. Email

In the next 20 minutes you’ll receive an email from Host Gator containing your account information.

The two lines highlighted with a red box contains the two Nameservers that you will use to point your domain name to your web server.

I. Log in to Namecheap.com

Go to www.namecheap.com and click the Login link.

It will then take you to a log in page.

1. Enter in your user name.

2. And password.

3. Click the Login button.

 

J. Namecheap Home Page

You will then be taken to your Namecheap home page. Under the Account Information section, look for the line that says Number of domains in your account and click View.

 

K. Choose A Domain Name

Click on the domain name that you want to use.

L. Click Transfer DNS To Web Host

 

M. Enter In Your Name Servers

Copy and paste your Host Gator name servers. (refer to step H above)

Click on Save Changes.

And there you have it. Your web host is all set and ready to rock n roll!

In my next post I will be teaching you how to:

  • Download FileZilla, the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program that we will be using to upload your blog to your Web Host.
  • Install WordPress.
  • Choose a WordPress theme for your blog.

See you then! 

 

 

 

Creating Your Own Blog 1: Registering Your Very Own Domain Name

Posted by on January 10, 2012 32 comments

HTTP

Good day, Ladies and Genitals! As promised, I will be releasing a series of posts regarding the topic of creating your very own self-hosted blog. There may be different reasons why you would decide to create your own blog. Maybe the idea of making money online sounds good to you or you’d like to express your thoughts on just about any topic you can think of. Pat Flynn of The Smart Passive Income blog once made a website to store his notes while studying a special type of architecture qualification called the LEED exam. Putting all his notes in a website makes it easy for him to study anywhere where there is an internet connection.

So whatever your reason may be, the first thing you should acquire is a domain name. Now for those people asking what a domain name is, a domain name is simply the address to your website. Rather than attempting to explain it in detail, please refer to the following image:

For this activity, I would recommend a service named Namecheap.com simply because I have personally tried this and I find their website easy to use and the customer service is one of the best online!

Note: Clicking on the images will allow you to view a larger version of the image.

Let’s Begin!

  1. Create A Free Namecheap Account
    Go to www.Namecheap.com and register a free account. At the top-right side of the web page you’ll see a Sign Up link. Click it. It will take you to Namecheap.com’s Sign Up page. Fill in your Username, First Name, Last Name, Password and Email Address and click the Create Account button.
  2. Register A Domain 
    After creating an account, you will be taken to your Home Page. At the top left of the page you will see a “Domain” tab. Clicking the tab will bring down a sub menu. Click the “Register A Domain” button. 
  3. Enter Desired Domain Name
    Pick a desired Domain Name. Stick with a .com domain. Here are the reasons why: Click Me!
  4. Add to Cart
  5. Check Out 
  6. Enter Contact Details  You will then be taken to a page where you will be asked to enter domain settings. Pick the default for now and click Save at the very bottom of the page. I will be talking about setting your nameservers in my next post.
  7. Enter Credit Card Details  You will then be asked which payment option you would choose. I would recommend paying with a credit card for now just because it’s easier for people who are new to online purchasing. But if you have your Paypal all set then use it. Enter your credit card details and hit Charge And Process. It will then redirect you to a summary page which is basically just a summary of your purchases. Click Continue at the very bottom.

And that’s it! You have now registered your very own domain name. In my next post, I will be talking about acquiring a web host using Hostgator.com. See you then!

 

 

The Launching Of The (soon-to-be)Behemoth, Blogger By Night!

Posted by on January 4, 2012 9 comments

Hello, Ladies and Genitals! Welcome to my blog. It’s been over six months when I first started flirting with the idea of putting up my very own website and now I’m practically raping it in the ass! Well…not literally though.     But, YES, I frickin’ did it! The idea finally materialized from Carl Jung’s collective unconscious to the material world(I’m not making a reference to Madonna’s “Material Girl”! Yes, I’m talking to you Peter Yurong! I’m so sorry to disappoint you).

Setting up this blog was fairly easy. My main problem, at first, was I didn’t have a credit card to make the online purchases that I needed. I finally conned one of my officemates into registering a domain and paying for the hosting on my behalf using her MasterCard(Of course I’ll have to pay her cash some time this week). Here are the links where I got them:

Note: If you purchase from Namecheap and HostGator using the links above, I will earn a commission from the sales. These are companies that I highly recommend based on their “idiot-free” online purchasing system and first class customer service. If you decide to purchase through my affiliate links, thank you so much! You will be placing real food on my table(I wont have to eat sewer rats and stray dogs for a day!)

After purchasing the domain name and hosting it was all downhill from there. I just would like to tell all of you that setting up a blog is not as hard as it seems. I know it might sound a bit intimidating especially for those people who are not quite into computers. But I assure you, with the right amount of interest and perseverance, you’ll be able to pull it through.

By the way, there are two types of hosted blogs. We have the free-hosted (ex. WordPress.com, Blogger etc…) and the self-hosted blog. I will be talking more about those in one of my future posts.

In my next post (or rather, next series of posts) I will be discussing in detail the steps I took in setting up my blog. From getting a domain name to uploading my blog to the hosting server and making it available in the internet. I still have one problem though. Shall I use plain text and images? Or shall I create a video?

What do you think? Is anybody out there reading?