I’ve been so caught up with CMS development like WordPress and Joomla since I started blogging, that I haven’t been paying attention to anything else, let alone learning the latest rave in the Web coding world.

It took Photo Matt’s whining about his Dreamweaver predicament to lead me to a web site on Aptana, an open-source development platform and server for developing AJAX enabled Web applications, which then took me to Ruby On Rails resources, where I chose to end up reading a beginner’s guide to developing RoR, called Why’s (Poignant) Guide To Ruby. I tell you, this has got to be the best idiot’s guide to learning a programming language, ever. I can’t believe that I read non-stop till Chapter 3 and I’m still not getting any head ache. Maybe it’s those foxes that keep popping up every once in a while. They’re like breaths of fresh air.

As of this moment, I have to stop myself, because I’ve just realized that I’m missing a mug of my favourite hot drink to keep me company, as well as the fact that I needed to have The Poignant Guide to Ruby site permanently bookmarked somewhere not in my laptop for perpetuity purposes. So here’s my bookmark for Chapter 3. I’m gonna add it in del.icio.us in a while, too.

Ruby on Rails kinda reminds me of Cold Fusion in some ways, without the hefty price tag. Hopefully learning Ruby on Rails will be my first step to becoming an AJAX coding god… dess.

From Through the Eyes of a Recruiter, it basically highlights the following:

1. Listen more than you talk.
2. Network up and down your organization.
3. Be a problem solver.
4. Seek feedback.
5. Don’t curb your enthusiasm.

I’d like to think that I practice all five of them whenever I’m in a new working environment. I’m especially fond of using tactic number 2, where I would even chat up with the cleaning ladies. Oh, the gossips and news you get from them can be really amazing. Not that I’m such a gossip monger or anything, but the info you get from them concerning what’s going on in a company can be dizzyingly accurate. It helps me at least to be alert and take action before any of my colleague would, and takes away the surprise element on any news I get after.

Over the week, I’ve been pondering the fate that is WebGrrrl.net. To be honest, even with the seemingly lack of updates (seemingly, because I’m ignoring my paid posts), I actually have a lot of things in my mind I’d like to blog about. However, the topics I wanted to blog on doesn’t really fit into what I initially envisioned WebGrrrl.net to be, which was… umm, I wasn’t really sure what it was. I never really had a vision for WebGrrrl.net, but I know I wasn’t going to post on anything too personal, or too commercial, or short posts on what I found through my daily bloghoppings.

At first, I thought of refocusing the objective of WebGrrrl.net to topics concerning blogging and WordPress development; I would then create a new blog focusing on interesting doodads I found on the Web, and another blog on Web programming matters. Nah. I finally decided on creating just one more blog for my Web programming stuff called Coding Idiot, which will be launched next week. I may want to look for volunteers to contribute a post every fortnight, with some link love as exchange. Once things are really rolling, I plan to start paying bloggers who contribute to Coding Idiot. I’ll write up some more details in the new blog pretty soon.

As for my doodads idea, I may just dump them back here, because I’m sure others will find them fun as well.

So there. Cheers!

I’ve been contemplating for some time on becoming a WordPress site developer, focusing on WP being a Content Management System (CMS). With a clearly thought-out web site structure in mind, my experience so far tells me that WordPress can go further than even other CMS like Joomla! and Mambo could, thanks to a reasonably low learning curve, and the ease of developing plugins and widgets under WP. No less important is the fact that a majority of WP plugin developers are very generous, and provide their plugins for free, and who doesn’t like free?

I googled my way through various articles by bloggers and web site owners who agree about the potential of WordPress as a CMS. I even found one fine article in WordPress.org that discusses the elements and views that can make WordPress an effective CMS.

Now, with all the ideas that I get from reading these information, it’s no less important for me to look at WordPress-powered CMS sites for inspiration, and I am more than a little impressed at what I’ve seen so far. (more…)

Priority, priority, priority. Was what kept me away from my blog. Really, if I was given one wish in the world, it’ll be to add an extra 100 hours into a day so that I can do more things. Quick recap of the past month:

• My Akismet counter has reached the Devil’s number 666. Or is it suppose to be 999?
• I’m testing out OpenID on my server, but God knows what I’ll do with it since I’m not planning to allow user logins to my WordPress site any time soon (but if you think I should, let me know).
• I moved my office — took me a month to settle in, get my mails and bills re-routed, contact all suppliers and business partners, and set up my new phone numbers, and finally get connected to the Net.
• I’ve been made a director in I-hope-it-is-soon-to-be-a-big company dealing with cost-savings telco and much more.
• I’m currently building a Web-based interface for voice-blasting capabilities which very soon may be used by one of the big telcos in Malaysia — Maxis.
• I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.1.3 a few minutes ago.
• I’m testing out the Top Commentators Widget to incorporate the time period limitation; I promise, Cord, it will be done by tomorrow.
• I got a numerology reading out of curiosity. The gist of it:
  • I’m good at keeping secrets
  • I’m good at keeping money
  • I have hidden talents that no other people realize; people have to dig me like the earth to get to the “oil” within
  • Too calculative, but once I invest on a business and run it the way I plan, I’ll definitely generate more money (oh yeah, show me the money!)
  • I’m a good candidate for a kidnap
  • I should be wary of my friends; most of them are trouble-makers
• I’m half-seriously trying to figure out how to become an insomniac.
• I still hate Internet Explorer 7.0.

Lastly, don’t tell me you don’t find this even remotely funny:

Gotta love Chris and his sense of humour.