I had the task of installing Zend Optimizer on a client's new VPS and it was proving a bit challenging, not necessarily because I could find any info on Zend Optimizer or anything on the server.... but because my home office internet connection kept crappin' out on me!

When I was getting ready to attempt the install it occured to me to look around to see if I could find a YUM repo. I first became familiar with YUM repositories a few years back while working with a server which used CentOS.

This new VPS that we setup is using CentOS 5 and out of the blue I thought... ."What if I could find a repo for Zend Optimizer"... I thought for sure I wouldn't find one.

But as I looked I found.

This is a short "how-to" explaining how to set it up on the Question-Defense website.

As some of you have experienced working with Internet Explorer 6 can be frustrating. Increasingly harder to support.

There's been a movement towards trying to free the world of Internet Explorer 6. One such website called "IE6 No More" explains in a simple way what the goal of the movement is.

I saw that CNN took notice of the movement and wrote an article about it entitled "Web citizens trying to kill Internet Explorer 6". Great name.

They estimate that there are still 15 to 25 percent of people still using IE6. Still a very large number.

For anyone who uses CFML OpenBD 1.1 was released.

I've used both ColdFusion (Adobe) and BlueDragon (NewAtlanta) in my years of using CFML... for those who don't know, OpenBD in an open sourced release of BlueDragon.

Interesting times if you're using CFML (or thinking of it) because the old argument about cost has been thrown out the door with the open source releases of Railo and OpenBD.

New functionality of note (for me) in this OpenBD 1.1 release is cfvideoplayer, although the recent "tweaking" of OpenBD by Vince Bonfanti to run on Google's cloud is pretty darn neat.

 Just found this post on removing the conficker worm that is supposed to hit today.

Check it out here:
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/4095/how-to-remove-the-conficker-c-worm/

I haven't seen any computers affected yet.... but the day is still young.

Peace!

 I have a couple of blogs over on blogger.com and recently I wanted to create a tag could. I had already setup blogger's "Label" gadget but this just displayed all the labels (or tags) in a list... which made a very long list.

So, I started to look around and see what was out there... I didn't really find anything in blogger's gadgets so I figured I would google.

After looking around google for about 10 minutes, I found one that I wanted to try.

And it worked very well... .complete instructions can be found.

Enjoy!

http://phy3blog.googlepages.com/Beta-Blogger-Label-Cloud.html

For a live example on my "Habs blog"... check it out!

http://yvesonhabs.blogspot.com/

 Not sure what's out there really. But I can tell you what I've used.. although I haven't ALWAYS used it.

Lately, since I've been self-employed again one thing that's quite evident is time management. And time VS production. How fast can you accomplish the tasks at hand?

I've seen some different project managers, I actually use one now to track tasks... although it doesn't really work as I would like. Since there is no time to build one... I use it. But when it comes to actually (and accurately) tracking the amount of time you're working on your tasks this project manager is not the tool.

A couple  (or maybe a few) years ago, I bought a very small piece of software that does just that... as long as you're committed to using it of course.

This program is called AllNetic Working Time Tracker. 

I got it from a download site like CNET or somewhere and used a trial version.... I got quite comfortable with it and bought a license for the full version. 

This program has always worked well for me. Although I'll admit that I haven't used tools like this all the time... whereas I believe I should have. It would have certainly helped in time management and even in estimating projects (quotes).

I'm writing this blog post right now because I'm actually setting up some tasks in the Time Tracker tonight, for upcoming tasks which I will be charging an hourly rate. Personally I find this tool helps me to be a bit more comfortable because I know that I'll "know" exactly how much time it took to complete the tasks that I have to do.

Just thought I'd share. 

Anyone use anything in particular?

I've always been a fan of Yahoo's web apps..... and not to mention their Developer network...

http://developer.yahoo.com/

Found out from SitePoint (on Twitter) that Yahoo! has just released part of their next "Social Networking" phase....

The "smarter inbox"... and there's also some new web apps released with this...

Can't wait 'till I can try out the beta!

I use Gmail alot, but I also have a yahoo account that I use quite regularly.

Check out the SitePoint article!

It seems that a new vulnerability has been found for Internet Explorer... spanning several versions and several operating systems.

I imagine they will be working to patch this ASAP..... but in the mean time please be aware.

And... make sure you have an updated anti-virus... and make sure you are performing windows updates.

Here's a blog piece from ZDNet blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

I posted about this a few posts ago... and actually, I mentioned this before.

But people who believe there are no viruses for Apple computers or linux for that matter are wrong.... and those who think there won't be are dreaming a bit much....

Apple it's self has posted on their support site encouraging that users to have anti-virus programs on their computers.

I just cleaned some windows computers recently and there are no shortage of infected computers out there.

Here's a link to an article by PC Blogs:
Apple Says You Need Anti-Virus For Your Mac

And here is a link to Apple's support page:
Mac OS: Antivirus utilities