Bobbis.net

I have signed the letter of intent and I will be starting work on Monday at the College of Veterinary Medicine as Systems Analyst I. I was hired into a newly created position starting on a brand new project for the department. I will be starting on a large project right from the beginning, which is exciting. The only down side to the job is that it is primarily a Windows environment, which means I will have to get used to being productive on Windows, but that just means I get to play with shaim all the time. I'm sure I will pick things up pretty well.

In the mean time, I have Thursday and Friday off to relax during the snow storm we are going to be getting.

I just got a call offering a job with Iowa State. I have until Wednesday to accept the offer while I wait for other possible offers to come. Woot!

Tom still has me at the College of Agriculture. I'm sure they wish I could just stay around forever, but I need to advance and, more importantly, get some benefits. I threw together a nice secure file exchange web site as an alternative to people sending sensitive student documents via regular e-mail. If you have an ISU NetID you can use it. Let me know if you want to, and I will send you the URL.

I interviewed for a job doing PHP work in Durham which I am waiting for a reply on sometime this week. That positions sounds a lot like what I have been doing for Tom, but full-time and not being distracted by other help-desk, sysadmin type duties. I would also have students working for me, which would give me valuable experience doing some sort of managerial roles.

I also interviewed for a position at the College of Veterinary Medicine. I would be starting a project from the ground up, working directly with users on designing and implementing an online management system for the department. The place is primarily a Windows shop, so I would expect to learn ASP and .NET programming. That job also sounds like a lot of fun, plus I get the idea that I would be able to get more money out of that deal. I hope to hear something about this job sometime next week.

As for the rest of life; this weekend was busy and fun. My friend Chris came up from Kansas City for the weekend. Satay and Burrito for lunch and dinner on Friday. Saturday we had Gaila's mom and sister over for a turkey dinner, then found out that Gaila's sister was going to go see an acquaintance of mine who was currently with Chris, so I invited them all over to hang out. Sunday, Gaila and I headed over the Mel's to watch most of the Daytona 500 until Gaila had to go to work.

This weekend was fun, even with a sore throat and everything. Now it's time to clean up the place and do some laundry.

I found an rather entertaining article posted last night on CARS: "PC Kills Mac". I suggest you check out the "Security" version of the Get A Mac ads before you read. While on CARS I noticed a pretty interesting ad for Delicious Library:

As for the rest of life... I interviewed for a position in Durham doing PHP work on Tuesday. Tom is keeping me through the 15th now. I haven't heard back from Principal about the DBA position I interviewed for almost four weeks ago. HR said I should know by the end of the week. Yesterday, I got a call from Principal from a different recruiter about possibly going for an IT Systems Associate position doing any number of UNIXy things.

My parents have run off to southern Texas for a few weeks, so I have to watch their house in the cold Iowa weather while they enjoy the temperatures in the 80s.

[pocky]$ uptime
 13:17:09 up 9 days, 3 min,  9 users,  load average: 19.55, 24.95, 15.54

Hooray for Dreamhost

So, I was playing with my yo-yo, and for some reason I got curious about how a yo-yo would operate in space or in zero gravity. After a little Goggle-ing around I found a document from the University of Texas which explains how a yo-yo operates in space:

In space a yo-yo performs well at any speed. It will gracefully move down the string without tangling and bounce backward along the string when it reaches the loop at the end. The yo-yo will not sleep in space because there is no force to keep the yo-yo from moving back up the string. If the astronaut releases the yo-yo when it is coming back along the string, the yo-yo will continue to wind up its string as it moves past the astronaut. If the string is released on the way out, the yo-yo will wind up its string while moving forward. Yo-yo tricks involving sleeping the yo-yo (like "walking-the-dog" and "rocking the baby") cannot be performed in space. "Around the world" requires a sleeping yo-yo and too much room for an effective demonstration in the cabin. Dynamic yo-yo tricks work beautifully in space. Astronaut Dave Griggs can send the yo-yo out, bring it back, and send it upward with little effort. On earth, this trick is called "shooting the moon".

Interesting. The document also covers the way some other toys operate in space such as tops, slinkies, paddleball, etc.

Cleaning user input data for MySQL queries is pretty important. In PHP, most people will do mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['myVar']) to clean the data. This is okay if you have few user variables coming in. However, what if you have an application that has hundreds of fields that may change? You will have to go in and modify a long set of mysql_real_escape_string()s in order to make sure things are clean. There is a neat little function called array_map() that can make life so much easier. So below is a easy function to have around to clean your user variables. Just pass it your $_POST or $_GET arrays.

function clean_array($post)
{
  // magic quotes can cause problems 
  if(get_magic_quotes_gpc())
   {
        $_POST = array_map("stripslashes", $post);
   }

   return array_map("mysql_real_escape_string", $post);
}

Now when you want to work with user data just do the following:

$post_arr = clean_array($_POST);
$get_arr = clean_array($_GET);

I can't believe it took me so long to figure this out. Every once in a while, I would just get frustrated with cleaning user input and would Google for a solution. Apparently, I just didn't know what search terms to use.

I only have two weeks until I'm kicked out of my job at the university. I have been working hard on polishing the scholarship system, and getting the web server ready for a move. I am slowly cleaning out my office space, starting to take stuff home and purging files I or the office doesn't need. Tom has only been coming in for the afternoons since they discovered his wife has diabetes.

I had an interview at Principal on Friday. It seems to have gone well, but only took perhaps 30 minutes. The person who interviewed me says that the length is neither a good thing or bad thing. I hope a decision is made soon as I have other applications out for ISU, Sauer-Danfoss and other places.

Gaila finally got her truck. Saturday we went around looking at trucks, test driving them. She settled on a '93 S-10 from George White. Immediately after the purchase, we took it to Lowe's to get sandbags in the back for the approaching snow storm. Now that Gaila has insurance and things straightened out, we don't have to worry about coordinating trips and picking each other up.

Not having to worry about classwork is awesome, now that classes have started for everyone else. It feels like I'm still on vacation, even while working 40 hours. The last couple of evenings I finally got around to organizing my filing cabinet. Something I have been meaning to do for over two years. I got my piece of paper, so I must now be consolidating my loans again, this time with a 3rd party that offers interest rate benefits.

So, the entire keynote was devoted to the Apple TV and the new iPhone. There was no mention of Leopard, nothing on iWork or iLife, noting on displays, and nothing new on iPods. Steve spend most of the two hours on the iPhone.

I just got my Mac mini set up as a TV media device. It does a lot more than the Apple TV, so I don't think I'll be buying the Apple TV. As for the iPhone, the prices quoted ($499/$599) are for new two-year contracts with Cingular. Currently my contract expires in February 2008. Depending on mid-contract pricing, I will probably pick one of these up when they ship in June.

As for a new computer, I guess I'm waiting for the next revision of the Mac Pro or until March, whichever comes first. At least my bank account won't be taking a big hit before I find a good job.

Predictions Turnout

If I determined something to happen with a greater than 50% chance, I was expecting it at Macworld (if it was announced, I was right). If I determined less than 50% I was not expecting it (if it was announced, I was wrong).

Mac-Pro:
25% Chance 8-core
60% Chance of a minor revision to the Mac Pro line

Displays:
60% Chance of revision
75% Chance of price decrease

iPhone:
5% Chance shipping soon
20% Chance it is announced and shipping 3rd or 4th quarter 2007
70% Chance it is not announced at all
? 90% Chance Steve will make a joke about it. (Haven't watched the keynote)

iLife / iWork '07:
90% Chance seeing updates to iLife/iWork

iPods:
30% Chance of any sort of new iPods

iTV:
85% Chance of mentioning and some sort of feature updates (Hard Drive, Intel Chip)
60% Chance of announced ship date

Leopard:
20% Chance of Shipping
80% Chance of disclosure of "Top Secret" features

7 out of 14 (Exactly half right)

I just found this awesome program called Autostitch (Windows only :() that will automatically stitch together pictures to create panoramics. I kept the source images of the pano I took of the Golden Gate bridge in 2005, so I decided to let Autostitch have at it, below are the results. Click for huge (about 1 MB).

By Hand

By Autostitch