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PHP4 End-of-Life Annoucement

May 14th, 2007 by Ernesto Gluecksmann

So long php4, what’s up php5, heeello php6

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

PHP is one of the web’s most popular programming languages and it’s one I am most comfortable with in general. It was created at a time when the available conventional programming languages like C or Java were too powerful (low level) or too bulky and unwieldy. Somewhere in between the jack-of-all trades Perl and the so-simple-our-sales-guy can code it Cold Fusion, PHP was incarnated.

It was the first web developer programming language written by developers for developers and it continues to be a force of nature, even in the face hundreds of new languages that have since been created.

Well, PHP4 (version) has recently been officially declared dead, to focus energies on the vastly improved PHP5 and make room for the soon to arrive state-of-the-art PHP6. Thanks to killer innovations like WordPress (consequently, what we use for WCDC), PHP is here to stay and the latest innovations can only continue to solidify as the leading scripting language for the web.

Outlook 2007 Quirk: Say No to Double Left Click Appending that Trailing Space

May 14th, 2007 by Ernesto Gluecksmann

Outlook 2007You found an interesting Web 2.0 looking website that promises you hours amusing entertainment but before you can go any further, you have to sign up for an account. You know the routine, and by now you have it down to mere clicks of your tab key thanks to AutoComplete that practically fills these suckers out for you. You click submit and just when you expect the doors to open, you get the following message…

You verification code has been sent to your email address. Please check your email and copy the verification number exactly a you see it. If it doesn’t arrive within a few minutes, check your junkmail folder… then bother us if its not there either, we’ll resend you another one.

What? Great, already your starting to have doubts about this website… its bad enough they don’t trust new users, they can’t even email you a link based verification, you actually have to TYPE the code in by hand? Groan. But you’ve too vested in the process, all those Tabs and AutoCompletes are going to be good for nothing if you don’t go through this right of passage.

So you open Outlook, your hand already on the mouse, and Outlook already downloading your new messages, bam, there it is, the verification code containing email. You open the email, you see the code, it’s a long ugly one with numbers, characters, mixed case. No worries. You double left click on it, and with your left hand you do a stealthy CNTRL-C to copy (you’re not some newbie, you know how to roll with the Cut ‘n’ Paste) and move the mouse back to the browser over the verification input bar… CNTRL-V to paste your left hand and last you click submit.

Your verification code you entered does not match the one we have recently sent you. Please try again.

What?! What is it talking about? You just did it perfectly. Your not wrong, it’s wrong! Ok, calm down. You do it again, double left click

with the mouse, left hand CNTRL-C to copy, you move the point over, select the verification input field, CNTRL-P to paste, and this time RETURN for good measure.

Your verification code you entered does not match the one we have recently sent you. Too many attempts have been made, you may contact support and we may response at our earliest convenience.

Great. What happened?

Well… looks like your Outlook 2007 is picking up a trailing space. When double clicking, the highlight surrounds not just the word, but an extra trailing space. The reason for is that Word or Outlook is trying to help you by not leaving a space when editing text. But if you do a lot of single word copying from Outlook to your browser (in the case of verification codes or forgotten passwords), it can be a pain because it means you have to remember to remove the trailing space.

To change this quirky behavior, it’s very easy to do:

Step 1 differin
Click Tools and select Options

Step 2
Select Mail Format tab

Step 3
Click on Editor Options

Step 4

Select Advanced

Step 5


Near the bottom of the page, next to “Use smart cut and paste” click on Settings

Step 6
Uncheck Adjust paragraph space on paste

Why this works?

Most verification codes come in their own line without anything else after it. So by disabling paragraph space, it doesn’t grab the last space into your browser. You can still edit your emails just fine, using “smart” cut and paste, your just make sure it doesn’t try anything too smart ass.

There’s 97 checkbox options in Outlook that you have to go through with until you found how disable this, but aren’t you glad I just told you? Your welcome.

Four Steps to Eliminate Your Phone Interruptions Forever with Callwave

March 30th, 2007 by Ernesto Gluecksmann

Callwave Logo
Callwave.com

On average, studies are indicating that the average professional is interrupted every three minutes with email, answering calls, chat requests, etc. This apparently is costing us all about 2 hours out of each day, just trying to get back to completing our primary work.

How does anyone is actually anything done?
When I consult professionals about their communications, one of the usual “ah ha!” moments I get is when we get around to talking about it means to be mobile, starting with their cell phones.

I usually ask a few questions:

at your office
Do you get a lot of calls during the day?
Do you have to stop your work to answer them?
Have you ever considered using an office assistant to handle your calls?

outside of your office

Do you have to call your office voicemail to check your voice messages?
If you are able to forward office calls to your cell phone, do you often forget to do so?
Do you use your voicemail to screen your calls?

If you answered “Yes” to any of these, read on.

Setting up your cell phone as your single source of voice communications is the one the first basic steps to going fully mobile as well as maintaining your sanity.

I tried that already, but I couldn’t screen my calls on my cell phone like I can with my office

My Moto Q cellphone line.

With Callwave, now you can, and far better than what your office line could ever do.

Callwave is another free service that I consider a must-have for professional or small business. At its core service, it is a Voicemail-to-Text transcription service* (a-la-Jott.com’s voice-to-text transcription service). By enabling certain Callwave features, it can help you gain serious productivity and allow you to be completely mobile.

If you’re like me, most of your calls tend to be urgent but very few of them are not drop-everything-right-now type of emergencies. So, I have to be able to screen these calls, at the same time I have to maintain my interruptions to a minimum if I’m expected to get anything done.

Here’s how I recommend setting things up

Step 1
Forward all calls to Callwave’s voicemail. buy aricept Whenever I don’t pick a call or I have my cell phone turned off, all my callers are sent to voicemail on Callwave’s service. In order to make that work, you have to use what most major cell phone carriers call Busy Call Forwarding (Verizon is *71). What this does is send the caller to Callwave’s Vtxt enabled voicemail instead of your carrier’s default voicemail.

Step 2
Have Callwave send voicemail transcriptions to your cell phone’s SMS.
As soon as my callers are done leaving a voicemail, Callwave sends a txt message to my cell phone with the transcribed voicemail. This feature comes in very handy whenever I happen to be somewhere that I can’t take calls but I can read txt messages.

Step 3Visit IGT’s DCEmailhosting.com for Hosted Exchange Service
Make sure Callwave sends an email message with the full audio to your email account. Callwave then sends an email of this message to my Outlook Hosted Exchange service. I filter them into an Outlook folder that archives them. This enables me to store the audio of every message I ever received, with searchable transcribed text as record of my messages. No more full voicemail boxes or lost messages.

Step 4
Install Callwave’s Internet Answering Machine to screen your calls at your office (or laptop). Last but not least, when I am my office, it plays voicemail audio through my speakers with the use of Callwave’s Internet Answering Machine. This lets me screen the calls for emergencies, without having to stop whatever it is that I’m doing.

The last tip I recommend is setting up twice day to return calls, once in the morning, and once before COB. With Callwave, you definitely rely on your cell phone as the single communications point, while keeping the interruptions to a minimum, but allow for truly important emergencies to get through.

This agrees entirely with the principal of centralizing your information storage, while distributing access across various mediums. A topic I will be coming back to from time to time.

*These transcriptions are sophisticated automated transcribers. While not entirely accurate, it helps you get to the gist of the call without having to pay for expensive human transcribers. But trust me, it’s pretty darn good.

BTW, this post falls under a new category, Total Mobility. This is category will cover services and gear that I use that keep things going smooth, wherever I happen to be.

More Young Workers Demand Web 2.0 Technologies

March 19th, 2007 by Ernesto Gluecksmann

Younger Workers Demanding Web 2.0 Tech On The Job — Enterprise 2.0 — InformationWeek

Moore then put up some IDC research numbers showing that 45% of companies have workers blogging, 43% use RSS feeds, and 35% of companies have employees using wikis.

That’s a significant numbers using RSS and and wikis such as Microsoft’s Sharepoint that we offer at IGT. It’s quiet astounding to see the rate of adoption of these technologies, particularly RSS feeds. Google, Microsoft, Apple have brough RSS into the mainstream fold. My Outlook 2007, which comes included with IGT’s email service, allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds of your favorite weblogs and websites.

Outlook RSS

Its an option located between your Outbox and your Sent Items. Look for the orange RSS logo. From here you can some of the blogs I subscribe to. Any ones in bold means there are new published entries for me to read.

This also synches with my Moto Q, through our new wireless synching service. What’s so great about RSS is that I do not have to remember to go visit some of the weblogs to see if there’s anything new, this system keeps track and notifies of new enteries.

Most of the time I don’t even go to the website to view the entry, I can read it right in my Outlook (or PDA).

RSS Entries and their Articles

Once you click on article it, unbolds it to marking it as having read it. Just like an email message only it’s syndicated feed and the best part, you don’t have to subscribe by giving email address. You just need to come a webpage that has the RSS logo on it. Look for the RSS Logo

This URL (page) has an RSS feed attached to it. To subscribe to our weblog, it’s really simple.

All you need to do is copy the URL, right click on “RSS Feeds” folder your Outlook 2007.

Copy and Paste RSS

Copy and Paste and your done! You’re a new subscriber.

Copy and Paste the URL into your Outlook

Its that easy and that’s why RSS is fast become mainstream and why every business must get into the business of publishing news.