Enginerve's Blog

Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping, and always have a mountain in life to climb

  • Coffee-Bubbles-537x402

    People aren’t the only ones getting a jolt from caffeine these days; in a new study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, scientists found elevated concentrations of caffeine in the Pacific Ocean in areas off the coast of Oregon.

    Yes, the details include the percentage of metropolitan wastewater treatment centers vs. home (septic) treatment centers and a variety of influences.  And yes, one does worry about the serious implication of not only caffeine but also all of the medications and drugs that are being pumped into the ocean.

    But I find myself grinning when I think that the Pacific NW is indeed somewhere one might legitimately expect to find elevated levels of caffeine in the ocean.  I have heard the function of a worker is to convert caffeine to urine.  

  • site_monitorI used to monitor my servers constantly.  But over time, the services I used went away and I just stopped doing it.  Over the last year my servers have crashed for a variety of reasons.  Restarting, whether the server, the routers, or notifying the ISP is always straightforward; however, I don’t find out they are down until someone lets me know.  So it is time to monitor again.

    I started to setup monitoring on my Samsung Galaxy SIII using httpmon, which is available from Google Play as well as F-Droid which is just fun to add and look around for other FOSS apps to put on your Android.  The only downside is that I was about to go camping and when out of range, the site is no longer monitored and I can’t easily pass the monitoring on to those babysitting my servers when I go away. 

    Serendipitously I ran across an article on HOWTO Monitor your Website’s Uptime with Google Docs from Digital Inspiration and set that up for now.  Why?  Mostly to enable scripts and triggers inside Google Docs just to see how they work; however, the monitor does work as advertised.

  • lrgI just added this book to my Safari Books Online bookshelf to read.

    Team Geek

    In a perfect world, software engineers who produce the best code are the most successful. But in our perfectly messy world, success also depends on how you work with people to get your job done.

    In this highly entertaining book, Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman cover basic patterns and anti-patterns for working with other people, teams, and users while trying to develop software. This is valuable information from two respected software engineers whose popular series of talks—including "Working with Poisonous People"—has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers.

    Writing software is a team sport, and human factors have as much influence on the outcome as technical factors. Even if you’ve spent decades learning the technical side of programming, this book teaches you about the often-overlooked human component. By learning to collaborate and investing in the "soft skills" of software engineering, you can have a much greater impact for the same amount of effort.

  • If you’re looking for an easy way to compare the options, take a look below. [via Hosting Reviews]

    Shared-Web-Hosting-Showdown-640x2880

  • CaptureAs an example of why one needs to keep up, I read about a recent update for CCleaner just as the update came onto my machine.

    From LifeHacker.com:

    CCleaner just updated to a new version with the added ability to clean up Windows’ cluttered right-click menu.

    CCleaner’s context menu editor is super easy to use: just head to Tools > Startup > Context Menu and find the menu item you want to get rid of. Click on it, and press the Disable or Delete button.

    This assumes that one knows what one wishes to get rid of.  Still, I never like to right click and have “Add to VLC playlist” or “Open in Bridges” as I never used them.

    Simpler is better.

  • On this page you will find the best 166 free Windows programs according to MakeUseOf for all your needs.

    They’ve taken the effort to categorize the apps and picked only those we believe to be the best ones and which will most likely be useful to you.  And they do a really great job at it.  My list is a smaller subset of theirs.  I like to use theirs to see the best in the group and revisit my thinking on it, check out the article and read their full review, find other qualified reviewers and download the software and see what you think, then choose your own favorites, mine include at present:

     
    mseMicrosoft Security Essentials
    Simple, effective and lightweight protection suite. Download

    Malwarebytes
    Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
    Easy-to-use, simple, and very effective anti-malware application. Download

    Defraggler
    Defraggler
    Another excellent defrag tool. Portable. From the same guys behind hugely popular CCleaner. Download

    clonezilla
    Clonezilla
    Live CD to completely clone your hard drive. Download

    livemesh
    Windows Live Mesh
    Sync your documents, photos and other files across multiple computers using SkyDrive. Download

    CCleaner
    CCleaner
    Scores high points all around. The most popular choice at the moment. Not as many features as in others. Download

    chrome
    Google Chrome
    The fastest, minimal design browser (from Google) now with extension support. Growing extremely fast. Download

    Firefox-logo
    Firefox
    More than 6,000 add-ons for every possible feature. The most customisable browser to date. Download

    googlechat
    Google Talk
    Google’s standalone GTalk client for Windows is a simple yet effective tool. Download

    IrfanView
    IrfanView
    The Swiss Army knife of image viewers/editors. Extremely popular.Download

    Picasa
    Google Picasa
    Powerful photo manager software from Google. Includes 1-click photo retouching features. Easy online photo sharing. Download

    Audacity
    Audacity
    Very popular open source software for recording and editing audio tracks and sounds. Download

    vlc
    VLC Media Player
    Extremely popular cross-platform video player that can play almost any video file. Highly recommended by many.Download

    plex
    Plex
    A great looking media centre solution that also works remotely and with mobile devices. Download

    filezilla
    Filezilla
    A free, lightweight and robust FTP client for transferring files to and from the web. Download

    teracopy
    TeraCopy
    Copy and move files at maximum speed. Pause and resume file transfers. Download

    notepad 
    Notepad++
    Popular open source text editor. Favoured by many, including programmers. Download

    dropbox
    Dropbox
    Must-have for everyone. Sync folder with docs and files to web or other PCs / Macs. Share documents. Download

    livewriter
    Windows Live Writer
    Compose then publish your blog posts with a click straight from Windows Live Writer. Download

    Evernote
    Evernote
    Save your ideas on the go and instantly take notes. Access notes from anywhere. Highly recommended! Download

    aunchy
    Launchy
    A powerful keystroke based program launcher that lets you open program and files really quickly. Download

    7Zip
    7-zip
    Takes care of most of your archive extracting/compression needs. Supports ZIP, RAR and many others formats. Download

    imgburn
    ImgBurn
    CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray burning tool. Also, lets you easily create image files from CDs and DVDs. Download

    cdburnerxp
    CDBurnerXP
    The most popular free alternative to Nero Burning ROM. Burn CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. Download

    lastpass
    LastPass
    Secure plugin to store and synchronise login passwords across browsers. Comes auto-login and form filler. Download

    www.truecrypt
    TrueCrypt
    Free open-source, cross-platform disk and data encryption tool. Encrypt and hide sensitive files. Download

    xampp
    XAMPP
    Easy to install Apache distribution with MySQL, PHP and Perl. No manual setup required! Download

    virtualbox
    VirtualBox
    Free virtualisation software for creating and running virtual machines. Download

    calibre
    Calibre
    Free open source eBook management software with support for conversion and syncing. Download

  • http://pinterest.com/rtkrum/infographic-visual-resumes/

    Infographic Visual Resumes