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Normally, I pride myself on public speaking. I’ve had the privilege of training folks at several of my last jobs but for some reason, today, I feel especially nervous about tomorrows presentation.

I volunteered (shoot me now) to present at the Chicago Adobe Users Group on how to get started with using PHP & MySQL. I know there is a misspelling in my name. Don’t worry about it. The talk is scheduled for Monday, 21st September, 2009. It’s a great group and the people there are very nice. The person who I spoke to about presenting, Mr. Michael Schaffner, is a very warm person who cares about the people in this group and helping them learn new things and to explore new things. I appreciate that in him a lot as there aren’t a whole lot of people who care like that these days.

Anyway, I’ve been working on my presentation and my whole goal is to try and sort of simplify things as much as possible so that the audience is more comfortable asking questions about things that are confusing. Of course, I have no idea if I’m successful or not. I’ll find out on Monday.

The example I’m using is an address book. Of course, no one actually wants to write an address book because those things serve no purpose at all. That’s what iPhones and addressbook (macosx) are for. But this example will be simple, direct, to the point and quick! That’s part of the goal too. I want to cover all my material and leave plenty of time for Q&A. Also, I’m teaching it as I learned it. Baby steps!

Here is my problem. Over the last few years, I’ve gotten better about my PHP and being around all the developers at work has made me realize the incorrectness of my ways. Now, I find it disturbing to write code that looks messy and is somewhat flawed. Maybe it’s an evolutionary process. Maybe someone who is just starting off and learning on their own is supposed to write code that has errors but works anyway. The more you write, the better you will become and the better you will become, the better your code will be. Is that possible? I hope it is. If not, this audience is doomed and I will be responsible for all of it.

It is my sincere hope that the group members will consider using a small amount of PHP on their next project and then slowly start using MySQL.

After the presentation, I’m going to make final tweaks based on the feedback and then post the zipped copy of the code and the presentation up here. Hopefully, my embarrassment will be short lived.

If it is successful, I’d love to present more talks like

• PHP && MySQL II
• Building a PHP && MySQL Development Environment
• Flex for beginners (I’m not great with flex, I’ve only just begun)
• Tomcat for beginners

Who knows. I’m excited and scared at the same time. But maybe that’s a good sign?

Update: The link if you want to register for it (sorry for the late notice) is at http://augchicagosept2009.eventbrite.com/ but you can find it from the AUGChicago home page too. cheers!

For a very very long time now, I’ve had this insanely crazy addiction to music from commercials. It doesn’t matter what it is, if it’s a song that’s catchy, I must have it!

There is even this whole community of people who seek out such music and that makes me happy because I’m not a freak. AdTunes and @adtunes are the people who find the music and then share it with the rest of us. I’ve even contributed a few times. Once erroneously in a bad way too.

Here is a list of all my “adtunes”. Yes I made a genre called “adtunes” in iTunes so that I could have them when I felt the need. It’s not wrong. It’s just right! It also mentions the commercial in which I heard the song.

Vermillion    The Album Leaf    One day I’ll be on time    Adtunes (HUMMER H2)
Why Should I Cry?    Avia    Zen 3    Adtunes (Lee Jeans)
Montserrat    Bajo Fondo Tango Club    Cafe Mundo    Adtunes (don’t remember)
The Model    Balanescu Quartet    Possessed    Adtunes (Similar to the Mercedes commercial at the bottom of the list. I was wrong but it stayed on the list)
Pocket Calculator    Balanescu Quartet    Possessed    Adtunes (Same story as the previous one)
Green Onions    Booker T & The MG’s    Green Onions    Adtunes (very popular song but this was in another car commercial)
Hyped Up Plus Tax    Dabrye    One/Three    Adtunes (VW I think)
Happiness Runs    Donovan    Barabajagal    Adtunes (Some sort of cereal. Like froot loops maybe)
Ooh La La    Faces    Ooh La La    Adtunes (VW)
On Board    Friendly Fires        Adtunes (Wii Fit)
The Writz    Gift of Gab    Fourth Dimensional Rocketships    Adtunes (Mitsubishi. SUV of some kind)
Strict Machine    Goldfrapp    Black Cherry-ADVANCE    Adtunes (LG Chocolate)
Hey Mrs    I Monster    Hey Mrs    Adtunes (Absolut Vodka)
The Way I am    Ingrid Michaelson    Boys and Girls    Adtunes (Old Navy Sweaters)
One Million Miles Away    J Ralph    The Illusionary movements of Geraldine and Nazu    Adtunes (VW Van like automobile commercial)
Molly’s Chambers    Kings of Leon    Kings of Leon EP    Adtunes (VW Jetta)
Colors    Kira Willey    Dance for the Sun    Adtunes (duh Dell laptops)
The Honey Tree     The Mostar Diving Club        Adtunes (Honda Insight)
Otto’s Journey    Mylo    Destroy Rock & Roll    Adtunes (Kraft Dressing)
Horndog    Overseer    Wreckage    Adtunes (Mitsubishi again)
Struggle    Ringside    Ringside    Adtunes (Pontiac?)
Clubbed to Death    Rob Dougan    The Matrix Soundtrack    Adtunes (Matrix commercial and many others)
Remind Me    Royksopp    Melody A.M.    Adtunes (Geico caveman)
Battle without Honor or Humanity    Tomoyasu Hotei    Kill Bill Vol 1.    Adtunes (Blade Trinity i think)
New Soul    Yael Naim    Yael Naim    Adtunes (Macbook Air)
Bo Mambo    Yma Sumac        Adtunes (Kahlua?)
Kodo [Inside the Sun Remix]    Yoshida Brothers    Best of Yoshida Brothers – Tsugaru Shamisen    Adtunes (Nintendo Wii of course)
Mercedes_M_Class_Commercial            Adtunes (The original commercial from Mercedes Benz for the M Class)

That last one is only 30 seconds but I think I’ve played it probably like 3000 times. Sick isn’t it?

Don’t judge me! You don’t know me!

So I was showing Peggy, my lovely girlfriend, the coolness of Google Voice. I asked her to leave me a voicemail on my google voice number and let her watch as it transcribed the messages.

Embedded below is what she said and what was transcribed…

What an amazing service!

It not only transcribed but also translated for me what she really meant. We both had a good laugh. Needless to say, she’s convinced that we’re meant to be together per GV.

I hope to see more uses of this feature in the future.