The old PHP site with the PHP 5.39 version annoucement

A side note, notice in the image above that PHP 5.3.9 has been released.  This is just a subtle way for me to announce a new release of PHP.

Back to talking about the web site, I have visited the old site a multitude of times, and it's usually my first click when I want to do a quick check for the correct syntax.  The site was OK, but quite frankly, I never cared for it much, and found myself always looking for another site to round out my knowledge of a particular code snippet.

The reason why I didn't like it was I always thought the examples weren't good, and the explanations were worse.  I wanted to see the syntax used in a code snippet, and a simple use, and explanation of the code in question.  Somehow you always ended up paging down the page, and not finding what you were looking for,   It was frustrating.  I also didn't end up reading the comments on the page, because I was in a hurry, and it was just easier to go to another web site, and find a better tutorial.  A lot of my articles on PHP stem from my frustration with the PHP site, and the fact that I needed to go some where else to find what I needed.

Well, this may be changing.  Apparently, I'm not the only one who didn't like the site.  The PHP Group has decided to gradually retire the old site, and is in the process of building a new site, more modern looking, and I, for one, am highly optimistic that this will be a one-stop site for my PHP questions.

The new sites main page

You can view a preview of the new site as it is coming together here: http://prototype.php.net/

The really good news, is that The PHP Group is asking for contributions to their documentation, and are not just going to paste the old documentation into the new site.  I have viewed some of the pages in their new documentation, and it seems improved.

A comment on the new design, I think it is a much cleaner looking, an easier-to-read site. At first, I thought the font was too small, but you can re-size the site with your ctrl-mouse wheel to your preferred size font.  You could do that with the old site too.

The font and the white background, not surrounded by gray sidebars, like the old site, is much easier to read.  It makes the site more wide open and not as cluttered.  A big improvement over the old site.  The gray sidebars of the old site were a downer to me, and made me want to move on to another site to get to a brighter and cleaner environment.  The gray of the old site was like a rainy day, gray, and gloomy, and the content was like baby food, bland.  Good reasons to upgrade the site.

Showing the Documentation sub-menu

On the new site, if you click on the documentation, community, or help top menu, for example, the site mimics the CodeIgniter documentation layout in using a table of contents as the intro page to that section.  This is a nice touch, and makes you want to look around more than if the option were stuck in the sidebar, like in the old site.  I found myself clicking various topics that provoked my interest, a big plus for the new site.

For a while it looks like you may have to visit both the old and new to get your information, or go to one of those "other" sites.  A lot of the pages on the old site are not available from time to time.  While I was writing this article both sites showed up with white space instead of the documentation.  If you would like to speed the new site along The PHP Group is looking for contributors.

Since Zend Studio costs money, as a newbie to my new company, I didn't see a lot of Zend Studio's installed.  In fact, I saw few IDE's.  Most of the edits were done on a Linux server running Vim. This seemed a little archaic to me.  I wanted to set up my beloved work environment, back to open-source.

Naturally, I downloaded Eclipse PDT based on the Helios release, on which Zend Studio is built.  I had used Eclipse before Zend Studio, and so this was pretty close to home.  All the menus and functionality, except for some of the Zend Studio features, are the same.

In the process of configuring Eclipse, I, of course, started messing with preferences.  Anyone who has used Eclipse understands what a nightmare the Eclipse preferences are.  It takes you quite a bit of time to initially configure preferences.  So you don't have to reconfigure then again, you export your preferences and import them to the new Eclipse environments.

I did an import of my Zend Studio preferences and then started changing some setting, and I had a hiccup.  The hiccup was Eclipse balked at some setting I set, and blew away my entire workspace.  I'm guessing Zend Studio preferences have problems with importing to Eclipse.  I had to reload everything including re-configuring my preferences.  What a nightmare.

When things like this happen, I get pissed, and go looking for new tools.  After a preliminary search showed that Netbeans had good reviews, I decided to give it a try.  I had tried Netbeans before, and found it wanting for PHP development, but that was four years ago.  It deserved another look.

NetBeans Initial Start Up Screen

Netbeans is a Java application and requires Java to run, which is probably already loaded on your computer.  The Netbeans license is owned by Oracle from its acquisition of Sun, but it is a free and open source IDE.

Since PHP is now an object-oriented language, like Java, NetBeans has incorporated PHP into its editor.  You have a choice to install NetBeans with just the PHP bundle, which is what I did, since I do not do a lot of Java work.

The Netbeans 7.1 download and install was seamless. The installer downloads 46.6 Mb, which grows to 152.5 Mb on install.  By the way, my Eclipse Helios folder checks in at 390 Mb. The installation took about 5 minutes and NetBeans came up quickly and easily.

NetBeans with various Windows open

If you do a feature by feature analysis of Eclipse and Netbeans, you'll find that both IDE's pretty much have the same features and functionality.  You'll find several good articles on the web about this, so I won't go into individual features here.

NetBeans main editor window with other windows closed

If your doing Java development, Netbeans should be your IDE of choice, since it was built with Java development in mind.  What surprised me was how far Netbeans has come as a PHP development environment.  If your a PHP Developer, NetBeans has integrated support for Git, Debugging, PHPUnit testing, PHPDoc, Smarty templates, Symfony Framework, and the Zend framework. Need I say more.

NetBeans PHP preference screen

If both IDE's pretty much have the same functionality, what is the difference between the two?  Well, it comes down to the feel of the IDE as your using them.

I thought about good analogies and similes for the two editors.   Here's my take.  Eclipse is like an old car that you keep fixing up, it's serviceable and runs good, but every once in a while, you get irritated, because something doesn't work right.  Netbeans seems like a new BMW sports car.  If Eclipse is a house built with a series of additions, Netbeans is a house built from the ground up by an architect.  Eclipse feels bloated.  Netbeans feels integrated, not like your bringing up a separate application every time you go to a new area of the IDE.

One major weakness in Eclipse is setting preferences on how you want the editor to work.  Each plugin added to Eclipse has its own preferences, every section of Eclipse has it own preferences.  What that means is setting preferences is a nightmare.  Not only that, if you set a preference in one area, it might not be set in another, and may collide with another preference, sometime throwing errors, or shutting down the editor.  I've had all of this happen.

In contrast, NetBeans preferences are a pleasure.  Colors and fonts are configured in one tab, PHP in another tab.  You can set all colors and fonts for all languages at once, not like Eclipse.

NetBeans Fonts and Colors Preference Screen

In all fairness to Eclipse, I'm comparing this to Eclipse Helios PDT.  I downloaded the Eclipse Indigo 64bit and added the PDT plugin, and I find this version quicker,  and much more stable.  I would recommend Eclipse PDT users uninstall Helios, download Indigo, and add PDT.  I think you'll like it  better, if you stay with Eclipse.

In conclusion, because of problems I've had configuring colors with Eclipse, even using the Eclipse Color Theme Plugin I wrote about in another post, I find myself using NetBeans to write my code.

I highly recommend you download and try NetBeans.  You can have both IDE's running at the same time without conflicts.  If you don't like NetBeans, you can stay with Eclipse, but in the process of using both, I think you'll find yourself gradually moving to NetBeans as your IDE of choice.

The NetBeans Icon

Operating Systems

What is the most popular operating system, and is the usage declining or increasing? These stats are based on the % of users logging into a site with their computers. The site picks up the operating system.  For these numbers, I used the w3cschools's statistics for consistency over time.

It looks like Microsoft is gradually, very slowly, declining due to Apple and probably the iPad.

Windows

Are folks moving to Windows 7 from XP? Let's take a look.

So Microsoft's WIndows 7 "your way" ads are working, or is it just that people are replacing old computers?

Linux Distros

What about the most popular Linux distros. This time I used distrowatch as my source. These stats are by the number of hits on the various distros sites over the time period.

It looks like Linux is growing, albeit, gradually, as the distros all appear to be gaining in hits. Ubuntu's popularity continues to grow. Bear in mind that Ubuntu just released their new version earlier this month, which probably changed the results a little. The big risk Canonical took in going to the Unity desktop, and the latest release that fixed a good number of Unity bugs appears to have been worth the risk.

Browsers

Let's get to the Internet. What is the most popular browser? We'll go back to the w3schools stats for this one.

With web browser's the stats show more movement. Safari remains stable, probably from loyal Apple users, but all the other browsers lost percentages to the surging Chrome browser. Despite the new IE9, which you have to have Windows 7 to load, Microsoft continues to lose ground. Chrome is clearly the second most used browser and is getting close to Firefox. The questions is whether it will pass Firefox in the next six months. It's coming on fast.

Given Microsoft's recent malware insertion of Bing into your browser windows, it is interesting to see what's going on in the search engine war. This is where the money is, and where the war is being waged. Ever wonder just how popular Google is? Lets take a look. I used the wiki on search engines for this

Search Engines

Google is the gorilla in this market space. Google is smart and keeps coming out with new products and innovations, like Google+, to keep itself at the top of the list, meanwhile Microsoft uses a malware approach by loading Bing into your browser, whether you like it or not, to get you to use Bing. It's not working Microsoft. For those not familiar with Baidu, which appears to have eaten some of Google's market share, it is the leading search engine in China, and indicates China's surge in Internet usage. Remember, China kicked Google out when it refused Chinese censorship, which of course, benefited Baidu.

Mobile Devices

Let's look at the mobile market and which devices are dominating. Again from w3schools.

Others includes the dying Windows mobile and other tablet computers. I believe the others increase is from other tablet computers, like the Sony and Samsung, not the Microsoft based phones. The trend here looks like IPad and Android are taking over as market leaders. iPod is dead. It's interesting to note the iPhone lost some market share while Android made a good gain. Clearly, Android phones are outselling iPhones.

Browser resolutions are only counted once a year, but as of January a whopping 85% of user's are using a higher resolution than 1024x768. 14% use 1024x768, anything lower in resolution is too low to be counted. Any of you web developers out there should be building your sites for at least 1024x768, and they should be liquid designs to adjust to the many screen resolutions available above 1024x768.

And to conclude, there are now 160 Million active web sites on the Internet. I said active, that is, someone's updating them regularly. The world's current population is 6,775 Million which means 2.3% of the world's population has an active web site they run. The US population now stands at 307 Million. Anyone know how many active web sites in the U.S.? I'm pretty sure we'll find a higher percentage per capita of active web site in the U.S., but I'll leave it to my readers to figure that one out. Until next time, chow.

Microsoft had a weasel word response denying it. The gist of the response was that Microsoft "watched" what it's users searched for, and the pages they went to and from that, gleaned what their search results should be to a particular query. That means Microsoft had to keep track of billions of search queries continually, and the pages users clicked on to that query, and then recall it when the same query came up again. I'm not sure I believe this. It's much easier to just copy Google. That all happen in February.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, and we have Microsoft, through a "security update," inserting the Bing search bar into every new browser page in Firefox. It was annoying, and a pain to remove.

This week, we had yet another more serious Microsoft intrusion into our computers, again, through a "security update," they "inadvertently" removed Google's Chrome web browser from user's computers. Not only did they remove it, but you could not re-install it because Microsoft called it a virus.

Microsoft said that about 3000 users had Chrome removed from their computers. They issued a patch to fix the problem, but users would have to manually reload Chrome. Come on, Microsoft, why was it just Chrome.

It's a good thing, we can trust Microsoft, that Microsoft always has good intentions, that they always have just our best interest at heart, and that they would not blow away another competitors software intentionally. We can trust Microsoft, can't we?

When Microsoft issued Service Pack 3 for Window's XP, they started actively communicating back and forth to your computer, unbeknownst to most users. They got more blatant about this when they released Vista, in that, if you didn't verify your license on-line within 30 days, your computer would gradually degrade. You also had to maintain an Internet connection for them to verify periodically that your license was valid.

Now, you can't download any Microsoft software until they check your computer, with their "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" license checker software, to see that all their software on your computer has a valid license .

I love the names they use to intrude into your computer and your life, "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" and "security update."

Why is Microsoft doing this? Well, back in April, Chrome passed Microsoft Internet Explorer in browser usage, and is now the second most used browser behind Firefox.

Apple has passed Microsoft in total revenue. It's quarterly revenue was $28B, Microsoft's was $20B, and Google's was $9B. These three giants are at war.

It seems, war brings out the worse in people and companies. Microsoft, however, is in a unique position, in that, it controls your computer. I have said before Microsoft's power resides in its security updates. They have brainwashed user's to believe that they have to load the security updates, even though the user has no clue as to what is in the update.

It seems to me that the real malware going into your computer comes from Microsoft, not from hacker's. Hacker's for the most part have been gradually neutralized with sustained vigilance, and international computer laws.

Both Microsoft and Apple have architected a proprietary cocoon around their products. If you use their products, they force you to do it their way to exclude competitors, and keep you locked into only using their products. You can see from the above that Microsoft is far worse, than Apple.

For the life of me though, I don't understand why people stay with these two companies. What's the alternative?

The alternative is you can have a free operating system, Linux, that runs better than Microsoft's operating system, with a nice desktop, just like the Window's desktop, with all the applications you're use to, that are just as good and sometimes better than Microsoft's applications, for free. And there is no need for anti-virus, or anti-malware software, or for security updates.

You can try out the operating system by loading a DVD, without altering your Windows system, in case you don't like it. I don't understand why people don't give one of the Linux distros a try.

People are creatures of habit. They would rather put up with Chrome being removed from their computer, then try something new. They like Microsoft's tit. They like that Microsoft, with its security updates, takes care of them. They like being forced to use the Internet Explorer browser, the worse browser on the planet. In the end, Window's user's get just the milk that Microsoft wants to give them.

DarkRoom

Just to be clear, we're talking text editors here, not word processors with all their extra formatting codes embedded in the text.

The reason there are so many text editors is everyone thinks they can build a better mousetrap with features that no other editor has. Things are getting so specialized that it's normal to have several text editors installed on your computer that you use for different things. Besides the standard Window's text editors of Wordpad and Notepad, which comes with the Microsoft operating system, that I rarely see anybody use, I count five other text editors currently on my system.

Text editors are easy to try out, and when you come across one that you think has something you like, you download it, and try it. Some last a couple of hours before you remove them, others stick around for months.  What are the features that I like and look for in a text editor?

Free, I'm obviously not going to pay for an editor without trying it out, so everyone offers a trial. Since most of my text editors, don't last, I rarely stay with an editor that I will have to pay to use. Thus I moved on from some fairly good editors, like Ultra Edit and Textpad.

Tabs, I'm always loading multiple files at once. I like tabs that I can jump from one open file to another.

Extreme, and easy configurability, I want to change the editors to the way I want to work, and I want to adjust my colors and font. If I can't configure a feature I've grown to use, or it's difficult to set options, I tend to move on fairly quickly to another editor. Some editors have themes, or pre-set colors. I find these mostly, not what I want, and prefer to adjust individual colors to my liking.

Color syntax highlighting, I like editors that I can adjust the color syntax of different languages.

Fast opening, we're talking text editors here, not Microsoft Word. I want instant open, and I usually use a hot key to do it. See my article on AutoHotKey to see how I do that.

When I need an editor, I need it when I'm in the middle of something else, for example in the middle of editing code in my IDE editor, I want to save a snippet of code, to maybe come back to it later. I pop open my text editor, and paste the code.

Quick, when I'm typing I want the feel that the words are going on the editor screen as fast as I type them.  With some editors there seems to be a slight delay that's very annoying.

Self-contained, I don't want my text editor to affect any other settings. I got rid of PSPad because it changed my Windows settings. It probably was a bug that long ago was corrected, but I've never gone back. I instead just moved on.

Not buggy, and well behaved, if I start finding bugs or quirks in the editor, I usually don't have any patience, and move on. This includes problems with interacting with the Window's desktop.  I want a good citizen.

Explorer window, I like not having to open the "file load" window and leave the editor to load a new file. This is a functionality mostly found in IDE's, not text editors, but some text editors have this. It is not an absolute need, if I have tabs.

I can give you reasons for trying editors, and reasons I've moved on to other editors almost like a history. Let me recall some of the uniqueness I've found in these editors that separates them from the pack.

Intype. I loaded Intype, because they claimed to be close to the premier Mac editor, TextMate. I never have used a Mac, and so I was curious. What made this editor unique was bundles, and a bundle editor, essentially snippets of code from various programming languages that came with the editor that you could just use a hot key to put in your editor text. This editor also had some nice ways to move around your text in the editor. What made me leave this editor is theme colors only, a promise that the editor would be completed shortly that was nothing but abandonment of the editor by the developers.  I got tired of the lack of progress.

Komodo Edit. The promise of easy integration with the Komodo IDE, but I felt this was more like an advertisement to buy their IDE. Komodo edit had an explorer window on the side, but ultimately it proved a little quirky to use and I moved on.

HTML Kit. I used this editor for almost a year. I liked their icons that had pre-configured HTML and CSS code. What got me away from this was they moved on to charging for the editor if you wanted plugins, and its over complicated options settings. Every time I loaded it up on a new computer, it took me awhile to re-learn settings, and set it up the way I wanted, too complicated, and in the end tiring to use. Too many screen options, a couple of quirks, and you had to buy it to stay current.

Bluefish. Was advertised as a cross platform text editor, which I tried and discarded quickly, because of their poor Window's implementation. This was more a Linux editor, than a Window's editor.

Subime

Sublime. Sublime is a fairly new editor with a gimick of having where you are in a long document in a small side window on the right. I found the styling which is theme based limited and did not stay long with the editor.

Gedit. I choose gedit, because it was cross-platform, so I figured I would just use one editor, gedit, no matter what environment, Windows, or Linux, in which I happen to be working. Gedit is the standard editor, like wordpad or notepad, with the Gnome desktop. It's a good editor, but I didn't stay with it on Windows for long. I'm not sure why. When I'm running on a Gnome desktop, its the editor I use.

Which brings me to what editors am I using now, and why.

yWriter5

YWriter5.  YWriter is different. This is the editor you want if you want to write a book with an outline. It separates your work into chapters and scenes. It also integrates characters, items, scene notes, and locations with your main content.  Once you get the hang of it, its easy to use.  You can quickly navigate around your chapters.  Its quick, although the styling could be better.  It's written by an author, who uses it for his books.  It's a special editor.  You may want to check it out if your a would-be author or student writing a thesis.

DarkRoom. I use this to write blog articles. It's simple, and most important takes over the entire screen to eliminate all distractions, with the exception of this article which I'm writing on Notepad++.

Notepad++

Notepad++. This is my go to editor. I've been using it for quite awhile and it replaced UltraEdit in my arsenal. I found the Ultra editor rich with features but over complicated. Notepad++ is just the right mix, loaded with features, but easily configured, including the styles. It has tabs. I like that I can close the editor, re-open it and all the files I was working with are still open and there for use. Most important, its fast. I use a hot key to open it and its lightening quick. I highly recommend this editor, and it is my current favorite.

Having gone through these editors, I sure would want to know if I missed any good editors in my travels through the editors of the world. I'm always looking for the shangri-la of editors, if any of you have favorite editors, I'm sure I, and my readers are all ears.

I am about to start a new job. I carefully documented the process of finding a job, and I thought it might be helpful to review some of the things I found, in the hopes that there might be some useful information for others.

My new job starts on September 6th. The entire process took seven weeks. Considering that most companies leave you with a pitiful two weeks severance. Two weeks is not enough, your former company is not doing you any favors with two weeks severance.

If two weeks severance happens to you, one of the first things you should do after you get your last paycheck is apply for unemployment.  You should not wait.  You don't get any unemployment compensation from the day you are let go, it starts from day you apply for unemployment. Since you don't know how long your going to be out of work, apply for unemployment immediately.

Ok, let's go through the process. I was notified on July 18th. The first thing you need to do is get your resume together. This is an advertisement of your job skill to the world. You should have a resume for each job type you are applying for, specifically tailored to the type of job you want. This is your chance to "toot your horn," talk about everything you have accomplished, whether alone, or in a team. Talk about any bonuses or awards you have won, and any educational courses you have taken. Take out everything on your resume, including past jobs, that don't have anything to do with the type of job you want. Keep time to recent time, like the last five or six years, and compress everything before that. Have a section on your job skills you bring to the job. Check for grammar and spelling, and put it in a word document format.  The purpose of the resume is to get an interview, and for you to have something to talk about in the interview.

You want to decide where you want to work. The last job I ended up 40 miles from my house, and as time went by, and gas prices went up, it started to take a toll on me both financially and weariness from driving to and from work. I looked for a job in an area that had little traffic and easy access from my home. I had jobs pop up that were in other cities, or were a traffic nightmare to get to the job site. I would recommend, at least for the first month or two, you concentrate on close to home areas.

It took me until Thursday, July 21st to finish the resumes. I was now ready to get my advertisement out into to world and look for work.

My first stop was Craigslist for the city where I wanted to work. If you go to craigslist, and look under jobs, you'll find jobs listed by specific geographic location. Find one you like, and send them a resume. I would also visit the web site of specific companies where you might want to work, and see if they have any job openings.

The week of 7/26, I started visiting all the job sites looking for jobs in my area.  I did this daily until I got an offer letter.  You'll find new jobs are posted every day.  Here, are some of the job sites I used:

• Craigslist
• Dice
• CareerBuilder
• Monster
• itjobs
• jobs for programmers

Your local paper also has a jobs section you should look at that you can find on their web site.  There are more sites out there, and if readers would like to point them out in comments, I'm sure others will appreciate.

If you want a lot of phone calls, I recommend you post your resume for public viewing on Dice, number one. I had every headhunter in the area calling me; they all use it.

You'll end up doing a lot of pre-qualification phone interviews. The people you'll talk with are headhunters, third party contracting companies, and directly with a Human Resource person at the companies with jobs.  If you sound good to the person on the phone, you'll get an interview.  Have a good story of your past experience, and say it with warmth and enthusiasm. It comes across over the phone.

Headhunters make their money from companies needing workers. The game is to find as many people as they can that are qualified for a job. Headhunters frequent Dice, because they see your entire resume and can match you to a job.  If your hired, the headhunter gets a commission, and the company is out some money that they normally don't have to spend.  Some headhunters want to meet with you, and promise to work with you.  That's a crock.  Your wasting your time meeting with them, unless you have nothing better to do, don't bother.  There's nothing exclusive about you to them.  They  would rather send two or three people for a job, to better insure they will make money.

Third party companies have a contract with their client companies to provide workers. They hire workers and pay them. They make their money by charging, usually twice as much, for your services to the client company.  Nice for them.  They will put you through programming tests to prove your the perfect fit for the client's job. There OK, the trouble here is usually as soon as the job is complete, you're let go, and since your contract with the third party company is contingent on the job, you lose your job with the third party company also.  There's no loyalty here, and don't expect it.  If your talking to a third party company, an alarm bell should go off in your head to check the job's longevity.

The same goes for contract-to-hire jobs. If they don't like you, you don't have a job, only quicker than with other jobs. Don't take contract-to-hire jobs if you want a full time job.

Who you really want to hear from is the Human Resource people from the company with the job.  The good HR people are looking on line, on Dice, and posting jobs on craigslist, for quality people they need. This saves their company third-party and headhunter fees and makes hiring you a plus for them. The company has an opening, a need for your services, and usually it makes for a good interview, and job offer.

On interviewing, I would be prepared to feel euphoric about your first, and maybe, second interview, like you knocked it out of the park, and not get hired. Why? You'll have "puke" mouth. You'll tell them about all your weaknesses, and what you don't know, just to be "honest."  Chalk the first couple of interviews up to re-learning how to interview. Your going to blow them, just accept it. Go to these interviews, and try for the job, then go back home, and figure out what you said that you shouldn't have said. That's what you eliminate on your next interview.

Interviewing is a process, the first couple, you trip all over yourself, after the fifth or sixth, your more polished, you don't tell them anything negative, and rave about what you've done, and your experience, all the while jumping around in your seat showing them how excited and interested you are in the job. You get the idea. Do some homework, when interviewing with companies, but just enough to understand the job they've posted, and nothing more.

I've done extensive research on a company, only to be let down when they didn't offer me a job. Don't fall in love with a company before you get a job offer.  Don't do that to your emotions and well being.  Purposely wait to do your in depth research on a company until after you get the job offer to decide if you want the job.

One more thing for you IT guys, wear a coat and tie. Even though you wear jeans and a T-shirt normally, the employer wants to know you care enough about their job to dress up. I had a hiring manager dress up for the interview and tell me that, they expected the same from applicants.  It was one of the reasons, I believe, I got a job offer. Do it. Better dress well, then not.

Around the fourth week you should have three or four interviews lined up in one week, and you'll be in flow. One or two of these companies will, hopefully, make you an offer.  It's a numbers game, the more interviews, the higher chance that you'll get an offer.   Don't stop until you get an offer letter.  I've had companies imply in the interview that they want to hire you, and never get back to you.  Stop when you get an offer letter for a job that you want, until then keep interviewing.

It took me seven weeks, and I didn't waste a lot of time. I would say that that's the minimum amount of time it takes to get a job. I don't see how it could be done in two weeks. It's just not going to happen.

A few years ago Borders was my absolute favorite bookstore for technical books. I loved their large selection. I loved being able to pick up the book in my hand, skim through the book to decide if I liked the font, the pictures, the code. I wanted an author I understood. I'd look at the table of contents and see if it was laid out in an organized manner. I'd feel the heft of the book. I didn't like those 1000 page colossal universal references. Who wanted to plow through trying to read 1000 pages, or even holding it in your hand while you were trying to read it. I hated those floppy paperbacks that flopped around like a fish. I wanted a paperback, but with a little stiffness.

As I evaluated and read a multitude of technical books, I gradually began to form an opinion on the technical book publishers. Who I could trust, who just slopped books together to make a quick buck, what series had a poor concept, and who did a good job of making the writing readable. Out of that came my article reviewing technical book publishers.

As I would thumb through Border's collection, I would sometimes have a difficult decision between a couple of books. Which to buy?

In the past, say three years ago, I would eventually pick one of the books, and buy it. That was the Border hay day. Then they were the number one book store in America.

What happened?

Well, Amazon happened.  Amazon, after years of undercutting the prices of books, and not recording a profit, gradually won people over. I remember, with a little nervousness, purchasing my first book from Amazon, got their free shipping, it came in a week, and since I tend to have a couple of books I read at a time, I realized the delay was no big deal. The books arrived in good condition, I got a bargain price, and I was happy. I already knew I liked the book, I saw it at Borders.

Thus started Borders downfall. Once I purchased a few books from Amazon, I started going to Borders, like I always had, and like always, picked out the technical book I wanted, but instead of buying it right then and there, my curiosity got me. I wanted to read the Amazon reviews, and I wanted to see if I could get a lower price from Amazon.

In a way, I feel guilty about this. I used Borders to evaluate a book, and then went home and bought it from Amazon. This is the part of me that feels partly responsible for Borders demise, and makes me sorry to see Borders go away.

Then Amazon one upped itself and introduced the Kindle, followed by Barnes and Nobles Nook. The two eReaders took off, and where was Borders, not anywhere in the market. This accelerated Borders demise.

Now, we have Borders going out of business sale. They, like all companies, going out of business are gradually increasing their percentage discount to off load their inventory. I was there today, and they were giving 30% off on their technical books. That was good, I couldn't resist.

As usual, I hefted the books, went through the remaining inventory, found two books I liked, and I did what Amazon had taught me to do. I put them back on the shelf, and went home to look at Amazon's prices.  Unbelievable, Amazon was still lower by quite a bit, and they had the books in an eReader format, which means Borders was probably raising its prices on its books, as it increased their discount. Good old Borders right to the end.

Unfortunately, Borders going out of business hurts us all. Who now is Amazon's competition? We will be ordering books we haven't seen. At prices we can't compare. How would you know if you got a good price or not? You wont.

We lost are check and balance, we lost our ability to look at the books before we buy, and yes, in the end we'll pay for it.

This article is in memoriam to Borders. I will truly miss spending many enjoyable hours thumbing through their books, and having a cup of coffee, while looking at my selections.

With Microsoft's move into the cloud computing, this seems like a smart move on their part, and will enhance Microsoft's cloud products. This should help their Lync enterprise instant messaging, which has experienced a 30% growth in revenue over last year.

One of Microsoft's games seems to be to expand their office offering to instantly communicate with anyone else in a company, with video, messaging, and voice over the Internet. They will have cloud computing office applications, so that anyone will be able to get to their work from anywhere in the world, and instantly communicate with their colleagues. Ah yes, let's sailboat around the world with a Netbook.

Microsoft revenue stars lately has been their Office products and their Xbox 360 with their motion sensor technology. The big loser has been their Windows 7 offering, because of the sudden surge in tablet sales, and a corresponding falling off of PC sales. Intel announced this week that PC sales would not be as strong as expected next year. Netbook sales are also off as tablet sales increase.

Bear in mind that 39.7% of Windows user are still running XP, while 37.8% have moved to Windows 7. Microsoft's latest strategy has their new Internet Explorer 9 browser not running on XP, to boost Windows 7 sales. And there is a gradual move toward Windows 7, maybe because of this, with a corresponding decline in XP.

The tablet market does not use the Microsoft operating system. Tablet computers are based either on Apple's iPad IOS4.3 operating system, or the Android operating system. Both of these are Linux based operating system. So every tablet sale is one less PC sale, and one less sale for Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system.

Apple iPad

As to tablets, Apple nearly tripled its iPad sales from the same quarter a year ago. Apple, initially, had complete dominance in the tablet market, now Android is coming on strong, and making major in roads. A year ago, Apple had 94% of the market, now they only own 61%. The beauty of Android is that you're not locked into the product's manufacturer, like you are with Apple and Microsoft.

Android Samsung Galaxy

Windows is also under attack from both Apple and Linux for the PC operating system space with each gaining gradually in their market share. Let's not get too excited yet, according to W3Schools stats, Microsoft still owns about 86% of the market, Apple about 8.1%, and Linux about 5.2%. The point is the numbers for Apple and Linux are gradually increasing, while Microsoft's are declining.

The rest of the market is owned by mobile technology. According to the Gartner Group, Microsoft is a big loser in this market, even though they have a mobile solution, no one's using it. They occupy a measly 3.6% of the market and declining. The rest of the market is Symbian, 27.4%, and the Rim, 21.9%, operating systems declining rapidly; Apple's iPad and iPhone are steady at 16.8%; while the Android market is at 36% and rising rapidly. This market is starting to emerge, both the mobile and tablet market now account for 8% of Internet browsing in the US.

Despite the lagging Windows sales, Microsoft had a good quarter and beat estimates. They posted a profit of $5.87B up from $4.52B in the previous quarter a year ago. This came from Office sales and XBox sales, and an unusually low tax rate of 7%, which cut its taxes over $1B from the previous quarter a year ago. The tax break was from an increase in sales done through its offices outside the US.

As an aside, wake up Congress and start giving these corporations some tax breaks to stay in country. It's better to have some revenue, than none at all.

Given that most of Microsoft profits came from the tax breaks gotten from overseas sales, one has to look at Microsoft as a giant who is struggling to find areas to increase their revenue. One of Microsoft's bets is that the acquisition of Skype will increase their revenue by giving them new products to add to their Office portfolio.

One has to wonder if the ultimate computing product that everyone will want is an Android-based, eReader, Internet browsing, color, touch-sensitive, visible-in-sunlight tablet. If that's the case, Microsoft may end up like IBM, a has-been that has passed its prime.

It's actually a fun game, and as you get better at it, you find, you amaze your friends with your keyboard virtuosity. They think your really good with a computer, and don't know how you got that web site to pop up with the press of a key. It's magic. It makes you feel good, and more in command of your computer.

To amaze your friends, I found a little unknown program that is indispensable, AutoHotkey for Windows, and yes it works on Windows7.

In a nutshell, the way you use the program is to put it in your start up directory so it will load when you start your computer. The program loads a script, that you edit, more on this in a bit, that you can assign any key combination on your keyboard. If you press that key combination, wahlah, the programs starts, or a long password or user name is added to a field, or a browser is started, or a particular web page is loaded. It's magic.

Actually, it's sort of fun. How do we get started and set everything up? Go to the AutoHotkey web site and download the program. Go to the Download page, and click the first "Installer for AutoHotKey _L". This will download an executable, that you can click on when the program is downloaded, and it will install it on your system.

A green H icon will appear on your desktop. You're all set. To run the program, double click the icon, and nothing will happen. What's going on. Well, you haven't told the program what hot keys you want to set up yet, nor have you pressed any keys. You should see an H icon in your lower right, task bar. Right click on the task bar icon and a menu will appear. The choice you want is "Edit This Script." A text file will appear in Notepad for you to edit to put in your desired keys strokes.

AutoHotkey Right Click Menu

Here's a quick tutorial. I assign my keys in a consistent manner. If I want to start a particular web location, I use the Windows Logo key, Win, followed by a letter. To go to Amazon books, for example, I would type Win-A. That's just two keys. What happens is my default browser opens, and the Amazon books page loads. Cool.

To set this up in my scrip start a new line and type:

#a::Run www.amazon.com/books-used-books-textbooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=283155

What that says is when I hit the Win key, a "#" in the script, followed by a lower case "a", load this page. Notice the "::Run", that's what makes AutoHotkey go, the browser starts, and loads the page you want, after you type Win-a. We can do this with any web site you visit. I have one for the Washington Post, that I use to read the morning paper, like so:

#w::Run www.washingtonpost.com

Easy.

Suppose I want to launch a program on my computer. I always assign programs to the Ctrl-Alt key combination with the letter I want to use to start the program. For example, Ctrl-Alt-O, I use to start Opera. In the AutoHotkey script the Ctrl is a "^", and the Alt is a "!". To start the Opera browser, I would set my script up like this:

^!o::
IfWinExist Untitled - opera
	WinActivate
else
	Run C:\Program Files\opera\opera.exe
return

Ok, I fooled you a bit. What this hunk of code says, if Opera is already running don't reload it.

Copy this code for any program you want to start. Change the first line, the "^!o" to what ever letter combination you want, ^!f, for Firefox, for example. Change the name of the program on the second line. Change where to start your program after the "Run", and your done. By the way, a quick way to find out where the .exe file is to start a program, is to right click on the icon for that program on your desktop, and you will see it in the pop up shortcut window, copy and paste that long file name into the AutoHotkey script, after the "Run" in your script. Don't forget the "::" on the first line that tells AutoHotkey to go.

Do the same set up for any program. Yes, it takes a little bit of work to enter a program in your script, but, now, when I type Ctrl-Alt-O Opera starts. A very good browser, you might want to try, by the way.

And finally something that I really like, it will fill in a long string of text for you with a couple of letters. Set this up in a separate line in your script like so:

::fr::fred.lastname@comcast.com

Simple. When I type "fr" followed by the space bar the following is substituted, "fred.lastname@comcast.com." You can use this with letter endings, usernames, passwords, and a long block of text. This alone is a huge time saver. How often do you have to type your email address into web browser forms followed by a password. You could assign both to hot keys and save yourself a lot of time typing the long form. This alone should make AutoHotkey a must have.

That's about it. Edit your script to your heart's delight. Save the script, and real important, "Reload This Script" in lower task bar right click menu to see it work immediately.

Oh, if you ever forget what keys you assigned to what, just reopen your scritp and take a look.

AutoHotkey can do a lot more, including your mouse click, that you can read about in the documentation on their web site, but this will get you started amazing your friends. Great program.

Adobe Digital Editions has gotten flaky for me, and even if you can get it installed properly, I can no longer recommend it as the way to get your ePubs into your Nook.  There's a better, equally free, program available, that I would like to recommend. That program is Calibre.

Calibre is a unbelievable eReader conversion program.  It can run on Windows, Mac, or a Linux distro.  Calibre has an easy Windows .msi installer to make the installation painless.

Calibre's Main Screen

As a matter of fact, everything about Calibre is easy compared to the now defunct, in my mind, Adobe Digital Editions.

What can Calibre do for your eReading experience?  Calibre can translate a large number of formats to any format that will go on an eReader, and I do mean any one.  It is an unbelievably rich, bridge program.  That means you can purchase the Kindle edition from Amazon, and convert the Kindle book to the Nook format and put it on your Nook.  If that doesn't excite you, it will convert pdf book's to your Nook or Kindle's format.

Ebook conversion alone would make Calibre a great program, but it does so much more. It syncs with your device to transfer your Calibre library books to your eReader.  It also will remove books from your eReader, something that is not that easy to do on the Nook.

One gotcha on the Nook, that you should be aware of up front, is it puts your books in the "My Documents" section of the Nook, not the "My B&N Library" section.  You'll have to look in the "My Documents" folder for your books, no biggee.

It manages your library on your computer, and on your eReader.  You can view your library on your computer and on your eReader from inside the program.  It allows you to put tags on your books to help you classify them into groups.

If you double click on a book in your library an eReader pops up that you can use to read your book on your computer.  Speaking of reading, you can download a huge number of magazines and newspapers and then put them on your eReader for reading.

For me the "piece de resistance," for Calibre, is its "Get Books" feature.  This is a built-in price comparison program that will go out on the web to multiple sites and find your eBook along with the price on that site.  Click on the site and you go right to the buy page for that book.  What a time saver.  I'd been going to Amazon for prices and reviews, and then to B&N for the Nook price, one less pain to my eReading experience.

Get Books

And finally, Calibre has a built-in web server which allows you to access your library books from any browser anywhere in the world.

There is a huge number of devices supported, including mobile devices.  Folks, this is liberation.  Buy any eBook from any source, and put it on your eReader, no matter what eReader you have.  Am I gushing?

I would go through the installation and a demo of the program, but Calibre already has that covered.  There's a video on the home page of their web site for you to look at, and a demo version of the program on the site.

You mean you haven't downloaded Calibre yet?  What are you waiting for, get this program, and say good-bye to Adobe Digital Editions.