Personal blog of Yzmir Ramirez

Order of the Stick

I just love this web comic. Been following it religiously for months now and can’t wait for the next strip. If you like D&D related humour then this is the comic for you.

High Performance MySQL

Well after my last book, I’m now reading High Performance MySQL.

My new job now has me working in a much larger server farm and so now instead of handling 10,000 users I’m handling many more times that.  This book will build on my background and make my queries work better in a distributed environment.

So I’m going though my Settings in my Gmail account and I notice a tab called “Labs”.  Interesting I think to myself and click on it and it seems the Gmail Gnomes have been slaving away at the nifty little options in their experimental features for Gmail.  Here are 6 Gmail Lab Features you should try:

YouTube previews in mail
Ever get a YouTube video in your email from a friend that asks you to  “Hey man, check this out!”?  Well now if you turn on this Gmail lab feature the link will expand inside the Gmail page.  You won’t have to navigate away from your message and have to wait for Gmail to reload your Inbox, its all right there in your message.

Flickr previews in mail
Just like the YouTube video in your message if you have photophiles that are always sending you their newest photos in their favorite Photo Streams then this is for you.  Expands Flickr links inside your message for you to preview.

Fixed width font
Are you old school and hate the default Ariel font?  Can’t align your ‘text tables’ right?  Well then this Gmail Lab feature is for you.  You can now have an option to view your messages in fixed with font like Courier.  Great ready for some ASCII art!

Default ‘Reply to all’
Always find yourself having to select the ‘Reply to all’ option at the bottom of a message because the top right button in each message is plane plane ol’ ‘Reply’?  Well, now you can change that option to be ‘Reply to all’ to the enjoyment of all your friends and family I’m sure.

Mail Goggles
Have you ever sent a message late at night to your friends or co-workers after a long night of drinking?  Are you an alcoholic?  Well then this Gmail Lab feature maybe for you.  When you have this feature activated you’ll be prompted to do basic math when sending a message during predefined time periods (customizable).  If you are inebriated that message won’t go out because you’re too smashed to know what 8 x 7 is.

Undo Send
OOPS did I just send that…unsend unsend unsend!!!  If you find yourself sending a message and needed to unsend that last message because of a misspelling, bad link, or accidentally sending it to the wrong person then you can turn on this little nifty Gmail Lab feature to give yourself 5 seconds to undo that sent message.

The Definitive Guide to symfony

Well after my last book, I’m now reading The Definitive Guide to symfony.

My new job has me working with the symfony Framework instead of the Zend Framework I used to use.

Here’s an excerpt from the book:

“Why ‘symfony‘ and not ‘FooBarFramework’? Because Fabien wanted a short name containing an s, as in Sensio, and an f, as in framework–easy to remember and not associated with another development tool. Also, he doesn’t like capital letters. symfony was close enough, even if not completely English, and it was also available as a project name. The other alternative was ‘baguette’.“

Great Classic Comedy Film

Was going though my DVD collection and watched one of my favorite movies, Spaceballs – its a timeless comedy.

Slashdot.org has found a site that allows you to navigate the Linux kernal like Google maps!

Currently reading Twilight

Well after my last book, I’m now reading Twilight.

I felt kinda weird looking though the Teen section at Barns & Noble.  This young blond girl giving me a look half of astonishment and half annoyance as I made room for her to go by before picking up the book.  I ignored her and made my way to the front of the store to check out.

And Indian woman in a blue blouse showing one shoulder smiled at me sheepishly as I politely smiled an nodded.  Her eyes darted to what was in my hands and she then rolled her eyes – she purposefully did not make any eye contact.

As I checked out the clerk noticing my uneasiness said, “Don’t worry, you haven’t lost your man card just yet.”

So far its an easy read.  I wished I read this in high-school; boy never knew girls noticed the smallest things about you – I’m still oblivious to all that.

Click to invade Europe!!!

Here is a great example of a photo-realistic Virtual Tarantula Spider using Flash – Adobe Flash is really getting refined.

Just installed this new widget for my tag cloud called WP-Cumulus and it looks and works great!