Mar 10

I'm Back!

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After a long technical hiatus, Daleeman.com is back! Where’d I go, well, I’d rather not say. But…I will.

See if you can follow this: A couple months ago, I decided to upgrade my desktop machine (quad-core Intel, 8GB ram, blah blah). That left my old AMD 5000 black-edition and motherboard free…so, I decided to upgrade my server to the AMD 5000 64-bit Dual core (4GB RAM). Well, since I was doing that, I thought I would go ahead a upgrade my OS from Debian to CentOS a couple months ago (it’s an upgrade…cause I don’t have SSL holes anymore). Continue reading »

Oct 29

Wicker Computer

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A few years ago I had the opportunity to work with one of the first mini-ITX boards around: a VIA EPIA 800MHz. I was really struck by the size of this thing and it’s capabilities (yes, I know about nano-ITX). I thought they were SO cool, we bought 9 of them at work and made a BEOWULF Cluster…which performed so terrible….but it looked pretty awesome.

Anyways, I ended up buying one for home to play around with and – sadly – never really did anything with it. Because, what would I do with it?! I could make a media center PC, but it wouldn’t handle 1080p… I could make a desktop PC, but I have one thats much faster…I could build one for someone else, but the ITX cases were expensive and I don’t like working on friend’s computers. Thats when I found http://mini-itx.com/. The idea was: put a computer in something that doesn’t look like a computer! So, I did! Continue reading »

Oct 15

Linux STIG SRR Viewer

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A while back I wrote a quick windows app to parse out the results of the DISA Linux STIG Security Readiness Review (SRR). In case you’re unfamiliar, the Linux STIG (or Security Technical Implementation Guide) is a set of computer security guidelines put out by DISA. These documents are fairly lengthy, so they (or someone) created the SRR. So I…”fixed the glitch” Continue reading »

Oct 12

Practical Application of Database Normalization

MySQL 2 Comments »

Database Normalization is the process of reducing or eliminating data redundancy in a database table as well as reducing the likelihood of data insertion anomalies. There are many articles online that talk about, in theory, how to normalize database tables…This post is intended to serve as a practical application demonstration.

  Continue reading »

Oct 12

Learning SCORM

General Stuff No Comments »

A few weeks back I decided to finally learn about the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). Most of what I was able to find was either a high-level overview or some program that creates scorm code for you. That’s great, but I wanted to learn how to REALLY write a SCORM object (SCO)…meaning, by hand! Continue reading »

Oct 09

Understanding Drupal Permissions

Drupal No Comments »

For some reason, many of my customers and many of those on the Drupal site have trouble understanding the Drupal permissions system. It’s actually extremely simplistic…and in some cases, too much so… Continue reading »

Oct 03

Ugly PHP Code Tips

PHP No Comments »

I suppose this part is just a rant, but if I see one more piece of undocumented, poorly spaced, procedural lump of PHP code, I’m going to scream. I realize that much of the PHP code out there was written for free by people who were writing code just to “get the job done”…I understand that. Unfortunatley, when that code is published, others rely on that same code for thier job. Sure it’s free and you have a disclaimer and…whatever. There are 1000 excuses, but only one cause: Poor software engineering practices. Continue reading »

Oct 03

Using PHP to Optimize MySQL Tables

MySQL, PHP 1 Comment »

Optimizing your database tables is an essential task and the performance results might amaze you. Optimization is essentially the process of defragmenting your database tables. Then you use variable-length database fields such as VARCHAR, BLOB, TEXT, or VARBINARY, defragmentation can occur when rows are deleted.  Continue reading »

Oct 03

WordPress and Drupal

Drupal 1 Comment »

Anyone who has worked with me can testify – somewhat to my dismay – that my CMS of choice is Drupal, not WordPress. So why am I using wordpress when I could blog in Drupal…? Ever hear the phrase, “right tool for the job?” Well, this is it for blogging. Continue reading »

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