Irma L. Olguin Jr.

CAUTION: Very nerdy stuff below. Non-nerds need not continue. Short answer: Check your disk space. Problem If you’ve ever had this error: Warning: mysql_connect(): Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock’ or it’s command line cousin: ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock’ You’ll know that googling the problem turns up a number of suggestions to recreate the symlink or to reinstall MySQL. Solution For me, the problem was disk space. One of my log files was HUGE and MySQL wouldn’t start because of it. So I just had to locate the offending file, get rid of it, and MySQL fired right up.  If you’re running Ubuntu you can do a little du -s -m * to see a listing of files in any directory that’ll have the file size (in MBs) right next … Continue reading →

Firstly, how about a big fat round of applause for the likes of Rob Walling and Mike Taber? They put on one rockin’ conference for self-funded startups. If you didn’t go, that was a bad decision. Don’t make that mistake next year. For, like, the amount you spend on bottled water each year, you could have listened to and learned from ONE-JILLION smart people talking about startups and what to do/not do with them. How’s that for value? (Seriously: 11 speakers, and 105 interesting attendees. Andrew Warner, Hiten Shah, Ramit Sethi, and Patrick McKenzie among them.) Here’s some stuff I learned that you would have learned if you had gone to Vegas instead of playing with Instagram filters at work: Test your stuff, but don’t waste your time testing. Email is not dead. Don’t let TechCrunch fool you. Investment, booooo. Bootstap, yay! Tomato juice … Continue reading →

Well, it’s long overdue, but it’s out there.  My company, Geekwise, quietly launched a new look over the last few weeks/days.  Like some eternal, sad truth, your own website tends to fall to the bottom of the pile when you’re busy doing work for clients (not that I’m complaining). And while we have a few more things we’d like to do (beef up the portfolio, introduce you to the team), we feel that there’s enough there to let the world know about the new look. We do all kinds of stuff, so if you’re in need of a nerd, or know someone who is, let us know.  Chances are, we do what you need. Also, want to give a big shout out to Simply Design for the …. simple design.  Couldn’t have done this without them. Feedback is always welcome.

It’s entirely possible that this problem exists in all major calendar platforms, and I’ve just called Google out for no reason, but I’ve recently had need to work extensively with the Google Apps platform (which I love, by the way), and came across a couple of interesting bits.  Here’s one of them: Other people can accept calendar invitations that they have no business accepting. In other words, with the right link, I can accept an invitation on your behalf.  Here’s a quick proof (all done using Google’s web interface): Send your buddy (we will call him Ryan) a calendar invitation to a bogus event. When Ryan gets the email notification, ask him to simply reply to the message.  He doesn’t  need to write a message, just have him reply to it. Now from  his reply in YOUR EMAIL, click “Yes” … Continue reading →

I work all the time. I get up and I work, I stay up all night — often — just to work. I try to relax and I begin longing for my keyboard and my Inbox. But I’m not a workaholic. I don’t need to work.  It’s not something I can’t help.  Oh, no.  I have a different problem: fear of letting people down. I get my ya-yas off being the hero.  I mean, who doesn’t? I don’t like to be the only guy that can do XYZ — infact, I think that’s a recipe for disaster — but I love being the best of 10 that can do XYZ, or the most efficient, or the most reliable…I love it.  I’ll put my own health on the line with too much adrenaline and too little sleep in order to be that guy. … Continue reading →

The Big, Fat Idea [ 16-26 year-olds, please take the survey. ] There are some of us in the Valley that think we can do tech education, specifically for web development, better.  We think we need more geeks — good ones — to help push our region in the right direction. You see, there’s about to be a big gap in the industry.  We can already see the beginning of it.  People who are not developers are having ideas (some of them are good!) and want to build the next big thing.  Instead of hiring out to software firms, or potentially spending tens of thousands of dollars to have their idea built, the smart first step is to get a rapid prototype out there and see if the idea floats. The Problem We’ve seen a lot of this happen:  Entrepreneurs — … Continue reading →

A web and mobile apps competition for idea people. Now go on and build something.

So my friends and I are putting together this little ditty that, really, is going to be quite the big ditty. We are holding a Web & Mobile Apps competition that is designed to highlight the programming/nerdy talent in the area. It’s open to everyone and the prizes are pretty major. We are doing two categories: Zero Code, and In-Progress. Zero Code is a timed category. You have 59 Days to build your app once the clock starts. In-Progress is for those who might already have something started but still want to compete. The way that it works is this: Apply, Early March > Party + Kickoff, April 23 > Get your App Ready > Showcase + Awards, June 22. We’re putting together around $40K in prizes with one of the winners landing a chunk of cash. (More details about … Continue reading →

I’m just going to lay it down in small words: “If you build it, they will come,” is a crock of shit. To borrow a phrase, if I had a nickle for every time a website launch was delayed on account of the imperfections… As a web programmer, I see a lot of projects come and go. We depend on the project manager’s ability to say, “We could spend more time polishing and adding features, but let’s get this in front of some eyes,” which is a hard thing to say, I’ll admit, because there are 10,000 things that could be better.  If you happen to be the project manager, then that burden is on you. And what makes it even harder is this strange voice in your head that says, in no uncertain terms, that as soon as you upload those … Continue reading →

Downloadable script to perform a find and replace operation over all the tables and fields in a database. Continue reading →