I had a hard time finding this information, and eventually, I got to where I needed to be. The following URL should be more than sufficient to help guide others to the right direction.
http://[site]/authorize.php
Drupal 7 Changing Update Manager FTP
February 14th, 2013Facebook’s Phone Number Search
September 28th, 2012Like everything Facebook, the new search feature is cool, creepy, and easily abused.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/27/have-just-a-phone-number-ios-6-facebook-integration-can-fill-in-the-blanks/
Even though I like the feature, I think it’s a feature that Facebook is ultimately better off not having. Given the elevated status of Facebook, a lot of information now can be tied to a person’s Facebook account. A number’s just a number, but if you can tie that number to a Facebook account. Then it means that people can use the number to figure out your Facebook, then they can figure out all the things you like, then they can figure out what to nag you about. Not only that, but if you have a land-line, they can tie the number to where you LIVE.
Imagine that? Before, you were a nameless entry on the white pages, now some guy knows exactly what you look like, and where you live. What can go wrong?
TONS!
That being said, if they’re going to be adamant about it, I can probably build a big-data platform around it, and sell it to ad-networks. If any lawyers want to patent this for me, I’m more than willing to give you a fair share if you do it for me, and then hand me the rights. I’ll do the coding 
Project creation, specification, and sizing
July 18th, 2012There are couple things that every single developer needs to know in a project:
1. How it looks
2. How it functions
To figure out how to code something, I generally one, talk to the “client” and figure out what they want. In this process it’s very important to figure out what the client wants it to do. This is where we gather a feature list.
Then, we map out these features, figuring out what actions are necessary for users to get to the desired page. Mapping out which sections users click on, where they’re placed, and etc. This will generate a wire frame. It’s also at this stage that you break down each overall functionality of the site into the various relevant sections. The output of this stage should be one: a diagram with very generic depictions of interfaces, resulting pages from user actions, and a list of functionality and more specifically the logic for the functionality.
The wire frame will enable both the designer, and developer to work in parallel, since they both have a basic idea of how everything will flow. Hopefully, by this stage, you have a good grasp of the functionality.
The designer takes the wire frame, logic, and specifications, and generates a mock.
Development
There are 3 classification of development:
1. HTML/CSS
2. Frontend
3. Backend
1. HTML and CSS controls the way it looks.
2. Frontend development generally involve the javascript, and various controllers
3. Backend development will involve the database, business logic and etc.
Of course, this can all fall under the broad umbrella of development, but the main reason why I broke it down is due to the fact that the work can be broken down, so that multiple hands can work on it at once. That being said, the more hands on deck, the more overhead is generally involved.
So we’ve covered how to create a project, and how to specify the project. With the specifications listed, now it’s possible to come up with accurate estimates, or size the project. Everything can be estimated and delivered. The person who dreamed up the project is responsible for listing out the ideas and how it’s going to work. Together with a UI person, he can then work out and deliver the wire frames. Then the business person, and the designer can get together and design out how all the pages will look, delivering the mocks. Finally when the mocks are delivered, they can be handed off to the developers, and the developers will be able to code everything. The better a job the business person does at being specific, the less likely he’ll be pestered by developers to clarify the business logic. Essentially, having the project broken down into these sections will allow the estimates to be much more accurate. The more complex the business logic, the more complex the code, and most likely, the more man hours it’ll take to code it.
MVP Minimum Viable Product
June 19th, 2012Most Valuable Player? That’s what I originally thought, but in the start-up space, it means “Minimum Viable Product”. The LEAST you can do, to get your product to market.
The concept behind MVP is to test and collect data as soon as possible, saving time and resources. To construct a MVP, what you need to do is dream up your product, and the trim the hell out of it. You have an apple? Give me the core. You have an apple core? Give me the seeds!
The reason why you want a MVP, most likely, is for data collection and idea demonstration purposes. Often times, people have an easier time understanding your product if they can see it, or interact with it. Out of the two, interaction is often the best. We can try to explain things in all sorts of ways, using all different types of lingo, but the minute one interacts with the product, they’ll know in their own words what it does.
After your MVP is released and has fulfilled it’s role, and if the fates have decided in your favor, then you go ahead and tack back on all the things you’ve trimmed one layer at a time, until your dream comes to fruition.
That’s what MVP is all about apple seeds and fruition.
Facebook IPO: The things you can learn!
February 8th, 2012SELECTED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL DATA
The consolidated statements of income data for each of the years ended December 31, 2009, 2010, and 2011 and the consolidated balance sheets data as of December 31, 2010 and 2011 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements that are included elsewhere in this prospectus. The consolidated statements of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2007 and 2008 and the consolidated balance sheets data as of December 31, 2007, 2008, and 2009 are derived from audited consolidated financial statements that are not included in this prospectus.
You should read this information together with “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus.
| Year Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | ||||||||||||||||
| (in millions, except per share data) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Consolidated Statements of Operations Data: | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Revenue | $ | 153 | $ | 272 | $ | 777 | $ | 1,974 | $ | 3,711 | ||||||||||
| Costs and expenses(1) : | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Cost of revenue | 41 | 124 | 223 | 493 | 860 | |||||||||||||||
| Marketing and sales | 32 | 76 | 115 | 184 | 427 | |||||||||||||||
| Research and development | 81 | 47 | 87 | 144 | 388 | |||||||||||||||
| General and administrative | 123 | 80 | 90 | 121 | 280 | |||||||||||||||
| Total costs and expenses | 277 | 327 | 515 | 942 | 1,955 | |||||||||||||||
| Income (loss) from operations | (124 | ) | (55 | ) | 262 | 1,032 | 1,756 | |||||||||||||
| Other expense, net | 11 | 1 | 8 | 24 | 61 | |||||||||||||||
| Income (loss) before provision for income taxes | (135 | ) | (56 | ) | 254 | 1,008 | 1695 | |||||||||||||
| Provision for income taxes | 3 | — | 25 | 402 | 695 | |||||||||||||||
| Net income (loss) | $ | (138 | ) | $ | (56 | ) | $ | 229 | $ | 606 | $ | 1,000 | ||||||||
| Net income (loss) attributable to Class A and Class B common stockholders | $ | (138 | ) | $ | (56 | ) | $ | 122 | $ | 372 | $ | 668 | ||||||||
| Earnings (loss) per share attributable to Class A and Class B common stockholders(2): | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Basic | $ | (0.16 | ) | $ | (0.06 | ) | $ | 0.12 | $ | 0.34 | $ | 0.52 | ||||||||
| Diluted | $ | (0.16 | ) | $ | (0.06 | ) | $ | 0.10 | $ | 0.28 | $ | 0.46 | ||||||||
| Pro forma earnings per share attributable to Class A and Class B common stockholders(2): | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Basic | $ | 0.49 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Diluted | $ | 0.43 | ||||||||||||||||||
| (1) |
Costs and expenses include share-based compensation expense as follows: |
| Year Ended December 31, | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | ||||||||||||||||
| (in millions) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Cost of revenue | $ | 1 | $ | — | $ | — | $ | — | $ | 9 | ||||||||||
| Marketing and sales | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 43 | |||||||||||||||
| Research and development | 56 | 7 | 6 | 9 | 114 | |||||||||||||||
| General and administrative | 13 | 19 | 19 | 9 | 51 | |||||||||||||||
| Total share-based compensation expense | $ | 73 | $ | 30 | $ | 27 | $ | 20 | $ | 217 | ||||||||||
| (2) |
See note 2 of the notes to our consolidated financial statements for a description of how we compute basic and diluted earnings (loss) per share attributable to Class A and Class B common stockholders and pro forma basic and diluted earnings per share attributable to Class A and Class B common stockholders. |
As you can see, Facebook was losing TONS of money until in 2007 and 2008, and it wasn’t until 2009 that revenue overtook expenses. Think about that, a company started in 2004, losing millions of dollars a year, and not until 2009 was it profitable. 5 years of just spending money, 5 years of justifying the lack of revenue and the costs of everything. 5 years of, “Yeah, we’ve been losing a lot of money, but you should still invest in us”.
Another interesting thing to look at is the MAU graph, it details out what Facebook has been doing since 2004, and how many users they have obtained through that time:
I just find it AMAZING how much information is being provided as a by-product of Facebook going public.
The link to Facebook’s Registration Statement can be found here: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm#toc287954_2
Tiny Tower Game: Getting Constant Waves of Tenants Strategy
December 22nd, 2011
So I’ve recently stumbled across a game called Tiny Tower. I’m a programmer, an economist, and in the gaming industry. It’s game had my name ALL OVER IT.
A lot of people have stated that you should have your apartments 4/5 occupied to encourage more tenants to go to that floor. I found this to be a fallacy. I’ve rebuilt my tower 3 times now, and it’s safe to say, that I’ve discovered my most enjoyable mode of play. I like to have my stores stocked with nothing but people who DREAM of working for that store.
My Method
Keep apartments with vacancy count = occupied apartments + business floor count
My belief is that there IS NO floor optimization logic, the floor that a visitor requests is a simple dice roll. If you keep your have-vacancy floors = to occupied floors, then you’re guaranteed a 50% chance of visitors being a new tenant. I have 9 floors, 1 lobby, 4 with vacancy apartments, and 4 businesses, this strategy seems to be working so far, feel free to try it out for yourselves.
Have fun gamers!
Facebook Timeline Gets Negative Feedback
December 19th, 2011Don’t take my word for it, check out the all the requests on Facebook for aid in restoring their OLD Facebook profile.
http://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1856057
The list is MIGHTY long and is only saved by how users keep starting new threads on the Facebook community help forums. Below is a screenshot of a single thread complaining about the new “feature”. I don’t know where Facebook gets the idea that their users LOVE this feature, but for all those who’ve accidentally opted in, they’re desperately trying to opt OUT.
Perhaps this is what all the other social networks have been waiting for, the one dangerous fatal mistake that can cause Facebook to fall off the top.
If you haven’t activated Timeline yet, I don’t recommend it. If Facebook decides to make this permanent, I WILL switch to a different social network, probably Google plus.
Re-purposing of the Internet
August 4th, 2011Once upon a time, there were web pages where people went to find out things about a company. Thanks to web portals that aggregate this information, such as yelp. These web pages’ purpose is no longer the same.
You used to go to a restaurants webpage to get information on when the restaurant open, directions on how to get there, form an option of the restaurant and menu, but that was then. Now and days, we just use Yelp.com to check out the hours, review, and address. Then we use another aggregation site such as Google maps for directions.
The remaining question is “What do we now use a restaurant’s homepage for?”. For now, until we get an aggregate website for restaurant nutritional information, it’ll probably serve that purpose. In addition to presenting a single location to land on for discounts, company information, history, and etc. Until those subjects get aggregated too. Once everything is aggregated, the web site will more or less become a portal that directs the user to the information they’re seeking to an off-site location.
Dual Language Channel Videos
May 21st, 2011So recently, I started watching video files that had one language on the left, and a different language on the right speaker. Often times, people would simply turn off their left speaker, or right speaker, and watch the video with only one speaker. Unless you’re a big fan of, one-sided sound, this is simply not an option for me.
There is a way to alter the playback so that all the left audio of the video file goes to both speakers. I use media player classic, there are probably other ways to get to the following screen, but the concept is the same.
View > Options > Audio Switcher:
You click on view, click on options, and then select audio switcher. You’ll probably see Front left checked with 1, and Front Right checked with 2. If you check the boxes just like above, you’ll discover that all the left audio of the video goes to your speaker. Obviously, if you alter it so that 2 is checked instead, you’ll get the vice-versa.
I hope enhances your video watching experience, certainly did mine.
WordPress++
May 4th, 2011Mmm… My blog’s most recent upgrade came with an unexpected surprise. Most of the time, I don’t expect any type of cosmetic or functional changes with my blog upgrades. Why would I? Everything seems to work fine. I upgrade to keep the security exploits/vulnerabilities of wordpress to a minimal.
Anyways, I’m pleasantly surprised by the navigation bar that appears when you visit your site, and when you’re logged in. There are a few workflow improvements implemented in the navigation bar. For example, I can just directly to “Add New Post” from visiting my blog while logged in. Some might wonder why is this significant, but it’s definitely significant. No longer will I have to rely on a tiny box on the right hand-side and notice tiny changes to it to know whether or not I’m logged in. I’ll have a giant bar at the top to remind me to log out.
If I feel inspired while logged in, I can jump from the homepage right into article writing. It’s not necessary, but it’s a welcomed change. Good job WordPress team, I didn’t have to download the navigation bar plug-in after all