I must say that when you get up at 6:30ish in the morning, spend the entire day working on coding issues, writing code or some kind of sys admin issues (usually all within the same day), come home to two little ones in the evening, by the time bedtime for them comes, you just don't find much energy to blog. Lately, in the evenings, I find myself either "stumbling" around the internet or just playing a mindless game to relax. That is pretty much what I have been doing (and not blogging) as of late.
Every once in a while, like now, it hits me that I haven't blogged for some time and I should really get back to it. Now, this isn't to say that I haven't been learning anything. My, oh my, have I been learning stuff. As of late, I have Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop and have been learning the best, right way to configure it.
I started by downloading MySQL, PHP, and Apache2 and compiled them all by hand, getting them installed the way that I want them, configured with the options I want/need. From there, I have been setting each up. I have learned a ton about the Apache2 config and how it works. Not only that, I have created my own Certificate Authority, created and signed my own key pair and have secured my internal website (on that machine) to have an "https://" alternative. There are things that I am investigating right now, like how to make it so a site or a page is required to be loaded with https vice http. (for security reasons of course)
On the flip side, MySQL has been another bit of knowledge that I have been actively acquiring. Of course it certainly helps that at work they use MySQL for what we do, so interacting with and learning the database is crucial to doing my job. I have wanted to learn it for long enough that I am glad to have this opportunity.
Also, because there are some new sites at work (internally) that use PHP for the pages, I am learning that as well as I am sure I will have to support them or create new pages in the future.
So, to all of you out there who are saying, "Wow, I would love to learn about that technology!", there is no time like the present. Install it, play with it, learn it. If you don't play with it, you won't learn it. You could read the books and absorb what you could, but unless you have a photographic memory and a memory search engine equivelant to Google's algorithm, then you will need to play with everything you can to learn its intricacies.
Every once in a while, like now, it hits me that I haven't blogged for some time and I should really get back to it. Now, this isn't to say that I haven't been learning anything. My, oh my, have I been learning stuff. As of late, I have Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop and have been learning the best, right way to configure it.
I started by downloading MySQL, PHP, and Apache2 and compiled them all by hand, getting them installed the way that I want them, configured with the options I want/need. From there, I have been setting each up. I have learned a ton about the Apache2 config and how it works. Not only that, I have created my own Certificate Authority, created and signed my own key pair and have secured my internal website (on that machine) to have an "https://" alternative. There are things that I am investigating right now, like how to make it so a site or a page is required to be loaded with https vice http. (for security reasons of course)
On the flip side, MySQL has been another bit of knowledge that I have been actively acquiring. Of course it certainly helps that at work they use MySQL for what we do, so interacting with and learning the database is crucial to doing my job. I have wanted to learn it for long enough that I am glad to have this opportunity.
Also, because there are some new sites at work (internally) that use PHP for the pages, I am learning that as well as I am sure I will have to support them or create new pages in the future.
So, to all of you out there who are saying, "Wow, I would love to learn about that technology!", there is no time like the present. Install it, play with it, learn it. If you don't play with it, you won't learn it. You could read the books and absorb what you could, but unless you have a photographic memory and a memory search engine equivelant to Google's algorithm, then you will need to play with everything you can to learn its intricacies.
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1 comment:
It's great to hear you are venturing into the wide world of the LAMP stack. If you have any difficulties or just want some ideas on best practices (forcing SSL for instance) you know who to call.
Motoma
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