Category: Work

This has been far and away my most-read article ever. Thanks for reading! If this saved you a couple bucks of your time, consider donating via Paypal or via Bitcoin to 16FCWbn1wSpgn3a5mcjXRAYGYRQ5MW3qv5.

I considered various triple and quad boot options for my new (to me) MacBook Pro, but eventually decided on a simple dual-boot, OSX Lion and Windows XP.  If you’re reading this via a Google search, you likely ran into some problems too.  If you have been trying to do this without involving Boot Camp at all, bear in mind that even with all the drivers technically working you’re not going to be able to do things like use the multi-touch trackpad, use the function keys on the keyboard, etc.  Don’t worry though, this is an end-to-end guide on what to do to get XP running on a machine running Lion, complete with download links.

5/2/2012 Edit: From the comments I can pretty safely say this doesn’t work on  2011 Macbook Pros. Sorry, it’s likely due to them using new hardware not accounted for in the Leopard driver pack. If you can find a way to make it work, please leave a comment.

9/7/2012 Edit: It sounds like this works for Mountain Lion as well, as it should. This should work for all OSX releases for the foreseeable future, but will likely not work on newer hardware. We’re using hardware profiles from Leopard, and many chips and cards used since simply didn’t exist then.

3/2/2016 Edit: Hoo boy, this thing still gets traffic. Since Windows XP is no longer supported, and is a positive magnet for malware now, I really don’t recommend you do this anymore. Only if the XP installation is not going to access the Internet. However, the links to the driver … (More) “How to install Windows XP SP3 on Mac OSX Mountain Lion and get drivers, too. [updated 3/2/16]”

I’ve meant to work on this for quite a while. These are some of my most used code snippets to shorten a process, handy workarounds, pieces of code I need all the time or other such things.

HTML: The Meta Redirect

Use case: You need to redirect someone to another page, and don’t want to bother notifying them.

Code: [code][/code]

Advantages: Silent, works cross-platform, timer can be set (in whole seconds) by adjusting the 0 in content, will work in the body even though it’s a meta tag.
Disadvantages: Breaks back buttons.

PHP/MySQL: Quickly process and sanitize form data.

Use case: You’ve just accepted a form and want to easily work with the data, and escape the data to prevent SQL injection attacks.

Code: [code]foreach($_POST as $key=$value) { $$key=addslashes($value); }[/code]

Advantages: Saves a lot of repetitive entering of $_POST[‘element’]. Instead you just use $element. Also escapes the data early on so we don’t forget further along in the code.
Disadvantages: You create a lot of variables instead of one array. Your array isn’t actually destroyed, just copied. The idea is that the backend is working primarily with this POST data so making a lot of variables isn’t an unwanted thing.

PHP/MySQL: Save an if statement on every mysql_error() check.

Use case: You need to use mysql_error() function to handle errors in your SQL statement.

Old code: [code]$result = mysql_query($query);
if(!$result) { die(mysql_error()); }[/code]

New code: [code]$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());[/code]

Advantages: Reduces risk of typos breaking your page, cleaner.
Disadvantages: No known disadvantages.

PHP/MySQL: One standardized method of DB querying.

Use case: You want to get in the habit of one naming scheme for your MySQL queries, and don’t want to go the OOP route.

Code: [code]function doQuery($query) {
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
return $result; }

…… (More) “The Toolbelt: Some of my most-used code snippets for PHP, MySQL, HTML and CSS.”

Alright, I need to address this if I’m going to be posting on that particular Twitter account again. If you’re receiving this blog post via Facebook you’re more than welcome to ignore it. So from August last year to January this year you’ve been reading the Twitter feed from BestBuyPaducah, which has been my endeavor to get my workplace a bit more presence on the web while also being personable, relatable and generally a store you don’t mind reading about on Twitter. Several months ago I was told that Twitter was going to be made a mandatory thing for stores in my district (an area from around Cape Girardeau in the north to Nashville in the south). I’d been posting essentially because I wanted to, no pay, just for fun. With it being mandatory, it also became something that another department would handle, for hourly pay. This didn’t sit well with me for reasons I believe you can understand. After much arguing and being threatened with legal action and my job (you’re a great group of folks but a Twitter account isn’t worth my job), I caved and changed the name and let them do what they want with the BestBuyPaducah name.

So, let’s get some things straight:

I’m not a manager, I can’t do discounts via Twitter, promotions, or any of that stuff, and I won’t be involved with it if/when the time comes.

The opinions you see on the renamed account, DanielBBPaducah, are obviously mine and may not (and probably don’t) reflect on the opinions of Best Buy as a company. This is the same logic that applies to my opinions working on the floor, i.e., just because I think Canon makes the best digital camera on the market doesn’t mean corporate agrees.

I really like helping customers, … (More) “I thought I was following @BestBuyPaducah”