StarCraft 2 Install Error – Solved
I just purchased StartCraft2 and started to install it only to get this error:
“The file “&^%$*\StarCraft II” could not be found. If this problem persists, please contact Blizzard Technical Support. (IsAbsolutePath/path is not absolute)”
Updated Fix:
- Open Command Prompt As Administrator
- Enter: >net user administrator /active:yes
- Start > Switch User
- You can now login as administrator
- Run install from this account normally
- Logout as administrator
- Login to your normal account
- Go back to the command prompt and enter: >net user administrator /active:no
- Play your game!
What I’m learning about sales.
As I’ve begun to sell products/services and packages I’ve come to realize how important the lesson of “The Paradox of Choice” is to selling. Take this case in point.
You have two sales man come to you to sell a widget.
- Sales Person A – Tells you about 20 different things and how they can be customized and tweaked to get exactly what you want.
- Sales Person B – Tells you you’ve got 3 choices, where one of those options will give you just about everything you need.
Which sales pitch is simpler? Which sales pitch will work if the person you are selling to only understands about 5 of the 20 things you just mentioned.
Less is more when it comes to selling.
Creating Your Own PHP Framework?
I spent the past few days fighting over the following battle, do I either use an existing PHP Framework or Build One.
I’ve currently been using my Model 1.5 Framework (ScottWork) for sometime, but have been using CodeIgniter on a few client projects and dabbling with some of the leading PHP Frameworks like Zend, Symfony, DooPHP, Yii and CakePHP.
All of this MVC stuff of course got me thinking, what if I want to get other developers to code for me? What if I want to get other developers to maintain my apps/code? What if…?
So I write my own MVC framework here’s a summary if it’s main components:
- mod_rewrite and routing of request – This is basically the nice thing like removing ? and & from your URL so it looks pretty AND automatic routing of URLs to controllers->methods().
- Controllers - This is basically taking your request, and channeling it into some OO paradigm that allows you to “act” on your request in an object oriented way, then route your way to a “view”. It also contains all your logic and calls to your Model.
- Models - This allows you to talk to a database and controls your interaction with that database.
- Views - This presents your data combined/calculated/manipulated/read or otherwise transacted in your Controller.
- Helpers - This is a bunch of pre-built functionality designed to make the framework easier to use and code less.
Here’s my opinion of those main components after comparing them to my Model 1.5 framework (scottwork).
- mod_rewrite and routing of request – I see a lot of uses for mod_rewrite but the routing of request to some kind of controller/object oriented thingy is really a waste of time. Why have one huge controller with a bunch of methods in it, when you can just write a simple script designed to process the input of a page? It’s small, modular which means easy to maintain, there’s no object to create, or routes to manage. The easiest thing about not using some kind of route manager is that you can create a new page that reads data, by just adding the page, no controller/route/setting data to be read by the page later, it’s all right there, one php page. Vertict: mod_rewrite (yes), routing (no).
- Controllers - You don’t need an object to call other pages, most frameworks just use the good-old include() statement, or they wrap it inside some output buffering, but essentially it’s an include. What I do in my framework “scottwork” is to create a processing page (it does not have any HTML) which is essentially the same contents of a controller method, but it’s in one file that’s only job is to process the data from the one page. Vertict: controllers (no)
- Models - I use ADODB and a generated model based on that library. The model is good-old-fashion prepared statements with CRUD operations and basic validation to so that you can insert/update/delete and read-by certain fields. I extends the generated file with a child DAO that allows me to override CRUD operations or do new operations specific to my app. Vertict: models (yes)
- Views - This is completely ridiculous in MVC, the bindings and coupling between Controllers and Views is much worse than just having separate files with single methods. Plus for read-only pages, you just need to create your view, no controller->render_view() non-sense. Vertict: views (no)
- Helpers - This is a bunch of pre-built functionality designed to make the framework easier to use and code less. Vertict: helpers (yes)
In Summary:
You could use a framework or spend time writing your own MVC framework as I have done. Some people like OO, some people like the order/structure a framework provides. Personally I don’t like spending lots of time coding, so I generate most of my stuff. I also don’t like spending time figuring out a framework’s shortcomings or finding bugs in a framework. I believe in writing small testable, programs/scripts (web pages) that do one thing and do them well.
Some interesting reading:
- Second System Effect – The tendency to take something small and elegant, and make an elephant out of it.
- Unix Philosophy – Write programs that do one thing, and do it well.
- Neal Ford – Essence vs. Ceremony Talk (no link to presentation)
VPS Woes
So for some time I had a reseller account at HostGator. The problem I had with this was eventually they put so many sites / re-seller accounts on the server that it (my site) was down often enough where I spent more time contacting support, than I did having to manage my domain. So I moved to a VPS.
Now I am on a VPS at PowerVPS. The problem now is that the root node is constantly getting overloaded and my site is once again VERY SLOW. I need to send them tickets about twice a week to have them fix the issue, so my VPS will come back to life and be responsive.
What to do? What are my options:
- Go back to reseller – No, still too slow and over subscription
- Another VPS – Perhaps, but there still might be server and over-subscription issues.
- Dedicated Server – Perhaps, but there will be more time setting up, I will need to get something with RAID and and it will be much more expensive.
- Hybrid – Interesting, The ideas is to keep a basic site for cpanel and management, then update the DNS for the WWW record to point to another server where I can ensure performance, ie a dedicated machine or a cloud server from Rackspace.
I think I am going to try Hybrid for now, see how it goes.
Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Cookies
I had an issue recently where session cookies were not being set in Chrome and Safari but they were fine in Firefox. It turned out to be the time on the server was off. It seems that Firefox does not obey the same cookie setting rules as Chrome and Safari.
I just thought I would mention this so that if anyone else was searching on cookies not being set in Chrome or Safari, they could get this post and verify the time on their server.
New Book Idea – Market Research Something…
I am looking into a new book about market research. I have been doing so much over the past few years I thought it might be a good idea for an organized brain dump on the subject.
Basically as entrepreneurs we are always coming up with ideas for new businesses. There is always though a big leap from that initial idea to a successful business. Some of the ideas include:
- Using Amazon PageRank to narrow your business idea.
- Using Google Keyword tools to refine and ultimately pick your niche
- Using Google Adwords to test your product and demographics
If you are interested in such a book, please leave a comment below, I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on the subject.
Three Programmer Archetypes – What’s yours?
I was at the Columbus Ruby Brigade Meeting last night and having forgot my laptop, I started to take traditional notes on the first lightning talk. It occurred to me at some point during the talk that there’s really 3 kinds of programmers and the kind of programmer really has to do with what they love and where they play. Usually I’ve seen programmers major in one and minor in the other, or sometimes there’s no minor, just a major. First, here’s the 3 types:
- Language Fundamentalist – These are the types that love the ins and outs of a language, compiler optimization, how memory is managed, they can explain why a certain language is great or sucks.
- Language Craftsman – These are the types that love a certain language, they can tell you the ins and outs of that language’s core API but they are resistant to changing an language once they’ve become adept and skilled at it.
- Language Minimalist – These are the types that do as little with a language as possible, they might work with a defined content management system like Joomla or WordPress or if they built a system it might consist of an open source system with 5-10 frameworks or other scripts used to get the job done.
Now based on what type you are you usually dabble/play in some of the following areas:
The Language Fundamentalist
- Different Languages
- Abstraction Patterns
- Algorithms
- Compilers
The Language Craftsman
- Language X APIs
- Frameworks of Language X (they can tell you just about everyone pros/cons of each)
- Next versions of language X
- How language X is better than all the rest.
The Language Minimalist
- Ins-Outs of how to customize a few different systems
- Learning newer better or next versions of similar or same systems
- How to integrate these systems with other ones
Whether or not these three are all inclusive or accurate, I’m not sure since I am neither a psychologist or a sociologist, but I am a programmer and have seen these kinds of programmers.
Personally I’ve majored in Craftsmanship with a minor in Fundamentalism, I don’t usually care about compilers unless they are preventing me from doing something, I also don’t care for most frameworks as they are someone elses often poor attempt at abstraction or simplification.
Starting a business is not about home runs!
I was talking to my wife the other day and I realized without thinking about it, that starting a business is a lot like learning how to hit a baseball.
I remember back when my father was teaching me how to hit, I wanted to really really impress him and every time I tried to hit a home run. I did not hit the ball, it was strike, strike, strike and I was on the verge of quitting when he sat down and said “Scott, you’re trying too hard, do this for me, just try to touch the ball with your bat, but don’t swing.”
Sure enough as long as I was just trying to touch the ball, and not trying to hit a home run, I could do it every time. Then next thing he had me do was just take a swing at the ball, and of course, I was encouraged and I tried once again to hit a home run, and of course, swing and a miss. He said to me, “you’re still trying too hard , don’t try to knock it out of the park, just slow down your swing.” So this time he told me he wanted me to just use one hand to hold the bat and hit the ball. Success.
The next thing he said to me changed my game forever, he said, I want you to go about 80% in your hits. So before you were giving it 100% and with one hand it was about 40%, so I want you to go about 80% on everything and never go above it. Success.
Later that year I was selected to go to the all-star game for 2nd base, I was a lock to get on base, though I didn’t hit many home runs, I could always get on base.
Starting A Business is not about hitting home runs, which is what I’ve been trying to do, it’s about taking it down a notch, getting some success, taking it up a notch or two getting more success, and so on.
— Update —
I still like the quote: “Think big because it takes the same energy as thinking small.” But to become the home-run king, you first need to connect with a bat.
Chrome vs. Firefox
I decided top stop using Firefox for my Gmail and other Google Apps yesterday. I’ve instead started using Chrome for those apps. I’ve already noticed a huge difference in memory utilization by Firefox, it’s ran the entire day and is still under 200MB. Chrome’s instance of Gmail is only about 100MB. Usually by this time, I would have had to restart Firefox because it’s memory is over 1.2GB.
Who’s fault, Google or Firefox?
I think this is Google’s way of increasing market share on it’s browser, Chrome. I think that they’ve taken advantage by coding a leak that Chrome ignores, or has a way to circumvent. Personally I don’t care which browser I use, but it makes you wonder that if Facebook creates it’s own browser…
Created New Blog – Progtivity.Com
I just created a new blog, ProgTivity.com. The blog is mix of economic theory, zen, and programming. It’s about the art of programming productively.
Most people today don’t realize the art of being productive, everything is so rushed and fast, it actually takes time to be meaningful and productive.
I hope you enjoy the blog! Now go visit!