Grr… I’m having major issues with my Droid phone. For the past two days now, my battery is not charging. I charge it, only to find that hours later my Droid phone is burning hot and still at 10% battery life. I’ve tried turning off my phone and then charging it. No additional luck. I have it properly plugged in.

I’ve had this Droid phone for about 3 months now. It’s having so many dang issues. The battery life totally sucks! It doesn’t last as long as my iPhone. I think my phone is about to die. It overheats! I don’t even use any apps on it. I only use my Droid to text message and phone calls.

GRRRRRRRRRrrrr….

I’ve made a few Drupal themes that I feel really good about. I coded them from scratch and they look decent, but I am never satisfied. I keep tweaking them over and over. Am I just a perfectionist? Why can’t I just stop and be happy with the results? Ahhh… just one more reason to work on it day after day.

Theming Drupal is not so difficult if you are familiar with PHP, CSS, and HTML. But back in the beginning, it felt daunting. I first started making subthemes, but then I scratched that started from scratch. I’ll be writing a tutorial about it soon. It’s been really hard trying to find other sources that teach you how to theme a Drupal website from scratch. There are tons of articles on it for Wordpress and Joomla, but not so much luck with Drupal.

Would you like a tutorial? If so, drop me a comment.

On the default apps from Apple, to UNDO is super easy. All you gotta do is “Shake” your iPhone. 

For apps that you build, you can make use of Apple’s UNDO features. Just add them to your code!

So I finally upgraded to Snow Leopard on my Mac.  I needed to install iPhone Developer SDK 3.2 Beta for iPad and it required 10.6 or later.  Leopard was 10.5.  Anyhow, I managed to install it on 2 Macs and installations were fine.  However, many programs stopped working and I had to go back and find drivers.

For starters, my Epson Photo 1400 wouldn’t print after I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Here’s what I had to do:

1. Download the latest drivers from the Epson website.
2. Install the necessary files.
3. In System Preferences > Print & Fax, I had to delete my Epson Printer and add it back.
4. Perform a test print page.
5. Voila, magically worked again!

Another program that stopped working was my FTP program for Mac.  Man, I lost the serial and now cannot use it anymore.  I went and downloaded FileZilla.  Been using it for the past few days and it’s okay but the user interface isn’t as friendly as others I’ve used before.  Hey, FileZilla is free and can do the job I need so I shouldn’t complain!

I haven’t run through all my applications yet, but I’m sure I will find some that no longer work.  Hope that surprise doesn’t hit me too hard.

Now I just have to figure out where to install iPhone Developer SDK 3.2 beta to a different location.

Earlier today I plugged some headphones onto my Droid phone so that I could listen to music.  After I was done, I unplugged my headphones only to realize that there was no sound after headphone use.  I plugged in the headphones and voila, sound again in the headphone piece. Unplug headphone and expecting to hear music through the Droid’s speaker… no sound!

Aggravated, I turned off my phone and powered it back on.  Okay, sound at last.

Test again with headphones.  Sound is heard with headphones on. Unplug headphones.  DAMN no sound from Droid speaker!

Aggravated once more, I turned off my phone and powered it back on.  Okay, obviously there is some static or something that is not working on the Droid and makes it think that it’s on headphones mode.

Powering off and on again for a third time.

TOTALLY ANNOYING.

I’ve had my iPhone 3G for about a year now.  I recently became an owner of the Motorola Droid for about a month. I knew I should have held out longer for the Nexus One, but I had already purchased my Droid.  Oh well, electronic devices become old once they leave the store!

Side by side, my iPhone is lighter and hands down my mobile device of choice. I own two mobile phones on two different mobile plans.  Why? Cos I’m just crazy, that’s why. Seriously though, one is for business and the other is for personal use.

Things I like about my iPhone

• lightweight
• easy to use
• huge app store, tons of selections!
• iTunes – I can buy stuff on my iPhone or on iTunes
• clean user interface design
• I use it for listening to mp3s
• rollover minutes on AT&T

Things I don’t like about iPhone

• AT&T service
• coverage is inconsistent
• dropped calls

Things I like about my Droid

• notification light (upper right hand corner) lets me know there’s an update, it blinks!
• Gmail sync
• 5 MP camera
• video recorder

This I don’t like about my Droid

• can’t talk on the phone and search the internet at the same time
• user Interface is so robotic, hence the name Droid. Maybe it was meant for Star Wars addicts.  Wait, I am one of those. ;p
• the app store is ugly and badly categorized
• the main keys on the bottom are annoying at times because one slight bump and you’re kicked out of what you were doing
• the power button is not conveniently placed (hate it when I go to sleep mode and have to fumble to turn it back on)
• the pull out keypad works great when using your left finger, BUT when using your right finger the mouse pad thingy gets in the way! plus my fingers are short so my thumb has to really stretch!
• touch screen does not detect key touch as good as the iPhone.

There’s more to list but these are just some simple things I wanted to list.

Yay. I’m glad 2009 is coming to an end. I am anxiously awaiting the new year.  I am very happy to put behind me such a hard year of poor health and sickness behind me. I’m still recovering from my car accident and am still in a lot of pain.  My neck, back, and head ache all the time.  I feel like a 90 year old woman stuck inside a 33 year old body.

Gone with the old, in with the new!!!!!!  2010 I am ready!

Some new years goals I am committing myself to fulfilling:

• Getting healthy
• Exercise daily
• Drinking more water
• Cutting soda out of my life
• Letting go of useless junk (I’m sort of a pack rat)
• Saving money
• Paying off my credit cards
• Finish my iPhone app and submit it to the Apple Store
• Learn a new programming language (maybe Ruby on Rails)
• Be more proactive in Church
• Do more community service
• Clean my house more often
• Be more proactive in my home business
• Live my best life

There are a lot of websites out there that have some really cool articles about pros and cons of various open source content management systems.  Here’s my take on them from a developer’s point of view!

Drupal

Pros

• flexibility of site, PHP, modules
• roles and permissions are easily configurable
• single registration for site (forum, site account, storefront, etc…)
• tons of free modules
• can build a community site with just a few key basic modules

Cons

• not so straight forward installation
• library of themes is not as large as Wordpress and Joomla.
• large learning curve initially
• Requires basic to advance knowledge of PHP (for development)
• learning to theme can be a challenge
• upgrading can be a pain and hassle

Wordpress

Pros

• super easy to install
• easy administration dashboard
• tons of themes to choose from and super easy to install themes
• upgrading is easy

Cons

• not as robust with permissions as Drupal
• tons of spam if you don’t have the right plugins installed
• more geared towards a single user blog with additions of editors who can post to the site, but not as community driven as Drupal.

Joomla

Pros

• super easy to install
• adding modules is pretty easy, just upload the zip file and it’s ready to go (must activate through menu!)
• tons of themes to choose from
• large developer community

Cons

• roles and permissions are not as flexible as Drupal.
• navigating in the administration panel is chaotic, especially if you have special plugins you need to activate
• must pay to use the more advanced community features

Overall, that’s just a quick summary of my personal thoughts on the open source content management systems.  I’ve also worked on enterprise content management systems such as Autonomy Teamsite (formerly Interwoven Teamsite).  My thoughts on that is another blog entry. Hehe.

I’d say if you want a single user blog, go with Wordpress.  It’s very easy to use and installation is super easy and straight forward.

If you want a more complex community driven website with advanced features such as a messageboard, singe sign on, permissions, roles, and flexibility … my choice is Drupal. Don’t get me wrong, Joomla can also do the job too but I prefer Drupal because of “Views” and ability to specify the user roles and permissions.  Drupal is the primary CMS choice of many universities and colleges.  Sony uses Drupal for many of their band and movie websites.  The Whitehouse also uses Drupal for their website.

In terms of security, I’m no systems administrator or networking engineer, so I’ll leave that topic to the pros.

This blog entry is based on my knowledge and experience working with the different content mangagement systems as a developer.  I’ve worked on all 3 CMS and my level of expertise in content management systems is fair.  I’ve been working on CMS (open source and enterprise) for 4 years.  I’ve been a web developer since 1997.

My hubby bought me a new Kitchenaid Ultra Power Stand Mixer for my birthday present (my birthday is tomorrow 9/10) ! Ah wOwzers !!!!! I’ve been wanting a mixer forever!  I used to bake a lot of goodies, but then my hand mixer broke many years ago and I stopped baking all together.  OoOoo I’m so excited to start baking again and sharing my recipes with you all!

I will be making a Youtube video of Hmong recipes (steam rice cakes, coconut jello, sticky rice cakes, and more!)  oooOOo I can’t wait!!!!!

Day 50 of P90X! Just got done doing today’s exercise.  I am trying my best to stay with the program, although I do admit it has been so tempting to just skip a day and do a different exercise or workout routine. I admit I am guilty of trying Insanity, Hip Hop Abs, and Turbo Jam in place of some of the P90X workouts.  I have been doubling up some too so that I can maximize my workouts.  I haven’t been eating so good, that’s probably why I’m not seeing as much results as I did the first 2 weeks.  I need more control!

I haven’t weighed myself since week 3.  I guess I just don’t want to know because right now the numbers might discourage me.  What really matters is that my clothes are looser and I feel better after each work out.  I sleep so great lately!

Wish me luck, I’m halfway there P90X.