Dave Schwab

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Merry Christmas Everyone!

I’m typing my first blog entry on an iPad 2 with a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and I gotta tell ya, this is about as out of the ordinary as it comes. It’s like using a two peice laptop but without all the waiting for Windows to load. Plus, I can control just about everything about the iPad from the wireless keyboard. Plus, I’m touch typing, something that helps me type super fast (about 100 wpm) without dealing with the screen keyboard.

Maybe one day, Apple will find a way to do a screen touch keyboard that I can feel with my fingertips, but until then I think this will do just fine. The Logitech keyboard I’m using comes with a case that holds the iPad in a good position for typing.

In all, it is a wonderful way to blog after a had day doing the Christmas thing with the family! Hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas!

Privacy: Government intrusion, fact or fiction?

A response to a recent article that perpetuated some paranoia about government intrusion in our lives. I really take issue with a lot of this stuff because much of it relies on half truths and reactionary reporting that doesn’t examine the laws, the history and the reasons or even the facts behind what is being done. I realize a lot is posted to sites that make money by pushing radical anti-government opinions out there. I’m not pro government, by the way, I’m pro truth. Once you get all the facts you can make a qualified decision as to what should or shouldn’t be done. Read More…

Use a PHP class to connect to a database

Often times I’ve found myself wanting a quick and easy way to set up a connection to a MySQL database in PHP. In procedural code this was often accomplished by adding a few lines of code atop the first PHP file in the program.

I’ve decided to write an object that uses the constructor to connect to a database and the destructor to disconnect. All I need do now to connect to a database is update the class properties and instantiate the thing. Read More…

Dangerous trend: huffing

So the latest trend in the everlasting pursuit of a high is huffing. A lot of people are surprised when I explain what this is. Since it’s basically getting high where no one though a high was possible, it’s pretty misunderstood. And because it can kill you in under a ten seconds the first time you do it, it’s probably something a lot more people should know about. Read More…

Create a PHP Object

Object oriented programming was a foreign concept when I first started with it. I grew up writing procedural code all the way back to when I was 6 and coding in BASIC on my Atari 400! Procedural code was the way, but no longer. I am all about OOP now that I’ve grasped the basics and have started creating code for some pretty complicated objects. And as I get more and more into coding, the complexity abounds — but OOP makes complexity fairly straightforward, organized and easy to work with. Read More…

Are you ready for some football?

Brett FavreIt’s hard to believe that the NFL has been locked out the better part of this year. I’ve heard so much talk about lockouts, injunctions, anti-trust lawsuits and even something about an eight week regular season that I’ve almost forgotten how many yards are in a first down!

Now that the lawyers have made hundreds of millions fighting this nonsense out in court, we fans finally are assured a football season minus one very early preseason game in Canton, Ohio.

It’s hard for me to fathom sometimes just how much $9.6 billion is. How much is it? Well, if you had an inch for each dollar, you’d go about 151,515 miles before you had to stop. If you bought that many gallons of gas, you’d spend around $36 billion. If you split that sum up equally among every American we would each receive $32 bucks.

I guess if you give the NFL an inch, they’ll take about 151,000 miles.

But now that we have a season I no longer have to worry about how I’m going to spend my Sunday afternoons in the fall and winter this year. And Monday nights were going to be particularly cumbersome with no football!

And now that we have a season the rumors abound about Bret Favre’s return to football. Will he come back as a backup? Maybe a starter? What about doing analysis or color commentary? I’m really hoping that this year Brett keeps trying to sell us jeans and lets the next generation of players have their time to shine.

In any case, I’m going to let the mainstream press do all the speculating they want about everything football. I’m waiting patiently now for September and the start of the pro football season this year.