On the bright note, we (indinero) are one of the winners of the CET ventures competition and got $5000 plus 10 months of free office space. Right in the middle of campus.

I’ve also realized that the berkeley computer club isn’t just full of nerds. They are full of some of the best programmers and the most sociable people I know. Recruiters really should just march in there and distribute fliers.

I mainly just wanted to write this non-sequitur blog post so that when people click my blog link from indinero.com they don’t think the link is broken.

The site will be launched on June 15th. I’m pretty sure I won’t make that deadline but setting inconcievable deadlines is actually good practice in this industry. Besides, our army of interns for Indinero will be at our house this summer at around June 15th I am currently looking for alpha testers to rip the site apart and spit it in my face. So if anyone’s interested please email me at alpha[at]pastacodes.com.

Also, since pastacodes is a site to teach programming, I would like to compose a list of awesome tutorial blogs and spam those guys. Anyone with a decent tutorial on php or rails please comment or email me too

I think someone should build a step by step programming site. This’ll be one of my future side projects if no one explores it. Coming up spring break hopefully. Along with Jess’s and my new project. Life’s a lot more exciting once I got into college.

What brought me into the world of entrepreneurship was one of those adolescent phases we all go through. What’s my purpose in life, what’s my future. No matter how I thought about it all I was left with was death or some miracle longevity medicine from stem cells (south park). So pretty much, make the best out of your life. Write a list of stuff to do before you die or something. Just don’t be stuck in your 80s without a single significant thing to tell your grandchildren other than you won a local halo tournament or something.

Several hours later.

A great way to do something awesome is through entrepreneurship! A great way to start your first project is to make a goal, tell everyone about your goal, and then maybe accomplish your goal with the pressure of everyone knowing about it. Finding cool equally bored people to work with is even better. You get to keep each other motivated it really helps to have a cofounder.

The next day with a bunch of other idiots.

Even the smallest projects could start off a entrepreneur roller-coaster. Just do something small and fun like a prank or funny movie and video tape it. Then somehow incorporate an ad like “drink Pepsi” or something. Let’s say that the video turned out well. If I were an advertising agency I’d love to have you work on a mini-project. I wouldn’t care less if you bombed your last math final.

This project will let random people subscribe to your “site”. This project pretty much just aggregates a bunch of emails so you can email them your “rant of the day” or something random like that.

First you need to get php working on your mac or pc.

I’m not gonna show you how to do everything when I say Lookup it means search for stuff on Google or PHP.net.

Hint: Google the bold parts and click on the first link that shows up.

Ok…

First let people sign up to your site:

Go to your phpmyadmin and login as root. It is risky and all and you can disable root access and mess with it if you want. I’m just warning you ahead of time that phpmyadmin can sometimes be very uncoorperative. Anyway, make a database and table with three fields - id, name and email. The id field should have auto-increment on. To turn auto-increment on, you must check the checkbox labeled A.I. (messed me up so badly).

Make a php file. First, we’re going to put html in a php file:

Lookup how to make a html form and make a GET form that takes in a name and email. Also add a hidden variable called process.

Now, add a little php to the form. If you do:

$name = $_GET['name'];

The variable The php form should take the name and email and insert it into the mysql database. Make sure you have the right syntax or life will be hell! I suggest copy pasting because you will need ’s and `s.

Use phpmyadmin to check that your emails are actually added into the database.

Now, to send the email, make a separate php page with a bigger form to fit an email message. Use php to select all emails from the mysql database. You can modify the email so that their names are in the email and use the built in mail() function in php to send the mail automatically to all your friends.

Have fun and I hope everything works for you.

1: Get apache to work.

Update your version of mac os and go into system preferences. That’s the thing with the gears - very important to your mac. Click Sharing under internet & Network. Now in that list of crap on the side, check Web Sharing. Do whatever seems right and when you’re done, go to your web browser and type in whatever they tell you to. And, yes, if your friend, who is using the same router as you, types http://192.168.something into their browser they will get your site. Pretty awesome huh. Wanna change it?

2: Changing your website, OMG html

Use your finder to open your folder (the one with your name on it) and then the folder called Sites. See that thing called index.html? That’s what’s you’re seeing when you go visit the web address. First rename it to index2.html or something. Now to edit it, you can do it in texteditor but please act like a pro and download a program specifically designed for it like Aquamacs. Now, simply open the file with aquamacs (right click and go under open with > *kangaroo deer thing* ). A lot of code to read and learn from if you want. Open a new file with aquamacs. Copy this:

<html>
<body>
<h1>WOOT!!!</h1>
</body>
</html>

Save as index.html in the folder Sites. Goto your site now. The one that has ~yourname in it. WOOT!!! Play around with it. Call yourself god. Whatever.

Just know that it’s not real programming until you get Php.

3: Php

I mentioned somewhere that I liked Php. You should too.

There’s a few ways to enable Php. Notice I said enable, not install (go macs). Here’s the cool kid’s way:

Open up Terminal. It’s under Applications>Utilities. Time to learn a bit of unix. Even if you don’t know what the hell’s going on, it’s really cool. By the way, the thing you’re in right now is called the Shell. Go to the folder you need to modify by typing in:

cd /private/etc/apache2/

First, you need to change php.ini.default into php.ini with this command:

sudo cp php.ini.default php.ini

Next, you need to modify httpd.conf so type:

sudo vi httpd.conf

Type in your computer login password (blank if there is none). Now type:

/php

This searches the text for the words php and you should get something like

#LoadModule php5_module        libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Type (not copy):

aandy rules

Pressing a lets you edit the file. Now delete andy rules since it is not relevant. What you do need to do however, is delete the # (the numsign) in front of LoadModule…

Now Type:

esc

:wq!

Finally, in your shell, what you should be in right now, type

sudo apachectl graceful

That restarts apache so you have your php install online. It’s apachectl with a l for long by the way.

Now, go to Sites (don’t tell me you forgot how) again and rename index.html to index3.html. Open a new file in aquamacs and copy in:

<html>
<body>
<a href=”http://www.Internshipin.com”>Internshipin.com</a>
</body>
</html>

<?php echo “Rules!!!”;?>

<? phpinfo();?>

Almost done ><. Save in Sites as index.php and check your site again!

4: Mysql

This one’s pretty easy. Go here and download the mysql that matches your mac OS version. Click on the mac icon on the top left to find your OS version. Download and open the readme. Follow directions and install everything.

5: PhpMyAdmin

This thing’s really cool. Go here, download and extract it. Rename the entire folder into something simple like pma or phpmyadmin. Just get rid of the version number and stuff. Now, apparently, this phpmyadmin is not complete. Really stupid, I know. Open up a new file in aquamacs and name it config.inc.php. Save it in pma or whatever you renamed your phpmyadmin folder to be. It should contain:

<?php $cfg['blowfish_secret'] = ‘ae85mh04wq23′; // Enter a random string to be used for blowfish encryption
// Server(s) configuration
$i = 0;
$i++;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = ‘127.0.0.1′; // ‘localhost’ did NOT work!
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = ’socket’; // ‘tcp’ did NOT work!
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = ‘cookie’; // Using cookies is easiest and safest setup.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = ”; // MySQL user - empty for cookies
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = ”; // MySQL password - empty for cookies?>

Move your folder to Macintosh>library>webserver>documents.

Reload apache again and now, when you goto http://localhost/pma, you should be able to see your phpmyadmin! Login as root with no password and make a user for yourself by going under priviledges.

My laundry’s done.

First, what is programming?

People talk about programming as languages and they are literally correct. Learning programming is just like learning a language. You don’t know how to say something? Fine, write it down in English or whatever language you know and search for ways to express what you want to do. If your still screwing up, then you just have crappy grammar. It’s not like the SATs or anything, just fix your mistakes and you’ll get a 2400.

What requirements are there?

You don’t need to be a genius or anything. Always remember to look things up when you need it and life will go on. NEVER try code stuff without searching for a better solution first. Chances are, the function you’re looking for is already defined. If you think the function should be defined then it is defined.

How to start:

Most people and schools start with Java or C++ or Scheme. Sure, people can plow through manuals and learn Java or C++, in a couple of months. The thing with these languages is that they are very powerful but more useful for hardcore programmers. I believe that it would be better to learn a web development language such as Php first. It is simple, it can get you a job in lots of places, and you can use it to actually make something useful - namely a website.

Two weeks after moving into Berkeley, I met Jessica Mah. After finishing our discrete mathematics howework that day, we started talking about making a company. Pretty soon, we drew out an outline for internshipin and got started.

Within a week, we had a rough search and employer posting page ready. We then rented a $160 server from Softlayer and pumped out more of the code. With midterms and homework bogging us down, we took a month to make the first beta and released it to employers.

The main thing is publicity. We had like 6 postings signed up and 1 paying internship. It wasn’t until the techcrunch post that we actually had people on our site. The moral here - know lots of people like Jessica and if you can get them to write a post about your site, great things will happen.

College (so far)
1: Multivariable Calculus - again, really impractical.
2: Memristors - really cool concept but not very great to learn about.
3: Scheme - interesting but outdated.
4: Proofs - you decide, a hobby or a nightmare.

Side Project
1: some below basic degree of unix.
2: installed apache, unfuddle, subversion, and enough stuff on the server.
3: Php
4: Some level of design.
5: Scalability.
6: Murphy’s Law - internshipin server went down as I type.

I need to go.