I’m sure nobody else has done this (wink, wink), but we spaced off creating the typical trunk, branches and tags directories.  I think we assumed that we would never really need them.  But of course, there’s always a reason for following best practices.  We got to a point where one of our branches needed the old version of YUI (2.6.0) and the new branch needed the current YUI branch (2.7.0).  This didn’t work because of our lack of trunk/branches directory.  Here’s the steps I took to rectify the situation:

Check the trunk of your repo:

$ svn co $REPO_URL $REPO

Change directory into the checkout:

$ cd $REPO

Create the trunk directory, add it to the repo and commit:

$ mkdir trunk && svn add trunk && svn ci trunk -m “add new trunk directory”

Move all the files to trunk (has to be done with find because we can’t try to move trunk into itself):

$ find . -not -name trunk -maxdepth 1 -exec svn mv ‘{}’ trunk \;

Change directory to trunk:

$ cd trunk

Commit the moved files:

$ svn ci -m “move file into trunk”

Create the branches and tags directories:

$ cd ../ && mkdir branches && mkdir tags && svn ci -m “add new branches and tags directories”

Now you have a nice “best practices” setup with trunk, branches and tags directories.  You can now go about your normal branching.

NOTE: Apologies  to my non-techie readers

There are several theories as to why. Some guess that the women’s movement was unsuccessful. Others posit that men have gained more than women from women saturating the workforce, but that doesn’t really explain the absolute decrease in female happiness.

Many are overlooking a few fundamental reasons:

• Women have a natural instinct to rear their children. By becoming career women, they leave their children in the primary care of others. Regardless of how much they try to convince themselves, they feel guilt for not being home with their children.
• Society as a whole has become much more “aware” of unpleasantness. The Media could be called the culprit here, but there are lots of reasons for it. We have become a much more depressed society. It’s now in vogue to be a complainer. Look at the majority of Facebook status updates; “Why can’t I finish my laundry?”, “Monday is winning!”, “Just trying to survive today.” Now one might say that should affect men as much as women, but men are a little more resilient to societal pressures and often don’t care to be in style (just look at the way I dress).  Happy people are seen as annoying.

The study is inherintly flawed because of it’s subject matter, but still might illustrate some proplems in our society.  In the end, the study asks more questions than it answers.

Thanks GM and CBM.

• Greed: comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line.
• Envy: using the total number of thefts—robbery, burglary, larceny and stolen cars.
• Wrath: comparing the total number of violent crimes – murder, assault and rape – reported to the FBI per capita.
• Lust: compiling the number of sexually transmitted diseases—HIV, AIDS, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea – reported per capita.
• Gluttony: counting the number of fast food restaurants per capita.
• Sloth: comparing expenditures on arts, entertainment and recreation with the rate of employment.
• Pride: the “root of all sins”, in this study, is the aggregate of all data – combining all data from the six other sins and averaged it into an overview of all evil.

It’s important to recognize that the data in these images are all relative to itself.  So the “cream” color means the county/area is within “normal” ranges.  Although this gives us the extremes, it doesn’t really give us a true reading of the problem with a specific sin, just the areas that are outside the norm.  For instance, most areas of the nation are within the nominal range for Gluttony.  Does that mean gluttony is not a problem?  Surely not.  It just means we are all equally gluttonous.

There are also some additional oversights with the data:

• Lust should have integrated pornography statistics as that implies more lustful behavior than STDs. Apparently Utah would have been higher in the Lust scale (but that’s for a different post).
• Gluttony should not have been measured by number of fast food restaurants as McDonald’s is everywhere.  Instead, a much better measure would have used obesity rates as well as smoking, alcohol consumption and prescription drug abuse.
• Art and entertainment is a terrible measure for slothfulness as there is plenty of art and entertainment that is uplifting rather than slothful.

Check out additional spacial mapping of the data (including “hotspots”) in an article from the Las Vegas Sun.

Thanks Ryan (probably the coolest site in Utah) and RB.

1. Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.
2. Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent.
3. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.
5. Be forgiving of yourself and others.
6. Be generous.
7. Have a grateful heart.
8. Persistence, persistence, persistence.
9. Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.
10. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.
11. Commit yourself to constant improvement.
12. Commit yourself to quality.
13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.
14. Be loyal.
15. Be honest.
16. Be a self-starter.
17. Be decisive even if it means you’ll sometimes be wrong.
18. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life.
19. Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did.
20. Take good care of those you love.
21. Don’t do anything that wouldn’t make your Mom proud.

Some of you may wonder why this makes me so happy.  Let me explain.

For a while now, I’ve been using Google Email and Calendar.  I recently posted about switching my domains to Google Apps.  The one main problem with using online services is the inability to use them offline.  Google recently partially remedied this with an offline version of their Google Calendar, but I still had no way to sync it with the only device I carry with me at all times, my iPhone.  Sure, I could view my calendars and contacts through their web-based (and iPhone formated) version, but I couldn’t set alarms for my appointments and it’s quite a bit clunkier than a native iPhone application.

The new Google Sync leverages built-in Microsoft Exchange functionality in the iPhone.  What this allows me to do is make a change to an appointment in my online Google calendar and within seconds that change is synced down to my phone, over the air.  Although that’s impressive, the really cool part is that my wife and I actually have a shared calendar (the family calendar).  So when I create a new appointment/event on my iPhone in the family calendar, within seconds, my wife can be aware of it.   Not only does it appear on her iPhone calendar, but also within her Google Calendar (which can also display as a widget within her Google Email).

But you don’t have to be an iPhone user to take advantage of Google Sync.  It’s also available for:

• BlackBerry
• Nokia S60
• Nokia standard
• Sony Ericsson
• Windows Mobile

All I can say is: Saaaaweeeeeet!

(thanks Greg Mankiw)

Today is a significant day in the world of computers.  The Apple Macintosh was introduced (or rather introduced itself) to the world exactly 25 years ago.  The Macintosh was revolutionary in so many ways.  For the first time, personal computers had a graphical user interface (GUI). And sound was an integral part of the operating system.

Check out the following video (thanks TUAW). And notice the young Steve Jobs.

Concrete5 is a new Content Management System (CMS) that blows everything else I’ve used out of the water.  Everything else I’ve used (and I’ve been around the block with CMSs) has been either overly complicated and not user-friendly or too simple to really work for my needs.

In steps C5.

They’ve created a user interface (both for the admin as well as the editor) that is very simple and easy to use, even for the non-savvy computer user. I’m so confident that it will be relatively painless to the editor (content provider) that I’ve finally created a site for my 70 year old father, who knows just enough about computers to hang himself.  I’ve also created the site for my consulting business, Codeality, using C5.  So it’s not just for the non-savvy, but also can do the job for someone technical as well.

Until you see it in action, you can’t understand what a departure this is from the traditional way of doing content management. Check out the “slick marketing demo” on their hosting site. Or play around with the a sandbox on their site.

Although Quicken or Money might give you slightly more functionality, you have to wade through a lot of junk in order to get to what you really want it for — tracking and budgeting.  I was previously a Quicken user.  But quicken didn’t support all of my accounts.  That’s the beauty of Mint.com — it supports an amazing number of financial institutions.  All of mine are supported, including my credit union, both 401k accounts, mortgage, an IRA account and my stock brokerage.

Two other things make Mint a better choice for most consumers.  First, it’s web-based.  Now before you go off all scared about putting your financial passwords online, realize that online security breaches are so incredibly rare.  It’s more likely that the server at the local restaurant will steal your credit card number than someone cracks into a server storing your financial passwords.  It’s like the fear of flying in an airplane.  The reason so many people are afraid is when it does happen, it’s fatal for a significant number of people.  But statistically speaking it’s more likely for you to get in a fatal car accident.  The benefit of it being online is the same with all online applications; automatic updates, access from anywhere and easier interface.

The second feature that makes Mint a better choice is the price.  Free!  That’s right, it’s free.  They make their money by up-selling you to other financial services.  For instance, I just transferred a significant percentage of my credit card balance to a “no interest for the first 12 months” deal, saving me a chunk of change.  And the up-selling is rather non-intrusive.

Although Mint is quite feature rich, it’s still rather new and they are adding new features all the time.  The main missing feature that I hope they add soon is the ability to enter your assets that aren’t specifically attached to an account (such as your home).  It’s tough to see “Net Worth: -[large dollar amount]” simply because you don’t have your home value to counter balance your mortgage.  The ability to enter your home information and purchase price (or recent appraisal) would provide a much clearer picture of your financial well being.

Go ahead, sign up. It only takes 5 minutes (depending on the number of accounts you have).  There’s no commitment. You can delete your account at any time.  But you might just like it and find it very helpful like I have.

Note to any Mint.com representatives reading this blog post.  I’m very willing to accept any type of referral payment or other type of fee for such a great product endorsement.