Note: this post is another technical one, so if you are a member of my immediate family, you probably won’t find it of much interest.  If “ports” make you think of boats (rather than the numbers 80 and 22), then why don’t you mosey on over to my christmas photos?

I frequently have trouble communicating between systems which are separated by different private LANs. This often happens when you have your computer on a home wireless network which is separated from the rest of the internet via a router and firewall.  Fortunately, SSH tunnels can be used to link these machines together, provided you know which ports need to be interfaced and you have a common server which both machines can reach. Here is how. Read more »

I am pleased to annouce the grand opening of the Popcornfarmer.com Learning Center. There isn’t too much in there right now, and mostly it is just notes for myself.  In any case, some of it might be useful to somebody, so rather than just keeping it hidden away I figure I will share it.

Most of the information is pretty technical, so unless you are interested in doing some Bash shell scripting or need to make some regression plots in R, it may not be of much use.

I’ve been trying out CakePHP, a framework for creating DB driven PHP based websites using the MVC design pattern.

Warning: In case the above sentence didn’t make this clear, this post is largely technical gibberish. If that’s not your thing, then you can move along and look at the pretty pictures from a hiking trip up Mt. Monadnock from back in September.

My feelings with CakePHP so far are mixed. As with many open source projects, the documentation for getting started is a little rough.  To help with that, here is the list of resources I’ve found most useful so far.

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There are three keys to keeping an organized research project:

1. A good research notebook for informal notes and plans
2. A collaborative place to keep track of your results and general strategy
3. A way to keep track of your todos, meetings, and deadlines

Each of these has its own use, and none can completely cover for another. Here are my suggestions for each… Read more »