My current contract was obtained through a reference. Same thing with the
one before that. And, if you ask around, the same holds true for most of
the good jobs. However, when I was last looking for a job/work, I was
reluctant to hit up everyone I knew for any opportunities. I'm sure the
same is true of people I know of who are looking. In most cases, I'd
definitely recommend them, but I don't even know they are looking.

Then, I was reading an article on Orkut, Friendster and the new open
source clone PeopleAggregator and started wondering about building a
social "work network" that isn't centered on friendship and dating, but
rather on professional relationships. If done right, if you were a manager
looking to hire a Java developer, you could search for anyone 2-3 levels
away from your current respected employees who would be recommended. You
could do this without having to bother any of them directly as they would
have described these relationships at this site.

So, the basic design would be for people to set themselves up in this type
of a system and would check for people they have worked with in the past.
Upon finding them, they could indicate the type of relationship with a
series of indicators. For example:

• I've worked with this person.
• I've managed this person.
• I personally vouch for this
  person.
• I'd put my reputation on the line for this person.

etc.
etc. etc. Each one of these definitions would contribute to the overall
score with varying weights. For instance, if you've managed someone and
would hire them again, that counts for more than someone just having
worked *with* someone. To avoid legal entanglements, I would leave out any
sort of negative indicator, preferring that people just not indicate any
sort of working relationship or a minimal one rather than anything
negative.

With personal profiles indicating things like skill profiles,
resumes, and availability, you could use the site both as an employer and
as a person looking for work.

I intend to build this site and the
software to run it. The site will be 100% free and the software will be
open source and I'd like contributors if anyone is interested in working
on something like this. I've got more detailed designs in my head and
think that something could be built fairly quickly.

I finally finished the Sokkit 3.5 CD setup and will be sending out the
release announcement tomorrow. Along the way, I redid the way I do builds
and should be able to integrate the new PHP release much more quickly and
get 3.5.1 out soon. Then, I can move on to releasing PHUI, my PHP-HTA
toolkit for building local PHP applications on Windows. The demos are
pretty slick and currently emulate HTTP POST forms pretty well. I'll
possibly add XML-RPC and/or SOAP if it proves to be a needed addition.
Basically, though I think the base PHUI setup will be useful to folks
looking to do basic front-ends to commandline apps.

My house is going up for sale on Tuesday, priced at $149,900 and would
make a great starter home for anyone looking to get out of the renting
cycle.

I had a handyman service out this morning to repair the gutter that
Comcast Cable broke off of the house while climbing to fix the cable
connection. That side of the house now looks as good as new.

I'm still fighting with the mortgage companies over up front costs on the
new house. I find it amazing that they'll do 125% *2nd* mortgages, but are
terrified of people who want to avoid putting money down when buying. I
just prefer to hold on to the money myself (3 years of mortgage payments
in the bank is much better for my financial security than $300 off of my
payments). I had one lender tell me that they "can't" do 80/20 mortgages
in Minnesota. But they'll do 95% and charge me PMI.

I'll just be glad when this is over.

Or maybe in hell. Who knows. I'm starting to feel like Dr. Frankenstein in my PHP experimentation. So, in another quest to do something just because I can, consequences be damned, I've taken the failure of the ActivePHP(see earlier this week) experiments and turned it into something that actually works. Fundamentally, the model that PHP, the browser and the web server operate on is passing HTTP messages back and forth. Once you remove the web server and substitute an HTA (HTML Application) for the regular browser page, all that needs to be stubbed in is a replacement for HTTP.

So, I did just that. I whipped up a series of Javascript functions that put the contents of a given form into a text file, call a PHP script on the commandline to process that text file and
then the PHP script sends back a message using another temporary text file. In short, round-trip communication. The current prototype uses calls to "php-cli scriptname.php" as its method for processing forms, but you could easily use Priadoblender-blended scripts instead to do the processing.

What you end up with is a simple way to build "stand-alone"
PHP applications without a web server and using HTML as your widget toolkit and GUI. In addition, the API for processing data is just like it is in a web app: simple name->value pairs. So, someone who is already familiar with building PHP web apps could quickly be up and running using this toolkit. Given the flexibility of this solution, it could become a viable alternative to PHP-GTK (at least for little scripts)

The thing still needs a name and some polish so name suggestions are welcome. I'll be putting it under an open source license on PHPGeek.com when it's done. Contact me if you want to play with a demo.

I was browsing art.com tonight looking for potential prints for the new
house (since I get "control" over a couple of rooms) and noticed that
they've added canvas transfers. So, you can get a little closer to real
paintings at print pricing. There's no way I'm ever going to afford (or be
willing to pay) for a Picasso, but there are several of his works I'd like
to be able to look at and high quality reproductions are as close as I'm
going to get.

I'm still looking to support local artists and would prefer to buy real
paintings to furnish the new house, but only if I can afford it. One
artist I've been wanting to buy from (not local, from Toronto) is Yehan Wang. He sells a lot on Ebay,
which is probably my best chance at owning one of his originals as they go
for thousands in galleries.

If anyone is looking for the perfect $500 gift for me (ha ha), I'd love an
original Yehan. If not, something similar in style on canvas would be
great. I'd also love to know of similar artists here in Minnesota, so if
you know of anyone, let me know.