Managing multiple tasks at once

A new working week is starting and I was thinking about what I have to do. At work we almost finished the project we were working on and I just found out that I will be taking on, yet another big one from the project pool.

Don’t get me wrong, I love doing this and I am enthusiastic of the challenge at hand, but this left me wondering:

Am I doing too much at once ? Let’s see:

• I have to launch one almost finished project (we are still doing testing and bug fixing);
• one new project to analyze, schedule and develop;
• (fortunately I finished with the ZCE exam, so that’s a load of my chest);
• but I want to learn and attempt the MySQL Certified Developer Exams;
• I want to write a blog application in Zend Framework and replace Wordpress on this blog;
• I plan on taking the Zend Framework Certification;
• I want to finish my Zend_Grid proposal for the Zend Framework;
• I want to develop 2-3 personal projects that I’ve been planning for a long time;
• I have to further improve my knowledge in the PPC field;
• I have a wedding coming up in 2 weeks (only the legal part);
• I have scheduled the religious wedding on February 21st, which is a whole different kind of monster;
• I have to learn how to dance (for the wedding);
• I want to learn how to play the guitar;
• I want to rejuvenate my passion for photography (I haven’t had time lately to take any photos);
• I want to read some books I bought off Amazon;
• I want to lose weight by going to the gym or running or swimming or some other form of sports;

This is all I can think about right now, but I’m sure I left some things out; still, these are the most important ones.

At first things seemed unrealistic and utopic, but then I realized that this is the kind of world we live in ! Things move fast, demands are higher and higher and success is directly connected to our multi-tasking abilities.

Fortunately I was always taught to not just do one thing at a time, but to always try to improve myself and to never give up. Although this kind of attitude does not put my mind at ease nor it gives me any sense of a real satisfaction when I finish or accomplish something, it also makes me a better man (professionaly speaking) and has made me who I am today.

Before you start laughing or asking yourselves "Who the heck this guy thinks he is !?", get this:

I am not famous, I am not a celebrity nor will I probably ever be (I wouldn’t like that by the way), I haven’t invented anything that will or has turned the world upside down, but I am a passionate PHP coder, an Internet enthusiast, a web fan and I am bettering my web skills (PHP coding, MySQL database development, PPC campaigns, SEO, usability testing, affiliate marketing and others) every day and hopefully one day, if you’re involved in the online world you will see me accomplish something great for the online community ! Stick around !

I’m going to sleep now, but I’ll leave you to think if there are any advantages in always pushing your limits or not !?

You can share your stories (I’d greatly appreciate it) in the comments section !

Thanks and good night Romania or Good morning USA!

Zend Certified Engineer: PHP5 (ZCE 200-500)

From this day on I can proudly say that I am a PHP5 Zend Certified Engineer.

I took the ZCE 200-500 exam today at a Pearson-Vue authorized testing center, Provision Romania, after registering online, just a business day before.

I have read the Zend PHP5 Certification Study Guide from PHP Architect and I also bought the Practice Exam Pack with 10 questions (I used only 3 tests to prepare). If you want to take the same road as me, I suggest you get the Zend PHP5 Certification Bundle as you’ll save some money in the process.

I have to say I am not an expert in all areas covered by the ZCE exam, but I manage very well in all of them.

The Practice Exam Pack did help me in getting in the state of mind needed for the exam. Also I came across a few things which I would have missed in the real exam, had it not been for a few tricky / theoretical questions.

The problem is that these practice tests are not enough to prepare you for the real exam. I found a few tricky questions including printf parameters and SoapClient / SoapServer usage that were not in the Practice Tests, but I also observed that the XML coverage is emphasized in the PHPArch Practice Tests.

I learned some things I didn’t know in PHP after reading the Study Guide and I recommend reading it as it is a very good book even if you are not preparing for the ZCE exam.

Overall it was not the hardest exam I took and I managed to finish the whole 70 questions (plus review them) in around 1 hour more or less.

I do not know how the ZCE Certification will help my career, but I am happy and proud to be a member of the ZCE Group and I am the 29th certified ZCE in Romania. I am also the second Romanian person to obtain the ZCE in 2009, followed only after a few hours later by Ionut Voda.

If you’re a Romanian from Bucharest, Romania (or just passing by) I strongly recommend Provision Security Training as they were very professional and the process of getting Zend Certified was as simple as possible !

If you have any questions about the ZCE exam or anything PHP related, post them in the comments section and I will try to answer them the best I can !

Good luck if you’re preparing to apply for the ZCE exam !

Howto (prop)set SVN:ignore from the command-line !?

If you’re a developer you’ve probably worked with SVN.

And if you’ve worked with SVN you’ve probably had the problem that it’s commiting and updating more than you want.

So here’s a quick way to ignore the files you dislike:

• If you want to ignore just a file, for example "config.php" from the "config" directory:

svn propset svn:ignore "config.php" /path/to/config

• If you want to ignore all the files in a directory, for example the "cache" directory:

svn propset svn:ignore "*" /path/to/cache

(quick warning here ! "*" is different from "*.*"; the latter implies that you have files or directories with extensions and it will not match a file/dir with no extension)

• If you’re an Apple Fanboy like me than this one’s for you; MacOS has the annoying habbit of creating .DS_Store files in every directory, including those under SVN

edit "~/.subversion/config" with your favorite editor (vi, nano or even TextEdit)

search for the line that contains "global-ignores" and add ".DS_Store" at the end of the row

save it and you’re done; no more .DS_Store junk in your repository !

I hope this quick guide helps you. I’ve written this because most so called coders out there use tools like TortoiseSVN and have no clue how to use SVN from the command line.

If you have other usefull SVN command-line tips, please share them in the comments !