Ask Matt Cairns

If there is a layout issue in IE7, move DOM elements around first.

The largest value that can be stored in a field cast as INT() in MySQL is 2147483647 signed and 4294967295 unsigned.  This signed max is definitely not large enough to handle some of the newer Facebook user ids, this just bite me.  I’m even a little hesitant to recommend the unsigned max being that Facebook could eventually have an id for every object in the world.

Better option, BIGINT(), which maxes out at 9223372036854775807 signed and 18446744073709551615 unsigned. 

So yeah, I won’t make that mistake again.

I wish you could remember these days. Running around the house begging for more Dora, and demanding more milt (milk) in your half full bubby. Then after all of that, we all (you, Mommy and me) end up laying in bed singing ABC’s and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I know I’m going to miss how simple this all is, how much I love seeing you excited every time I walk out of the office, and how we can spend an hour giggling in our sheet tent, but I know I am going to love watching you grow up even more. For now you are “The Kid”, you are my kid, and I won’t ever forget this.

I love coffee, way more than I think most people do. Enough that I am perfectly happy spending a good 25 minutes at 5:30am making half a pot. More on that process in a later post.

The coffee addiction started innocently enough. Like most suburban white kids, my first caffeine fix came in the form of  the Cafe Mocha from Starbucks. These were fine for a while, then I started wanting less of the bitter-ish chocolate flavor, and more of what I thought was coffee flavor, so I went over to the Carmel Macchiato, which, by the way, is still my favorite espresso drink.

Then it happened, on my honeymoon in Punta Cana, I had it, the best tasting, no milk foam, no sugar, no fluff coffee I had ever had. It was smooth, not bitter at all, and had a kind of sweetness to it. So good, that both Rachel and I would sit outside in the wet, tropical heat drinking it.

After that I was hooked. I needed that taste again. The problem is, its next to impossible to get good coffee near home, trust me I tried. It’s also expensive buying not-so-good coffee on a daily basis. So it became my mission to make the perfect cup of coffee at home, on the cheap. I’ve come a long way, the process and the understanding of it has grown quite a bit. I am very happy with my current cup of coffee. 

Next post: Coffee: The Journey

So today starts a mission. I want to see if writing is something I generally want to do. The people that do cool stuff on the web, at least the people I hear about, do some kind of writing. So what about me? I want to make cool stuff, in fact, I think I already make some pretty cool stuff. Will writing either make people notice that stuff, or help me formulate some actual ideas of what I do or don’t want to do? I guess this is the start. “Onward and upward” to probably misquote C.S. Lewis. Along those lines, I’m excited about listening to “The Problem of Pain” on my way into the office, its been a while since I listened to any of his stuff.

The title pretty much says it all. No matter what temperature it is, they are always just too hot.