Creating an application in Facebook:

I’ve been toying with the possibilities of intergrating Rice Bowl Journals with Facebook. I know that many members and friends of members also have accounts at Facebook, so it would make sense to somehow integrate the functionality of facebook with Rice Bowl Journals, or vice versa.

The thoughts of this sound pretty exciting to me now. And though the road might be a bit difficult, I’m just going to take things one step at a time.

First off, I added myself to the Developers App over at Facebook, which was pretty simple, actually. And I was given an API Key along with a Secret code.

Then, I added an application called Rice Bowl Journals, and filled out the necessary info for its profile.

I set up a directory on my server that Facebook can point to to make the connection with the RBJ site.

And created a “Hello World!” index.php file.

Here’s my developer page for Rice Bowl Journals.

And here’s the actual page to the Rice Bowl Journals app page on Facebook over at: http://apps.facebook.com/ricebowl

Pretty nifty!!!

That’s a good start… so now I just have to think up an application that could integrate the two sites together, and code it all in PHP!

Haha…. and now the hard part begins……

But once again, I’m open to any suggestions anyone might have to create this integration between RBJ and Facebook….

I spend a good part of the afternoon re-doing the upload script at Rice Bowl Journals.

For the better part of the past year I had major problems with this script, and I tried to look for the bug that was causing some failed uploads, but could never find it. The problem was that I created this huge script that tried to validate and check for problems, which in turn created a problem in checking the code for errors.

I would always just set it aside for another day. Until now…

So, I created another script totally from scratch, updated all the data structures, and just slowly put it all together piece by piece and debugging each line of code piece by piece as well.

The basic form:

<form enctype=”multipart/form-data” action=”http://ricebowljournals.com/index.php?action=19″ method=”POST”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”MAX_FILE_SIZE” value=”100000″ />
Choose a file to upload: <input name=”imagefile” type=”file” /><br />
<input type=”submit” value=”Upload File” name=”clicked” />
</form>

And, I think I finally created a custom-made upload script that is 100% workable with no bugs.

Well, if you’re an RBJ’er you’ll just have to try it for yourself and see if it uploads properly.

The basic upload snippet:

if ($_FILES['imagefile']['type'] == “image/gif) {

copy ($_FILES['imagefile']['tmp_name'], $destination.$_FILES['imagefile']['name'])
or die (”Could not upload the photo!”);

}

The supported image formats are: JPEG, GIF and PNG

And I hope that is the end of all the image upload problems members have been having.

*crosses fingers and knocks on wood*

Ah, the story of Facebook.com.

So, I got a phone call just now informing me that I didn’t get the job that I interviewed for last Friday. I had postponed my jury duty to get to the interview and now wondering if I should have just gone to jury duty instead.

This makes it the 5th interview I’ve had so far and now I’m 0 for 5. These rejections are getting to be downright depressing. But, I keep getting calls from various companies that have found my resume on Monster.com.

Anyway, where a door closes a window opens, right? I have another interview this morning and I also have another possible interview for a part-time position as administrator for a site, which would be better suited for me, being a working musician. And the hours seem flexible and I can work from home.

Okay, I’m not getting my hopes up, because rejections are tough.

I got an offer to call someone for a PHP programming job. I’ve already had 3 interviews which led to no offers, and already I’m afraid of rejection. But I know if I don’t call it’ll be a missed opportunity…

What to do… I can’t believe I’m almost 50! And I question my ability to work out there in the job force. Besides, being a musician is so much more fun. And the gigs are starting to come in. Though I’m always looking and hustling for more work.

. . . .

Update: I have an interview tomorrow at 10am. So, wish me luck. Pray for me. :)

Just an update to the 3 interviews I had earlier this week, since it’s been on my mind.

Basically, I didn’t get any of the 3 jobs I interviewed for.

Then again, I think the last time I was interviewed for a job (prior to this week) was 15 years ago.

Still, I know I should keep my hopes up, but at the same time I’m beginning to wonder just how good I am as a programmer and web developer. And right now I don’t think I’m all that great.

I most definitely have the passion and the drive, but perhaps I’m just not smart enough. And it “hurts” to be rejected…

I guess I should stick to music…