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It’s been many months since I’ve posted about Spaz here, but I’ve actually still been working on it quite a bit. Spaz recently had its 1 year anniversary, which is a pretty good milestone for one of my projects – I usually lose interest well before this. Not only is Spaz one of the oldest Twitter desktop clients still under development, but it’s also one of the few FOSS clients. I also believe Spaz is one of the most sophisticated AIR HTML apps out there, and is a good example of what can be done with HTML and JavaScript on the desktop.

The newest release of Spaz, which came out a couple days ago, adds some significant new features:

• Image uploading via Twitpic.com
• Crossposting support via Ping.fm. Try beta code “vivalaping”
• Support for microblogging services with Twitter-compatible APIs, including Identi.ca
• A Dock icon badge with the unread message count. This is probably less significant if you are not running OS X.

You can read the whole fat list of what’s new. Also, if you want to talk to other users or help with development, here are some resources:

• Spaziki – The Spaz Wiki and FAQ
• Spaz-users Google Group
• Spaz-SVN Google Group
• IRC: #spaz on irc.freenode.net

Just a quick note that my slides from my OSCON 2008 talk, “Securing the PHP Environment With PHPSecInfo,” are now online.

• PDF
• Slideshare

If you’re at OSCON, and you love security, you may or may not enjoy my talk on PHPSecInfo, a security auditing tool for the PHP environment. I’m actually going to try to show some new code, so if you’ve seen it before, you can see it again – for the first time.

The talk is at 1:45pm Thursday, 07/24/2008.

• PHPSecInfo homepage
• PHPSecInfo code repository

I have these five promo codes from Dreamhost. They expire in three days. Apparently you get super-hot deals with them, like:

• Four times the normal disk and bandwidth
• $150 off a 5-year plan
• $200 off a 10-year plan

I would not sign up for 5 years with any shared host. However, I do think DH is pretty decent for small-ish sites that can work with shared hosting. I’m well aware that they’ve had a couple embarrassing public flubs in the past couple years, but I generally think they’re good folks who try to do right by their customers. Some will certainly disagree, of course. 8)

I still maintain my old account there for low-cpu, high-bandwidth/storage stuff. They do quite well with PHP hosting, and can handle Ruby and Python setups with a little effort. They’ll let you do crazy stuff like compile your own PHP if you are fine with using FastCGI, and have a nice GUI to setup SVN repos. Not many shared hosts will do the same at a similar price point.

Anyway, here are the codes. They’re first come, first serve. Yes, I make money if you sign up with one of them. I will not be hurt if you don’t use them.

• 998942362256
• 916860787004
• 591140700044
• 047271781406
• 160643597831

Dreamhost Signup Page

I’ve been working at Purdue for over 6 years now, and I have to say that I’ve enjoyed it immensely. While the experience can vary from department to department, in general it’s a fairly low-pressure environment with a lot of opportunities to learn and develop new skills for motivated folks. Purdue offers great benefits, and the Greater Lafayette area is a pretty cool, decently progressive environment considering the size – US News & World Report recently picked West Lafayette one of the “Best Places to Retire” in the US.

A job just opened up in the Math department for a “Web Programmer/Analyst”. This position calls for strong PHP, PostgreSQL and MySQL skills; Linux and Unix fu (you should be able to admin the web stack); good communication skills (you’ll be working with a number of different people with varying tech backgrounds); and plenty of independent motivation.

I’m not involved in the hiring process at all, but I’m friends with those who are, so if you have specific questions, I can route them to the right person. Please email me directly – do not post questions in the comments.

• Web Programmer/Analyst - West Lafayette - Mathematics