I was interested in computers, so we asked Neil, my friend from high school, who owned an employment agency, what I needed to learn to get a programming job. Neil advised me to take the entrance exam for the Intensive Programming course at NYU School of Continuing Education. Neil said the 12 week course was considered the best way to learn programming quickly, and it would enable me to find an entry-level job. The only catch was that I had to take a three-hour entrance exam, because (I think) there were 12,000 applicants for 800 spots.

I was extremely nervous about the test, so Jayne and I spent the night before the exam getting drunk. I took the test slightly hungover. It was the most difficult test of all-time, and had nothing to do with programming. One part of the test displayed exploded views of Defense Department products, and I had to draw lines to show how the parts fit together.

I met Jayne met after the exam, and we waited on a long line to get my results. Finally at the front of line, several people in front of us had not made the cut, so I nervously asked, “Did I pass?”

A young lady replied, “You have an eminently respectable score. You have the 28th highest score, and will be placed in our advanced class.” I learned later that the top 30 scores were placed in this class, so I just made the cut.

Jayne said, “You see? You were worried about nothing!”

The Class

My instructor was Ed Anderson, who claimed to be the only faculty member who had not finished high school. He gleefully told the class that he left his application incomplete, and under education, said “11 years.” He added that he had thoroughly intimidated his interviewer, who was afraid to ask questions, and simply hired him. Ed claimed NYU discovered his lack of a college degree several years later, but he kept his job, since he had not lied, and was remarkably intelligent.

After initimidation, Ed’s second favorite activity was smoking cigarettes. Several times a day, he would distribute a problem for us to solve, saying, “I will be in the hall, smoking, until Mickey points to 10. Then I expect to return, and find that everyone has finished this exercise.”

While the class struggled to solve Ed’s problem, he observed us through a glass pane on the door, sucking the daylights out of 100mm cigarettes.

We had classes from 9-5, breaking 12-1 for lunch, and then “computer room” for daily homework. When the computer room closed at 1 AM, there were always a few students grumbling that they needed more time!

Most of the students were business types, over 30, who had been sent to the course by their employers. But there were two young people, both wearing tie-dyed t-shirts on their first day, David and me, so we went for coffee together, and became friends.

Life on The Lower East Side

I grew up in Brooklyn, and very little shocked me, until my first visit to David’s apartment, on East 11th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B. First, you had to pass through a crowd of drug dealers and customers to get to the building’s entrance. This bothered me, but David thought it was great. “They keep the block safe,” he explained, “because they don’t want anyone to rob their customers.”

David’s apartment was also scary. He was the youngest of a group that “homesteaded” this formerly abandoned building. As I recall, tenants contributed $100/month to a fund, which would eventually be given to NYC to buy the building. The building was a mess. The windows of David’s studio faced the backyard, which was covered by a couple of feet of garbage, including some very large blocks of concrete.

The interior was worse. Several areas, including the bathroom, were missing pieces of floor, so you would see the downstairs tenants if you were both using the bathroom. Sensing my discomfort, he said, “Let’s get something to eat.”

“Something” turned out to be a spleen sandwich which only cost about $1.25 at an Italian place on First Avenue. It was advertised using the Italian word for spleen, which I forget, and was barely edible.

When we returned to his apartment, he opened the door gingerly, grabbed a broom, and whacked a plastic garbage can a few times to make the mice scatter before we entered. That was enough for me, and I suggested that it would be more comfortable to head Uptown, and do our homework where I lived.

The Taj Mahal

Jayne and I lived in a one bedroom apartment at the corner of West 103rd Street and Riverside Drive. Instead of drug dealers, you passed through a doorman to enter our building, and there was no garbage or rodents.

Jayne and I had a lovely, 8 foot, Brunswick Heirloom pool table in our living room. After homework, I invited David to have a drink, and play pool, while I waited for Jayne to get home. She joined us, and we played for awhile, before ordering Chinese food. David had an incredible knack for charming women, and got along great with Jayne, until about 10 PM, her bedtime, when she asked me to send him home. When I informed David, who was a little drunk, he seemed crushed, and said rather loudly, “But this is the Taj Mahal! I never want to leave!” Jayne thought this was so funny, she let him sleep on our convertible sofa. But the name stuck. After school, he would come over smiling, and say, “Let’s go to the Taj Mahal!”

Jayne also liked David’s Dad, Wally, and we met him at his office a few times. I only met his Mom once, when Jayne drove David to Jericho for something.

Mainframes and Microcomputers

Jayne was an anesthesiology resident during the week, and we had similar incomes while I was working at the bank. When I was unemployed, she supplemented her income working Saturday nights at an emergency room. Since we were still in our “newlywed stage,” I used to visit her about 10 PM, and leave with her at 6 AM. This hospital was not very busy, and her supervisor brought his new Apple II computer, and Byte Magazine to pass the time.

Byte frustrated me, because I could barely understand anything! I discussed this with Jayne, and we decided it would be better for me to learn how to program the new microcomputers, instead of learning COBOL and BAL/370.

So Jayne, using her maiden name, wrote me a note that I had to withdraw from school because of migraine headaches.

I left after five weeks. David completed the course, but never used his certificate. He began volunteering at WBAI-FM, explaining that he was getting a chance to prepare for an FCC license exam, so he could host his own radio show. I cannot recall how he supported himself, but he was often at “The Taj Mahal” with Jayne and me. He got along better with Jayne than anyone I met during our marriage. But he never slept there again. I was instructed to provide him with Subway tokens to leave, when Jayne wanted to go to sleep.

However, Jayne liked him so much, that after Maxine was born in January 1985, David was her first, and only, babysitter for a few months.

Dead Air

Shortly after Maxine’s birth, David’s persistence paid off, when he became the host of “Dead Air” – live performances of the Grateful Dead, on (I think) Sunday nights from 3-6 AM.

Of course, I had to visit him, and it was fun. His friend Doug, who had a huge Harley-Davidson logo tattooed on his skinny chest, followed The Dead, and recorded many performances on a portable DAT recorder, wearing a baseball cap, with two microphones sticking out the top.

After 1985

Jayne and I moved to Georgia at the end of 1985, and I was almost killed a few months later. I was still on crutches the next time I met David. I visited Manhattan for something, and got a room at The Chelsea Hotel, where I had always wanted to stay. I met David, but since it was so difficult for me to get around, we spent two days eating delivered Chinese food, and watching TV in my hotel room, which thankfully had two beds.

I saw him about a year later, when we both stayed in his greatly improved apartment, and spent a day or two in the East Village. David enjoyed hanging out at “Life Café“ where we played backgammon.

I tried contacting him after Jayne and I separated in 1992, but was unsuccessful. Several people were angry at me for breaking up with Jayne, and I mistakenly thought he was one of them, because he never called back. I called him again about 1998, and he was not angry, but said he might have had a problem with his answering machine. He was working as a DJ at Wetlands Preserve, and invited me to see Blues Traveler and Joan Osborne. Shows were sold out, so I had to ask for him, and he came out for a second, to let me in.

I also visited him a couple of times when he was was the engineer for “New York and Company“ on WNYC. I was truly amazed at all the stuff he had learned!

I also met him once when he was having trouble setting up a Mac database for his friend John, to maintain a huge amount of poetry recordings.

That might have been the last time I saw him. When I returned to Manhattan, I called him a couple of times at the 92nd Street Y, where he was audio archivist, to meet for lunch, but our schedules were never compatible.

Recently

Before he setup his Facebook account, I kept in touch with David through occasional emails to MySpace. I always sent birthday greetings, partly because his birthday, Valentine’s Day, was so easy to remember.

I wanted to mail him a paper card this year, but somehow never got around to it. I added a calendar reminder to send him one next year.

Alas, it’s too late. So long buddy, I miss you.

I am blogging about it because:

1. question was ambiguous
2. it is common problem
3. I solved it with one line of code!

In topic of “Regular Expressions,“ Stephan, a fellow on the other side of the world, asked:

Looking for a regular expression which will remove all the <img> tags from a string. The string is a HTML document.

Stephan provided an example like this:

Let me explain why this question is hard to answer.

Regular Expressions

A regular expression is a pattern of characters, used to search for a set of objects. A simple example is:

This would match “had,” “dad,” “sad.” Regular expressions, are common, but they are implemented differently everywhere. For example, my favorite text editor, Vim, which I have been using for over a dozen years, provides additional features, using a special syntax. I would have used Vim if I was doing this for myself. This simple example should work on all implementations of regular expressions. However, advanced features are implemented differently by other products, and programming languages.

For example, I never learned Perl programming language, which includes Perl Compatible Regular Expressions. So remember to be specific if you ask someone a question about regular expressions, or anything related to programming.

Operating Systems

Operating systems which are derived from Unix, such as Linux, or Mac OS/X include advanced text utilities, which are not packaged with Microsoft Windows. Although Vista was installed on my latest Thinkpad, I only tried it for ten minutes, before giving up, and installing Linux.

What Is Wrong With Aardvark?

I would not have responded if I was asked “how to remove images from html file on Windows” – “how to remove images from html file with Perl” – or many other possibilities. Aardvark needs better instructions, so users can ask, and respond, to questions more efficiently.

Assumptions are often wrong, but I really wanted to answer my first question, so I assumed that Stephan was not using Microsoft Windows, and provided a response which should work on any Unix-type system.

How To Remove Images From HTML on Linux, or Mac OS/X

Unix based systems include sed or “stream editor.” This is description from sed manual page on my favorite computer:

Sed is a stream editor. A stream editor is used to perform basic text transformations on an input stream (a file or input from a pipeline). While in some ways similar to an editor which permits scripted edits (such as ed), sed works by making only one pass over the input(s), and is consequently more efficient. But it is sed’s ability to filter text in a pipeline which particularly distinguishes it from other types of editors.

In other words, sed is perfect tool to remove images from HTML files! After saving sample as “input.html” – I was able to remove images from the sample, and save it as “output.html” with this command:

output.html contained:

Perfect! I hope I helped Stephan, but I will never know, since neither Aardvark, nor Stephan, informed me if my answer was helpful.

Another One Line Program

Those familiar with HTML, know that certain characters, like < and > must be encoded as “entities” – e.g., &lt; and &gt;. So I wrote another one liner, in PHP, for this article:

I saved that line as “html2text.php” and entered:

Then I copied and pasted results into this article.

Now you know how to remove images from HTML, and also how to convert HTML to include in your Web pages, with just two lines of code!

NOTE: I like my one liner, but you can make it easier to use, by adding a second line, and converting it to a “shell script.” See Example #1 on Using PHP from the command line for more information.

Calling Aardvark!

Aardvark, which is running a computer-based business, should understand the differences between applications, and operating systems. I sent them a link to this article, and I hope they use my suggestions, to improve their innovative service.

I selected Drupal, for its brilliant design and extensive documentation. I was particularly intrigued by the Drupal Book module, described as “structured document publishing.”

I began recording progress on Twitter with Learning Drupal, March 21, 2009.

First Drupal Site

I followed advice on drupal.org, and it was easy to subclass Zen theme to design new site. It was also easy to create menus, blog, forum, as well as a book.

I also studied Pro Drupal Development to understand how it all worked.

Everything improved eight days later:

starting 16 part Drupal/Eclipse tutorial

Because tutorial introduced me to Eclipse PDT, a wonderful integrated development environment for PHP programming language.

Problem Installing Eclipse

After a few crashes, I got Eclipse to work, by installing latest version of Java runtime. I did not want to replace my current version, but it was simple to point Eclipse to new version, starting it:

Eclipse has never crashed with newer Java.

Problem Installing Drupal Test Site

Before adding content, I wanted to be sure that my test site would not appear on search engines. Unfortunately, I could not find “privacy” among the dozens of Drupal administrative settings, or in “Database Table Reference” of Pro Drupal Development.

NOTE: Follow instructions on Disable RSS Feed? before adding content to a Drupal test site.

After 16 Days of Drupal

On April 5, 2009, I Tweeted:

My first Drupal site is up: http://mitchelldmiller.com/web/
Unfortunately, my Tweet from the site did not work

I fixed the Tweet problem, by writing my own program to read and display my last Tweet, and added it to my Drupal and WordPress blogs.

My next Tweet was melancholy:

Trashed my Drupal database and test site is gone!

No, I have no idea what I did, but I knew I needed to learn more PHP. On April 10:

any suggestions for PHP book with function ref to replace php.net?

A response by @ucffool led me to PHP Reference by Mario Lurgi, which has been very helpful.

Nevertheless, I still liked Drupal, so I added “Convert blog to Drupal” to my lengthy “To Do” list.

Month of WordPress Updates

On July 13, I Tweeted:

only took 5 minutes to upgrade WordPress, but I am sick of it. Time to finish my Drupal book, and try something new

I have no idea how I did this, because it was never that fast again!

I recorded additional WordPress updates on July28, August 11, August 15.

I am delighted to report that since Tweeting:

@wordpress please consider validating future releases with Eclipse so they load without errors http://tr.im/uOC5

Future releases have loaded without errors!

Unfortunately, updates introduced very annoying problem! “Screen options” on Administrative pages, stopped working. Tried Linux versions of Firefox 2 and 3, Opera 9 and 10.

I wish WordPress would offer an option for a simpler Administrative theme, where all options are visible. Has anybody besides the developers, ever used the Drag & Drop feature?

Anyway, these experiences induced me to tackle blog conversion.

My Last 29 Hours of Drupal

Notes and comments from my experience converting Where Did My Brain Go? from WordPress to Drupal:

1. optimized WordPress database with disable revisions plugin before export
2. installed Drupal, and followed instructions on Disable RSS Feed?
3. selected WP2Drupal module to convert database to Drupal
4. edited WP2Drupal to: connect nodes with taxonomy terms fails due to lack of $node->vid
5. WP2Drupal ignored WordPress slugs, and created links from titles — most links worked
6. Needed to:
   • review 300 links to correct changes
   • Learn how to filter content types, to maintain current structure
7. Tried Blueprint CSS Framework, used by Blueprint Drupal Module. Even includes validator! But was hesitant about having to learn Ruby Programming Language to understand how it worked. Finally came to senses after reading “Help me!” messages in Blueprint CSS : Google Groups. I would not benefit enough from replacing:
   • one stylesheet with complicated Ruby system
   • really wanted to use Drupal Book module, but did not want to expend many hours converting blog

How To Try WP2Drupal Now

I installed these Drupal modules before converting database:

• Advanced Help
• Content Management Filter
• Devel
• Global Redirect
• Path Redirect
• Pathauto
• Root Candy (great Administrative theme)
• Taxonomy Redirect
• Token
• Views
• WP2Drupal
• Zen

Drupal Suggestions

I recommend Drupal to anyone who wants to start a new blog, knows PHP programming language, and is willing to read Pro Drupal Development to understand how Drupal works, and to learn how to write Drupal modules.

Drupal should assign volunteer to update WP2Drupal module so it creates uses existing links in WordPress slugs, instead of creating new ones from titles. Drupal should make it easy to convert WordPress blog to Drupal, if it wants to become more popular.

Monthly Index contains all posts, by month, and subject. For example, select February 2008 to read about New York Giants winning Super Bowl XLII.

Site Map displays all posts, sorted by category and name. There are over 100 posts now, which are displayed in pages of 50. I did not include “Pages” like the puzzle, because they are linked to each document.

I created the Site Map using Sitemap Generator Plugin for WordPress by Dagon Design, and I was every impressed! Check it out if you have a WordPress blog.

Therefore I was surprised, when researching my previous post, to discover another resource.

I learned that Bear Grylls has an outstanding photo gallery on Google’s British Picasa Web at:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/beargryllsphotos

Picasa and Picasa Web

Picasa Web is a free service, which provides one gigabyte of public, or private, photo storage, to anyone with a Google account. It was originally designed to work with Picasa software, which can be freely downloaded from Google.

Basically, you just install Picasa, and it creates a searchable catalog, of all the images on your computer. Then select photos, and click once, to upload to Gmail or Picasa Web.

My favorite feature was collage which Google describes as:

“Select a group of pictures, choose one of the beautiful templates, and Picasa will create a collage that expands your creative horizons.”

When I still had Windows, I used to use collage to make “instant greeting cards” by selecting a few photos, and setting it to print on half a page. Fold the paper in half, and Voila! you have a blank card. The same process can also be used to make a screensaver.

Unfortunately, Google does not offer a native Linux version. Linux users must install WINE, a Windows emulator, to use Picasa, which seems silly to me, because my Linux system never crashes, and I want to keep it that way.

Getting Started

Indeed, Google only recommends Picasa for use with Microsoft Windows. Be sure to check out known issues before downloading Picasa, or signing up for Picasa Web.

Incidentally, my tests with Firefox 2 and User Agent Switcher showed that Picasa Web does not work with Opera either.

The original email also contained an MSN logo. It fooled me until I examined Click Me! which linked to a Windows executable file.

Send In The Clowns

I had just received this annoyance, so I immediately notified the company which gave us Windows 95 and Bob, hoping to reduce the workload of some beleaguered support person.

Microsoft’s remarkable reply arrived in a few seconds. It began:

Thank you for reporting spam to the MSN Support Team. This is an auto-generated response to inform you that we have received your submission. Please note that you will not receive a reply if you respond directly to this message.

Unfortunately, in order to process your request, MSN Support needs a valid MSN hosted account.

Microsoft Math

If that message infected 1000 Windows computers, around the world, but only one MSN subscriber is affected, then it really only infected one computer.