I'm looking for resources to learn more about new web development skills like:


ruby on rails
advanced cron jobs
perlKeep in mind the resource should be very easy to understand.

I'd also like to know how ROR differs from other lanuages like html/xhtml/dhtml and asp/php.

I would also like to know what lanuages would be similar to flash actionscript.

advanced cron jobs arent really advanced their equivalent on windows machines is the command at.

The first number you enter is the minute you want this job to execute. If the first number was 1 it would execute on the first minute of the hour (8:01, 9:01 ect). The numbers go up to 59. So if the first number was 10 then it would execute the command on the 10th minute (8:10, 9:10). * means every minute the command is executed, or that its run 60 times that hour. You can select a certian interval by dividing the amount of times it runs that hour. Entering */6 would run every 10 minutes because 60 divided by 6 is 10.

The second number is the hours of a day. If you set this to 1, that means the job will run on the first hour of every day (1 am). The numbers go up to 24, and to set the action to run in PM time, just add 12 to the hour (if you wanted the cron job to run at 7 pm each day you would enter the number 19, which is 12 + 7). Again like minutes * means it runs every hour, or 24 hours a day, and can be divided to run every so many hours. If you put */12 in this slot, it would run every 2 hours because 24 / 12 = 2. Likewise if you put */6 it would run every 4 hours because 24 / 6 = 4.

The third slot signifies the day of the month. Entering the number 1 would make the cronjob run on the first of the month (august 1st, march 1st ect). This number goes up to 30, and if there is no 30 in that month. It runs on the last day of the month. Like the previous 2 slots, * means every day. And you can divide it again to get certain intervals of days, but you should get the picture with that by now (eg */2 = every 16 days (rounds up)).

4th slot is the month of the year, this means the numbers go up to 12. Entering 3 would mean March, 1 would mean January ect. Again * means every month and can be divided. (*/2 = every 6 months, */4 = every 3 months ect).

5th slot is the weekday. The number can go up to 7. 1 means Sunday 2 means Monday and so on. This place should usually be left at *. Dividing this isn't the best idea as 7 is a prime number.

6th slot is the command to execute, this is up to you so no sense going into much detail.

putting the slots together

* * * * * is every single minute of every day of every month of every year
*/10 * * * * is every 10 minutes of every day of every month of every year
0 0 * * * * is every midnight of every day of every month of every year

ect.

Excellent, most cron jobs i'm aware of are for automatic tasks related to web hosting, like keeping trace of invoices for automatic billing for whm autopilot but I assumed it could do more stuff.

Still looking for guides and refference material for the above.

They got bookstores in Canada?

That's like saying, "They have Starbucks in America?"

That's like saying, "They have Starbucks in America?"

That was kinda the point.

Surprisingly, we don't have any Starbucks in my city but are getting one very soon. As a Canadian, he get our coffee from Tim Hortons, which is like Starbucks to America.

We have snow 6 months out of the year and bookstores too!

There is a lot of Starbucks stores over here in Canada...

Excellent, most cron jobs i'm aware of are for automatic tasks related to web hosting, like keeping trace of invoices for automatic billing for whm autopilot but I assumed it could do more stuff.

Still looking for guides and refference material for the above.

Cron is just a scheduler. It runs a command when you tell it to, nothing more, nothing less. All the real work is done by whatever script you're telling cron to execute.

yes,a lot over here

RE: cron ...
man crontab ....
seriously though; see your OS's docs
also check out IEEE Std1003.2-1992 syntax (got it from the manpage)

ROR is a web-development MVC framework; Bottomline, ROR is a platform that uses Ruby as the language. MVC as the architecture. And a set of conventions, standards, philosophy in aiding you to develop a web application. Note that a developing web application IS NOT website design.

HTML is a markup language; a descriptive language to describe content
XHTML is a the XML-based HTML.
(x)HTML languages are _not_ programming languages at all (no program flow)

DHTML is dynamic HTML; which involves the use of Javascript to provide the 'dynamic' parts which are usually, but not limited to, UI enhancements.

Crontab was by many people already ...

Perl is a scripting language; one which acutually inspired the creation of Ruby (the first R in ROR).

now.. Web Development can be overwhelming. There are so many technologies, so many terminologies, so many tools and products out there. But you can't be a master of everything.

My take:
1. Know what is _web development_;
it's not just programming;
it's not just design;
it's not just marketing/seo;
it's not just administration;
it's a lot lot more than that ...
2. Know your strengths;
Know your weaknesses;
Find your goal;
Fit your strengths on what goal you know is/are achievable
3. Press on;
Learn; do;
Learn; do;
make mistakes;
make progress;
Rinse;
Repeat ...

Cheers!