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Blogs » Archive for June, 2006
The Underground PHP and Oracle manual
Chris Jones just announced the publication of the PHP and Oracle Manual (PDF) and from a high speed eyeballing, it’s good - basically tells you everything you need to know to be able to do useful stuff with PHP + Oracle but with little assumed knowledge.
In fact it seems to be geared to the typical LAMP developer - for example there’s a section on “Installing Oracle XE on Debian, Ubuntu and Kubuntu” plus sections on “Limiting Rows and Creating Paged Datasets” and “Auto-Increment Columns” show an awareness that readers will probably have MySQL experience.
Perhaps one addendum (I didn’t find reference to it) would be pointing readers at SQL Developer, which is a fairly new, free offering from Oracle as a desktop based development tool - the Underground manual focuses on a web based interface to Oracle - something logically equivalent to phpMyAdmin and a good starting point I guess but if you have to do real work, SQL Developer is probably a better choice.
Anyway, given that Oracle XE is free (as in free for developers to mess around with it) and this guide, pretty much all you need if you want to learn your way around Oracle.
Building blocks for a CMS
Though there’s been a few attempts at creating high-level, pluggable components in Rails, nothing has really seemed to catch on. There’s Rails engines and some full-blown CMS packages, but there’s still a tendency to built things from the ground up. Why is this?
I’ll list a few low-level tools that you can integrate into any project, that don’t mess with Rails internals and are dead-easy to set up and use.
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acts_as_tree or acts_as_nested_set
Built into Rails, these will give you a tree model for any model objects. Sprinkle on LiveTree for a Javascript-based UI.
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acts_as_versioned
Store previous copies of Pages, Assets or any danged model that you please.
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acts_as_versioned_association
Building on top of acts_as_versioned, this provides versioning support for your associations, so if you had a Page that had associated ImageAssets you could retrieve an exact copy of your page along with the associated image assets at that point in time.
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Polymorphic associations
Built into Rails 1.1, polymorphic associations …
Jun 12, 2006 News Wire
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protoGrowl
JavaScript library based on Prototype that lets you pop up notification boxes at the bottom of the page.
(tags: javascript) -
Where, oh where have all the Apache servers gone?
Apache server usage seems to be on the decline with IIS picking up the slack. What’s really going on?
(tags: apache iis) -
Have @it: A history of the @ sign
A brief history of the @ symbol.
(tags: email) -
China Restores Google.com
China blocked access to Google for this year’s anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests.
(tags: politics google) -
Even academics can’t understand it
Joe Clark cites an academic paper demonstrating that even researchers with Ph.D.s can’t understand WCAG 2.
(tags: accessibility) -
Doxygen 1.4.7
The latest release of this inline documentation system for C/C++, Java, Python, PHP, C#, and others adds universal binaries support for Intel Macs and a great many bug fixes.
(tags: php java asp.net) -
AIM Developers
AOL has announced it is opening up its AOL Instant Messaging service with a series of developer APIs for building new messaging clients, plug-ins for AOL’s AIM client, and services that make use of online presence information.
(tags: apis) -
.NET Framework 3.0
Microsoft renames WinFX to .NET Framework 3.0 to clarify for developers the fact that the new libraries (Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows CardSpace) all …
Do you nickel and dime your clients?
Getting paid can be a stressful thing, and can make some web developers/professionals do things that lack judgement.
Here’s an example:
I referred a videographer to a colleague of mine recently, to shoot a commercial for him. The videographer did a good quality job with the shoot.
But then he started demanding payment — after two days after the shoot. Now he won’t finish editing until he is paid.
Meanwhile, the client works with a $100 million corporation known for paying on time. But he can’t pay for 30 days, as is customary.
But the client will never hire the videographer again, because of his approach to collecting his money. And I look like an idiot for referring this guy to him — even though my experience has been more positive.
What should have happened here is:
- The videographer should have specified his payment terms up front as part of a written contract. Part of that contract should have included a clause for 25-50% paid up front before the shoot, Y% immediately after the shoot, and Z% after final delivery.
- The videographer should have been more professional and patient in insisting on payment. Two days is not a big deal. (I suspect that the videographer has …
Hodgepodge of lessons learned from a busy week
Well, I’m as swamped as I’ve been in a long time, thanks to a business trip to Illinois to work with a University on commercializing a beautiful market maker website and technology for agricultural users. This was a great trip, and here’s a mish mash of lessons:
1. Universities are an untapped market. Many of you who live near universities should consider stopping by some departments to discuss potential projects for outreach to constituents. In two days, this particular university department (agricultural extension) received requests to create a bunch of sites that will become the “go to” sites for a variety of natural resources and recreational research. They can’t do any of this on their own, and need people with good ideas to help create commercialization (e.g. advertising and premium membership) models.
2. Part of the trip involved pitching to a local venture capitalist. I helped develop the business plan and pitch. If you have yet to pitch to a VC or investor, make it part of your goals. It’s fun, exciting, and you get great feedback (or brutal feedback). In this case, the VC thought he knew what we were pitching, but didn’t. Our mistake was going off script instead of …
Jun 9, 2006 News Wire
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jQuery Examples
A growing list of examples demonstrating the capabilities of jQuery, a simple (but powerful) JavaScript library for AJAX and special effects.
(tags: ajax javascript) -
How To Save Traffic With Apache2’s mod_deflate
Deflate is the new gzip. Follow this guide to configure Apache 2 and save bandwidth.
(tags: apache) -
Windows Vista: Get Ready
Vista Beta 2 containing IE7+ Beta 2 is now publicly available for download. It’s a 3.5GB (32bit) or 4.4GB (64bit) download, or you can order the DVD for a small fee.
(tags: ie7) -
15 Days Of jQuery
A series of 15 short-and-sweet tutorials for jQuery, a simple (but powerful) JavaScript library for AJAX and special effects.
(tags: javascript ajax) -
Why the light has gone out on LAMP
Interesting rant claiming that today PHP does little but promote poor coding practices, and everything MySQL can do either PostgreSQL or SQLite can do better.
(tags: php mysql apache opensource) -
Google Spreadsheets
Google’s latest pre-release web application brings shared spreadsheets to the Web. Some cute AJAX, but really there are better options out there (like ThinkFree Online).
(tags: google ajax) -
Google to add Albums to Picasa! And I Need to Vent
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington rants about how Google gets huge PR for very ho-hum announcements, like Google Spreadsheets.
(tags: google) -
AJAX Edit In Place With Prototype, Version 0.2.0
Updated version …
A Googlish puzzle
It’s probably getting to the point where everyone’s a bit tired of hearing about Google’s interview process but recently heard a nice one someone was given to solve - one of those “Can you think like a programmer?” type questions. It goes like this…
You have two eggs. These are special eggs - they can take much more punishment than you average chicken egg. But the question is just how much punishment can they take?
Using a 100 storey building and only the two eggs, how would you find out which is the highest floor of the building you can drop the eggs from, before they break?
It could be the 1st floor but it could also be the 99th floor - you don’t know but to test, you need to try dropping the eggs from different floors and see what happens.
Technically there isn’t a “right” answer as such, although what was expected is an approach that requires the least number of tests, irrespective of where the result lies - an efficient search algorithm which offers consistent performance no matter what the result is. If you’re struggling for inspiration, try here - doesn’t help directly but might prompt some lateral thought.
To some extent …
Announcing the SitePoint News Wire
That’s right, folks. SitePoint has joined the Dark Side and will be launching a daily link blog, with the first post in a few hours’ time.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of a link blog, basically it’s a blog consisting of little more than a daily collection of timely links. To begin with, these links will be compiled with commentary by members of the staff here at SitePoint HQ, and will span all of the topics covered by SitePoint as a whole.
This will not affect our usual blog posts, of which we are actively working on increasing the quality and frequency. With the SitePoint News Wire, we hope to bring you more timely web design, development, and business news from all over the Web in its raw form. I hope you find it useful!
Back to Basics with Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS
With Google seemingly launching a complex, new web application every week, it’s easy to get caught up in the waves of cool, new stuff hitting the Web every day here at SitePoint HQ. But this past week, I had the opportunity to get back to basics and remember what it’s like to build your very first web page.
My girlfriend Jessica is completing a postgraduate teaching degree, and one of her assignments was to produce a web site describing a number of ways in which computers could be used in the classroom. In preparation for this assignment, her lecturer gave a brief demo of Dreamweaver, and suggested that students who couldn’t figure out the program could just design their site in PowerPoint (yes that PowerPoint!) as a series of cross-linked slides and export them to HTML.
Now, Jess is studying to teach drama and English, so she could easily have taken the path of least resistance, but as we had just received our office copies of Ian Lloyd’s Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS, I dropped one …
Adobe CS2 breaks Intel Apple Macs
Last week, I realized that we needed an Apple Mac for SitePoint’s upcoming Photoshop Anthology book.
Being a PC-centric office, the poor old G3 that we use for browser testing was looking more like it belonged in an antique shop than up for the challenge of rendering a 300 page full-colour book, so we purchased a brand new Intel Core Duo Mac Mini for the task instead. It was all very exciting — the package was so tiny and exquisite, the instructions minimal and simplified, the design of the tiny white box so refined and sleek. My mind began picturing all sorts of geeky scenarios, mostly involving Boot Camp, and I immediately became the envy of the office.
Unfortunately it wasn’t long-lived. You see, basic functionality is not related in any way to how sexy your computer looks.
Here’s the thing that really surprised me though: it wasn’t any under-the-hood meddling that got me into trouble, it was basic conflicts with run-of-the-mill standard software. What’s one of the very first things you would do when purchasing an Intel Mac Mini? That’s right, you would install the latest software updates from Apple, as well as the Adobe CS2 suite. Unfortunately, that combination of software …
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