In a previous article about crappy silos, I shared a common loop that happens whenever someone needs help outside their immediate team.
On the one hand, I made the point that Alice and Bob are …
Because I run a herd of high-level engineers – the team averages 15 years experience – the topics of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and now non-fungible tokens (NFT) come up pretty …
When you hear the term “silo” used to describe business structures, it is nearly always a pejorative, a “four letter word” in the truest sense. Development teams that subscribe …
It seems like everyone picked up a new hobby during the 2020 quarantine. Mine was obviously not blogging, however in the last few months of the year I finally made good on a personal goal and launched …
Most resume advice is high-flown crap. The titles and introductions describe resume content and structure as a series of mystic combinations.
“Say this, don’t say that. Use this …
COVID-19 has prompted the single largest migration of workers from brick-and-mortar office locations to a remote work-from-home format, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.
I should probably back …
I'm a long-time fan of Asus motherboards for my custom PC builds, however that positive experience has been stretched to the breaking point with my latest round of upgrades.
I recently needed to find a service provider in my area, and considered subscribing to Angie’s List for all those amazing customer reviews that they like to tout. As a seasoned customer of …
Steve Wilhite, inventor of the GIF image file format, accepted a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award this past week. His acceptance "speech" is understated epic-ness.
WebSVN is an open source subversion repository browser written in PHP, offering a compelling alternative to the more obtuse ViewVC and the commercial Atlassian Fisheye.
By default, WebSVN does not …
Here’s the command list to quickly create a self-signed SSL certificate from the Linux command line. You can copy/paste each line to the shell to generate the key.
It assumes you will place each …
I was reviewing the data storage requirements for a project recently which had me talking in terabytes, and thinking long-term in petabytes. For those of you who don’t know, tera- and peta- are …
I’m not much of a sports guy, but this sack celebration by Eagles’ Linebacker Brian Rolle in last night’s game against the Giants has to be one of the best defensive celebrations …
You may (or may not) have noticed this site was down for the past few days, displaying a blank page no matter what URL was entered. After recalling that I had turned off PHP error onscreen outputting, …
Earlier today I installed what I thought was an update to the Xvid codec in order to watch a video. I should have been more careful with the source, as their installer proceeded to modify my Firefox …
Today I had to make an Apache rewrite that redirected a custom URL not only to a different page, but also to a specific anchor link on the destination page. In other words, /foobar had to actually …
You run a Linux web server, and have painstakingly crafted custom backup processes for all your important data. Undoubtedly, the backup copies end up being stored in the form of a tar archive. …
Here’s the scenario: You have a remote-hosted Linux server that you currently access via SSH by entering a username and password. You would like to use a public/private key pair so that you …
My I was trotting along the tubes today with my trusty steed StumbleUpon, when I came across a new iPhone app called Word Lens. I could try to explain how they use the camera to translate signs and …
PHP IDS is an intrusion detection system written in PHP. It allows developers to incorporate security analysis directly into their systems. Since it’s written in PHP, it can go wherever the site …
This post is part of a series for new entrepreneurs looking to get their first business idea off the ground. Don’t get investors or build the prototype just yet, sit down and answer some basic …
Several would-be entrepreneurs reached out to me at the end of the year, seeking advice on how to get started with their business ideas. In the course of those conversations, I realized that ideas and …
I had the great fortune of being interviewed by the guys over at MO.com earlier this month, discussing Fwd:Vault and what I’ve learned about starting a business in general. Who’s MO.com? …
My friend Tim Murphy recently launched entrepreneur-startup-guide.com to chronicle his adventures in starting his own company, and one of his first pieces recounts a conversation we had over lunch.
So …
Fwd:Vault’s been listed on the startup review site Discovering Startups, which is cool in and of itself. However they also run a monthly contest for most popular startup, and the winner gets …
I’ll be down on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville this week showing off Fwd:Vault at the Innovation Expo at Global Finals, the year-end celebration event for Destination …
In my off-hours, I tutor a very talented young man on computers, programming, and IT. Our work is usually short exercises, but every now and then we drum up something that might be of use. The …
I found an article today describing the things that really lousy clients say that make their said lousiness obvious. I did a lot of head-nodding, but was disappointed that they didn’t include …
I had the opportunity to exhibit at the Entrepreneur Expo in Philadelphia last week. As the first public showcasing for Fwd:Vault, I think it went pretty well. If you really want to hone your message, …
This one has dogged me for quite some time, but I finally figured out how to force users to turn on Javascript when using sites with a lot of mission critical Javascript logic. Let me first begin by …
Next week I’ll be showcasing Fwd:Vault at the Entrepreneur Expo, powered by Philly Startup Leaders. The event is designed to celebrate all things entrepreneurial, and really show off …
When the new and often unexpected come around the corner at me, fear never dominates my reaction, because change presents opportunity.
Anytime things change — at work, at home, in society at large — …
After launching Fwd:Vault last month, it’s been a race to add the necessary features and functions to take the service broader. First on the list was more subscription tiers. I launched with …
I hear Toyota is contemplating a quick makeover to their current logo and tagline…
Wish I could take credit for it, but at least it comes complements of fellow PSL member Eight Eleven.
Update: …
My wife says I’m too much of a cynic. That may be true, but this is one beef that, after 200,000+ flight miles, I simply cannot ignore any longer. Why should anyone suffer needlessly? I spent …
We all know most TV is pretty banal, but every now and then something comes along that provides insight, makes you think. So if you ever wondered what it’s really like to be the boss, you need …
If you’ve read this blog before, you know I’m a big Firefox fan. But the one problem that has dogged me is the inevitable bloat that Firefox suffers when open for long periods of time. I …
Reviews for Apple’s iPad are all over the place. Personally, I feel that tablets have tried and failed enough times in the general consumer market to call the concept dead. iPad will likely find …
Today is something of a landmark for me. Just a few minutes ago, I launched my first full-time commercial venture when I flipped the switches and took Fwd:Vault out of beta. There’s an …
I typically hate the random flash games that go around the web, but I stumbled on one today that’s actually pretty fun, if only because of the mechanic at work. It’s called Invisible …
I had an interesting experience the other day at my local BJ’s (it’s like Sam’s Club and Costco). I had finished loading my items into my car, and was returning the cart to the …
Avatar was a fantastic movie. A feast for the eyes and a halfway decent storyline, Hollywood actually got it right. But I don’t think that I was as amazed at the imagery as the larger …
If you still don’t have any plans this evening and will be in the downtown Philadelphia area, you’re welcome to come out and meet me at the Philly Startup Leaders next Fishbowl event. …
The latest and greatest version of jQuery, version 1.4, was released on January 14, the birthday of jQuery’s original launch. Bugfixes and improvements abound! The jQuery team has put together a …
According to Search Engine Land, Google has been letting a “small number” of users try out a revamp to the search results page, and yours truly has been lucky enough to stumble onto it a …
I’m usually dreadfully behind on viral sensations, so this time I’m gonna stay ahead of the curve this time. This aired on American Idol last night:
A “Pants on the Ground” …
I know it’s last minute, but I’ll be at the PSL Happy Hour event tonight, mostly to plug my Fishbowl event next week. I’d love for you to come on out, grab a beer, and shoot the …
Fwd:Vault is hosting Philly Startup Leader’s next Fishbowl event, and you’re invited to attend for free! So what’s a Fishbowl? An event that lives up to its namesake, really. One …
The term “CV” seems to be making the rounds in professional programming circles lately. If you had the same head-tilting “Huh?” reaction that I did, here’s the deal. CV …
I visited my town hall this week to renew my annual street parking permit and, since all permits expire at end of the year, naturally there was a line. Amid the usual banter while my paperwork was …
Everyone at this point knows the story of Michael Vick (quick summary if you don’t: he beat dogs, then got his high-paying job back after getting out of prison). Now the Philadelphia Eagles have …
My summarizing and opining post discussing MySQL founder Michael Widenius’ protest of the Sun purchase by Oracle prompted a response from none other than Monty himself. Hit the comments to see …
In case you haven’t heard, Sun is being bought by Oracle. After dancing around the issue in blog posts over the past 8 months, MySQL developer-founder Michael “Monty” Widenius …
I was just perusing ThinkGeek for Christmas gift ideas when I noticed that the overflow graphics — the stuff that appears to left and right of the main content at larger screen resolutions — was …
A friend passed along his latest recommendation for USB sticks, the Patriot Xporter XT Boost 4GB Flash Drive (newegg link). Rugged exterior, and apparently legendary transfer speeds. New Egg is always …
I ran into the Youth Minister for my high school youth group at a friend’s wedding a few weeks back, and he graciously offered me the opportunity to write a letter to be read aloud at an …
I recently made the decision to store times on Fwd:Vault systems in Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT. I decided to do this because I have time-sensitive events happening along several dimensions. Email …
After my post discussing how vendor-client relationships are complete crap most of the time — which was really a thinly veiled excuse to post a funny vid — a friend of mine posted a response on my …
Saw this post come across the community section the official Digg blog today discussing changes to the ads they’re running in the PC Games section. The mind-blowing line:
And if advertising …
This is one facet of business that I simply never understood, and always drove me nuts. My boss would ask me to “get a better price,” and I’d have to go back to the vendor and …
Came across this BusinessWeek article (published on Yahoo!) today discussing companies that “embody the creativity and resiliency common among today’s entrepreneurs.” They do make it …
I was submitting a good business-oriented discussion about SEO just now to StumbleUpon and I noticed they’ve changed how submissions of a new site work. Before, you picked a category for the …
I was quoted in an article over at IT Expert Voice that pooled advice from hardened IT Veterans on the process of rolling out a new OS in a business environment. There’s plenty of great advice …
There’s a new post on the Fwd:Vault blog discussing a new website I found that makes installing and updating the most common desktop software a breeze. Check it out for a review as well as some …
I was reminded today of Office Max’s classic series of commercials set to the tune of Rubberband Man by the Spinners and starring Eddie Steeples who now stars on the television show My Name Is …
It’s a common problem with no single right answer: extract the top domain (e.g. example.com) from a given string, which may or may not be a valid URL. I had need of such functionality recently …
Any “decent” website is going to do the following:
look pleasant work in most browsers load in a timely fashion present approachable navigation layout These are all the base requirements, …
I’ve been keeping up with the release of presenter videos from the Future of Web Apps London 2009 event. If you never read it, or only caught my initial post, you may want to check back on it, …
I don’t watch professional sports, but I was really glad that I decided to watch NLCS game 4 last night. The Dodgers maintained a lead through the second half of the game, and got the Phillies …
The Future of Web Apps conference is so right up my alley it’s almost stupid that I couldn’t attend. Web development with a focus on business: customer service, driving traffic, marketing, …
As you probably heard, President Obama was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Nobel Prize website, the award was granted to him “for his extraordinary efforts to …
If you need to change the timezone of a Debian system, your searches will probably tell you to use the tzselect utility. That will only change the timezone for the server temporarily. Use that command …
Say you’ve got two tables with the same structural layout but contain logically different information. A common example would be storing “deleted” records in a separate table to …
I wanted to post another post in the “for fun” category on Friday, but couldn’t come up with anything decent. Late-night stumbles to the rescue! Better late than never, right? …
It was released in mid-September, but it’s the first update to iBegin Share since earlier this year. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know that I’ve spoken …
I hate using the word “solution” when it comes to software: it implies that it solves problems. Software never solves problems, quite the opposite in a lot of cases. At best it can only …
Got some questions from a PSL member via email the other day. They are pretty common questions for anyone starting their first ecommerce website, so I thought I’d share the questions and my …
I was quoted in another IT World article last week discussing how mentoring occurs in open source communities. Below is the full text I sent to the author, in case anyone wanted more background on my …
Vindication! I gave up on the keywords meta tag long ago, but plenty of “SEO gurus” say you should still fill it with a moderate amount of garbage loosely relating to your site. Like I …
Are you planning to attend a trade show or expo to showcase your product or service? Costs surrounding these events tend to run into the ridiculous category, even for established companies. If …
I’ll admit it, I was real lazy getting on the SEO train. It took starting my own company for me to finally start paying attention. SEO for my previous major site work was handled for me. …
A recent computer repair delivery left me with a huge box full of packing peanuts.
This turned out to be a pretty fun toy for my cat Fox this afternoon, despite his reluctance...
When I was a Comcast customer, the cable quality itself was decent but everything around it sucked. Everything cost way too much. FYI, all the prices you see them advertise — you know, the ones that …
In my life as a full-time employee, I ran a membership management system for an international non-profit that organized over 40,000 volunteers at the local, state, and national levels in almost 30 …
Living in a Philly suburb, I never thought my Philly proximity would have any effect on my startup, Fwd:Vault. However that was before I discovered the Philly Startup Leaders. Comprised of small …
With all the fancy cURL-based API’s out there these days (Facebook and Twitter immediately come to mind), using cURL to directly access and manipulate data is becoming quite common. However like …
I just posted a new article over at the Fwd:Vault Blog discussing the antivirus software I use for myself and my customers’ computers…
I learned long ago that every type of utility …
The best part of playing Valve’s Portal was listening to GLaDOS “encourage” you throughout the game. The lines she delivers are just fantastic. Recently I found a site plugin …
With the untimely and unfortunate death of beloved Logitech G5, I was forced to quickly find a replacement. While I know I could simply get a replacement, I figured it might be time to look for newer …
So I was testing some updates to Fwd:Vault’s mail processing logic today, and I was using a billing message I received from 1&1. While tracking down a bug, I noticed a fantastic header line …
As an email-based backup service, Fwd:Vault ran into spam filters pretty quickly. Most of this can be mitigated with proper server configuration and getting records in the right places (i.e. …
My code for displaying Twitter posts on your site is pretty handy, but it does have drawbacks. Each page load involves calling a remote URL, downloading a resulting XML file, and parsing the results, …
The guys from big G never cease to amaze me. I was deleting an old coupon message from Pro Flowers today and accidentally hit the “Report Spam” button instead of “Delete”, and …
After eight months of development, Fwd:Vault — the secure data backup service that operates entirely through email — is ready and waiting for you.
This is a free beta release, so anyone can sign up …
Just the latest entry in my get inspired series, my wife let me in on this one. It’s apparently made the news and ended up in more than a few facebook posts, so I am (as usual) just late to …
The following screenshot was taken from the documentation for Google Page Speed (aka the Google version of YSlow), under the section “Parallelize downloads across hostnames”…
I …
If I store critical data in an Amazon S3 bucket, do I need to keep a backup copy somewhere else, or duplicate everything to a second bucket? I searched high and low for an answer to the question, and …
A few months ago I published an article describing how to output a Twitter stream on a page using PHP, and later followed up with two more to polish the display. The article content and code examples …
An effective business always remembers that their relationship with a client is a two-way street. If the client isn’t holding up their end of the bargain, the company can and should drop them. …
Dave Ramsey is a fantastic businessman with an approach to businesses and finances that eschews what works over what’s hot. Given Wall Street’s track record of late, I’d say …
I don’t know why this is mind bending, but I seem to hit a wall every time I want to do page manipulations involving `
boxes. Particularly, when I want to **change** the value selected. Based on …
In a great article discussing how to demo a product to investors, Jason Calacanis says the following under the heading “The best products take less than five minutes to demo”…
Steve …
jQuery is awesome. The jQuery Alerts plugin is also awesome. One of the most immediate and obvious uses of the pair is presenting a spiffy confirmation box before submitting a form. For example, I …
While my MS complaints are (rightly) focused on their desktop apps, I knew Microsoft would end up in this series at some point. However, even I was surprised at how quickly it happened. These guys …
“Should I use TEXT or VARCHAR field here?”
I’ve lost count of the number of times that I asked myself this question when putting together database structures. Since the maximum a …
My brother, Patrick, plays lacrosse for Gettysburg College. Last weekend they beat Stevenson University — an upset by the stats, but they owned the game — which advanced them to the NCAA Division III …
While working on the file manager section of the Fwd:Vault website, I decided to do a quick check on cross-browser compatibility. The following screenshots are of the same page using the same HTML …
I wanted to log all the errors thrown out by Fwd:Vault processes to ensure that any bugs I don’t catch myself bubble to the top very quickly. To get started, I replaced PHP’s default error …
Factoid about me: PlanetSide ranks in the top 5 for my all-time favorite gaming experiences. A persistent MMO world that was essentially a massive FPS match, there was nothing like it. You’d be …
Maybe I’m just getting more cynical, but I’ve been finding a lot more sites doing really stupid things that serve only to piss off their users. As a result I’ve decided to start a …
Let’s start the weekend on a really high note. A family member forwarded this video over to me the other day:
Love what you saw? Then check out the Playing for Change website to see more videos, …
Last night I attended the first Entrepreneur Unplugged event sponsored by Philly Startup Leaders. I think it’s a great idea; people from the front lines sharing war stories. Insights and advice …
One of the best sites I’ve come across in a while that wasn’t in StumbleUpon (but is now).
http://www.howtonailaninterview.com
If you’re looking for really good interview advice …
I recently discovered an issue with the mailing list signup on the Fwd:Vault placeholder site. [Aside: It was perfect when I set it up, I swear there are gremlins in my code sometimes. If you tried to …
This is the kind of “usability fail” that drives me nuts, especially from a company of Google’s caliber. When you add a new site to Google Analytics, they present you with the …
Want to know how well your software is doing? Look for the absence of complaints. Compliments are always fantastic to receive, but are not consistently delivered, and hence not representative of your …
The Fwd:Vault website has a new placeholder page! With Fwd:Vault claiming victory in the Elevator Pitch Contest, and thus imminent global domination, I thought it was high time we give that dusty old …
The winners for StartupNation’s 2009 Elevator Pitch Competition were announced today, and no one was more surprised than I to find out that Fwd:Vault was selected as one of them! That link will …
I posted a few weeks back describing an issue I was experiencing with logging into Gmail from Firefox. Firefox was corrupting Gmail cookies whenever the browser started, so I had to clear cookies each …
Core PHP does not include a define_once() function to complement functions like require_once() and include_once(), which is pretty silly in my opinion. While I am generally not a fan of using *_once …
I was recently discussing Fwd:Vault with a typical end user, specifically how our service is completely oriented towards people who simply cannot or will not bother with anything technical. She …
“My software works great when there aren’t any users around to screw it up.” Any developer will tell you that the biggest challenge on any project is the end user. They’re …
Since announcing my work on Fwd:Vault, a few friends have come forward expressing interest in being angel investors. From what I’ve read, most entrepreneurs have to seek such people out, so …
If you missed my post a few days ago detailing the pros and cons of four major social networking tools — AddThis, ShareThis, Add to Any, and iBegin Share — you owe it to yourself to quickly review it …
PHP includes some handy functions to find the first or last occurrence of a given string token in a string: <a href="http://www.php.net/strpos">strpos</a> and <a …
Update: Make sure you check out the comments! My post is just a launching point for some great commentary from staff at iBegin Share and Add to Any. Every site with timely or useful content should …
I purchased Mario Kart Wii and decided to register it at Club Nintendo. It’s an interesting service and I’m playing along to see where they go with it. If you want to register your own …
Voting ended a few days ago for StartupNation’s 2009 Elevator Pitch Competition, and Fwd:Vault had a pretty good showing! Here’s a final tally on the top 10…
* CineCore - 1573 * My …
During the networking hour at my last entrepreneurial networking event, I had the pleasure of meeting two fellow young starters who are starting their own identity consultancy (I’d love to link, …
Fwd:Vault's got some press, woohoo!
I was approached by Philadelphia Startup Blog for an interview on Fwd:Vault. The interview was done via email and just went live today. Check it out and let me know how I did.
In case you haven’t looked at my sidebar in the last month or so, my new startup Fwd:Vault is entered in StartupNation’s 2009 Elevator Pitch Competition. Through endless harassment support …
I’ve become a big-time RSS junkie in the last few months. Google Reader is my preferred format, but I am looking into some of the desktop-based readers. I’ve picked up on a subtle trend …
Update:
Xenocode has decided to eschew usability in favor of...well nothing really. In order to use the browser sandboxes now, you must "initialize" them from the site, which amounts to downloading …
If you follow the Fwd:Vault Developer Diary, you saw today that I was neck deep in upgrading the server that runs everything around here. While the server updated, I worked on Fwd:Vault code. The web …
I’ve found that the number of new comments on a post drops off considerably the older a post gets. It’s not surprising; you’ve probably seen the same thing in your own travels around …
I just hopped onto Steam, gearing up for some TF2, and I was presented with a fantastic news update. Some bootstrapping directors made a short film called Escape From City 17. If you’ve played …
That’s what I keep getting everywhere I go in the Google universe for the past several days using Firefox (using latest stable release, v3.0.6). I know I’m not the only one, I’ve …
Fwd:Vault is participating in StartupNation’s 2009 Elevator Pitch Competition. The idea is to submit a 1-2 minute elevator pitch, and have the world review your pitch and idea, then rate it. The …
As a developer, I’m a heavy Firefox user, but Google’s Chrome browser is pretty awesome for day-to-day browsing. Since it syncs with all my cookies and saved passwords from Firefox, I can …
I love the PHPMailer system. Straightforward, effective, very well documented and supported. It’s everything that a piece of software should be, and best of all it’s free. The parent …
To: Anyone at Apple who works on iPod/iTunes
From: Annoyed iPod Shuffle user
Subject: Stop deleting my songs Message:
A recent run was rudely cut short when I realized that my iPod Shuffle contained …
http://www.cakespy.com/2009/01/taking-it-to-sweet-cupcake-street-art.html Sure they’re handing out cupcakes instead of backstabs, but it’s still pretty hilarious. And awesome. If that …
Any discussion of encryption from a programmer’s perspective almost inevitably leads to public key encryption. This elaborate handshaking process ensures a totally private connection between two …
I have a friend who showed me something on the WineAccess homepage tonight that just made me laugh. Check it out. See anything wrong with that picture? How about the “What You Missed” …
When I’m not coding, I’m gaming. Pretty standard formula. My latest gaming indulgence is Valve’s Left 4 Dead, offering the most original take on the first person shooter formula that …
Well this is interesting. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said security on the device has been “enhanced.” Reality-check: it’s still on the BlackBerry network (as far as I know), …
Jeff Atwood’s latest post on Coding Horror provides great insight into the history and mindset of one of the Computer Science greats, Alan Kay. It’s a good read for any computer …
FYI if you run Mirror’s Edge on your PC and the sound effects are all outta whack, check to see if you have a Realtek sound card installed. Their older high definition drivers don’t work …
Ran into another cool hurdle today for my Fwd:Vault development. When I grab the message content to archive it in the system, first thing I do is scrub it out to ensure that (a) it displays properly, …
I’ve been working furiously on the back end logic for Fwd:Vault for the past few weeks, specifically the logic that processes incoming messages/attachments, archiving them in the system, or …
From a recent post in the Signal vs. Noise blog…
(1) Windows 7 Explorer vs. (2) Dance Dance Revolution. I’ve never seen an illustration, written or visual, that flawlessly encompasses …
Anyone who knows me knows that starting and running my own business has been a lifelong goal of mine. Since I was 12, I would routinely generate ideas for new ventures and play them out in my head. …
A lot has changed with the content and focus of the site since I started, So you’ll find that posts are now broken down into three categories: For anyone, For entrepreneurs, and For techies. I …
In an email conversation the other day about extending PHP at the core level, I added the following after providing some direction:
Learning more always improves your ability to learn, which is the …
There are a lot of loud voices out there—Jason Fried and the team at 37 Signals, Jeff Atwood, and Joel Spolsky all come to mind—proclaiming that one of the biggest problems with software today is …
A cursory glance around the web will reveal a ton of PHP-based random string generators. With enough looking you’ll find generators that do any of the following:
Strings with letters Strings …
I’ve learned that one of the biggest office-cluttering offenders when you run a company is receipts. The government wants to see them for tax purposes, so you hold onto every last one to save …
I’m absolutely in love with the status update stream I’ve put together for Fwd:Vault (follow link for example). However in the process, I’ve discovered a huge drawback to the Twitter …
I previously discussed why certain “automagical” features can sometimes facilitate the creation of crappy code. However they only create a possibility of crappy code. Today I want to warn …
I awoke to an e-mail this morning containing the following…
We are sad to announce that Pownce is shutting down on December 15, As of today, Pownce will no longer be accepting new users or new …
Building off my last post, where I showed you how to easily display any public Twitter feed on your site, I ran into another problem: the dates that are delivered by the Twitter API all reflect …
Update: I’ve added a new chunk of code that will download and store your Twitter posts in a database, allowing you to do whatever the heck you want with them. After you’ve finished reading …
Across every language, platform, and experience level, you can summarize all programmers into just two groups: Those who are constantly learning, and those who think they know everything. The ones who …
Alright, I admit up front that this is a pretty specific problem, but hopefully some Googlers will find it useful. I recently had need for a small side project to read e-mails. Every e-mail is split …
Over the last few years, I’ve noticed that the PHP community has, in general, started to favor include_once() and require_once() over the more standard include() and require(). For the …
As developers, most of us are always mulling over ideas for potential new services to bring to the world. Who wouldn’t want to say they came up with something Digg, Wikipedia, eBay, etc? And …
For the twelve people who subscribe to my feed, you may have noticed that it had gone bye-bye while I migrated the site. We’re back on track now, and I apologize for the downtime. If you …
As if you really needed to hear this, but in case you...
* Don't know what DRM is
* Are a music/movie industry person suffering a cranial-rectum issue
* Are a moron (most likely a #2 in denial)
...here's a fancy visual:
I was crash-coursing myself on PHP’s IMAP functionality recently, one of the first questions I came across was how I might store the date from an e-mail header in a MySQL DATETIME field. I was …
Recently I needed to automate copying a MySQL database to a backup server. We keep a copy of our site and DB on this box in the event that our main systems go down, or there’s a problem with our …
Deep down, I think everyone is inspired by the concept of world unity, but we usually leave it to air-headed beauty queens and Hollywood celebri-tards to talk about it. After all, if your not a world …
It seems to be some rite of passage for tech-focused blogs that they create a list of their favorite Firefox extensions. Who am I to break custom? If you’re not a web-developer, you can ignore …
I am a huge fan of AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition. It provides the same level of virus protection as the pay-for packages—don’t be fooled, the differences are bells and whistles—and because …
A coworker turned me onto the webcomic xkcd earlier this summer. If you are reading this (there’s a philosophy joke here somewhere…), then you’ll probably appreciate the humor of …
Whenever I get into a discussion about web usability or UI, I always use the same analogy to describe how to succeed in making happy users. At this point, it’s stood up to a fair amount of …
When writing SQL statements, sometimes I want to filter the result set based on a value that must be computed out of the stored data. Here’s an example: [code=“sql”]SELECT widgetID, …
Over at ClassicWines, we recently experienced a login issue, where data was not being saved to the session after submitting valid credentials. Enter your username, password, and you would end up back …
Okay, so it took me WAY longer than a week to get this up, I apologize. However, as promised, here is the second half of Peter Coles’ walkthrough of Eclipse. This portion focuses on the actual …
When I went to the Zen Cart Conference in Toronto in April, I had the great pleasure of meeting Peter Coles, owner and operator of Kuroi, a web design firm based in the UK. Peter is definitely one of …
So far in our discussion about what drives really good modular coding, I’ve presented override coding logic, and emphasized the importance of legibility and writing standards. I’ve found …
I’m a huge fan of Jeff Atwood and his blog, Coding Horror. He writes in a very approachable manner, using a down-to-earth tone and easy-to-follow examples. He offers useful information to new …
My last post discussed my conversion to JavaScript frameworks, and why you should be one too. I explained that I settled on jQuery because it simplified how I write JavaScript without strictly locking …
For those of you who don’t know, “veterinarian” is Latin for “hellish education gauntlet.” Anyway, today was my wife’s last day of veterinary school. I just got a …
We’ve been really into jQuery at our office for the past few weeks, and I have to say that I am absolutely in love with it. Coming from the world of writing “classical” JavaScript in …
In the first post of my modular code series, we talked about overrides and how they are an important, and often overlooked, feature to consider in any code project. Today we will discuss an equally …
This weekend is the first ever Zen Cart Developer’s Conference, and I am very happy to say I will be attending. Saturday is a meet ’n greet between the founders and some of the community …
If you code long enough, you’ll eventually hear that you should write your code in a modular fashion. Problem is, the ivory tower sage who told you to do that can’t communicate beyond the …
Though developer by trade, I think I can talk CSS fairly intelligently with any hardcore designer. But the one thing that always eluded me a bit was the “em” sizing element. I could never …
The latest trend in perfecting “the message” in the internet age has been to optimize content for search engine indexing, aggregation, and delivery through the voodoo of search engine optimization – …
Having just spent several hours doing some basic setup on a new WordPress blog, I can safely agree with the masses that it is indeed an excellent, well-written program. Even the most tech-inept …