Create A Website

Fast Prototype Primer

create a website — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:00:59 +0000

A couple of links related to the Javascript library Prototype:
Quick Guide to Prototype
Developer Notes for prototype.js

Improving Wordpress Performance

create a website — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:56:30 +0000

Looking at using Wordpress on a site that needs to handles many requests? This presentation discusses and refers to methods improve performance of your Wordpress-based site.

Modifying Wordpress Rewrite Rules - small problem + solution

create a website — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:05:48 +0000

add_filter('rewrite_rules_array','yourawesomefunction');

I had to look at the Wordpress core code to work this out - thought I was going nuts. If you apply new rewrite rules using the rewrite_rules_array filter you need to ensure that you refresh the rewrite rules that Wordpress has stored in a hidden option. You do this by simply resaving the Permalink Structure under the Options menu in the admin area of your WP install.

Not immediately obvious that this would be required, but makes sense that they generate the rules and store them at this point.

Bugs in WS_FTP after Multiple Versions

create a website — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:17:49 +0000

Update: I watered this down after someone from Ipswitch contacted me interested in resolving the issues. I will post progress.

I use WS_FTP by Ipswitch as an FTP client partly just through habit and the issues with migrating a bunch of accounts across to new software. There are some continuing issues with the software that bug the hell out of me.

These have been there multiple versions and I have seen these issues on multiple computers (XP and Vista).

When using “Link Folders” and moving through directories and where the directories are not present on the client machine (and being created by the software) at some point the software can lose track of the link and link the wrong directory on the client machine. If you are not paying attention you end up with a bunch of folders you will need to delete.
A similar issue - after uploading a file the current directory will change on the client or server. If you don’t spot this it is very easy to overwrite a file (think index.php!).
Occasionally the software will crash completely when trying to delete a folder on the client.

I will list any other issues I come across here. Maybe someone will take notice and respond.

Implementing Free Geolocation with PHP Using Maxmind’s GeoLite Country

create a website — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:58:21 +0000

Need to serve up different content for people from different countries? Or track users by country? Or make a site more usable by providing options relevant to a particular country? I recently had a small programming task which required pre-selection of a country field based on the visitor’s country.

Maxmind offers a free Geolocation database, GeoLite Country which allows lookup of country from an IP. They claim it to be 99.3% accurate. They have a paid version that is more accurate. They also offer other databases, including one to lookup a city from an IP. The database is available as CSV data or in binary format. The binary format is very easy to implement as they provide APIs in a variety of languages. I used their PHP API. There are code samples to get things going quickly.

I used their PHP class which was the easiest to implement. Simply upload the class file and binary file and require the class file. The calls are simple and the lookup is fast. Very easy to implement.

Stop Apple Software Update trying to install Safari all the freakin time …

create a website — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:15:02 +0000

Update - one more thing while I remember. What is the use of an update utility that ignores your previous preferences? Why do I get a Quicktime link in the Quick Launch area every time it updates? As a rule I have found Apple’s software to be miles behind their hardware in usability and intuitiveness. Why is that?

Don’t want Safari? Apple wants you to want it and obscures the way to stop this.

Found this information on a forum somewhere …

1. Run Apple Software Update (there is probably link in your start menu somewhere)
2. Check for updates so you can see the Safari option.
3. Highlight Safari (I had to click the checkbox as well).
4. Choose Tools from the top menu.
5. Click Ignore Selected Updates.

In theory the software shouldn’t check for it again.

Amazon’s Seller Central SOAP API

create a website — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:29:53 +0000

Very disappointing experience working with Amazon.com’s Seller Central APIs. Their documentation is frankly very bad. Undocumented and incorrectly documented aspects will make the curve to get this working unnecassarily steep. Their support is not responsive. The forums are not overly helpful although you can see similar issues coming up. Disappointing for such a large and groundbreaking web-based company, especially as they are looking to promote their Web Services infrastructure to developers.

The comments in this article are very accurate of my thoughts/experience implementing Amazon’s Seller Central SOAP API using PHP (they are using Java) …

My time getting to the ‘hello world’ stage on this interface was measured in days vs minutes for pretty much every other system I have worked with.

Good notes on implementing Amazon’s Seller Central SOAP API

That article should help anyone regardless of the particular language they are using to do this. It helped me with one important final aspect that was undocumented by Amazon.

For more specific notes on doing this with PHP check out the last chapter of this book …

The Web Developer’s Guide To Amazon E-Commerce Service

A couple of key things in there will overcome issues with the particular way the Amazon SOAP server works. There will still be problems - but that will get you much of the way.

Note: don’t waste your time with Amazon AIM. As the article above mentions, unless you have an old account migrated from Amazon’s Marketplace system it will only work to download reports - it will not allow adding or updating products.

Great Article on Unicode and Character Sets

create a website — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:41:56 +0000

It is easier as a developer who deals with English 99.9% of the time to overlook this stuff - especially in PHP - until you open and try to manipulate a bunch of .txt file not even thinking about the variety of Unicode formats. Found this rather enlightening …

The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)

Good for any PHP coder to read, especially as the documentation on this stuff at PHP.net is a bit on the lean side.

Update:Character Sets / Character Encoding Issues from WACT with lots of PHP-specific information.

Simple liquid layout with CSS

create a website — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:31:39 +0000

Article on how to make a liquid layout, which is a layout that adjusts as the user adjusts the browser width. This method works across browsers and uses absolute positioning.

read more | digg story

Death to Web 2.0 Design Trends …

create a website — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:58:08 +0000

Thought this presentation was quite entertaining …

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Interesting Presentation on Web Development Standards

create a website — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:52:06 +0000

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Free PHP Peelads - with plugin version for Wordpress

create a website — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:09:47 +0000

I have seen Peelads running on a few sites. I like them as a non-obtrusive way to feature content or ads. I thought there must be some free code to run them. Sure enough, there is - Pageear.

What is even better is there are plugins for CMS software, including this Wordpress Pagepeel Plugin. Very easy to install and configure. Just upload a 100×100 image and a 500×500 image for the initial peel and the full display and set a URL.

Works well. Recommended.

Testing out OpenX - PHP-based Ad delivery

create a website — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:55:24 +0000

I have a couple of sites I want to run ads on and just installed open-source ad server, OpenX. The installation was easy. I plan to run the first tests here - so watch out!

I tried this out years ago as PHPAdsNew. New name and new product really. My first impressions are good. Will post how I go once I get into it some more.

Here is a walkthrough of setting up a campaign …

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Reflow

create a website — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:19:53 +0000

Came across an article on “reflow”:

the process by which the geometry of the layout engine’s formatting objects are computed

(from the Mozilla page on reflow)
Here is an example that DougT found for Wikipedia …

There are more: what is reflow

Follow up to the last post: A collection of creative 404 Pages

create a website — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:57:32 +0000

Some high quality and impressive looking 404 pages.

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Creating User Friendly Error Pages

create a website — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:52:07 +0000

We might understand what 404 means, but many users do not. Some good tips to provide a more helpful error page to the user when a page cannot be found.

read more | digg story

Reflections on Images with Javascript …

create a website — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:39:45 +0000

Came across this blog article on a Javascript Reflection Script. You can see demos there. It degrades well for browsers that don’t support it, but it supports the versions of the major browsers to come out in the last couple of years. It is very easy to implement. Include the .js file and then add a class to the specific image you want to reflect. The nice thing is it blends with backgrounds.

Produce Better CSS, HTML, Javascript Faster: 20 Useful Tools

create a website — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:31:48 +0000

Found this on Digg. A bunch of tools to help develop faster and better websites. Tools for producing, optimizing and testing CSS, HTML, and Javascript.

read more | digg story

Generating Barcodes with PHP

create a website — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:10:27 +0000

see below for the translation of the barcode

PHP Classes is always my first stop when looking for PHP code, no matter how advanced (or easy to be honest).

I have recently been working on a shopping cart system and implementing barcode generation, as well as allowing a barcode scanner be used as an input device to speed up aspects of order management and data entry.

There are a number of barcode generation classes at PHP Classes. Harish Chauhan’s Barcode Class has been very useful. His class supports a number of barcode standards and allows generation at various sizes. There is a simple form provided to allow generation of barcodes and demonstrate the features of the class.

I will update this when I have finished all the functionality.

The barcode scanner arrives in the morning!

Oh - and the barcode above says “www.createwebsite.info” in the code128 format.

UPDATE: here it is with the font uploaded for the text!

Presentation on Flash and Ajax

create a website — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:21:08 +0000

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