Posted on : 12-07-2010 | By : Brett | In : General
Foreword
Lately, when attempting to install extensions for MAMP, I’ve had a difficult time making my extensions work properly because my Darwin ports settings seem to override. Fortunately, I recently found a blog post with instructions that worked. There are a few steps that are different, however, for getting this to work with version 1.9. Therefore, I decided to post the original instructions with those modifications here. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been with my current company for 10+ years (at the time of writing.) It’s been a roller-coaster ride with ownership changing hands several times. But I’ve managed to hang on and I’m still riding even after the most recent change in drivers. Unfortunately, many have fallen out over the years and that leaves me to do two jobs: Web programmer and IT Administrator. Finding time to do both jobs well can be a problem to say the least. Read the rest of this entry »
Currently, I am working on a minimal MVC framework for a somewhat ambitious project. I chose to host this website using the latest and greatest: PHP-FPM on nginx running PHP 5.3. After realizing that I needed a form validation library, I came up with one that is fairly easy to use and somewhat extensible. This is the first time I have been able to use Closures in PHP code so maybe I am just a little bit geeky-giddy.
After nearly two months of using OS X, I think I have finally found my groove when it comes to doing my job. That is, writing code for websites, mainly in PHP.
For many years prior to using a Mac for PHP development, I had been using Windows or Linux and Zend Studio 5.x. When I was looking several months back for the Mac version download for my Zend Studio license, I was presented, instead, with a free upgrade to version 6. Wow, that was nice Zend! Unfortunately, the version I paid for (the “perpetual” license) was no longer there to download.
UPDATE: As of my last login to Zend, the 5.5.1 download was available. I installed and everything worked well. Still using Netbeans but appreciated all the same.
But hey! I got the brand-new version. That’s great right? Wrong! Zend decided to drink the Eclipse Kool Aid and completely changed an IDE that I had grown accustomed to (I guess it’s only fair to point out that Zend Studio 5.x was so old at this point that it was getting increasingly more difficult to install on more modern operating systems and newer java platforms.) In spite of the seemingly “over-bloat” of Zend Studio 6.0, I decided to give it a try. I must say that everything just felt wrong. Now I’m sure there are many PHP developers out there that have been using Eclipse for years and can’t live without it, but I just couldn’t seem to make it work my voodoo. I didn’t have the patience to get my Eclipse PHD, so I went looking elsewhere. That led me to a surprising alternative: Netbeans. Although very similar to Eclipse, an IDE with modules/plug-ins for multiple computer language support, Netbeans (entirely free) impressed me right on the spot. I know Zend Studio has all the same features more or less, but the way Netbeans is put together just seemed more natural to me (things I wanted to do actually worked.) Let it suffice to say that I have been using Netbeans since then and I haven’t looked back!
In this post, we will discover how to go about debugging a specific page in your website through setting up debugging in your MAMP stack, the free Netbeans IDE and your Firefox browser.
I’ve jumped in! I’ve slipped on the proverbial black turtleneck. Yes, I’m a switcher!
About a month ago I decided that my large, hot lead-brick-of-a-laptop, otherwise known as my HP Pavilion ZD8000, was getting a bit “long in the tooth.” On a hot July day, in my air-conditioned home office, it decided to to test my patience by overheating and shutting off without warning in approximately 10 minute intervals. My only thought, “Time to ship this sucker away!” Fortunately, my “brick” belonged to my employer. So, I asked for a new laptop; and I asked for a MacBook Pro!
Posted on : 13-07-2009 | By : Brett | In : Bretticus
Welcome to the new Brettic.us!
Besides changing my domain name, I decided to use a new blogging engine to boot. Drupal, while great, is just so much more than I needed. When I got looking into upgrading my drupal installation, it was apparent that WordPress would be much easier to update (and if time ever permits, to extend.) Besides, the WordPress administration layout is much better streamlined. Really, I just needed a blog with the ability to upload a page or two. WordPress does this in a manner that is both simple and elegant.
Perhaps, I will even be inspired to blog about something worthwhile a little more often now with all this newly found ease!
2000 years ago, it was Christians. Since reading recent blogs and after hanging out in a few chat rooms with the “techno-elite”, I’m thinking the newest group to be “thrown to the lions” are PHP developers.
It’s pretty apparent that some folks think that the phrase PHP programmer is an oxymoron. Does coding with PHP really mean that I’m a newbie?
Posted on : 06-09-2008 | By : Brett | In : Technology
Well, it’s been several months/years/millennium since my last blog post. However, lately, there have been a number of cool tech gadgets that have been released and I need a place to spout off my geek enthusiasm.
I am really digging the simplicity of Google’s new browser called Chrome. In case you haven’t been following the “Internets” these days, Chrome is Google’s attempt at a “new approach to the web browser.” Okay, so you may ask, “why do we need yet another web browser?” I mean, we do have Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (version 7.0 isn’t too terrible.) We have the very good and versatile Mozilla Firefox (my personal pick for quite a few years.) Don’t forget the under-rated and less-used Opera or the beautiful and refined Apple Safari (mostly used by the minority, techo-ellitist gang we like to call mac users who equate luxuriant expense with quality.) Google is touting that Chrome is different because it’s built for running the newly-prevalent torrent of Web applications that are coming on stage in today’s Web 2.0 world. Of course, some of the best examples include many of Google’s offerings such as Gmail and Google Docs. Because of the heavy client-side processing nature of these new Web applications, Chrome has some innovations that attempt to make “cloud computing” somewhat more palatable. The first innovation is that each browser tab is a browser unto itself. This means (for you tech savy individuals out there) that each tab “window” has it’s own process. That means that if one of your tabs hangs, only that tab needs killing. In other words, one tab doesn’t take down the whole browser (I wish they had a linux version. Firefox is always hanging for me in Ubuntu!) The second innovation (Among others. See Google’s comic book explanation for more information.) is new javascript engine called V8 that is supposed to increase browser speed for client-side processing and handle memory better (think leaving firefox running all day.)
Posted on : 29-06-2007 | By : Brett | In : Linux, Technology
Here’s a screencast video I made to demonstrate downloading the ie7 installer (the installer still does a WGA check but once you have the file, you can try and hack it.) I used firefox so I could pretend to be a browser running ie in windows to get past the first check. This is hard to see (I should have set my resolution higher.) By the way, I did not discover this. I heard it on a TWiT podcast and wanted to confirm this. So much for WGA checking.
Note: I should have increased my screen resolution. If you want to read what I did, follow the embedded youtube link.
Some folks who know me might say I have somewhat of an “addictive personality”. Not that I’m the “life of the party” or any other similar-meaning cliche. I really do tend to have my little vices. For instance, drinking Coke (the legal kind) is a habit I have tried to break for years…to no avail. Once upon a time, I ate a Whopper from Burger King every day for almost a year during college. The next year, I ate a Chicken Sandwich from Arby’s so frequently they started calling me “Chicken Man” at the drive up window. Yes, you guessed it, I have “what the doctors might call, ‘a little bit of a weight problem.’” (Crazily, I was somewhat slender during the college years. I guess I played enough hacky-sack to offset. Actually, I made my first Website in college. WARNING: Lame Content!)
Lately, my greatest guilty pleasure is the podcast. Which, in layman’s terms, is simply a privately-produced audio-cast, usually in the form of an mp3 file for download. A simpler explanation might be: a radio show on the Internet that you can download. I can’t seem to get enough of them. I am constantly checking TWIT for a new `Security Now`, `This Week in Tech`, `Mac Break` (I don’t even own a Mac), or `KFI Tech Guy` (surprisingly, my 2nd favorite to `Security Now`.) Thanks to my Woot script, I snagged an ultra-cheap SanDisk mp3 player. Couple that with my Walmart FM-modulator/SD-or-USB-Drive mp3 player and I’m now listening to PHP Architect on the morning drive instead of NPR. Instead of surfing for tech news at work, I’m listening to it while I work. Before I say this makes me more productive, I might mention the occasional podcast-inspired surfing tangent (Now if I could only get better inspired to finish my website.)
If you are a techie-nerd who likes to stay abreast of the latest-and-greatest that the wide world of geekdom can offer, you better check out podcasts (chances are you already have.)
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