SiteCrafting Blah Blah Blog
Apr. 1, 2008 at 9:48am
SiteCrafting to Expand into New Markets
Find out what's next for the high-growth company...
Seeing the time as ripe for expansion, SiteCrafting has launched a new venture in an effort to expand into prescription eyewear. SightCrafters, LLC will bring to the eyewear world what SiteCrafting has brought to the web development business.
Read moreComments (2) | Posted in Deep Thoughts, Horn Tooting, Latest Hits, Marketing, Testimonials by Nick Williams
Mar. 31, 2008 at 11:40am
Got API?
An API reference does a method's body good...
gotAPI.com is one of the most useful online resources I've come across, primarily because it places resources spread all over the internet into one simple site. I've been using this for quite some time, and have for the most part I have taken its usefulness for granted. Then it occurred to me that I might not be the only one that could find this tool useful (I know, it was a big 'DUH!' moment). So now I will share this gem with others...
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Comments (1) | Posted in ASP.NET 2.0, CSS, From the Workbench, Javascript, MS SQL Server, MySQL, PHP, Review, Software Engineering, XHTML by Nick Williams
Mar. 26, 2008 at 12:41pm
Make PHP Growl
. . . but in a good way!
I stumbled upon a fantastic PHP class today and felt compelled to comment on it. Originally written by Tyler Hall, this class allows you to send notifications to any system running Growl from a PHP script. For those of you that don't know, Growl is an application written for Mac OS X that is intended to act as a universal notification tool (much like the taskbar notification bubbles we've all come to know and love in Windows XP/Vista).
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Comments (8) | Posted in PHP, Review, Software Engineering by Nick Williams
Mar. 12, 2008 at 4:34pm
PHP 5.3 - A Heavy Hitter in Training
PHP's next major release is just that, major!
The evolution of PHP into an object-oriented programming language has been a very exciting process to watch. I'll admit its advancement seems to move at a glacial pace at times, but looking back we certainly have come a long way. With the release of 5.0 we saw PHP leave its childhood and enter its awkward adolescent stage. At this point there is evidence of a mature and complex object-oriented language while stilll exhibiting many of its younger habits.
So what's in store for us next? Find out after the jump . . .
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Comments (0) | Posted in PHP, Software Engineering by Nick Williams
Jan. 29, 2008 at 3:15pm
PHP Patterns, Part III
The TO Pattern
The Template Object (or TO) is a design pattern of my own that I developed to fill the role of the View layer in the MVC model. As you have probably figured out, the purpose of the TO is to handle everything related to the user interface. The idea here is to separate the interface as much as possible from the rest of the application, so that we could do a complete rewrite of an application without ever touching (or accidentally "breaking") the view portion. Read more
Comments (0) | Posted in Coding Techniques, From the Workbench, PHP, Software Engineering by Nick Williams
Dec. 21, 2007 at 10:19am
Technical Debt
What the heck am I talking about?
The concept of technical debt (first coined by Ward Cunningham) has been something that has wandered about my head without a name for quite some time. The other day I read an article that finally put it into words. It is what I have always seen as the reason writing beautiful code is not just an endeavor in aesthetics. At this point you're probably wondering what the heck I'm rambling on about. Don't give up on me yet, I'm about to explain . . .
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Comments (3) | Posted in Deep Thoughts, Software Engineering by Nick Williams
Nov. 28, 2007 at 2:02pm
RescueTime: Find out where all your time is going...
(but don't tell your boss!)
Having stumbled upon RescueTime, I feel compelled to share my discovery as this concept is just too useful to keep to myself. The basic idea behind this website is to make it easier to keep track of where you spend your time while at your computer. If you find yourself filling out your timesheet at the end of the week only to realize you can't remember what you were doing all that time, this tool was made for you!
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Comments (0) | Posted in Review by Nick Williams
Nov. 14, 2007 at 3:48pm
PHP Patterns, Part II
The DAO and VO Patterns
In this installment, we will be looking at two patterns that have been 'borrrowed' from Java. If you've had any development experience with J2EE, you are probably well aware of how handy Data Access Objects and Value Objects can be. If you haven't, don't fret! This article was written especially for you!
If you've never heard these terms before, you may be wondering why I have chosen to group them together within one article. The simple explanation is ... well you'll see. For now just accept that they go hand-in-hand, much like salt and pepper or peanut butter and jelly or <insert clever combination here>.
Excited? Let's dig deeper...
Read moreComments (4) | Posted in Coding Techniques, From the Workbench, MySQL, PHP, Software Engineering by Nick Williams
Oct. 3, 2007 at 3:59pm
A GUI Mess, or a Productivity Booster?
What's your take on the database admin debate?
While writing up a review on a database tool I discovered today, I was inspired to spark a discussion about database GUIs in general. The value of GUI tools for administering database systems like MySQL has been a topic of much debate.
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Comments (6) | Posted in Deep Thoughts, MS SQL Server, MySQL by Nick Williams
Sep. 27, 2007 at 3:17pm
PHP Patterns, Part I
The Registry Pattern
This is the first in a planned series of articles discussing the application of various PHP patterns. If you're still getting your feet wet developing in PHP (or programming languages in general), you may be wondering what a "pattern" is in the first place. The best place to find a quick explanation is over in Wikipedia's article (which does a much better job than I could hope to do within the scope of this article).
Now, let's move on to the fun part . . .
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Comments (7) | Posted in Coding Techniques, PHP, Software Engineering by Nick Williams
Sep. 13, 2007 at 11:45am
if (date('z') == 256) echo("It's Programmers Day")
Translation: It's Programmers Day!
For those that aren't aware, Programmers' Day is today and marks the 256th day of the year. If you just thought to yourself "wow, that's 1111 1111 in binary!" then consider today to be a day in your honor. In case you're wondering why this particular day was chosen, consider this: 1111 1111 is the last of the 256 possible values of a byte. Read more
Comments (1) | Posted in Deep Thoughts, Software Engineering by Nick Williams