mysiteonline™

I'm updating the blog version to see if it fixes some errors. This is a rather tedious process for the server (lots of files, lots) and although I've backed up the database, there may be problems. Let's hope not. I'll have to upgrade again within a month or so since the final version is to be released soon (currently updating to a beta).

Blog updated. It seemed to have no effect on RSS feeds' validation. I guess it's time to check in the code once again... YAY.

Posted by Brendon Kozlowski

I just finally tested out Pligg Beta. I thought it was a CMS...or at least I remembered it as such from when I downloaded it. It's a digg.com act-a-like (not to be confused with look-a-like) when used out of the box and not configured. Supposedly, according to the project leader, it is a CMS (oops). It's pretty easy to configure, install, and run. I think I might even use it as a main page for this site instead of my blog...that is if I ever get off my duff and design an actual website template for myself. This way here it's somewhat more along the lines of my site online as the domain name is supposed to suggest. Visitors would make this site their own...in a different way than I had originally intended, but since I've gone off on other areas of development desire, a packaged solution might be a second best-bet.

I also completed a proper install of Exponent CMS which has so far looked extremely versatile in its use. The only things I'm leary about with it is that I had to force MySQL5 into traditional mode (it runs in Strict Mode by default) to get the install to work properly (don't know if it will affect functionality if I turn it back to Strict mode), and I would have to imagine that because different modules can be designed independently that creating a skin/theme for this would be no easy task. Only one way to tell, play around with it!

I've been looking for the perfect "easy" content management system for some time. So far, PHPWCMS keeps coming up as the clear cut winner. Typo3, with the appropriate add-in for management might have the possibility of winning, but there's just too much of a learning curve for me to want to tackle it. The great thing about Exponent is that the entire thing is module driven...and I don't mean add-on or plugin, I mean modules. You can actually tell the script, in a visual fashion, where to place a module component in the rendering of a page...of any page. It's brilliant. You'll have to check it out to see.

Posted by Brendon Kozlowski

I'm in the process of creating a server install setup process for our Macintosh OSX G5 Server and originally had PHP v5.1.6 in the install steps. I had tested it with the live site data and all worked fine. Because PHP v5.2.0 is supposed to have speed and efficiency increases, as well as a hook to allow for the ability to keep track of upload progress (i.e.: visually follow an upload with a moving graph using PHP and JavaScript without any other odd language bridges or hacks), I figured I might as well just switch the versions in the documentation.

Well, I just tried it out today and finalized all of the virtualhost parameters and re-uploaded the live data. What nice thing do I see on the screen to greet me? ....nothing, it's a production server so errors are not displayed. Unfortunately for me I forgot to assign an error log file location...oops. Apache's error log was not definitive enough. Time to upgrade my local test machine's version of PHP as well.

WARNING: Redeclaration of <insert_func-name_here>() in ...

Okay, ummm...how is it being redeclared? It worked fine on v5.1.6...

With a little more research, I found the problem to be that MY FUNCTION NAME IS NOW A RESERVED WORD -- AN INTERNAL FUNCTION NAME. There's a new function category called Filter that also includes the aptly named function "filter_input()". Yeah, I can't imagine ANYONE who's ever written procedural code to have a function like that in there... So anyway, be warned. I had to add a prefix to my function and then edit any and all instances of it within my code.

...just yet another reason for me as to why to move completely over to OOP and forget about procedural PHP programming.

Posted by Brendon Kozlowski

Okay, technically if something's "undiscovered", no one knows about it...and it's impossible for something in a programming language to be undiscovered because for it to exist, someone has to know about it...in fact, a lot of someones have to know about it. Regardless...

I was recently reading about how difficult it was for someone to create a DATE field in an Atom feed (they were creating a home-brew blog/cms with Python). Well, accidentally while researching what the php.ini file directives (found in PHP 5.2.0+, but available since 5.0.0 according to Zend) for the date.sunset_zenith and date.sunrise_zenith were for. I still didn't entirely figure it out, but I can still set the latitude and longitude correctly. However, while looking for this information, I found that PHP apparently has CONST values for many abstract date formats...all thanks to W3Schools!

Constants: ATOM, DATE_COOKIE, DATE_ISO8601, DATE_RFC821, DATE_RFC850, DATE_RFC1036, DATE_RFC1123, DATE_RFC2822, DATE_RSS, and DATE_W3C

Now, it is very true that PHP's date functions are extremely thorough and easy to use, as well as to convert to/from. However, if you have constant values, why the heck not use them?!

Posted by Brendon Kozlowski

I haven't kept up with the Zend Framework as much as I would have liked to. The buzz has died down, and it seems that it also caused me to lose focus on it. Since I've been somewhat bored lately (although I like being bored, gives my imagination more time to itself) and have had time to even play some console games (my poor, poor neglected XBox system), I figure I'll give it another go.

What got me started with the Zend Framework (not the idea, but the actual code) was Rob Allen's personal blog by way of Zend's DevZone. Cal, reporter for DevZone, talked about a Framework tutorial that was written up by Rob Allen, and so I took a look. It wasn't some ugly looking blog post, it was a fully downloadable PDF. I just HAD to have myself a copy! I downloaded it, realized there were typos and errors, but for the most part, it was a HUGE introduction into how the Zend Framework actually worked. After fixing (overcoming) some bugs and completing the tutorial, I actually had a non-secure but fully functioning bootstrapped Zend-Framework-powered website section. I was happy. I was ecstatic, actually. I also had other projects waiting for me to complete. I don't even remember if I finished them or not...

Either way, the Zend Framework has updated its public stable release with a new version and Rob has updated his tutorial. I'm going through it right now and checking for errors that are still present (found 2 or 3 already) and will report back to him on them to help him out with that. If you want to get started using the Zend Framework and like viewing code to understand it (and playing with it) without a HUGE or whole lot of explanation as to what every little thing does (he does break it down, but not a whole lot, you would need some understanding of MVC architecture and PHP to understand this), then I strongly urge you to check out this tutorial.

Source: http://www.akrabat.com/zend-framework-tutorial/

Continue reading "Zend Framework v0.20"

Posted by Brendon Kozlowski