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Simple CRUD with MongoDB
10 November 2011
Read moreWhen I meet a new technology, I like to experience it "just as it comes". I'm happy at the command line and I like to type actual commands and see man pages before I use any wrappers or helper tools. So when I met MongoDB for the first time, I did exactly that. This post shows those first steps of creating a database, and inserting, reading, deleting and updating data.
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Missing Kernel Source when Installing VirtualBox
09 November 2011
Read moreI'm creating a virtual machine to use for my upcoming training courses to get around issues trying to get machines set up in a hurry on the day. I haven't used VirtualBox before but since it has free clients for Windows/Mac/Linux I thought I'd give it a go.
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API Serving JSONP
03 November 2011
Read moredisclaimer: I am not a client-side developer, and I don't write javascript. However I am committed to supplying useful APIs of all kinds, and JSONP falls into this category
Early in the development of the new Joind.In API, someone else started consuming the service to populate the javascript widgets they were making*. Since these scripts are intended to be used on many external pages, and they retrieve data from the joind.in API, cross-domain issues were a problem.
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Flattr-y Will Get You Everywhere
01 November 2011
Read moreFor many years, I've been convinced that micropayments are the way of the future. The internet has brought us so much that is freely available, but often it's nice to show some appreciation for something someone has given us. This is true both for the open source software without which I couldn't do my job, and for the excellent content that makes me think or guides me through a particular issue.
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PHPCon Poland: Conference Report
28 October 2011
Read moreAt the weekend (yes, this took all week to write), I was on my first ever visit to Poland, in order to speak at PHPCon Poland. They contacted me early in the year to ask if I would consider going along to give my talk Teach a Man to Fish.
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My Book is Published: PHP Master
24 October 2011
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I am truly delighted to announce that "my" book is published. Technically it's really "our" book since I had the pleasure of co-authoring with friends and PHP rockstars Davey Shafik and Matt Turland. The book is "PHP Master" and it's a broad-ranging text covering a series of topics that we felt were relevant to PHP developers who aren't beginners, but who are looking to fill in some gaps and get a good grounding in creating whole applications in PHP. -
UML Diagrams with Graphviz
18 October 2011
Read moreI worked on creating some plausible-looking diagrams for representing object inheritance (this is for my forthcoming book). Since I know I'll forget how I did it, I wanted to share while I can remember!
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Announcing Training Dates for November
17 October 2011
Read moreI'm teaching some new public courses next month (in Leeds), so I thought I'd mention them on the blog in case anyone is interested. I'm super-excited because this is the first time I've delivered my own training content as a public course, so even if you aren't in the position where you work with lots of people who need the same training, you can pop along!
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Ada Lovlace Day: Laura Thomson
07 October 2011
Read moreHappy Ada Lovelace Day! Today we celebrate geeky female role models, and I'm going to write about someone I consider a friend. It feels a bit strange to do so (and I didn't actually tell her beforehand), however having been written about before on this special day, I know I've never been offended by such flattery and so I hope she won't be either :)
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PHP Developer at a Python Conference
27 September 2011
Read moreA few weeks ago, while attending the delightful OggCamp, I was approached by someone asking me to speak at PyConUK. Well ...
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QR Codes with Google Charts API
22 September 2011
Read moreI'm a big fan of the google charts API - it draws much better-looking graphs than I would ever manage and all I have to do is assemble the right URL to make it work. I recently got a feature request to add QR codes to joind.in, so that speakers and event admins could easily allow people to link in to a particular talk page.
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Eleven Wordpress Plugins
21 September 2011
Read moreWhen I moved this blog to wordpress a few weeks ago, I got a lot of questions about its implementation and setup. Today I'm sharing a list of all the plugins I have enabled, with a little description of what they are and what they do.