Blog

My PHPWomen Interview on Sun's SDN Podcast
06 November 2008

I was recently interviewed by Cassandra Clark from Sun about PHPWomen - they've put the interview live now and you can find it at http://blogs.sun.com/SDNChannel/entry/introduction_to_phpwomen_org

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Locale-Sensitive Dates in PHP
05 November 2008

I am working on a site at the moment whose front end is in Dutch - and for an English-only speaker, its an education! Most things default to English and I had no idea how to use PHP to work with other languages.

In particular I needed dates like "Donderdag 23 …
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Introduction to Zend_Db
31 October 2008

I recently worked on a project which was based on Zend Framework - I haven't worked with it before and I was temporarily confused by the existing implementation of some of the database-level stuff. After much reading and untangling of code, I'm now pretty clear how this should look, so here's …
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Opera's Address Bar AutoCompletion
30 October 2008

I recently upgraded the copy of Opera on one of my machines, only to find a few things about it which had changed from previous versions were driving me mad!! Immediately noticeable was that the address bar autocompletion seemed to have gone completely nuts. It was autocompleting all sorts of …
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Man-fit T-shirt to Girl Top
25 October 2008

I am sick beyond description of conference shirts, they are big and they are sack-like. I have lots of them, I'm expected to wear them a lot, and they are not particularly confidence-boosting. Dressing up for the crowd at technical events is not the way forward, but I am a …
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Screen for Linux
24 October 2008

I use a lot of apps from the command-line, partly because command-line stuff is the same on every system, and partly because I struggle to use a mouse for RSI reasons. Unsurprisingly, the best keyboard-navigable apps are ones that only use the keyboard in the first place! One app that …
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How to Submit a Conference Talk
23 October 2008

Speaking at conferences is a great way to share ideas and meet people - but actually getting the opportunity to do is a little more tricky and usually involves proposing a talk. In the last year I've attended IPC in Germany and PHP London, spoken at DPC in Amsterdam, submitted talks …
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PHPNW: One Month Countdown
21 October 2008

In a month's time I'll be in Manchester, ready for the PHP North West conference. The conference is a one-day event (Saturday, 22nd November), although the social side of things will kick off the night before. Tickets are 50 GBP for the early bird, 35 GBP for students and concessions …
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Crochet Tutorial: Next Steps
19 October 2008

If you've been following the previous entries in this series, you'll have seen how to start to crochet, and if you've followed the instructions you should be able to add another couple of rounds onto your project and end up with something that looks like this:

There are a number …
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rsnapshot flag for usb drive
12 October 2008

rsnapshot is a great tool that I use for all my backup stuff, its really easy and seems pretty robust (or rather, I haven't broken it yet!). When I set it up most recently, I discovered that it has a very useful flag, no_create_root. The problem I often have is …
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PHPNW Tickets On Sale
06 October 2008

Tickets are now on sale for PHPNW - the PHP Conference in Manchester, UK, on November 22nd. This is a conference aimed at bringing together and promoting the amazing wealth of local talent and activity in PHP within the North West and wider area. The schedule is online already and tickets …
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3-minute Crafty Earring Tidy
03 October 2008

Recently I was shopping for an embriodery hoop and I saw that you can buy ones which are ready-made picture frames, you literally put the fabric in, embrioder, then trim off the outside and tidy up the back. I decided that this would make a great basis for an earring …
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