PHPkitchen

Programmer Competency Matrix

Demian Turner — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:22:29 +0000

A very nice matrix exploring programmer aptitude.

Mobile workers can discover best places to work

Demian Turner — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:50:09 +0000

Thanks to Pam for the heads up about this new app in the app store, WorkSnug.

WorkSnug uses Augmented Reality to connect mobile workers to the nearest and best places to work in the city. We’ve visited and rated hundreds of workspaces, assessing noise levels, power provision, community feel, even the quality of the coffee. London has been launched first. San Francisco, New York, Berlin, Madrid and several other cities are on the way in the coming weeks

Covered recently in Web Worker Daily, check out the video to see the app in action.

Factors affecting Google Search position

Demian Turner — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:43:45 +0000

I thought it was strange when I noticed that the search result position of a customer’s site, Eureka Financial, varies depending on whether the customer was logged in or not to their Google account. It should be noted the customer is running Adwords campaigns for their site.

But it gets even stranger – can you believe that what browser you’re using affects the result position?

Here are the variations I’ve seen so far on searches for the phrase “financial training uk”:

customer logged in, result position #2
customer not logged in, result position #40
me logged in (different Google acct), Safari: #37
me logged in (different Google acct), Firefox: #40

When you’re using a Safari browser, Google adds a client param to the url, ie, client=safari, however for firefox the param is not added.

Go figure.

Making the web more readable – in one click

Demian Turner — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:21:30 +0000

The Readability bookmarklet is by far the most useful bookmarklet I’ve used. A must try for anyone who spends an inordinate amount of time reading stuff on the web

How to Block Flash

Demian Turner — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:05:16 +0000

I wish I hadn’t waited so long to install the ClickToFlash plugin, it totally improves the web experience. The idea is simple, all flash animations are paralyzed by default To view flash, including videos like youtube, etc, you have to click to play. A lot healthier for the laptop, no more CPU running at 100% nor mindless distractions when you’re trying to absorb valuable content.

PHP shell rocks

Demian Turner — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:39:40 +0000

I’ve written about this before, but since the interactive mode of PHP (php -a) seems to be broken on OS X, I think it’s worth singing the praises of Jan Kneschke’s php shell project once again.

It’s a piece of cake to install the tool with the PEAR installer, and since I last used it 2 great new features are on offer:

tab completion for all (or many) PHP functions and built-in classes and interfaces
handling of fatal errors

What a relief to have this working again! I was ssh-ing onto my Fedora servers just to test out code but of course this became impractical pretty quickly. And did I mention it runs great on PHP 5.3?

And if you’re tempted to use the similarly named phpsh project from the Facebook open src stables, I can confirm this is not an option with the latest version of PHP.

Graphic Designer vs Client

Demian Turner — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:58:05 +0000

This video really hits the nail on the head when it comes to the kind of interaction you sometimes get with clients over graphic design questions.

Package managers

Demian Turner — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:38:05 +0000

Just thinking of how many package managers, each with a unique syntax, I try to remember how to use:

port
pear
cpan
gem
yum
apt-get
ant
easy_install
emerge
rpm (ok that was a while ago ..)

I’m sure I’m forgetting some. Standardisation?

PHPterror on OXID eShop

Demian Turner — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:21:21 +0000

I can’t believe Zend is publishing articles on OXID eShop, this is definitely some of the worst code I have seen in ages.

As “the PHP company” I think Zend ought to at least select projects that have some merit in terms of software design, as surely beginner PHP devs look to Zend for good examples and copy/emulate whatever they showcase.

PHPterror took a closer look at some of the OXID code, really jaw-dropping stuff.

Introducing PHPterror: bad PHP usage exposed

Demian Turner — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:51:24 +0000

A new look at how to create unit tests – using Photoshop! Sense of humour required …