Drew Broadley's Bottomless Pit of Rambling.

PHP class variables as an array

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 23:30:00 -0800

A small "winner" function I use often, I love Reflection in PHP. It's an undocumented mystery that you gain a lot of power and flexilbity when you understand its use(s).

function as_array($class_name = null)
    {
        $class_name = ($class_name) ? $class_name : __CLASS__;

        $user = new ReflectionClass($class_name);

        $prop = $user->getProperties();
        $return = array();

        if ( ! empty($prop) )
        {
              foreach ( $prop as $var )
              {
                    if ( $var->isStatic() )
                    {
                        $return[(string)$var->getName()] = $var->getValue();
                    }
              }

        }

        return $return;

    }

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Filecache - A mirrored Memcache class using files

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:15:00 -0800

A little class I created when I needed to develop in an environment where the live setup had Memcache, but the local environment didn't (and couldn't). I hope this makes someone happy someday :)

class Filecache
    {
        function addServer() { }

        function checksum($key)
        {
            return sprintf("%X", crc32($key));
        }

        function checksum_file($key)
        {
            return "/tmp/filecache_" . Filecache::checksum($key);
        }

        function get($key, $expire = false)
        {
            if (file_exists(Filecache::checksum_file($key)))
            {
                if (
                    (!$expire || (time() - filemtime(Filecache::checksum_file($key)) < $expire))
                )
                {
                    $code = file_get_contents(Filecache::checksum_file($key));                }
                else
                {
                    unlink(Filecache::checksum_file($key));                    $code = null;
                }
            }
            else
            {
                $code = null;
            }

            return json_decode($code);
        }

        function set($key, $value)
        {
            file_put_contents(Filecache::checksum_file($key), json_encode($value));
            return $value;
        }

        function flush() { `rm -rf /tmp/filecache_*`; }

    }

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An awesome morning taking the dog to the beach and for a jour down the waterfront

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:13:14 -0800

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Wordpress, I hate it but I use it.

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:40:00 -0800

There are two things I do with every new Wordpress install, and they both exist in the wp-config.php file.

What you're going to achieve via this is per host settings for different environments (dev, test, staging, live...) and never have Wordpress force the hostname stored in the wp_config table.

First, remove the DB settings lines and put them into a new file wp-config-localhost.php. These will be used later.

Now add this set of lines into your wp-config below the WP_DEBUG line:

// Checking to see if host-specific config exists
$host_config_file = (ABSPATH . 'wp-config-' . preg_replace("/[^a-z0-9\-\.]+/","", $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']) . '.php');
if (file_exists($host_config_file))
{
require_once($host_config_file);
}

This will search for a wp-config.php file corresponding to the hostname you request the Wordpress site through, i.e. http://www.mywordpresssite.com will transfer to wp-config-www.mywordpresssite.com.php. This allows you to set DB and other settings per host. Note: you cannot redefine constants, so you may want to pull anything you want to change into these hostname specific config files.

And directly under what you've just put in, put these two lines:

define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '/');
define('WP_HOME', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '');

This will tell Wordpress to use the hostname of your site as the Wordpress home and site base url. This stops you installing it on a machine that had the Wordpress site accessed through http://localhost/ no longer try and throw the other person who is working on the site to http://localhost/, when they may have the site setup to be viewable through http://wordpress.mydomain.com/ etc.

I hope this helps someone, somewhere, out there, over the rainbow....

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Strapped in and ready to go to doggy daycare

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:19:32 -0800

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Wellington people - do you want some free in-house help with your misbehaving dog ?

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:49:00 -0700

Wont come, but you've been through obedience ?
Gets possessive over things, and growls when you try to take them away ?
Scared you'll get your hand bitten off if you try to take their dog bowl away ?
Barks/shows teeth at strangers ?
Aggressive towards other dogs ?

Or any other behaviour you really don't think your dog should be doing, I'm keen to help Hey all, I've been around dogs all my life, I've often found a bond with almost all dogs that I've met and my love for dogs has caused me to really want to understand them.

I've been studying dog behaviour/psychology for over a year, and am by nature a self-taught person. I've read most books on the subject and have taken a point of view of different approaches and it's really a dog-by-dog assessment on what's the best approach.
I took on a very special case SPCA dog (Border Collie mix called Sassy) who has some very severe trust/anxiety issues and am progressing very well with her.

What I'm keen on now, is to give myself eth other dogs that are not through family contacts.
Here's a summary of what I'll offer (usually will take 30min-1hr):
I will not hurt your dog, I will use little to no physical contact.
I can offer clicker training, but prefer an alternative method. It just depends how well you can control the emotion in your voice so we'll take it as it comes.
I will not offer help on person-aggressive and attacking dog cases, sorry (ask me in a few years). This is beyond my experience.
I will provide education to the owner(s) and a summary of the assessment in an email/pdf afterwards for you to take away and work with.
I am especially keen on working with post-adoption SPCA dogs.

Your dogs confidence is paramount, if your dog is feeling uneasy, I will not push them. I don't work with suppression or flooding techniques, I work by modification of behavior.

If you're interested, please email drew@broadley.org.nz or reply here with the following details:

Dogs Name:
Dogs Breed:
Dogs Age:
Where you got the dog:
If you're not the original owner, how long have you owned it:
Describe the problem:

I'd appreciate it if you could pass this onto people who it may come to help.

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Marketing Idea #13 - Woof woof

Thu, 20 May 2010 18:34:00 -0700

Sick of those damn dogs barking throughout the day/night ? Ready to complain to the council, but knowing that it's going to take a fair bit of action before the owner really takes hold of how annoying their precious pooch is ?

A great community marketing scheme, due to people adopting a four legged friend and being ignorant to its needs, it causes a build up of frustration and stress which causes side effects of barking, tearing up the back yard and chewing to relieve this.

Currently when you complain to the council, they take the complaint and file it with a friendly "Thanks for getting in touch" reply. Second complaint gets a bit more action and a letter sent to the offending owner. Third complaint usually ends up in similar grounds of the result from the second complaint.
Nothing is being achieved, the owner isn't paying attention and most likely laughing at the letters. Here's where a better approach of the problem comes in. Education, and reasonable consequences...

Setup a council funded dog walking/dog care scheme, with a one/two representatives per region with animal behavioral training and dog obedience knowledge.
When a complaint comes in to the council they handle it as they normally do with one exception, the representatives do a quick check on the property. This allows them to assess the frustration and stress of the dog. What this achieves is two things:

1. Assesses the dog is not maltreated in anyway (within reason)
2. Confirms the problem at the indicated time(s)

Council records situation, and writes a reply letter to the owners property sharing the findings of the animal, and confirming if they also identified the problem and suggestions to educate the owner on why their dog may be causing disruptions. This gives a mediation type approach. A letter also goes out to the complainant stating what has happened, and what allocated duration they have before following up the complaint and any suggested non-confrontational methods they could use to communicate with the property owner.
Second complaint comes after the conditions haven't been met, and the owner is contacted stating their dog is still behaving in a manner as per the first complaint. They are notified that they will be visited in the evening of their choice so the council can initiate a dog walking service initially sponsored by the council to reduce the frustration of their dog and see if this improves the dogs behavior. Additional education is supplied to the owner on the system and introduction to the dog to the representatives who will be walking their dog.

The dog will go on a trial for two weeks, seeing if there is any immediate improvement. If there is improvement, then the council will supply the owner with enough education to complete their knowledge of animal behavior and why walking their dog is important. If there is no improvement, then owners are referred to a dog behavioral specialist.

If a third complaint arrives, then the council sends out a fine for the dog and the dog walkers come in and carry on their service until the fine value is reached. After each duration of dog walking has been completed, the council will reassess the situation with the owner.

This can also be offered as a subsidised dog walking service by the community council to reduce dog nuisance complaints to people who don't have time to walk their dog.

The dog walking service may not be feasible, but education and communication with the dog owners is a must.

Potential Clients:
Dog owners

Potential Mediums:
Interactive, Website, Print

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Ugh, so busy

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:39:53 -0700

The lack of updates reflect it, but I'll be back on top of the Marketing ideas this week....

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Marketing Idea #12 - Cops and Robbers

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:17:00 -0700

Imagine you're racing around the tarmac, tires squealing, a cop on your tail with lights blazing. Is this a video game ? No. Sounds a bit too cliche ? Sure! But this is the appeal...

Put yourself up against the best on the NZ Police force. Setup on an open race track where you can backtrack on sections of the race track and the goal of the cop is to perform a pit maneuver and spin you 180 degrees to win. Identical cars are setup with bumper sections on the front/back to reduce damage and absorb impact. Cops have cars in the NZ Police force branding, and the "robbers" have cars in Dukes of Hazard or similar stereo-type paint jobs.

This can be used as training for NZ Police in the public eye to demonstrate how safe their apprehension methods are, and lets every person who has the want to see how good they are up against the people in blue. National qualifying events that boil down to a final at a defined race track.

This can become a community fundraising event and a great spectator sport annual event, with sponsorship from a car manufacturer. Potential to become a short life-span TV show or a recruitment drive styled event.

Potential Clients:
NZ Police, Defensive Driver Education (AA), Driver Training Companies (Holden, BMW, etc.)

Potential Mediums:
Interactive

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Marketing Idea #11 - Design the perfect garden

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 01:23:00 -0700

Building a garden is easy, or is it ?

When creating the garden of your dreams, or even just digging out a section of your current landscaping it's always hard to know (unless you're an avid green finger) about what plants go well together, how they will survive in the position with exposure and sunlight hours a factor.

Building a garden simulator that uses basic CAD overview and taking into consideration plants that work well together, or don't work well, are hardy, last all year around, flower at certain times, you can offer the novice green fingers an insight into how their garden will look all year around.

A simple overhead layout, with ability to position a house, designate north/south/east/west, any shady spots, will give the to-be landscaper a chance to experiment their ideas. Allow them to chose from a large array of plants, they can place them in arrangement that suits them.
Using a seasonal timeline slider, and time of day slider, you can simulate how the plants will work together all year around. Show when each will flower, drop leaves, if they wont suit the shady area they've been placed in and if any of these factors don't work well with the plant it will die.

This will save people from making mistakes, and also allow the offering of advice by submitting your garden and suggestions can be received in return by experts to how they could better their intentions.

This would be a great interactive piece to place a large plant retailer behind. They can offer garden design competitions, even make a game of building the best all around garden from selected templates.

This could also be put in store as an interactive piece that people can select stock from the shop and place it in a landscape layout that is similar to their home. In-store experts can offer advice on the spot, and they can have it emailed to them or printed out at the store with the names of the plants and can place an order at the counter.

Potential Clients:
Palmers, other plant retailers

Potential Mediums:
Web, Interactive

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Swimming with the Dolphins

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:44:00 -0700

On our South Island trip of adventure, we had planned on doing swimming with the dolphins in Akaroa. Unfortunately the Chile earthquake that caused a tsunami warning closed the whole village down, and we were left there with no where to go and our adventure cancelled. We had to re-arrange plans to swing back around after cruising the West Coast. We managed to fit in time, and went swimming with the dolphins at Kaikoura, but to my dismay lost the DVD with all the videos from the encounter! Alas, when we thought all hope was lost, we found it embedded in our bungy photos.

I cannot recommend this enough, easily the highlight of our trip. Enjoy.

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Marketing Idea #10 - Strange Dogs

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:47:00 -0700

With the rise in awareness recently, and always subdued knowledge of dog attacks, there needs for user education to people who are afraid of dogs (previously or a little anxious with the news of stereotypical aggressive dogs attacking).

There's a common approach many people do, is walking towards a dog with their hand out. This is quite a highly dangerous manner to approach a dog, as they work by scent, then sight, then sound, and finally touch.

A TV/Radio/Internet campaign to educate people that the best thing to do is stand tall and still, avoid eye contact and let the dog sniff you. When the dog wants to interact with you, it will rub up against you, or give you a nudge or other playful signs. Most dog behaviorist can be used as reference and research for the campaign.

The aim is to stop people being afraid due to not understanding.

Potential Clients:
Councils, SPCA, Dogsafety.govt.nz

Potential Mediums:
TV, Radio, Web, Mail drop

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Marketing Idea #9 - Paperless Receipts

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:22:00 -0700

On the previous idea of being green, one of the largest and most wasteful items out there is receipts.

The idea is simple, having a system that offers the ability for all PoS systems to hook into. The selling of the idea will be the hardest, as no one will want to invest in a system that don't "have too". To help with the blinkers that the potential outlets will put on, this is a great time to market this idea, everyone is focused on being less wasteful in the public eye.

With the rise in more disposable items due to manufacturing costs being lower, the products you buy today are generally more brittle. Alas, another main push for this system is the ability to look up previous purchases and provided an authorised receipt from quickly searching through an online system and clicking a 'Returning product' button which sends an signed request back to the retailer which provides them with the proof of purchase required when taking a product back.

Not only does the retailer/consumer receive the benefits of returning an item painlessly with a simple proof of purchase, but the retailer can use this system to reconcile for stocktaking, accounting and more.

Potential Clients:
Anybody who creates a receipt/invoice

Potential Medium:
Point of Sale, Web, Mobile

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Marketing Idea #8 - Are you carbon neutral ?

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:05:00 -0700

Being carbon neutral is important in a day of spiked oil shortages, carbon emissions, global warming, less waste. This is becoming a percentage of focus for every campaign out there, keeping their product with the icon of being green.

Retailers to register their products with carbon ratings (starting with larger products, then slowly working down to smaller products), and through a Green loyalty scheme, can reward you with points when you buy low rated products. If seems fit, you can reduce points when people buy non-neutral items, but this may have a backwards effect.

With more and more manufacturers having awareness of their emissions and carbon ratings associated to their products, the metadata is there. This could be a great way to help offset the additional pricing for products that strive to be friendly to the environment.

Similar to other loyalty schemes, but one that people would be proud to show off. People who manage to tally themselves as green, could get discounts on related green products. Leaderboard of greenest people/households to win prizes, people who

The potential of collecting data to help follow the trends of eco-friendly purchases would be highly valuable.

Potential Clients:

Retailers

Potential Mediums:

Point of Sale, Web

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Marketing Idea #7 - Faux Fundraising

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:41:00 -0700

Fundraising takes a special kind of business approach, and even more so, it requires great management and organisation to get it right. Handling those people who cannot make it on the day they've been allocated to collect, and disaster plans for when things go wrong.

By setting up an online real-time strategy game, that simulates the fundraising process in a simpler form so the learning curve is short, but the longitivtiy of the game can have no end.

Basic resource game, you have x amount of people, with x places to collect money over x amount of time to collect the most money. This algorithm can be adjusted through testing to reach a peak and discover the highest score possible.

This game can allow in-game variables, weather, busy times (work start, work end, school start, school end), but by building a well tested algorithm, you can use this to allow the highest amount of money raised to be the same across all scenarios.

An overview of a town map with different sections, school, shopping malls, supermarkets, public transportation areas scattered around the city. The user is then prompted to move sets of people with earning abilities (1 person = $10 per minute, 2 = $18, 3 = $26, etc.) A clock starts showing a day, and proceeds to pass time at a rate, over that time you can see "hot spots", 6am-7am, public transport areas, 7-9am certain high traffic footpaths, 12pm food courts, etc. During the game, the person will have to move people from one place to another, and it's not a case of drag and drop and they instantly move, they will take time to move from one location to another. Over time if larger amounts of people are in a hot spot, their earning power goes up, but if they over populate the hot spot, then earning goes down. Day ends, totals tallied. Each day of the week represents a harder level, with Sunday being the most difficult.

A comical spin can be put on this, if the person zooms into an area, they can see peoples excuses for not donating "Sorry, no money", "My wife has my wallet" etc.

Leaderboard driven, with being able to create fundraising groups so you can have a friends leaderboard, or company leaderboard.

On completion, you can make a statement about "See how hard fundraising is ? You can show your appreciation by donating to <enter fundraising cause>". Potential to flash SMS donation short code, or website to donate.

Potential to make this multiplayer is high, as you could get 2-4 people organising a whole city.

Prospective Clients:

Any fundraising organisation that uses street appeals.

Prospective Mediums:

Web, Interactive

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Marketing Idea #6 - Chat Roulette

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:02:00 -0700

Advertising campaign on Chat Roulette. Use a video feed of a code and a website address (possibly a 10-15 second loop) they can visit to enter this code to go into the draw/win instant prizes. This will use direct marketing to get people to a site and collect contact information.

Create as many "users" as required to start getting enough exposure. The goal is not to be sly and spam orientated, but using this in a fashion which does not offend and caters for the average chat roulette user (16-24 years old and 'aroused').

This could be transformed into a game, finding a video feed with this unique code means an instant prize for the first person to enter it into a website. You could ensue an influx of people by advertising this fact. Get in before the Chat Roulette people do.

Prospective Clients:

Soft drink company, music store, gaming store

Prospective Mediums:

Web

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Marketing Idea #5 - Get In Behind

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:04:00 -0700

Got a dog ? Always wondered if the breed was any good at herding ? Setup a 1/4 acre with about 4-5 sheep and hire a proficient sheep dog trainer to train the household dog.

This is great to setup to do at a local dog park, or organised event. The dogs will have a lot of fun, and is a great time to push any dog food or dog accessories. Potentially a launch pad for a business to offer exercise sessions for dogs to give them the run of their life. Getting dog owners to register to collect direct marketing contacts, provide samples of dog food/training tools.

Prospective Clients:
Dog food manufacturers, AI&P/A&P Shows, Dog training business

Prospective Mediums:
Interactive

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Marketing Idea #4 - Change the Toilet Paper Roll

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:07:00 -0700

How many times have you come to use the toilet in the house, and the toilet roll has been left empty? The woman of the household will appreciate this.

Incentive SMS, where there's a unique code with instructions on the roll of toilet paper, with such prizes to attract the men of the household. The instructions are as follows:

Person sending in the SMS must elect a phone number of another household member (preferably of the opposite sex). This will then send a confirmation to this person saying that +64xxxxxxxxx has entered the draw to win xxxxxx, but only if you confirm they have indeed changed the toilet roll by sending an SMS back with YES.

Potential clients:
Toilet paper manufacturers

Potential mediums:
SMS

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Marketing Idea #3 - Biking Commuter Traffic Reporter

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:33:00 -0700

You see them, they're the ones who bike past at high speed while you're stuck in gridlock traffic. This is the one thing that doesn't affect them, traffic. Who better to report on any traffic updates than the people riding around the accident, or person broken down in the left lane.

Incentive based SMS that cyclists can communicate any road blocks, incidents or other issues causing mayhem on the tarmac.

This can give up to date information that maybe beyond traffic cameras and what you can see in your car behind the 100 car train.

Potential clients:
Radio stations, NZ Transport Agency, NZ Police

Potential mediums:
SMS

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Marketing Idea #2 - Everybody Dance Now

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:20:00 -0700

This is an idea to that could be applied to having break-dancers set up an example, and then people can dance around, or even just move (depending on the introvert or extrovert in them).

Position a grid, or use already defined grid (concrete pavers with defined edging) near the base of a 3-4 storey building. Place a camera with software that can recognise objects/contrasts inside the grid (will require some custom development). Have a large screen as an interactive billboard on the side of the building (projected/non-projected).

Now the idea is simple, it's a sample/drum machine in giant form. If objects are inside a square in the grid, a sample loop is played over and over until the object leaves. Each square indicates a specific sample. i.e. if there's 10 people spread in 10 squares, then each square with a person would make the sample play at 100% volume. If there's an average of 5 people per square, then 5 people in a square will make that sample play at 100%, 4 people in a square = 80%, and use the average density in each square to set the balance of the volume.

As for displaying on the screen, this can also be interacted with SMS. People can SMS and email address and a time/duration (or keep it simple with just an email) and you can send them a link to download their mix and have a website which uploads various mixes when there is a trend indicating a lot of people were interested in the mix people were creating. A microsite could be built to vote for the best mixes, etc.

Potential clients:
Radio stations, Clubs, Sparc, Red bull, V.

Potential mediums:
Interactive, SMS, Web

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