Lively Web Design - Blog

Updating PHP Deprecated Other TimeZones With Valid TimeZones

livelyadmin — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:52:51 +0000

It all started with some clean up of some legacy code that was storing dates and times in a particularly odd fashion. Each row in the users table of the database had a field for that user’s timezone. Some of these timezones were from a deprecated list of PHP timezones. The question was how to [...]

Non-static Method Should Not Be Called Statically

livelyadmin — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:08:31 +0000

While working with classes and functions you may come across an error which is non-static method should not be called statically. The error may be thrown at execution time or if you’re working in your IDE it may be highlighted as a code sniff or syntax error. Either way, it needs to be fixed. This [...]

MySQL Field Types And Sizes

livelyadmin — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:55:18 +0000

MySQL supports a number of column types, which may be grouped into three categories: numeric types, date and time types, and string (character) types. This section first gives an overview of the types available. Please refer to the MySQL manual for more details. Type Use for Size TINYINT A very small integer The signed range [...]

Dynamically View Viewport Screen Width And Height

livelyadmin — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 16:38:31 +0000

I’m in the process of converting my website to a more device-friendly site using responsive web design. There are already lots of tutorials out there regarding responsive web design which include fluid layout, media queries, and image resizing. This post focuses on a handy tool that I use to dynamically view how many pixels the [...]

Using Xdebug with PhpStorm

livelyadmin — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:37:22 +0000

I’ve been using Zend Studio 5.5.0 as my IDE for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, my old trusty editor does not support some of the new features introduced with PHP 5.3 including namespaces and closures. It shows them as syntax errors. Thus, it was time to update my IDE. Some of the IDE’s [...]

Google AdSense Ad Sizes, Types And IAB Guidelines

livelyadmin — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:32:43 +0000

I recently set up a Google AdSense account and started experimenting with ad placement on my website. Taking into account many factors such as Google’s policies (Online Standard Terms and Conditions), responsive web design, IAB display advertising guidelines, and a few other considerations helped me make the best decision on how to layout my website [...]

The Disconnect Between Management And Tech

livelyadmin — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 10:22:49 +0000

For as long as I’ve been working in software engineering, and long before that, there has and probably always will be a disconnect between management and tech. The disconnect occurs because business managers and technology managers each speak their own language and the functions of their departments are different in many ways. Nonetheless, each needs [...]

Recovering From The Computer Crash

livelyadmin — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:04:54 +0000

A coworker and good friend of mine has a great quote. It goes something like this… “There are two types of system administrators, those who make backups and those who haven’t lost data yet.” I’m no systems administrator but I am wise enough to make backups. Currently, I’m backing up my home pc to an [...]

The Sieve of Eratosthenes In PHP

livelyadmin — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 12:26:14 +0000

I was recently teased with a fun coding exercise and that required some fundamental mathematical and problem solving skills. I did have to do a little research that led me to the Sieve of Eratosthenes, an ancient algorithm for finding all of the prime numbers up to a given limit. Here’s more about the coding [...]

Working With Spreadsheets In PHP

livelyadmin — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:35:33 +0000

Spreadsheets, also called worksheets, are a common tool used in many work and home environments. Therefore, as developers we often need to create, read, update, and delete spreadsheets in our applications. There are many spreadsheet software products on the market. This post will not cover this entire list but should give you several options for [...]

Getting Started With PHP_CodeSniffer

livelyadmin — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:56:41 +0000

PHP_CodeSniffer is a PHP5 script that tokenises PHP, JavaScript and CSS files to detect violations of a defined coding standard. It is an essential development tool that ensures your code remains clean and consistent. It can also help prevent some common semantic errors made by developers. See PHP_CodeSniffer. Let’s get started with PHP_CodeSniffer. As of [...]

APPLICATION.INI Cheat Sheet For Your Zend Framework Application

livelyadmin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:23:03 +0000

I recently discovered a fantastic application.ini cheat sheet developed by Florian Eibeck which is a collection of all available configuration options via Zend_Application and it’s bootstrap resources. Florian has posted this cheat sheet on github. README.txt APPLICATION.INI Cheat Sheet for your Zend Framework Application Collection of all available configuration options via Zend_Application and its bootstrap [...]

Windows, Zend Server, PEAR Installation

livelyadmin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:52:26 +0000

PEAR has been a great library for PHP. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been as actively maintained as some other PHP libraries and frameworks. I believe Zend Framework could be the PEAR killer simply for this fact. Nonetheless, it never fails that I occasionally need PEAR for one component or another and when I do it always [...]

My Favorite Firefox Add-Ons

livelyadmin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:15:39 +0000

Firefox is currently my web browser of choice. One of the reasons I like Firefox best is the selection of Add-Ons to extend functionality. Here is a list of my favorite Firefox Add-Ons and why I like them. Web Developer Toolbar – This Add-On by Chris Pederick adds various web developer tools to a browser. [...]

Firefox Web Browser Tips

livelyadmin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:52:56 +0000

Over the course of my programming career I have worked with all web browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. Out of all these browsers Firefox is my favorite. It has great documentation and support, a large community, and fantastic plugins/add-ons. If you use Firefox too then you may find the following helpful. [...]

Warning: Expression Result Is Never Used

livelyadmin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:43:11 +0000

I was recently quality control checking some code and decided to run the code analyzer in my IDE, Zend Studio, as an ancillary step in my review process. I received a couple of warnings which stated “Expression result is never used”. Despite the warning the PHP code worked just fine. After further investigation I discovered [...]

Warning: Assignment In Condition

livelyadmin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:14:01 +0000

I was recently writing some simple procedural scripts without using my favorite framework, Zend Framework, and was using the code analyzer in my IDE, Zend Studio, when I got an “Assignment in condition” warning. Some of the code I had copied directly from php.net. When I looked further into the warning I discovered the problem. [...]

Deleting Files And Directories With PHP

livelyadmin — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:22:55 +0000

It’s not uncommon to be given project specifications that require the ability to dynamically delete directories and/or files. Sometimes we need to delete only one directory or file and other times we need to delete multiple directories or files. There are also times when we need to recursively delete files and folders and this takes [...]

Installing PEAR After Zend Server

livelyadmin — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:16:12 +0000

This article is deprecated. Please see Windows, Zend Server, PEAR Installation instead. As of this writing I’m using Zend Server CE version 5.1.0 for my WAMP stack on a Windows 7 64-bit machine. I was recently researching some open source tools that required PEAR yet for some reason I had not installed that yet. The [...]

MySQL Command Reference

livelyadmin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:39:48 +0000

There are a handful of MySQL commands that I either use infrequently enough or have refused to commit to memory. Thus, I always have to look them up when I need them. Rather than continue to search for what I’m looking for I’ve decided to keep them here as a reference. I’ll continue to update [...]