Blog

Yahoo's ySlow & Google's Page Speed online private data capture portal

I know a few of you have heard of and are using Yahoo's ySlow and/or Google's Page Speed tools which are Firefox plugins. These are good tools to improve the speed/performance of your website. The results are presented at the bottom of Firefox. What about if you want to save this data for historic reasons etc? Well there is showslow; showslow is an open source portal that one can download and install/setup to allow you to capture your results privately. However, most people do not have a spare server (or virtual host) nor do they wish to compile php to the version required for showslow (especially if using CentOs, but thats a different story).

So I put together a simple online portal that allows a user to register (with the minimum info required - eg. email & password). Once registered yo...

Open Source Web Magazine

I was looking for an 'Open Source Web Magazine' that specialised in 'Open Source Web'. Unfortunately the closest I could find was 'php architect magazine', albeit a good magazine but it only specialises in php. Although I am a PHP Developer I am still interested in other 'Open Source Web Languages'; mySQL, javascript etc (and let's not forget frameworks: jQuery, Zend Framework, Rails etc). As this did not exist, I thought I would put some feelers out in a few forums and LinkedIn discussions to see what other developers thought. The response I got was excellent, so this got me thinking - why not start one?

The initial step was to create a LinkedIn group (no surprises, with the name 'Open Source Web Magazine')to see how many members joined and got involved. Within two weeks over 200 memb...

Google Chrome Plugins & Extensions Brief Overview

At the time of writing this Google Chrome Plugins are not yet supported on the stable release of Google Chrome (standard download). Therefore to develop or use any Plugins/Extensions one needs to download and install the developer's version, also known as the dev-channel. I have been using this for a couple of weeks now and I have had no issues with stability - well done Google Chrome Developer Team, unit testing has paid off!!! :).

Developing plugins for Google Chrome can not be easier. It uses the standard web tools: xhtml, css & javascript. It is even possible to use jQuery! Winner!!! The documentation is hard to find, but once found it is quite thorough (http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel). Hopefully there will be more examples. There are already a number of websit...

SVN Subversion:: Quick CheatSheet

I have been asked by so many people for a quick reference cheatsheet for SVN Subversion for the command line. So here I go, below are the most commonly used SVN commands on the command line.

# svn checkout/co #
# notes...
# checkout = co
# [project] is optional, if not used svn will create a folder using the project name in the repository
> svn checkout http://svn.jaoudestudios.com/project [project]
# or
> svn co http://svn.jaoudestudios.com/project [project]
# example
> svn co http://svn.jaoudestudios.com/project project_name

# svn update/up #
# notes...
# update = up
# [-r xxx] is optional, if not used the latest and greatest revision will be used. (xxx is any revision number)
# [files/folders] is optional, if not used will update for the current folder & sub-folders, o...

Release of PHP5.3,...finally. Great news, but what is this GOTO

Finally PHP5.3 has been released (it was way overdue). However, in the release notes there is GOTO functionality. Not the GOTO we remember from BASIC days with the use of line numbers; but with anchors, similar to html anchors and jumping up and down the page. We have managed so far without it, is it really needed? Some might say yes; and I would not argue too much - the danger here is it is open to abuse by bad, slap dash, sloppy developers (I will not mention any names) - imagine having a script with 20 or 30 GOTOs around the page, it would be impossible to follow!

After much debate with my fellow developers/collaborators around the world, I have come to the conclusion that, a bad developer will develop bad code with or without GOTO. Having this additional functionality GOTO is just a...

Google Wave:: Bringing email, msn, facebook, twitter all together!

A month or so ago, my Colleague sent me a link to Google Wave. I was really impressed and could not wait to have a play with Google Wave and also their developer section as this seems to be a big part of the system - to allow developers to develop plugins & addons with plenty of scope to link it with their websites. Unfortunately, there is a limited amount of SandBoxes available for developers at the moment while Google Wave is still in development. There is the ability to apply for a Sandbox after filling in a comprehensive form of what you would do with it, what ideas you wish to develop and supplying a link to your own website - I assume to judge your involvement in the OpenSource community.

I thought I would give it a go. A few weeks later I received an email from Google Wave, stati...

Linux Game Publishing :: Michael Simms, AKA Comic Book Guy, AKA CBG

On my way back from Porto, Portugal, I was in a Newsagents looking for a Developer or Linux magazine to read on the plane; when I noticed on the front of Linux Format is my colleague CBG (Michael Simms) - wearing a suit and tie I might add. Totally shocked I bought the magazine and could not wait to read the artical. CBG's company Linux Games Publishing, AKA LGP, ports Windows games over to Linux; therefore we can get rid of that 50GB Windows XP partition only used to play that odd game when we get a spare 5 minutes.

CBG heads both Linux Game Publishing (LGP) and Tux Games (TG) - I bet that keeps him busy, is that why you have not shaved in a while?

The interview highlights:
- CBG ploughed £350,000 of his own money on the back of the dotcom boom.
- 10 years later and still going ...

Weekend Hack Fest 2010 :: The Next big thing!

Reading about Yahoo's 24 hour Hack Fest May 2009 in London got me thinking. Why not arrange our own Hack Fest well in advance so all interested Developers can take part? Nothing too crazy, just a Friday night until Sunday night - with a bit of sleep and food in between of course. The schedule would be simple; start off easy Friday night with the planning of what we are going to develop and build with details of who is doing which part; then Saturday morning let the hacking begin. In this short space of time a small project is definitely achievable with a launch on Sunday night of the project's phase. If the Open Source project gets popular, future phases and/or weekend hack fests could be arranged accordingly - you never know the next Twitter could be mashed together.

You may be thinkin...

PHP to Ruby on Rails

While away on my anual leave, I read the book 'Rails for PHP Developers'. What a mistake! Not because the book was bad, actually I thought the authors did a great job - well done guys! However it made me realise how incomplete and childish php is as a language. I appreciate there are many great web applications out there built with PHP and they are doing an excellent job; I mean going down to a lower level (thats probably the wrong expression to use as Ruby on Rails is a very high level language), but you know what I mean...going under the hood of the web application that one would see in their web browser (hopefully any web browser other than IE - but that is another story). Ruby and PHP are approximately the same age, where as PHP was designed for the web and Ruby was more of a general p...

Do we really need to continue developing for Internet Explorer 6 (IE6)?

IE6 was released at the end of August 2001 and yet is still being used by so many today 8 years on and even after Internet Explorer has gone through two major releases since then. It suffers from many weaknesses: slow, insecure, not compatible with modern technologies. An upgrade is completely free, so why is it still being used? This is a good question and a difficult one to answer; it could be because users are afraid of slowing down their machines even more with the newer version of Internet Explorer. There is reasoning behind this as Microsoft is renowned for requiring the latest hardware for each of their version upgrades, take Windows XP and then Vista for example, the same game on each platform almost requires double the hardware specification on Windows Vista.

So how can we move...

What do candidates look for in a job interview?

When candidates go for a job interview they are interviewing the company just as much as the company is interviewing them. The candidate has an ideal role set in their mind, the chances of finding the perfect role area extremely slim. However finding a role that ticks most of the boxes is highly likely.

What does a good enthusiastic Web Developer look for? What does any employee look for? The remuneration available has to be near the top of the list, notice how I said near the top and not at the top. Money is important for any role, however for a really Enthusiastic Web Developer there are many other factors to consider.

1. Will this role allow me to grow and push my skills to the next level?
2. Are the other team members enthusiastic as well?
3. Will they bring ideas and skill...

What do employers look for in a Web Developer?

The Web Development market is saturated, even with new languages coming into play all the time. What is the best language to learn to make you more in employable? I will address at a later date. Putting the languages aside for now, employers also look at the candidates from various other angles. Are they team players? Can they collaborate? Are they continuously learning?

In our industry the tools of our trade are constantly changing and improving - a developer with 20 years experience who uses the same technology and techniques all the time without learning and using anything new may as well only have 1 year experience. Whereas a developer with 5 years experience who continually keeps up with the cutting edge technologies and skills are second to none, could be worth more than 10 years...

Do you want to become a Web Developer/Designer?

There are many new Web Developers/Designers out there who do not know where to start. It is difficult to find a good starting ground; Server-side, client-side. Even these two categories then break down further into multiple languages and it is impossible to learn all at once and in trying to do so could make you a Jack of all trades and a Master of none.

I suggest and highly recommend starting off client-side. Within the client-side section it then breaks down again. Learn these languages in order, however they may be overlaps - which is fine. (x)html, css. With html being coded to W3C standards and Cross-browser compatible - the browsers you support are at your own disgression, however I do suggest the main browsers (IE7, IE8, Google Chrome, FireFox2, FireFox3, Opera, Safari)

I then...