From time to time I meet developers that do not know the difference between == (equality) and === (identity) in PHP. Hopefully this post will clear it up for you. Here are a few examples of PHP is statements. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 if( 1 == [...]
Equality vs. Identity in PHP if statements.
An autoader that use the SPL DirectoryIterator in PHP
In a previous post I showed a simple example on how to use the SPL Autoloader in PHP. In this example I will show you how to make use of the SPL DirecoryIterator to traverse through the filesystem and look for classes to autoload. The DirectoryIterator provides a class that makes it easy to view [...]
Demystifying the PHP spl_autoload_register, spl_autoload and __autoload functions
PHP has a nifty way to automatically load classes without the need to explicitly include class files. There is also a performance benefit, since only the unnecessary class files are loaded. The traditional way to autoload in PHP was to make use of the __autoload function. The problem with this function is that it can [...]
JSON_Encode vs. Serialize
At times you might need to store an array in a session or database, to be used later by your application. You cant just store the array as is, so you have to convert it into a string representation of the array first. PHP offers a couple of ways to do this, however, most developers [...]
Converting textarea newlines to linebreaks in PHP
The text area element in HTML does not automatically convert newlines to line breaks, so a simple little function needs to be created to do so. There is the built-in PHP function nl2br but if does not work effectively when your user enters multiple blank lines. Here is a little PHP function to help with [...]
Using Phabricator with NginX
Phabricator is a suite of software project management tools, developed by Facebook. Currently, the project is still in an early testing stage, but seems stable enough to use for small projects. This set of tools were developed to be used on a web server running Apache. I ditched Apache a couple of years ago in [...]
We bought our first house!
Finally, we bought our first house! After searching for a few years on and off, we finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase our first house. It was a bit of a roller coaster leading up to the close of escrow, but thanks to Jim (our Agent) and Kevin (our Loan Officer) we managed [...]
Threading in Arduino
Often times in programming we run into scenarios where one task can “block” execution, resulting in other tasks to wait for the “blocking” task to finish execution. For example, you might have a situation where you have to read sensors, flip switches, and write information to a display at the same time. Arduino does not [...]
Getting started with the ADK – Arduino
With Android 2.3.4 and 3.1, Google introduced support for external USB hardware to interact with an Android powered device, known as, Android Open Accessory. The USB Accessory hardware is based on Arduino, an open source electronics prototyping platform. There are certain requirements for these accessories, but to get started, it would be easiest to get [...]
Unlock and Root your Nexus One with Android 2.3.4
I recently received a Nexus One phone and did all of the updates almost immediately. What I did not realize was that the phone does not have root by default, so I started searching to see if I can root a Nexus One running Gingerbread (Android 2.3.4). I found a lot of older information, and [...]
