Here’s a simple test to find out if you’re running PHP 5 or later. Modify it to suit your needs.
function isPhp5()
{
if (version_compare("5.0.0", PHP_VERSION, "> ="))
{
return TRUE;
}
return FALSE;
}
April 2005
Monthly Archive
I’ve decided that I have to start using XML on PHP 5, so I thought I’d take some notes on my quick skim of the support available. Read on to get an idea of how the different PHP extensions relate to each other.
Read the rest of “XML in PHP5, Let me Count the Ways”…
I finally caved in and signed up for a month-to-month account with T-Mobile for wifi. I end up at this Starbuck’s weekly lately. Usually I’ve found that I’m quite productive offline. I can’t check my email and I can’t get distracted surfing. Unfortunately there’s only so much website you can build offline. It’s surprising just how much. I’ve set up PHP5 and Apache 2 on my notebook computer, so I can easily develop and test out a whole lot of things. Lately though I’ve been experimenting with RSS, REST and Ajax. While simulating both ends of the communication for all of that would make for a really cool application, I just wouldn’t ever get done.
I think it just comes down to spending the time on it. And having access to all those standards at the W3.
So far I like the wifi (must be 10 whole minutes now). I figured it would be good to have set up already for the next trip to Cali (E3 next month). Since T-Mobile is supposed to work all the way across the US I should be all set.
While I’m at it, I ponied up five bucks to get ad-free slashdot - with plums! Just a mad spending spree tonight. Next thing you know I’ll be paying for shareware.
SVG Basics is now more Mozilla-friendly. I’m not making a big deal of it on that site yet because I still have to do more testing and see which sample code actually works well and what doesn’t. For now though, surfers should at least be able to see the examples. I’ll be testing with the SVG-enabled Firefox build any day now.
Oh, and while we’re talking about SVG another little development was announced today. Here’s the remarkably short Press Release(the disclaimer is longer than the body). Adobe has bought Macromedia. While both were involved in SVG, Adobe has clearly done a lot more to promote it. Time for the speculation to begin.
I’ve been expecting that SVG Full 1.2 will become official in the next month or so based on the W3C Roadmap for SVG. So does this aquisition affect software that Adobe will release to support SVG 1.2? Let’s discuss.
The Next Generation of Game Console from Microsoft is coming. We all knew that, but they’ve announced a date when they’ll announce the box. Geez.
By now it’s well known that Microsoft has details on the successor to the XBox. Some places are calling it XBox Next , some say XBox 360 and others XBox 2. There are bound to be a lot more press releases and rumours as E3 approaches, so I’ve created a page that tracks the latest news, speculation and rumours about it, whichever it’s called. Right now, there aren’t a lot of news items in there but expect to see a lot more information come up as the Electronics Entertainment Expo approaches in May. I’ll fine-tune it to catch all the news, if you see something I missed, add a comment and I’ll update my page.
I’ll be attending E3 this year and I want to keep up on the news releases as they come out. To do this, I want to watch a whole bunch of sites. Since I’m watching, I’ll put up the pages that I watch and link to them here. All that knowledge right at your fingertips. No need to thank me, just throw money 
How does google know where I’m going? When they first introduced google maps I was planning a trip to the GDC in San Francisco. One of their 3 example searches on the main page was in SF. Now I’m planning for E3 in LA and I read that they’ve added awesome (but creepy) satellite imaging to their maps. When I go to check it out I see they’ve changed the default searches and one is for hotels near LAX.
Just what are they watching on those satellites anyhow? I imaging someone at google watching the satellite feed, staring at my fingers typing as I talk about their service…
In honour of the upcoming tax deadline, I decided to use last night to catch up on filing some things. Specifically every receipt and piece of mail that I’ve received in the past four months or so. I like to keep good records but I don’t always spend the little time it takes to keep up. In lieu of that I take a few evenings every couple of months and get everything put away. The upshot is that I can check what my long-distance bill was in July of 2002. If I really wanted to. The basis of my philosophy is that I don’t know which bill I’ll have to refer to in the future. To make my future self happy and worry-free I just keep everything.
At first keeping everything was difficult and I thought it might be a dumb obsessive-compulsive sort of thing to do. Over time I’ve gotten used to it and it’s really not that hard. Most of the papers that I keep record direct financial information. These are account statements from the bank, the natural gas company, cell phone provider and so on. Others are pay stubs, cashed cheques or movie ticket stubs. Yes, movie ticket stubs. That might sound anal, but it’s a great way to jog memories.
Read the rest of “Sorting the World”…