or maybe something uplifting…

Getting together a good development environment for PHP websites isn’t that hard any more. On a Windows machine, I recommend a pretty simple approach. Install Xampp, install Eclipse PDT, install XDebug. For bonus points set up Subversion and get TortiseSVN (or, I guess, whatever other version control works for you).

I’ll give a quick rundown here on how I set up a development environment on a Windows machine, I tested it as I was writing it and I don’t think it took but 2 hours. Read the rest of “A Complete LAMP Development Environment - Xampp, Eclipse PDT and XDebug”…

Here’s a quick tip for PHP error reporting and display in development.

When a project is in the early stages of development you want to see all the error information you can. You probably want E_STRICT on especially when you’re starting from scratch, to help avoid relying on deprecated behaviour. The E_STRICT flag is only available as of PHP 5 and is not included in E_ALL until PHP 5.2 (there’s a little disagreement on php.net between the definition of E_ALL in this table and the earlier note about error_reporting on the same page).

In an early development project you also don’t want to have to keep tailing log files to see the error messages. That’s a pretty sure way to miss errors. So you want to set the display_errors flag on. You also want to control this on a per-project basis, since some projects will have legacy bugs that you’re not fixing right now and those can be left spouting errors to logs until someday in the future when you decide to fix them.
Read the rest of “Displaying PHP Errors in Development”…

Usually I have to get on a plane to get to really talk to anyone else that blogs. We won’t make it out to Vancouver for Northern Voice this year, but we did go last February. Then there was BlogHer in Chicago last year and San Jose the year before. Come to think of it I’ve been doing this blogging thing for a few years now. I’ve never really considered myself a typical blogger though. I mean, sure I write about my own life sometimes and I do a bit of navel gazing, but I write more about Azeroth than I do about the city I call home.

No, here in Windsor I’ve always felt like a bit of an anomaly. Sure there are businesses here that have a “web presence” or publish a menu on the web for their restaurant but by and large you get blank stares at the word ‘blog’. I think that the sheer number of blank stares I’ve had to withstand has led to the dismissive tone that I take on when I say “well I blog sometimes…” then drift off incoherently. It was such a long time of Windsor websites looking like abandoned shacks that I think I may have stopped looking for local content. In the meantime, Candace has been working steadily on BlogWindsor and following the local blogging scene.

Apparently something’s really been happening out there. We’ve got local blogs. There’s the Windsor Municipal Shadow, International Metropolis and Out of the Driver’s Seat to name a few.

If Candace weren’t on the ball then I would have missed out on the first WE Speak Bloggers Meet tonight. A bunch of us met up the Mill for drinks and edibles. Among the crowd I got to meet Pina who writes for the most helpful Windsor Eats and on the other side of me was Mark Boscariol of …Scale Down, Windsor. We all had a great conversation ranging from the usual topics about why we blog and opinions on mainstream media but we also got in to how blogging impacts Windsor. I like to hear other people explain why it is that they blog and what they get out of it. But, more than just explanations, I really enjoy hearing the tone of voice that conveys the new and unusual passion that blogging builds. I like to see a face light up relating the deeply personal satisfaction that blogging can bring. And I love to hear that happening right here in Windsor.

I really wish we could have stayed longer - there was a lot left to hear and say - but with kids at home we couldn’t be out too late. Here’s hoping that someone has the ambition to get us all together again soon.

I accidentally just had my first sip of coffee since the beginning of March. It was good. It’s not any kind of self-torture or penance. It’s not a cleansing diet. I just want to kick the habit for a bit then I’ll go back to it.

I told myself 3 months, no coffee.

Nothing too formal, not a big deal and I have some caffeine from pop or chocolate, though I’m not having anything like a whole cup of any caffeinated anything.

It was really easy after the first week. I hoped to try to move more towards being a morning person for a bit there. I’ve always been a night-owl and envied the way some people start the day and get stuff done for hours before I’m even conscious. Not so much at night, when they crash early and I keep moving until the wee hours. So I was getting the mornings in hand until I had to go to Germany for a week or so and the mornings haven’t come back since.
Read the rest of “Twenty Days to Coffee”…

Feels like I’ve been going non-stop since Friday night. I did some coding on a project that Jeff and I are working on together. Actually it was pixel art inspired by a good single-malt scotch. When I try to do game art I can really relate to that guy from Heroes. The game’s coming along, by the simple goals we’ve set for ourselves.

Saturday morning my daughter showed up bright and early so we went roller blading for a bit. Then I mowed the lawn while she took a break reading some Dear Canada. The weather here was absolutely beautiful. I have to say I have no regrets for finally buying a gas lawn mower last year. Instead of taking an hour and a half then lying down for the rest of the day dying of allergies, I’m done in half an hour and ready to keep on going. And we did keep on except that somehow I mistook 12:00 for 11:00 and we were an hour late for skating. The funny thing is we got there and didn’t even realize we were late when someone told us her coach had already left. So she only got the last half hour while I went grocery shopping. On my way back to the arena I suddenly clued in. Pretty embarrassing. I felt like a total flake; I have to apologize next time I see the coach.
Read the rest of “One Busy Weekend”…

The LG-550 looks like a pretty snazzy phone. There are a lot of pretty snazzy phones these days. Too bad they’re all locked down by the carriers in such unreasonable ways. My sister just got one of these and she was a little frustrated trying to get music on to it. Apparently it doesn’t just show up as a drive like all good USB-attached memory devices should. It has a slot for a microSD card and it came with the microSD card and an adapter to make that fit in an SD card slot. So from the instant message it sounds like she was able to get some music on the card and play from the card on the phone. I’m glad that works, but really, on a phone with Bluetooth and USB this should be a lot easier. Clearly the phone could easily allow access to the files on it (whether it’s wallpapers, video, ringtones, contacts, notes, calendars or whatever) through any methods just by using stuff that’s built in to PCs and Macs for accessing memory devices like cameras and thumb drives.

Anyhow, hope this helps someone else out there avoid paying for extra software they don’t need.

If you, like me, are getting your income tax together and need last year’s exchange rate, it’s at the Bank of Canada. The annual averages are at the bottom linked as PDF files. Every year I go to the Bank of Canada site, pretty much around this time and pretty much just once. On the Canadian tax forms it says you can use their rate or the rate you actually got for selling your US dollars. Of course I’m not an accountant but I hire one and he seems to be okay with this rate.

For 2006 I see 1.13409360 USD/CAD. And the drink of choice for this year’s tax season is a Strongbow.