I’ve found a great PHP script that can essentially turn a web server into a virtual browser. The script is small and lightweight compared to existing solutions (just 62KB) and it isn’t dependent on anything else. I needed it for sending/receiving data through POST (because GET is easy), and more importantly, doing it over SSL. I still need to figure out how to upload files through this, but I don’t think it should be too big of an issue. I’m sure it’s just a matter of encoding.
Category :: Programming
29
Dec 08
Dec 08
One of our clients is using an in-house system for maintaining product catalogs, customers, inventory, shopping carts, etc. Being an in-house system, it isn’t very scaleable and changes to the system take a long time to implement. So for them, we are going to be installing and setting up Magento.
Now I’ve only just started to become familiar with the platform. I should also mention that I have no experience working with other eCommerce platforms like OSCommerce or anything, but the talk-of-the-town is that Magento blows everything else out of the water. More importantly, based on what I’ve read in their comprehensive User Guide, the software can handle (1) everything our client needs, (2) everything they’ve requested, and (3) everything our client hasn’t even thought of yet.
27
Dec 08
Dec 08
In the interests of expanding my technical abilities, I’ve picked up a copy of Microsoft Sharepoint 2007 for Dummies. I spent a few hours at the Barnes & Noble at Riverside Square, Paramus, NJ skimming through various books on this subject. I found the “For Dummies” version to be the most “in-plain-English” and “non-Microsoft-tech-speak”. If you don’t know what “Microsoft-tech-speak” is, be very happy.
24
Dec 08
Dec 08
I recently had the opportunity to work on a website that used Flash as the front-end and using LAMP on the backend. At first this seemed like a daunting task, since my Flash experience (outside of creating simple animation tweens and using the software as a drawing tool) was limited to dropping the auto-generated code that Flash generates into an HTML page.
I had no experience whatsoever with interfacing Flash with the server. I was surprised to learn that the task wouldn’t be as difficult as I’d imagined. An SWF file can be set to load data from a server transparently, akin to AJAX’s behavior. The only hint of an HTTP request is seen in the browser’s status bar. Anyway, an SWF can query an XML file (or in my project’s case, XML-output generated via PHP) and parse that into objects that can be displayed to the user.
20
Dec 08
Dec 08
I was assigned to work on a shopping cart for an online clothing retailer. By the time this client approached us, it was just a few days before Christmas, and their shopping cart had a big problem.
Say for example that you added a blue polka dot shirt of size “large” to your shopping cart. Then, after continued browsing through the online catalog, you decide that you want a “small” blue polka dot shirt. The problem was that after adding this shirt of size “small”, your shopping cart would contain two (correct) shirts of size small (wrong). Obviously, you should have a small shirt and a large shirt.
17
Dec 08
Dec 08
No “greetings readers” here, although anyone reading this is more than welcome. The purpose of this blog is to serve as a utility for me to log my thoughts related to programming. Often times when I’m working on a project, I’ll encounter an issue that I’ve encountered before. The problem is that I don’t necessarily remember the solution, and I have to go through the whole process of “figuring it out” all over again. With this blog though, I’m hoping that I can (going forward) document my issues and solutions in case I return.
What kind of programming do I do now? I’m heavily engaged in web development, predominantly the Web 2.0/AJAX practices. I work for RedStage Networks, based in Hoboken, NJ. I’m glad to be part of a highly engaged and enthusiastic team, always working with cutting edge technology.
So if anyone ever reads this, then happy reading. If not, then “memo-to-self”: tag, tag, tag, tag your posts. How will you ever find solutions if you don’t tag your posts?
