At its core, Firebug is just another plugin for Firefox. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. How do these tickle your fancy:

• Tweak CSS on-the-fly (no pun intended)
• View all aspects of a webpage
• View how long it takes to load each page element
• View AJAX requests as they happen (!!!!!)
• Explore the DOM
• Run / Debug JavaScript
• … and more?

I don’t know about you, but the first one on that list is the one I rely on the most. It is such a pain to go into a CSS file, tweak it, re-fresh the page (hoping your data was preserved), see that it didn’t come out just right, tweak page, upload, smash keyboard, tweak, upload, tweak,… With Firebug, I can “inspect” any element and change anything about it: color, display, size, position, float, everything CSS, AND the page updates instantly – don’t worry, the changes won’t be saved – but they WILL cut out a serious amount of angst from your design session! Remember CCSFly? This is like that. Only so much better, it really isn’t like it at all

The “Network” tab is a one-stop shop for anti-depressant magic. If you’ve ever done anything with AJAX you’ll recall that the debugging process can be so time consuming and aggravating that you want to scratch it all and go back to full-page refreshes. Well with Firebug you won’t have to! You can SEE the request – headers and all! Oh and you can see the response, too. With its headers EPIC.

OK so without further adieu – here are the link(s):

Official Firebug Site: http://getfirebug.com/

Official Mozilla Add-on page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

I seriously recommend you get this. Right NOW. And so would the 3,221,281 other people who used it yesterday.

Note: I just found out that Firebug is SO epic, that people have written more plugins for it! Plugins for a plugin… Hmm. Anyways, let me know if you use any good ones!

Get it here: http://firephp.org/

find . -type d -name .svn -depth -exec rm -rf {} \;

WARNING: This will work – and work well. So make sure you’re not in the wrong directory!

Now I can’t claim credit for this one – I found it a while ago and saved it with some of my useful snippits so if you want credit just let me know

Hope it helps.

The instructions here assume you’re getting the following error, and that you’re running PHP. If you’re not running the PHP version of the API then search their downloads for the right SDK – the process is the same.

SOAP Error:

curl_exec error 60 ssl certificate problem verify that the ca cert is ok

Download:

https://cms.paypal.com/cms_content/US/en_US/files/developer/PP_PHP_SOAP_SDK.zip

Copy the api_cert_chain.crt file from that .zip into the following directory on your site:

.../app/vendors/PEAR/PayPal/cert/api_cert_chain.crt

Note: the above directory is for a typical CakePHP install. If yours is different, the process is still the same you just need to find the directory of your PayPal API install.

That’s it! You’ve just updated the PayPal API certificate and should be all set.

Today I was in a bind. I needed to update a batch of records containing a bad char that I couldn’t select (due to encoding issues). So my (nifty) solution was to find one record I knew was bad, grab its ID and update it and all records like it to have the proper description. Unfortunately, MySQL doesn’t let you update a table that you’re using in a SELECT statement for that update. That’s a tongue twister; here’s what I was trying to do.

-- This doesn't work 
UPDATE items SET description = 'Blah' WHERE description = (
    SELECT i2.description FROM items i2 WHERE i2.id = 1234)

Simple enough. But MySQL doesn’t like it because I’m querying the same table I am updating. SO how do we get around that? The answer lies in how MySQL parses and handles query execution. We need to query for the items (thus loading them in a temp space) BEFORE we hit the update. Like so:

-- This works in MySQL 5.x +
UPDATE items SET description = 'Blah' WHERE description = (
    SELECT i2.description FROM
          (SELECT * FROM items) i2
    WHERE i2.id = 1234)

There we go! MySQL queries and returns the ‘items’ table, selects the record with the matching ID, and then updates the real ‘items’ table.

Now a word of warning: Don’t use this in any permanent code/query logic.

1. You should never SELECT *.
2. Hard Coding ID’s is bad
3. It’s not gonna be too performance-friendly.

But if you’re in a bind and you need to do a data fix, that’ll help you get MySQL to play nicely with your tricky UPDATE statement.

Enjoy!

Yesterday I was out to lunch (literally) with a friend enjoying some fine Vietnamese cuisine in West Hartford, CT.  After devouring Chicken and Vermicelli smothered in rooster (Sriracha) sauce, we decided it was time to get back to work.

That’s when we noticed something horribly dangerous written on the cheque.

It wasn’t the price that was wrong- it was the ID Thief Pay-day that they printed for all to see; Merchant ID, Terminal ID, and my Debit Card info all in un-obfuscated (plainly visible) text.

OK, so what? Well consider that some blatant cretin or even a closet low-life decides they need a quick payday as they stumble on the check you left behind. Or even the one they just got for their own food. They now have two easy options:

1) They can steal your Credit Card info, wait until you think you’re OK, and then sneak in a few charges.

2) They can use the Merchant ID and Terminal ID of the restaurant to steal other peoples Credit Cards. After all, if they’ve stolen other CC’s then they’ll need some way to validate which numbers are still good – that’s where the ID’s on the cheque come in handy. And don’t forget it costs money to run CC checks, so if they do it enough they can really screw the poor restaurant.

OK so how about ways to protect yourself?

The simplest way is to scrutinize every cheque you get. It’s not hard, and it only takes 5 seconds. Is 5 seconds worth the hassle of having to fight with the bank? YES.

At the point of sale when you are signing your cheque and giving a tip the restaurant no longer needs your credit card info. So, if you see it printed plainly on there, CROSS IT OUT (or scrap it off). Do SOMETHING – because it’s too easy to take advantage of.

Another more involved way is to make sure you keep tabs on your accounts at all times. Mint.com is a great way to aggregate your account info and make sure you’re keeping up with up with everything going out of your wallet.

The safest way is still to pay CASH. It’s safer financially and security-wise. But cash takes up more space, and often smells.

It’s up to you – you decide.

Consider yourself warned.

Quite unexpectedly, I stumbled across something incredible… CakePHP.

CakePHP is an incredible framework designed for PHP applications. It employs the MVC (Model View Controller) paradigm, that logically breaks code into distinct and easily-identifiable chunks. Models talk to and manipulate your databases; Controllers handle the business logic; Views are what users interact directly with.

The MVC paradigm in itself is a big shift from standard OOP (Object-Oriented Programming), and a HUGE jump from spaghetti coding. But that’s only the beginning.

Do you hate constantly having to write data scrubbers, security utilities, mysql queries, haphazard php classes, ajax elements, or just spaghetti code in general? Enter CakePHP. I cannot begin to tell you how much time this framework saves. Want to make a quick admin panel for your users? or posts? or anything else? Cool – type the following into the appropriate class: $var scaffold; then hit save, upload it, and begin wiping the drool. Cake will build (on-the-fly) admin controls for everything… with ONE LINE OF CODE! Oh, and if you decide you like what they started but want to add more, don’t worry, just ‘bake’ it and Cake will write all the code for you…

OK, so that’s just one tiny aspect of what this framework gives you. How about AJAX controls in one line of code? Or never having to write a line of SQL code? or being able to define validation for models without having to do the work yourself? Not good enough? How about being able to pinpoint exactly where your errors are with the Debug library? or checking out all the SQL your page ran for a given page-load? How about being able to define a User class, a Profile class, and have Cake automagically and intelligently realize they are tied together?

Check it out. Now. You won’t regret it.

CakePHP.org

15 Minute Blog Tutorial

Well, as you may have guessed, this is pretty much a post about nothing – I’m just getting back in the swing of things!

See you around