Why does php not show errors? – How to display PHP errors when display_errors is disabled

OK, a simple thing I know. But one that always occurs.

When using shared hosting (or even your own dedicated servers), those managing those servers do their utmost to make them secure. Among many things this usually includes turning off ‘display_errors’ in the php.ini file.

However, when you’re trying to develop things it is usefull to display errors and warnings, but if ‘display_errors’ is off, you will be scratching your head wondering what’s going on and whats going wrong!
(more…)

Continue ReadingWhy does php not show errors? – How to display PHP errors when display_errors is disabled

Watch your battery!

Having had the HTC for over a week now, I am beginning to get to grips with how to get he most out of it… especially when it comes to battery life.

  • DO NOT let it run too dry! Seems to have trouble charging (from USB) if you’d managed to let it get too low!
  • Be carefull what apps you install… soem apps seem to drain power wven if not in use!

(more…)

Continue ReadingWatch your battery!

Beginning your journey in Object-Oriented Programming using PHP

Object-Orientated programming is not a new idea! It’s been around and available for a long time in many languages.

With each new version of PHP, new features appear, while existing features are improved. PHP’s object support has been hugley improved since it’s introduction in PHP3 (yes it has had it all this time!). And so with PHP’s object support maturing, the reasons developers might not take an object orientated approach are getting smaller. More recently PHP5′s take on objects is much more powerfull and usable than it ever has been for PHP users – but still not without it’s faults.

A common problem that experienced (and new) PHP developers have when embarking on their object-orientated (OOP) journey is thet they don’t know WHEN to use it properly! As with all things there is a time and place for everything.

For those who do not know about OOP I am not even going to attempt to explain what it is! But fact you have found this article means you probably do, but incase not Wikipedia has good general background info on OOP.

(more…)

Continue ReadingBeginning your journey in Object-Oriented Programming using PHP

Review: Michael McIntyre on his 2009 Tour @ Nottingham’s Trent FM Arena on the 26/09/2009.

Michael Mcintyre
Michael Mcintyre

Well, we went and seen Michael McIntyre on his 2009 Tour @ Nottingham’s Trent FM Arena on the 26/09/2009.

It was part of my wifes birthday present as she has always quite liked him I thought it would be a good surprise. I bought the tickets and booked hotel 2 weeks before it, and managed to not tell her untill the night before – I said ‘pack a bag’, still not telling her what for though – infact she never knew right up untill we walked into the Trent FM arena!

(more…)

Continue ReadingReview: Michael McIntyre on his 2009 Tour @ Nottingham’s Trent FM Arena on the 26/09/2009.

Cuba! – 27th August 2009 to 11th September 2009

When: 27th Aug 2009 to 11th Sept 2009

Where: Cuba

Resort: Cayo Coco & Havana

Hotel: NH Krystal Laguna & NH Parque Central

Where We Went…

This was our second visit to Cuba; we previously had a holiday here at the same time in 2007.

In 2007 our holiday was purely to Cayo Coco and the NH Krystal Laguna, one of the excursions we took was an overnight trip to see the Tropicana Nightclub – which is still one of the most memorable night I can recall. It included a very rushed but great introduction to Havana and from that we decided that if we ever went back we would spend more time in Havana.

And so we come to 2009! And we found ourselves searching for a good value holiday and all avenues lead to Cuba! – Again! After that was decided – prices coming up for Sharm el Sheikh and so on were about £1000 more than Cuba – we quickly decided we would like to do a 2-center so we could spend time in Havana (there is so much that could be written about Havana but shall try to keep it limited to what we done!).

(more…)

Continue ReadingCuba! – 27th August 2009 to 11th September 2009

Session Handling in PHP

Traditionally HTTP is a stateless protocol. That is it is made up of requests and responses and there is no notion of a ‘persistent connection’. This means that there is no way to have consistency or personalisation on the web since there is no way of knowing whom the request came from.

There are 2 primary methods – regardless of platform – that are used as a work-around for this.

First is a cookie. A cookie is a text file that lives on the client’s computer that store values set by your application. In general the file can only be access by the website/domain that issued it. The main problem with cookies is that they are un-trusted. A malicious user could modify the data and cause you problems!

The second – and better – solution is sessions. Similar to cookies, but they reside on the server, and cannot be directly modified by the client. When sessions are used, a cookie is still issued, but this simply holds the ‘session id’. This session id is generally sent by any request after it is created by the app including actions such as form submission. This ‘session id’ is a link to either a file or record on the server – depending how they are stored.

(more…)

Continue ReadingSession Handling in PHP