Blog posts

One of the PEAR modules I’ve been making extensive use of is DB_DataObject. For a while I toyed with writing a custom DataObject system for the current project, but PEAR’s offering seemed to have pretty much everything I was looking for. Overall, it’s made the development process much more straightforward than it would otherwise have been, but I did run into one unexpected problem. I have a lot of table links specified in the configuration file and I suddenly discovered that some of those links weren’t being made as I expected. It turns out that DataObject loads all the links into an associative array, indexed by the field being linked. This means that if, say, you have a member id linking to a whole variety of tables then only the last link specified will be recorded. ...

For the same project as I posted about yesterday, I’m making extensive use of Smarty. Today I wrote a plugin that will convert the output of NestedSet into a nicely formatted HTML list. The one thing that took a while to work out was that if a smarty ‘modifier’ plugin is applied to an array, it will be applied to each element of that array. I wanted my modifier to be applied to the array as a whole and to do that I had to prefix the modifier call with an ‘@’. ie: ...

I was very pleased a couple of months ago when I was told that Wealthy Street Bakery had finally switched on their wireless router. Wealthy Street serve the best sandwiches in Grand Rapids, along with a range of great sweet foods. But somehow we’ve never had occasion to stop here for any length of time since then so I hadn’t been able to test it. Till now. The connection speed is very similar to Four Friends, rating at 344kpbs up/274kbps down when I tested it. Everything has been running smoothly, though I’ve not been making any substantial data transfers or doing any remote working. From my limited use of FTP I’d guess working via SSH would be an option. ...

Needing to be at Calvin for lunch but not really caring to set off at the crack of dawn to travel in with Kari, today seemed like a good opportunity to try out the bus system. I’ve picked up from a few people that travelling on the town’s buses can be a little daunting for those who’ve not tried it before, so I thought a few words about the experience would be in order. ...

For a current project I’m trying to get a better idea of what’s available in PEAR. PEAR has come on a long way since I last explored it in any seriousness. Today’s undertaking was an exploration of DB_NestedSet. Up till now I’d had a simple parent-child category map but I needed to make it a little more flexible, reduce database overheads and simplify maintenance. Using NestedSet looks like a solution to all of those, though some refactoring may be in order. The key thing that’s missing is good documentation and it did take a fair bit of googling to get things going as I’d like. ...

The final speaker in the 2005 January Series was also the best received. Fleming Rutledge, an Episcopalian Priest from New York with one of those genteel southern accents I’d only previously heard in movies, took on the most politically charged issue in modern America and did so impressively. As she began to laud evangelicalism while critiquing theological liberalism I was rather concerned. In the context of a series which has had a clear conservative bent and a talk entitled " Christian Right, Christian Left: The Polarized American Religious Scene" the danger of an hour on the merits of legalistic theology was very apparent. Thankfully, that apprehension was quickly subdued as it became clear that Rutledge was not interested in tight definitions but was looking for theology that surpasses the narrow confines in which modernist liberalism and conservative evangelicalism both languish. ...

Each year on Oscar Nomination Day I find myself lamenting the difficulty of getting hold of the short films that get nods. This year, with all the talk about film downloads (word got out yesterday that Napster is planning to offer video downloads, and that google is to launch video search) I’m left wondering why no-one was poised to announce that they were offering downloads of the ten shorts. The best I’ve found so far is this teaser of Gopher Broke and this one of Ryan. Walt Disney Pictures aren’t even advertising their Short Film (animated) nominee on their homepage… ...

Four Friends Coffee House has been one of those places I’ve been meaning to visit since I first started visiting Grand Rapids. One of the town’s more talked about coffee shops, it was also one of the earlier adopters of WiFi. Finally, this evening I’ve made it here. The first thing that struck me was the good sized tables found towards the rear of the cafe. Too many coffee shops are stuck with tables not really suited to a work environment so a few tables with space for more than one laptop is a welcome sight. A few more power outlets and it’d make a very good spot for meetings. The connection clocks up at a respectable 345kbps up/228kbps down—nothing outstanding, but definitely usable for most tasks. ...

Howard French’s penultimate January Series lecture couldn’t have been more different than that which preceded it. Where Frank Deford offered light-hearted stories, French dug deep into the issues facing Africa and its portrayal in the West. Where Deford had a light, informal stream-of-consciousness approach, French read from a script in a manner that was often hard to follow, but rewarded careful attention. French’s style was hard to follow. A Senior Writer for the New York Times, he demonstrated very clearly the skill with prose and clear grasp of critical issues that won him that position but was much more impressive when questioning took him away from his script. Nevertheless, his topic was a vital one and I sincerely hope he made the impact it deserved. ...

It took me two years to notch up my first two hundred posts on this blog. It’s taken only six months to reach this three hundredth entry. I wondered whether the increased posting frequency was due to several months without work, but looking back it seems I actually blog at least as frequently during the busy times. I suspect the pressure to focus disparate thoughts and observations in a tighter timeframe results in less procrastination and more writing. ...