Tech
PHP Includes
06/11/08 21:56
At the moment in my spare time during my GCSE’s. Only a true geek would take time to learn a server-side scripting language. In this case PHP (PHP, Hypertext, Processor). The term “server-side” means that, quite ironically that its a programming language or script that remains on the server and therefore not accessible on client side computers except for javascript which is something usually enabled in the browser and can be seen if you view the page source.
There are a number of uses of PHP which are valuable to web designers and so on. Which include “includes” which I’ll use as an example for how it can be used. (Oh and if you want to learn PHP you need it to install it first, which can be really complex. So I would suggest you download XAMPP which is a package put together which will install Apache, Perl, MySQL and PHP on your computer safely and comes with a neat control panel where you can turn on and off any part of XAMPP.
So anyway, Back to PHP. We’ll now make an example of how includes can be used to your advantage when creating a website. Lets create a simple HTML document.
Save this as “index.php” then create another file. lets say a footer for a site. So go and create a file called “footer.php” and make a small footer.
Then lets add in the PHP to integrate the footer into the index file.
And as we can see from the preview in my code editor, we have sucsessfully included the footer content into the index page using the include function in PHP.
Why is this useful? It wouldn’t appear useful in this example as it actually complicated things more than they should be. But on a larger website with multiple pages. Includes will be more efficient that typing out the same code for a footer or a navigation bar time and time again.
I hope this tutorial was useful and if you have any questions feel free to contact me at the bottom of the page.
There are a number of uses of PHP which are valuable to web designers and so on. Which include “includes” which I’ll use as an example for how it can be used. (Oh and if you want to learn PHP you need it to install it first, which can be really complex. So I would suggest you download XAMPP which is a package put together which will install Apache, Perl, MySQL and PHP on your computer safely and comes with a neat control panel where you can turn on and off any part of XAMPP.
So anyway, Back to PHP. We’ll now make an example of how includes can be used to your advantage when creating a website. Lets create a simple HTML document.
Save this as “index.php” then create another file. lets say a footer for a site. So go and create a file called “footer.php” and make a small footer.
Then lets add in the PHP to integrate the footer into the index file.
And as we can see from the preview in my code editor, we have sucsessfully included the footer content into the index page using the include function in PHP.
Why is this useful? It wouldn’t appear useful in this example as it actually complicated things more than they should be. But on a larger website with multiple pages. Includes will be more efficient that typing out the same code for a footer or a navigation bar time and time again.
I hope this tutorial was useful and if you have any questions feel free to contact me at the bottom of the page.
Apple Event 14th October
14/10/08 22:40
So here are my long overdue thoughts on the october 14th apple event and the new macbooks.
The reason why this blog post is overdue is because I needed some time to align my thoughts and opinions appropriately before I published them on the internet. At first with all honesty I didn’t like the new macbook’s at all, I think this was because It was “new” and it needed some adjusting too as most people will with most occurrences. This might seem as a bit excessive to be so in depth about the style of a laptop, but the truth is that apple is ahead of the technology market in terms of style and perfection (not to say apple are perfect, no one is) but an image change could influence how people view apple as a company. I think I wasn’t an immediate die-hard fan of it because I’m used to apple being having quite a basic dress code, for a while most their products have had a glossy “plexiglass” look and thats how I find them appealing (apart from my macbook pro which is all silver aluminum) but apple have started to incorporate black into their products more; such as the 07 imac with the black bezel, all black iphones (which a majority of people thought would be white/silver), the mba with black keypads and now the entire macintohs range has formed to this new style with the new cinema displays.
I understand now I’m probably not making much sense but these are my overall thoughts on the event. Just to make it clear though I do actually like the new apple designs though it must have taken more time for steve jobs’ reality distortion field to make its way over the atlantic.
The reason why this blog post is overdue is because I needed some time to align my thoughts and opinions appropriately before I published them on the internet. At first with all honesty I didn’t like the new macbook’s at all, I think this was because It was “new” and it needed some adjusting too as most people will with most occurrences. This might seem as a bit excessive to be so in depth about the style of a laptop, but the truth is that apple is ahead of the technology market in terms of style and perfection (not to say apple are perfect, no one is) but an image change could influence how people view apple as a company. I think I wasn’t an immediate die-hard fan of it because I’m used to apple being having quite a basic dress code, for a while most their products have had a glossy “plexiglass” look and thats how I find them appealing (apart from my macbook pro which is all silver aluminum) but apple have started to incorporate black into their products more; such as the 07 imac with the black bezel, all black iphones (which a majority of people thought would be white/silver), the mba with black keypads and now the entire macintohs range has formed to this new style with the new cinema displays.
I understand now I’m probably not making much sense but these are my overall thoughts on the event. Just to make it clear though I do actually like the new apple designs though it must have taken more time for steve jobs’ reality distortion field to make its way over the atlantic.
Update 101
07/10/08 21:28
Apologies for the lack of updates, I’ve had a lot of school work on my plate recently and I’ve managed to grab a quite evening to write a lengthy blog post.
Firstly before you burst with anticipation Moriarty did arrive in one peice after much jerking around and apple thinking the shipping destination was a port in holland and declared it had arrived.
It has to be the fastest computer mac and pc aside that I have ever used.. EVER! it delivers both portability and desktop performance in one which does it for me.
Macbooks aside I’ve also been able to take 2 higher I.T. courses which will gain be another GCSE alongside my core I.T. GCSE I’m currently working towards, the 2 units will be webdesign and flash animation both of which I should be able to okay. The one problem with the web design course is that I have to use tables for the layout of the page as part of the criteria in order to complete the course this is not a problem of skill since I understand how to implement tables into HTML and use them to create a website layout though I learnt to design layous using div tags whereas tables are an archaic method of creating a layout, while James found more “appropriate” words to describe this. Non the less its another GCSE and I’m not planning on dictating to my teacher about web standards and practices.
Thats probably a wrap for the mean time, I have an early entry maths GCSE exam next month so I’m having to revise after school and do maths papers on a weekly basis. All I can say is I’m hoping to switch my hosting for a service that has My SQL database support for Wordpress
As for the site currently I added a contact form and updating the sidebar.
Karl
Firstly before you burst with anticipation Moriarty did arrive in one peice after much jerking around and apple thinking the shipping destination was a port in holland and declared it had arrived.
It has to be the fastest computer mac and pc aside that I have ever used.. EVER! it delivers both portability and desktop performance in one which does it for me.
Macbooks aside I’ve also been able to take 2 higher I.T. courses which will gain be another GCSE alongside my core I.T. GCSE I’m currently working towards, the 2 units will be webdesign and flash animation both of which I should be able to okay. The one problem with the web design course is that I have to use tables for the layout of the page as part of the criteria in order to complete the course this is not a problem of skill since I understand how to implement tables into HTML and use them to create a website layout though I learnt to design layous using div tags whereas tables are an archaic method of creating a layout, while James found more “appropriate” words to describe this. Non the less its another GCSE and I’m not planning on dictating to my teacher about web standards and practices.
Thats probably a wrap for the mean time, I have an early entry maths GCSE exam next month so I’m having to revise after school and do maths papers on a weekly basis. All I can say is I’m hoping to switch my hosting for a service that has My SQL database support for Wordpress
As for the site currently I added a contact form and updating the sidebar.
Karl
Moriarty The Macbook Pro
14/09/08 12:09
Woah! Within the next week or two Moriarty my new Macbook Pro 15” who was appropriately named by Chris will arrive.
He will prove extremely useful to me over the next year or so and then even more if I take off to university, My current system is a Mac mini dual core with 1GB of ram which means there will be a significant difference in processing power, At the moment within my workflow I usually run Rapidweaver to edit my blog, CSSEdit and Textmate to work on my site code And photoshop for graphics and such, Not forgetting If I have my Mail open and looking up something on the web, The Macbook Pro has 2GB of ram standard, Which is being upgraded to 4GB (explaining why it’s taking so long to arrive) Will be more than enough to deal with my workflow, I’m planning to sell my Mac mini on ebay for a price which I haven’t yet decided since it is the higher spec model with a 2.0 GHz processor and a bigger hard drive, Thats it for the moment and I will update when he arrives and add some unboxing photo’s to the website
Thanks..
He will prove extremely useful to me over the next year or so and then even more if I take off to university, My current system is a Mac mini dual core with 1GB of ram which means there will be a significant difference in processing power, At the moment within my workflow I usually run Rapidweaver to edit my blog, CSSEdit and Textmate to work on my site code And photoshop for graphics and such, Not forgetting If I have my Mail open and looking up something on the web, The Macbook Pro has 2GB of ram standard, Which is being upgraded to 4GB (explaining why it’s taking so long to arrive) Will be more than enough to deal with my workflow, I’m planning to sell my Mac mini on ebay for a price which I haven’t yet decided since it is the higher spec model with a 2.0 GHz processor and a bigger hard drive, Thats it for the moment and I will update when he arrives and add some unboxing photo’s to the website
Thanks..
The end of the world (Again)
08/09/08 17:03
So, For a while now I’ve been looking up about the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) Which is a machine designed to simulate the big bang, Which will apparently reveal to us some of most of the mysteries in the universe such as: “what is dark matter” and change our perception of the world around us, But as with any project like this the doomsday threats come with it, Some say that it will cause a black hole that will cause the earth to collapse in on itself, And others say that it will turn the earth to molten goo, I’m not denying that this isn’t true as I’m not a particle physicist, But I’m sure the few hundred scientists and physicists that have been working on this project for a good year may have noticed a flaw that would caused such damage, Even if there were a risk this dangerous and potential I’t would have been immediately pointed out and stopped in its tracks by the CERN and courts, Which some of the doomsday predictors have been trying to do, Even if it did cause a massive black hole which would suck in the earth, Yes this would put a bit of a shitter on your day but thats the way It goes, So there you have it, I just thought I’d put my view on this out here and to show what the real facts are. Thanks
Site Redesign
31/08/08 21:02
So, The new website redesign that I’ve been working on over the past few weeks is finally done, The one that I originally made was just to hold it for the mean time so I could have more time to work on this new theme, I’ve attempted to incorporate aspects of graphic design which I have taught myself and design it to be minimalistic and light on the human eye, At the moment I understand that it may look quite dry but Im planning to add more pages in the near future, Such as a page to display some of my favorite pictures from my photography, I also may embed a stream window because I do have a Ustream account and I’m planning to use it more