Andrew Vayanis Developer, Gamer, Thinker

Edit: I originally started working on this article several months ago, however, as I was editing it, the Zend Framework team released a revamped reference guide that goes through much of what I discuss. Hopefully though, this still ends up being useful and informative for someone out there.

Edit #2: I don’t mean for this article to be followed verbatim, but rather, used as a guide to understanding Zend Framework’s routing process.

Now that I am using ZF for current projects at work, I have taken the opportunity to promote ZF with my colleagues. One colleague in particular, who has been using Code Igniter(CI), was somewhat perplexed by ZF’s seeming complexity, even after reading through the first few sections of the Reference Guide. In particular, he didn’t understand how ZF handled URIs as it is quite different from CI. So, I have put together the following, hopefully simple overview, explaining a bit about ZF’s routing and using it in conjunction with Zend_Config.
Read the rest of this entry →

Ever try to get subversion working between multiple Macs over a home network without WEB Dav or public key authentication over ssh? Well, that was what I was trying to accomplish over this weekend and it apparently isn’t as straightforward as I thought. There seems to be an issue with subversion (SVN) and apple’s AFP protocol, something to do with not being able to obtain exclusive locks? Well, that is all I could find on the problem. So, if anyone knows how to fix this, I would like to know. However, I did find another solution on my own, that was just as useful to me as using an AFP mounted drive, but much more versatile. Intoducing… MacFUSE!
Read the rest of this entry →

I recently published an article trying to shed some light on the Zend_Form component, in particular, when using it with Zend_Config_Ini. In the article I presented a config I developed while trying to learn Zend_Form myself, but unfortunately realized that using generic elementDecorators comes with a price.
Read the rest of this entry →

In my previous post Zend Framework, A First Look, I discussed the lacking nature of ZF’s documentation, in particular, with regards to Zend_Form. I have since then learned that this is partly due to the fact that Zend_Form is a relatively new component. However, I still wanted to make use of Zend_Form in my current project and decided to trudge through the learning curve of creating a simple custom login form in conjunction with Zend_Config; the end result being an easy to maintain, custom form and this guide. Hopefully, this guide will make it easier for anyone else looking to take advantage of this very cool feature.
Read the rest of this entry →

Having used Code Igniter for some small projects at work, I recently decided to take the time to acquaint myself with the Zend Framework(ZF) so that I could build my own comparison between two of the most, in my opinion, developed and used PHP frameworks. While I love the flexibility and functionality offered by ZF, I have become very frustrated and annoyed with some of their documentation. Even though it is detailed and expansive, it is no where near complete and somewhat frustrating to use.
Read the rest of this entry →

I am not sure if it wasn’t publicized or if I just missed it, but the Starcraft 2, Terran gameplay trailer has arrived (officially on Sept. 13th). Even though my favorite race is Zerg, I was still excited to view this video. I mean, after watching the first gameplay trailer highlighting the Protoss, who wouldn’t be excited.

Since I don’t play the game as much as I did when it first game out, I have no business trying to analyze the flaws of the original compared to what Blizzard has done and is doing with the sequel. Therefore, I will stick to enumerating the new additions found in this latest gameplay trailer.
Read the rest of this entry →

I recently found myself writing a REST web service, which, in my opinion, is the easiest way to create a web service, for a project at work. Using XML.com’s How to Create a REST protocol as my Guide, I went to work. However, when I tried to create a service to update some data, I wasn’t sure how to send my data in a POST request using PHP. After some stumbling around, I found what I was looking for on Wez Furlong’s blog which led me to PHP’s documentation on HTTP and HTTPS wrappers.

The following is a code snippet from the HTTP and HTTPS documentation that shows how to easily send data using HTTP POST:
Read the rest of this entry →

After another week of configuring this site, I have found another gap in functionality that I would like to have for my Wordpress installation. Namely, the ability to integrate or centralize my site’s external services. For this reason, I have started my first Wordpress plugin, Command Center, as a way to give myself and of course, anyone else who shares this need, a way to integrate certain external resources into their own Wordpess control panel. This plugin is still far from being mature, but I think it is at least stable and usable as a way to store, access, and manage a list of links.

Read the rest of this entry →

Wordpress has really come a long way since I first started using it back when it was version 1.0. It now has a nice clean admin interface (although I am currently using the tiger style admin), a clean and simple installation script, and my new favorites, dynamic sidebars and widgets. However, I noticed that the default links widget creates invalid XHTML markup. After a few minutes of looking through the XHTML and widgets.php file, I realized that the culprit was in fact a core wordpress bug. Currently, wordpress creates widgets with the following code:

'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',</li>

Read the rest of this entry →

Technorati Profile