Andrew McCombe's Blog

RSS feed added

Andrew McCombe — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I realised last week that the RSS feed on this site wasn't enabled. It is now.

A week off, bonding over bikes.

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A week off work spent bonding with my son, and learning a lot about mountain bikes.

Happy Hardcore Day

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Today I'm raising the tempo with Spotify's Happy Hardcore Mix. It definitely has me bouncing in my chair!

How to Clear Stuck Tasks in PHPStorm

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how I cleared older issues from PHPStom's Task Management.

How to hot-reload your browser on file changes without needing JS

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to trigger hot-reloading of your browser when you make changes in any file.

Laravel File Upload fails with "The file failed to upload."

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

How to fix "The file failed to upload" issues with Laravel.

Fix for mysqldump: Couldn't execute 'SELECT COLUMN_NAME, JSON_EXTRACT(HISTOGRAM, '$."number-of-buckets-specified"')...

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 11 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Recent updates to the `mysqldump`command may cause the error `SELECT COLUMN_NAME, JSON_EXTRACT(HISTOGRAM, '$."number-of-buckets-specified"') FROM information_schema.COLUMN_STATISTICS...` on MySQL 5.7. Here's how to fix that.

Remote Debugging Local Websites on Android Phones

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

How to test and inspect local development websites on Android phones.

How To Get The Last Entry In A Javascript Array - The Modern Way

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Getting the last item in a Javascript array can feel a bit yukky. Luckily for us, there's now a new way of doing it.

Laravel: Update created_at and updated_at timestamps manually

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Ever needed to manually set the `created_at` and `updated_at` fields in a Laravel Model? By default the `updated_at` field will be overridden with the current date and time. To get around this you need to pass `false` to the `timestamps` key when saving the model.

Git Ignore File Mode

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to tell git to ignore file mode changes.

How To Fix The Footer To The Bottom Of The Page With Tailwind CSS

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how I fixed the footer to the bottom of the page with Tailwind CSS.

How to install and start Mailhog on Ubuntu 20.04

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Testing email on development sites can be hard but we can use Mailhog to make it easier. Here's how to install and start Mailhog on Ubuntu 20.04.

Sylius: How to add position to product images

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Sylius doesn't come with functionality to change the ordering of images in the admin area but it would be great if we could do it ourselves. Here's how to add a position to the product images tab.

Vue Not Updating When Changing Array

Andrew McCombe — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Today I had a problem with Vue.js not updating when I changed content in an array. Here's how I resolved it.

Feature Estimation: What is the real cost of adding a feature to a website?

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 02 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

When a client requests a feature, how do you provide a reasonable estimate? What do you base your estimate on. How much contingency do you add?

How To Create a New User in MySQL 8

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The command to create a new user on MySQL version 8 has changed. Heres how to do it.

Solved: Installing composer V1 with Ansible

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how I solved installing Composer V1 with Ansible

Magento 2: How to disable the Admin Two Factor Auth (2FA) Feature

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Today I installed Magento 2 for the first time in about a year. Once installed I navigated to the admin area and was presented with a two factor auth warning. Heres how I disabled it.

Symfony: Open file in VSCode or PHPStorm from the browser

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know you can open files in your IDE direct from Symfony's exception pages?

How to Set a User Agent for PHP fopen() calls

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

How to set a user agent when using PHP's fopen() with an URL

How To Create A Multi-Page PDF From Images

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I needed to send someone a PDF of a bunch of scanned documents. Here's how I did it

Using Docker with Laravel

Andrew McCombe — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

When developing on a Laravel project I've used Homebrew for my web server and database, or used a Vagrant box. Whilst these work well most of the time there's an alternative that is quickly becoming the de-facto standard: Docker. Fortunately, getting Laravel to work with Docker is quite straightforward.

How to disable a payment method on the frontend with Magento 1

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 24 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to disable a payment method on the front-end of a Magento 1 site whilst making it available in the admin area.

Apache: Use .htaccess to redirect http to https

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 25 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I'm forever having to lookup how to use Apache's .htaccess to redirect http to https so here it is.

Apache: Use .htaccess to redirect non-www to www

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 25 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to redirect a non-www sub-domain request to the www subdomain using Apache's .htaccess file

How To Clear Google Chrome’s 301 Redirect Cache

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 30 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Ever had a dev site set up and had it 301 redirect to 'https', only to find that Google Chrome caches this and you can't get the 'http://' version after?

Magento Admin Invalid Form Key

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 30 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I Recently came across a situation where I couldn't log in to the Magento admin area, getting 'invalid form key on admin'. Here's how to fix it.

How to import a Google Sitemap into a MySQL table

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 30 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Here's a quick snippet showing how to import a Google Sitemap file into a MySQL table. This is useful if you need to do anything with the urls such as scrape the pages or check for 301/302/404 results.

Google Analytics WordPress Plugin

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to learn now to create a basic plugin for WordPress and have made this very basic WordPress plugin that adds Google Analytics tracking code to your WordPress Site.

How to use htaccess to password protect your website

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

There are many reasons why you would want to password protect your website, or a section of your website. Here's how to setup a .htaccess file to password protect your website.

Magento: remove admin mass action for specific role

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I had a use case where a Magento admin user was limited to viewing the orders only. They should be able to view orders but not perform any actions on an order. The best way to do this with Magento is to remove admin mass actions for a specific user role.

Magento: Remove specific tabs from product edit in admin

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to remove specific tabs from Magento's admin product edit pages.

How to upgrade Magento 2 to a later version

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to upgrade Magento 2 to a later version. For example, if you are currently running 2.1.6 and you need to upgrade to 2.1.7.

How to get the URL of a CMS page or a static block in Magento

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to get the URL of a CMS page or a static block in Magento.

How to use a different SSH port with rsync

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I'm forever forgetting how to use a different ssh port with rsync, so here's how to do it.

HEAD request with PHP

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

If you want to perform a HEAD request with PHP on an URL you can use the `stream` functionality...

Cheat Sheet: Magento Collection Snippets

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A cheat sheet containing useful Magento Collection snippets.

Magento Snippet: Use a Group By clause on a collection model

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Here's a Magento snippet showing how to use a Group By clause on a Magento collection model.

Managing Homebrew Services

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Homebrew is easy to use and makes installing services such as MySQL or Elasticsearch a breeze. Here's how to manage those services.

I’m a Magento Certified Developer!

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I'm pleased to announce that I have recently passed the Magento Certified Developer exam.

Solved: Fix for PHP Composer “????%” issue

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I've had a problem on a few older projects where composer dies with "????%" after running `composer update`. Here's the fix.

Magento Custom Variables

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Magento provides an interface for you to define your own custom variables. You can use these in CMS pages, static blocks, email templates and phtml templates. Here's how to use them.

MySQL Foreign Key Tutorial

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 09 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Here's a quick tutorial on creating foreign keys with MySQL.

Testing Magento Email with Mailtrap.io

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 26 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Have you discovered how hard it is when testing Magento email? Have you ever tried getting Magento to use a separate SMTP server to send emails? I have, and got very frustrated with it. My solution to testing magento email is to use Mailtrap.io.

How to backup and restore with Magento 2

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Magento 2 comes with built-in functionality to backup and restore the code, media, and database. You can choose to backup and restore code, media, or database separately. Here's how to backup and restore with Magento 2.

Product and Breadcrumb Rich Snippets in Magento

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to add products and breadcrumb Rich Snippets in Magento.

Magento Snippet: How to set and get cookies in Magento

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to get and set cookies in Magento 1.

Solved: PHP Imagick ‘unable to open image’ PDF

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I've recently stumbled across an issue where PHP Imagick can't open a PDF file despite the file being there and readable. This is using Mac OSX El Capitan with Homebrewed PHP5, Imagemagick, Ghostscript and the PHP55-imagick module. After a bit of searching I found the fix.

Magento Snippet: Admin grid currency type with currency symbol

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Here's a snippet for using a currency column type with the currency symbol prefix in Magento admin grids.

TIL: MySQL FLUSH PRIVILEGES isn’t needed

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Today I learned that `FLUSH PRIVILEGES` isn't needed by Scott Lindsey in the comments. After double checking locally that Scott was correct I looked it up and found a great explanation why MySQL FLUSH PRIVILEGES isn't needed

Solved: MySQL fix for "Field ‘xxxx’ doesn’t have a default value"

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

If you're using MySQL and getting the following error "SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1364 Field 'delivery_address_id' doesn't have a default value" then this is how to fix it.

20 years of PHP #20yearsofphp

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

On 8th June 1995, Rasmus Lerdorf announced the release of Personal Home Page Tools Version 1.0. To celebrate the 20th anniversary, Ben Ramsey has asked the PHP community to share their PHP experiences and share them on Twitter using the hashtag #20yearsofphp.

Useful Oh-My-Zsh plugins

Andrew McCombe — Sun, 03 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Oh-My-Zsh describes itself as a 'community driven framework for managing your zsh configuration' and comes with lots of zsh plugins (189 currently) but none are enabled by default. Some zsh plugins are tailored for your specific operating system whilst others are aimed at helping improve developers workflow. Wether you're using Ruby, Python, PHP or Javascript as your main language or you're a systems administrator, there will be a plugin to help. Here are the zsh plugins I'm currently using.

Install Beanstalkd on Ubuntu 12.04

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A simple guide on how to install Beanstalkd on Ubuntu 12.04.

PHP: How to pear install HTTP2 and HTTP_Request2

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Whilst working on a project recently I've found the need to install the HTTP2 package from the pear repository. I couldn't find any useful notes on how to install HTTP2 via pear so here's my notes on how to pear install HTTP2.

Staffs Web Meetup February 2015

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

On Thursday night I attended the Staffs Web Meetup, a monthly event aimed at providing an informal environment for people involved in all aspects of the web industry to meet up.

You may need to re-run your boot loader[grub]

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

After updating an Ubuntu server I occasionally see the message `you may need to re-run your boot loader[grub]` after updating the kernel. Here's how to actually update Grub.

Exim Command Cheat Sheet

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I've had this Exim command cheat sheet in Evernote for a while and thought it would prove useful to others.

How to use different PHP versions on OSX with Apache and Homebrew

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

By default Apple's OSX (Mavericks) comes with PHP 5.4 installed but if you want to work on a different version you're pretty stuck. My solution to this is to use homebrew to install PHP5.3, 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 and then simply change the PHP module loaded by apache. Here how to do it.

Sample xdebug.ini file

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I use Xdebug when working on PHP websites and often have to manually install it before starting and debugging. I usually find myself searching the internet for a sample xdebug.ini file to use after installing. So here's a sample xdebug.ini file for my future self (and anyone else it may help).

How to forward a domain to a Vagrant VM with Apache on OSX

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I do a lot of my development work using Virtual Machines and Vagrant. This provides an easy way for me to get a working environment up and running locally on the many projects I work on daily. However, one of the problems with this is that these VMs aren't accessible externally. This can be a problem when you need to show your work or use a third party service that needs access to the site. Here's how to forward a domain to a Vagrant VM using Apache's mod_proxy.

Using a Standing Desk for Work: Week 1

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Its been a week since my post last week, "Using a standing desk for work: Day 1" so I thought I'd write a update.

Using a Standing Desk for Work: Day 1

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We've been toying with the idea of using a standing desk for work quite a while after we had read about them on the internet. The benefits of using them are still unproven but after experiencing back-ache, abdominal issues and muscular pain I tried using a makeshift setup to see if using a standing desk for work would improve things.

Scriptaculous Ajax Autocomplete callback example

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, whilst working on an old website at work, I found a need to add additional parameters to a Script.aculo.us Ajax.autocomplete call The documentation show that this is possible via the callback function but unfortunately there isn't an example provided.

Apache htaccess password authentication, optimisation, and caching

Andrew McCombe — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Here's a few Apache snippets for password authentication, allowing acces via an IP (else requesting password), optimising and caching assets, turning og PHP processing, and more.

Job Control Commands: fg, bg and ctrl-z

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I have a script polling a Beanstalkd queue and needed to put it into the background, and bring it to the front whilst debugging it.

Solved: Fix for MySQL error Code 1217 – A foreign key constraint fails

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you're getting the following from MySQL: 'Error Code: 1217. Cannot delete or update a parent row: a foreign key constraint fails' - this is how to fix it

Inspecting jQuery event handlers

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Ever had issues finding where a JQuery click handler is defined? Got a project with LOTS of Javascript and can't find where an event is handled? Here's how to find out using Google Chrome.

Grep Apache access log for browser and OS version

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Today I've needed to find out if it was worth testing a client's website with Safari 5 on Windows. Here's some shell foo to find out from an access log

Install NodeJS and Bower on Ubuntu 12.04 Precise

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I'm using Bower on a few projects at work to manage the JavaScript dependencies and it works perfectly for my needs. The only issue is that the websites are currently deployed on Ubuntu 12.04 and the packaged version of NodeJs is too old to install Bower.

Ignore PHP Strict Errors and Warnings

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

After upgrading to PHP5.4 on one of our older code-bases I'm finding the error logs full of PHP Strict Errors and warnings. As this code is old and not financially viable to fix all these issues I needed to ignore the errors and warnings.

How I use Git for Web Development

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I have a few steps I usually follow when I find myself working on one of these websites so here's how I use Git with Web Development.

Quick Tip: PHPstorm Find and Replace Regex Dollar Sign ($)

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you need to perform a Find and Replace with a Regex in PHPStorm and want to replace a dollar sign ($) you'll need to escape it with a double slash

Fix for PHP ‘ Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in …’

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I'm getting lots of pages with the PHP warning "Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in ...". The warning is showing because I like to develop with error reporting turned on.

Can’t find VirtualBox Guest Additions ISO?

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Can't find the VirtualBox Guest Additions ISO? Here's a link to the VirtualBox downloads server.

Why NPR’s intern didn’t like Public Enemy’s ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Today I read a well written blog post over at NPR Music called ‘You’ve never heard Public Enemy’s ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back’ in which one of their young interns, Austin Cooper, listens to Public Enemy’s classic album for the first time, and hated it.

My Musical Journey: From Glam Rock to Hip-Hop (and Beyond) – Part Two

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So the 1980s had introduced me to Hip-Hop - a new, exciting and fresh sound straight from the USA and I loved it. But there was a new buzz growing in the UK at the time and I'll admit that I hated it - at first. House had been growing for a couple of years and I'd first

My Musical Journey: From Glam Rock to Hip-Hop (and Beyond) – Part One

Andrew McCombe — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I seem to have been born at a pretty good time for music. My parents aren’t big music fans; my Mother used to be into Glam Rock and bits of Hendrix whilst my Father used to play Country music on Sunday mornings. How that mix started my musical journey from Glam Rock to Hip-Hop and beyond is anyones guess.

How to configure postfix to deliver all mail to one mailbox

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

How to configure postfix to deliver all mail to a local user account

Filter Apache logs to exclude js, css and images

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Quite often I find myself having to filter Apache logs to exclude JS, CSS and images. I use a combination of cat and egrep to achieve this.

MySQL Create Database with UTF8 Character Set Syntax

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I always forget the MySQL create database with UTF8 character set syntax, so here it is.

PHP Imagick / ImagickException: "no decode delegate for postscript or PDF files"

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This morning I had an issue with a PHP imagick ImagickException when converting a PDF/postscript file to a thumbnail. I have PHP Imagick, Imagemagick and Ghostscript installed and everything verifies as OK in phpinfo output.

Magento admin login problem in Chrome – with solution

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I've been experiencing a Magento admin login problem in Chrome which was caused by an invalid domain name and cookies. Here's how I fixed it.

Routing requests to index.php with Apache

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to go about routing requests to index.php with Apache.

PHP backtick gotcha

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I got caught out using bacticks in a PHP script.

Install PHP 5.4 and Nginx on Ubuntu 12.04

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Whilst the LAMP stack is easy to install (sudo tasksel & select 'LAMP'), installing PHP 5.4 and Nginx on Ubuntu 12.04 isn't as straightforward. For a start, the packaged Nginx is out of date and PHP5.4 isn't currently available at all out of the box. Luckily there are PPA's for installing PHP 5.4 and Nginx.

Developer Tools: Vim keyboard shortcuts

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I regularly use Vim but have to confess that I'm not a 'power' user. To help me learn Vim keyboard shortcuts I have noted them down here.

Install PHP and Mysql on OSX Mountain Lion

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Here's a useful snippet to help install PHP and MySQL on OSX Mountain Lion.

How to highlight keywords when using tail

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Wouldn't it be really great if you could highlight a keyword or phrase when using `tail`? Here's How to do it.

Restart Apache on Mac OS X

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is here for reference as I keep forgetting how to restart apache on Mac OS X.

Change the cursor with JQuery

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Occasionally I use JQueryUI components to display dialogs and I like to set the cursor to the 'timer' when the event is triggered and back to 'auto' afterwards. Here's how to change the cursor with JQuery.

Detect iPad and iPhone with PHP

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

If you ever have the need to detect iPad and iPhone with PHP, or any other mobile/tablet device, you can use the excellent php-mobile-detect library.

How to find the Magento version

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Often you will need to know which version of Magento you are running in order to install an extension or apply a security patch. Heres how to find the Magento version you are running.

Gzip javascript and css with NGinx

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Nginx by default will only compress text/html content types. Heres how to gzip javascript and css with NGinx.

Sending HTML Mail via SMTP with PHP Pear Mail

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 30 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to send html email via remote SMTP using PHP and Pear Mail / Mime.

How to add APC cache to Magento

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Alternative PHP Cache (APC) is a free and open opcode cache for PHP. It can help speed up your Magento installations.

Speed testing your website with Siege: Part two

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Part 2 of 2

Speed testing your website performance with Siege: Part One

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Your website performance is crucial to your business and you need tools to measure the response times and number of requests your website can handle. Siege is perfect for this. A tool to test and report on website performance.

WordPress auto update ‘Unable to locate WordPress Content directory’ or ‘Could not copy file’ fix

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how I fixed 'Could not copy file …' when updating WordPress via FTP.

Test SMTP with a dummy server in Python

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to test SMTP with a dummy server in python

Viewing the PHP APC cache in Ubuntu 10.10

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

APC is a great tool for caching in PHP and once installed it is very easy to use. However, what do you do about viewing the PHP APC cache in Ubuntu? Well, there is a fantastic PHP page provided by APC that allows you to inspect the cache via a web page.

Debugging your vimrc

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I made some changes to my ~/.vimrc file that didn't seem to work and so I needed to see what was happening when vim loaded my ~/.vimrc file.

Do PHP objects use getters and setters internally?

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I just came across something that made me wonder wether a PHP object uses the magic getter and setter methods inside the object itself.

10 Skills A Web Developer Needs To Have

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Knowing a programming language just isn't enough these days to be a full time Web Developer. Here are ten other skills a modern web developer needs to have.

10 Skills A Web Developer Needs To Have

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Knowing a programming language just isn't enough these days to be a full time Web Developer. Here are ten other skills required to 'do the job'.

How to: Disable php processing in wordpress upload folder.

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 18 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

If you host a WordPress site and have enabled writeable permissions on any of the folders it is recommended that you disable php processingin those folders. Here's how to do this.

Howto: Get the IP address of a domain in a one liner

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to get the public IP address of a domain name with a simple one-line cli command.

Important cron gotcha: Cron not being updated.

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently caught out by a crontab running even after I had edited the crontab and commented out the line. Here's why it happened.

Subversion TortoiseSVN menu in Ubuntu Nautilus

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Windows developers using Subversion generally use TortoiseSVN to administer their repositories and when moving to Ubuntu Linux they find using the CLI (Command Line, Terminal, black box - whatever your phrase) alien. However, there is a way to have a menu in the file manager for performing Subversion administration, just like with TortoiseSVN. Here's how to install it.

Hack to play minesweeper on Amazon Kindle

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that you can use your Amazon Kindle to play a minesweeper game?

Amazon Kindle white screen of death issue (and how to fix it)

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Whilst the Kindle is an excellent device, I have experienced a blank 'white screen of death'. Here's how to solve it.

Tutorial: Setting up Varnish with Apache

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Varnish is an HTTP accelerator designed for content-heavy dynamic web sites. Here's how to set up varnish with Apache on Ubuntu.

Portsmouth Tilt Shifted

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Here's a picture of the dockyard at Portsmouth I took from the top of Spinnaker Tower. I've experimented with tilt shifting and think the result is pretty good.

Constraining resizable textareas

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The new crop of web browsers such as Safari, Chrome(ium) and Firefox 4 allow the user to resize textareas by using a handle at the bottom right. It is possible to restrict the size that the user can resize the textarea to using css min/max width/heights.

PHP Warning: Xdebug MUST be loaded as a Zend extension in Unknown on line 0 Fix

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

When I upgraded my desktop to Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) I also upgraded my PHP version to 5.3 and got a PHP warning about Xdebug.

IDE Tip: Mouse-wheel on Netbeans tabbed pane

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

How to browse lots of files in Netbeans' tabbed pane.

Netbeans PHP Autocomplete stopped

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I had an issue with Netbeans 6.8 where the auto-complete for PHP functions stopped working. Here's how I fixed it.

CLI Autologin and autostart a program with Ubuntu 9.10 karmik

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

My old laptop is used as a music server and so I haven't installed a desktop on it. I use MPD as my music server and ncmpd as the front-end. However, I'm finding it a pain to enter my username, password, wait (its an old, slow lappy) and then enter ncmpd, so I looked for a way to do this automatically. And guess what? It can be done!

Install Ubuntu from Grub over Network

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

How do you install Ubuntu if you have no external drive and no USB boot option? Luckily for me its possible to install over the network.

Mashups and Music

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

On my old site I had a couple of tracks that I have mashed up in the past and one track created with fruityloops. Since the blog has gone in these tracks have disappeared. Time to put 'em back.

Performing VAT calculations in PHP

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to calculate VAT on a value using PHP.

Bulk rename files in CLI

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A quick snippet showing how to bulk rename files on a terminal.

PHP number_format gotcha

Andrew McCombe — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

One of our client sites had an issue when a payment was attempted for over £1,000 and the problem was caused by PHP's `number_format()` function.

Unicode PHP functions and files

Andrew McCombe — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

One of the more useful features of the upcoming PHP6 is full unicode support throughout. However, did you know that PHP supports unicode already and can be used for variable, method and function names?

Set Fixed IP Address on Ubuntu

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to set a fixed IP address in Ubunti.

Timesheet Prompt

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A simple script to prompt for a Timesheet entry on Ubuntu

Share mouse and keyboard across computers

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

To save me from having to switch between the Linux Desktop and my Vista laptop everytime I wanted to reload the Vista browser I use a unix utility called x2vnc. Here's how to install and use x2vnc.

MySQL Stored Procedure tutorial

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

An example of how to create and use a stored procedure with MySQL.

A day in the life of Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Here's an animation covering 24 hours of a day in the live of Portsmouth Harbour and Spinnaker tower in 2009

Install PDFLib with PHP

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Here's how to install PDFlib with PHP using pecl.

Drawing an Arc in Imagick

Andrew McCombe — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Here's an example of how to draw an arc using PHP and Imagemagick.

How to use Zend_Cache to cache an object

Andrew McCombe — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

How to use the Zend Framework (v1) Zend_Cache library to cache an object.

Installing and using PHP ImageMagick (Imagick) Module

Andrew McCombe — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

How to install and use PHP's Imagick Module.

Upload files with ncftpput

Andrew McCombe — Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

ncftp is a great set of command line ftp utilities. Here's how to use ncftpput to upload a file