Articles
A collection of articles and snippets I've collected over the years.
My Musical Journey: From Glam Rock to Hip-Hop (and Beyond) – Part Two
January 8, 2014
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...
My Musical Journey: From Glam Rock to Hip-Hop (and Beyond) – Part One
November 10, 2013
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...
How to configure postfix to deliver all mail to one mailbox
October 19, 2013
How to configure postfix to deliver all mail to a local user account
Filter Apache logs to exclude js, css and images
August 7, 2013
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
June 21, 2013
I always forget the MySQL create database with UTF8 character set syntax, so here it is.
Vagrant, PHP and PuPHPet
May 21, 2013
I've been a PHP Web Developer for a long long time and have spent many hours setting up development environments in order to practice my trade. From full blown towers running full cdrom...
PHP imagick ImagickException no decode delegate for postscript or PDF files
May 17, 2013
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...
Magento admin login problem in Chrome – with solution
April 10, 2013
Recently I've been experiencing a Magento admin login problem in Chrome. The problem is that when I enter the correct username and password on the Magento admin login screen it simply returns back to...
Formula One Website Performance: The fastest team Is…
March 30, 2013
Formula one is the pinnacle of motorport. We know the cars are fast and the pace of development is relentless, but when it comes to performance how do the teams websites compare?
Routing requests to index.php with Apache
March 25, 2013
Here's how to go about routing requests to index.php with Apache. I'm always having to search for this online so I thought I'd document it here. Many of the 'modern' PHP applications use index.php as...
PHP backtick gotcha
March 12, 2013
This PHP Snippet caught me out today: ```php <?php $data = array(<code>paswd</code> => 'test'); print_r($data); ```` Notice the backticks around the array key? These automatically try executing...
Install PHP 5.4 and Nginx on Ubuntu 12.04
February 13, 2013
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...
Developer Tools: Vim keyboard shortcuts
January 5, 2013
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.
Forcing a file to download using the Silex PHP framework
January 2, 2013
I've just been searching for a way to force a file to download using the Silex PHP framework and didn't find any examples. After reading through the Silex code I worked it out. Here's how to force a...
Install PHP and Mysql on OSX Mountain Lion
December 19, 2012
I usually develop on an Ubuntu VM running in VirtualBox but have needed to install PHP and MySQL on OSX Mountain Lion on the MacBook Pro. Here's a Github Gist from Aaron Brady with details on how to...
How to highlight keywords when using tail
October 16, 2012
Have you ever been tailing a log file looking for a specific keyword or phrase? Maybe you're tailing an Exim log watching for an email, or an Apache log file for a specific request. Wouldn't it be...