First, edit .htaccess file to create a redirect that will send all user agents (bots and browsers) to feedburner, with the exception of Feedburner, which needs to be able to load our original content.

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# Redirect feed to feedburner
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}      ^/?(feed.*|comments.*)        [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(FeedBurner|FeedValidator) [NC]
RewriteRule ^feed/?.*$          http://feeds.feedburner.com/techcocktail [L,NC,R=302]
RewriteRule ^comments/?.*$      http://feeds.feedburner.com/techcocktail [L,NC,R=302]
# Load Everything else like normal
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

Then we can add the code in our theme functions.php to hijack and overwrite those old RSS links:

function custom_feed_link($output, $feed)
{
	$feed_url = 'http://feeds.feedburner.com/techcocktail';
 
	$feed_array = array(
		'rss' => $feed_url,
		'rss2' => $feed_url,
		'atom' => $feed_url,
		'rdf' => $feed_url,
		'comments_rss2' => ''
	);
	$feed_array[$feed] = $feed_url;
	$output = $feed_array[$feed];
 
	return $output;
}
add_filter('feed_link','custom_feed_link', 1, 2);

When you reflect on how technology has transformed different industries such as medical, financial, or social, one of the biggest components to these changes is software development. Yet despite the fact that software development is such a crucial component to other industries, it’s amazing to me how little the practices used to write code have improved over the years. IDE Software and a keyboard are really the only tools a programmer uses on a daily basis, yet somehow these tools have barely evolved in the last few decades. This post, we’re going to focus on Integrated Development Environments and save keyboard hardware for another time.

**Note** It’s important to recognize the differences between an IDE and a simple code editor. There are a lot of gray areas here and feedback/comments are welcome to contribute differences in opinions, but I’m going to identify the differences between IDE Software and Code Editors based on the web industry and what we use as a company. Some great Code Editors that I don’t feel fit into the role of IDE are Coda (Mac), Textmate (Mac), Notepad++ (PC), and Dreamweaver (Mac, PC).

Source Editor vs Application

IDE Software come in all shapes and sizes and one of my favorite approaches when working solo on a project, is to do development in linux directly using the server where the site will be hosted. I can save myself a lot of time and trouble by working directly with a source editor on the server via Shell. One of the oldest, most lightweight, and probably most perfected source editors for this is Vim. It originated with the first versions of Linux and integrates deeper than any other IDE to date due to the fact that the IDE is really just shell. You probably know a lot of developers using shell/ssh if you’re not using it yourself, and Vim operates on every unix based operating system. Being able to control a web service, operate a repo, and customize via plugins and settings.. Terminal and Vim do it all. It takes a long time, patience, and commitment to learn Vim, terminal commands, and commands for each system you use (such as git or svn) but some of the best web developers I know are using it, and take it from someone who hires.. I separate “okay” developers from “great” developers based upon whether they know terminal.

Integration is Key

Integrated Development Environment, it should be self-explanitory, but many developers disagree on what constitutes an environment and how deep integration goes. I think there are many applications in the wild that look like an IDE because they have entry level integration with files (such as project creation or FTP) or simple function lookups, but true IDE Software should include debugging tools, class/function memorization, language Doc/commenting support, etc. A well developed IDE should help you in every step of the programming process. If I were building a website on Kohana Framework and PHP, I would expect the IDE to setup my project locally and let me setup FTP and versioning with that project. The IDE should track my changes, help me make commits and synchronize between local and server. The IDE would then help me through bug tracking by having built in error reporting or integration with a platform that helps me track and resolve errors. A real IDE will not only show me core functions, but should parse through my code and help me reuse my own functions/classes. The way Komodo IDE or Aptana (built on Eclipse) do this is based on phpDocs.. so if my functions and classes are well commented and documented then I will have code completion and references on the fly. I can alt+click on function in my code and those IDE’s will take me to the file where the function is declared. Even if the IDE doesn’t contain this functionality out of the box (because we all want slimmer, faster applications) they should be available via plugins.

IDE for Windows, Mac, Linux

I had no issue finding a plethora of IDE’s and code editors developed by small groups and individuals, however a large scale Windows IDE, Mac IDE or Linux IDE are limited to really just a couple options: Komodo IDE, Aptana or Eclipse. I’ve used all of them and I personally prefer Aptana because it is a build of eclipse that has been customized to make web development easier. All of them are powerful, and far better for true programming than code editors, they all also offer a free version, which is a great way to try them out with no risk. There may be other IDE’s that work specifically for Windows or Mac, and I welcome you to mention your favorite IDE below.

There are many tutorials and scripts out there that will help you download/get ftp files from one server to another, but this is a slimmed down version that doesn’t have any unneeded fluff. There’s a linear approach to setting up FTP connection info, as well as a OOP example of performing server actions. If you’re familiar with OOP, this would be ideal to condense and refine into the FTP Class, otherwise, if you just want this to work without worrying about classes or scope, you can copy/paste the contents from the class into the linear script and it’ll get you where you need to go. Cloud servers can be a great way to host these heavy processes or bulky PHP scripts. Feel free to leave comments or questions.

<?php
# Linear connection info for connecting to FTP

# set up basic connection
$ftp_server = "ftp.yourserver.com";
$ftp_user    = "Username";
$ftp_pass	   = "Password";
 
$ftp_conn   = ftp_connect($ftp_server);
$ftp_login   = ftp_login($ftp_conn, $ftp_user, $ftp_pass);
 
ftp_pasv($ftp_conn, true);
 
# check connection
if ((!$ftp_conn) || (!$ftp_login)) {
	echo "FTP connection has failed!";
	echo "Attempted to connect to $ftp_server for user $ftp_user";
} else {
	echo "Connected to $ftp_server, for user $ftp_user";
}
 
echo "Currently in ".ftp_pwd($ftp_conn);
 
if (ftp_chdir($ftp_conn, "IDX_Version_5")) {
	echo "Current directory is now: " . ftp_pwd($ftp_conn) . "\n";
} else {
    echo "Couldn't change directory\n";
}
 
# Dump the data to the screen
var_dump(ftp_rawlist($ftp_conn, '.'));
 
# For the actual ftp actions, I use a FTP class I wrote which you can grab below
FTP::download(APPPATH.'data/idx', '.', $ftp_conn);
 
ftp_close($ftp_conn);
?>
 
<?php
# FTP Class for performing file downloads
class FTP {
 
   /**
     * Download() performs an automatic syncing of files and folders from a remote location
     * preserving folder and file names and structure
     *
     * @param	$local_dir: The directory to put the files, must be in app path and be writeable
     * @param 	$remote_dir: The directory to start traversing from. Use "." for root dir
     *
     * @return 	null
     */
    public static function download($local_dir, $remote_dir, $ftp_conn)
    {
 
	    if ($remote_dir != ".") {
	        if (ftp_chdir($ftp_conn, $remote_dir) == false) {
	            echo ("Change Dir Failed: $dir<br />\r\n");
	            return;
	        }
	        if (!(is_dir($dir)))
	            mkdir($dir);
	        chdir ($dir);
	    }
 
	    $contents = ftp_nlist($ftp_conn, ".");
	    foreach ($contents as $file) {
 
	        if ($file == '.' || $file == '..')
	            continue;
 
	        if (@ftp_chdir($ftp_conn, $file)) {
	            ftp_chdir ($ftp_conn, "..");
	            FTP::download($local_dir, $file, $ftp_conn);
	        }
	        else
	            ftp_get($ftp_conn, "$local_dir/$file", $file, FTP_BINARY);
	    }
 
	    ftp_chdir ($ftp_conn, "..");
	    chdir ("..");
	}
 
}
?>

I’ve worked with all the major players in the PHP framework space, and there are good and bad takeaways from all of them. My goal isn’t to bash on any of the others, because they all have fairly equal strengths and weaknesses.. some obvious and others not so much. This post will instead be focused on one of my favorite frameworks, Kohana.

Holy Light Footprint, Batman!

What initially intrigued me about Kohana was the fact that there were so many credible developers raving about it, and the size of the whole framework was under a meg! Previous to Kohana, I had been doing nearly every project in Zend, so a 60M footprint didn’t really phase me after a while.. and to see a framework that small made me immediately question how powerful it could really be; but within install and reading docs, I was off to the races building powerful web apps with such a tiny footprint.

After diving into the framework on a few large projects, I’ll sum it up this way.. Kohana is like the frame of a house.. which a framework honestly should be. It doesn’t include the drywall or insulation, but since the frame is so solid, yet lightweight.. the house can be shaped and formed in any manner then the extras can be added on. Compared to the modular home that Zend and CodeIgnitor offer, this truly is a different framework.

Yet something familiar..

The next thing I noticed is it felt a lot like CodeIgnitor, even though it was also very different. When I started seeing syntax similarities, I investigated to find that the Kohana team stemmed from the CI team a while back. What doesn’t matter is the politics of the separation, but what does matter is that Kohana was geared to utilize PHP5 from day one. This fact also made me beyond words excited to start building projects.. as I’ve watched PHP5 start to become more OOP but had yet to really see it in action or throw away my bad habits. Long story short, this boy has started OOP’ing everything because of it. Goodbye MVC and linear and hello HMVC and sub-classing.

But the best part

The complaint I hear the most is that “Kohana’s documentation sucks” which honestly just makes me laugh. What I love about Kohana is that it quickly brings out the fools of developers who need examples to write “Hello world” or tutorials to do CRUD operations on a database. Kohana is a very thoroughly and thought out framework, but yes.. it is lacking in examples. That’s because the classes and commenting in Kohana is meant to be the documentation. They built the manual right into the product, which is a feature we’re ALL SUPPOSED TO DO if we’re good programmers!! Am I right?!? I’ve found that looking up documentation is as easy as a shortcut search within my IDE and quickly grabbing what I need. I don’t use a book, no snippets or cheatsheets; because they’re all unnecessary.

Kohana PHP

Kohana is by far my number one choice when it comes to building most small to medium scale websites or applications. It’s proven capable time and again, and if my opinion counts for anything, then take my advice on this one.. you won’t regret it (unless you’re a bad programmer).

Buddypress is an awesome add-on for WordPress, turning an average blog into a full-featured Social Media Network or multi-user blog or forum. Buddypress Features new and robust tools built in for leveraging internal communication and promoting user interaction. Here are some highlights of why it’s often best to just build on Buddypress from the beginning rather than building on WordPress..

Extended Profiles

The ability to support custom fields and profile information is built right into Buddypress, so the headache of writing custom code or using plugins like Register Plus are simply unneeded, since the Buddypress admin lets you define extended profiles and fields

More Social

A blog is often hard to promote communication because it’s the website owner communicating to the masses and even with commenting, replies are often only single tiered and lack in motivating conversation. With Buddypress blogging is encourage via communities and groups which can let users extend on blog post or interact with each other in a way that is more social than comments.

Built in Messaging

Many WordPress plugins in the past have fallen short of achieving a “membership” structure that also includes private messaging and communication. Member messaging and internal collaboration is built into Buddypress now, allowing users to communicate without needing to add in or custom build a plugin.

Design is Simple

Buddypress didn’t over-complicate the structure or layout of theme building. They took what is already familiar with WordPress and simply extended with a few new functions and templates. With child themes, Buddypress is easy to theme and modify in a way that won’t have issues with future upgrades.

It’s Familiar

So many users are already using facebook, that it only makes sense to use the lingo and looks that facebook has established for status updates, events, profiles, and so on. Buddypress takes many of the popular features of facebook and wraps them into the platform, making a social system that already looks familiar and intuitive. This also reduces development time, as there are so many social plugins and components for WordPress which all usually require separate styling and tweaking to make look native or integrate fully.

yum install gettext-devel expat-devel curl-devel zlib-devel openssl-devel

Then get the source code for Git

wget http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.7.2.2.tar.gz

Extract the tarball

tar -zvxf git-1.7.2.2.tar.gz

Install to usr/local

cd git-1.7.2.2.tar.gz
make prefix=/usr/local all
make prefix=/usr/local install

Test it out

cd ~/
git --version

We’re quick to turnover when we really believe in something. One of the automated scripts we wanted for our company was a system to upload mockups to a directory and have them automatically publish in a web page. This system allows us to simply drag and drop images and have them populate with different versions and folders. We also wanted this functionality to be password protected and to have a way to separate public and private folders in a directory.

For security purposes I have removed the actual session control script that we use (which is a way of protecting pages via login). However, it does come standard with a simple login posting ability so even if you know nothing about programming, this script should come in handy.

Features:

• JQuery Slider for form and functionality
• PHP to read directories and manage users
• Minimal design and small pages.
• Basic frame and structure, ideal for building upon or changing functionality

Documentation:

Under the parent mockups directory

• This is the area to store your CSS, JS, and Layout Images
• The index on this page reads the directory and displays any directory starting with an _underscore
• The user name should also be the directory name that user has access to
• User names and passwords are stored in an array

Under the mockups > _user directory

• This once again reads the directory looking for folders starting with an _underscore
• This step is not necessary for the application, we simply use it for different versions/revisions

Under the mockups > _user > _version directory

• The index page in this directory reads the directory and looks for any images (you can change extensions that it looks for).
• Once it finds the images it outputs them in HTML and displays the file name, sorted alphabetically.

Check it out

Starting a Website: The Right Domain Name

It all starts with the right domain name. A good domain name is easy to spell and remember, and lets visitors know exactly what they are in for. Remember that a misspelling may take your potential traffic to a completely different site, maybe even a competitor’s site, so ease of spelling and brevity are essential. WeveGotaStupendousArrayofHinges.com is a poor domain name. Hinges.com is an ideal one.

Starting a Website: Hosting

Before you can set up your website, you need a place to put it. The process of providing a server that can get your pages on the web is called web hosting, and there are number of companies that provide this service. You’ll also find that there are a wide range of prices, depending on what you are looking for. To start, you should look at companies that offer “shared hosting,” “budget hosting” or “discount hosting.” These phrases mean that the hosting companies rent out different parts of their servers to different people or companies. Although you will share a control panel, IP address and technical support with these others, they will have no access to your website. This is a very economical option, so it’s a good one to start out with.

Starting a Website: Design

Of course, a great website needs a great design. You can design the website all by yourself, using program such as Photoshop, Illustrator or Fireworks for design and coding using DreamWeaver or similar. If you are not happy with the results, then there are plenty of web designers out there whom you can contract to help you design your website at a reasonable price. Remember, your website is your “face” in the Internet world, so you want it to be a good one. A good design is key to a successful website.

When I downloaded Safari 5 today, I noticed that apple finally added support for extensions into the browser! Safari has always been a nice app to use on mac, and I love the inspector, but lack of safari extensions for things such as grid tools, color selectors, etc have made me reluctant to switch. However, Safari also made it far easier than many other browsers to create extensions using straight up HTML5, CSS and JS! So in about an hour, I created this little extension to overlay a grid (like 960 or Blueprint) on the page. Enjoy!

Check out the RFP Application in action