SOLAERAWEBDESIGN

A PHP session is a particular set of server-side variables in a web application which allow that application to store user data. Unlike the process of storing such information in a database, PHP sessions are stored only for a limited time, either until the application actively closes the session or until the user exits the application. Obviously, using a session requires taking this time-limited nature into account, but they can be very useful for maintaining user information across links or pages (for instance, in a shopping cart application). (Read more…)

cURL is one of those techniques in PHP which I keep seeing mentioned but have never had the opportunity to actually get to understand. So…no time like the present!

PHP’s clientURL library is its binding for a client-side URL transfer library created by Daniel Stenberg, called libcurl. It allows for easy uploading or downloading of information across domains based on a variety of options set by the implementer prior to execution. (Read more…)

Up until now, during the limited situations in which I have had to use PHP to write to a file, I’ve used the standard fopen(), fwrite(), fclose() process — opening the file, writing to it, and closing it again. (Read more…)

OK. My New Year’s resolution is to keep a blog more effectively, and I’d say there’s no time like New Year’s Day to get started. So here we go — my aim is that between now and the end of the year, I will take pains once a week to learn at least one new technique or tool in the world of the web, and share it here for the benefit of others. If you’ve got a suggestion or something you’d like me to look into, I will be glad to do so. Just drop me a line on my contact page.

Today’s technique is basic DOM manipulation with the Dojo JavaScript library. (Read more…)

A couple of friends posted a while back on a message board I belong to, saying that they’d downloaded the most recent version of Firefox and that it was causing them trouble, and asking if anyone else had had a similar problem. I hadn’t yet downloaded the update, but assumed they were just overreacting. It’s easy to yell at Firefox for things but I’ve always been very pleased with it.

Then I downloaded the update myself and realized that they were right. Within five minutes after I had downloaded it, it froze. I restarted it and it worked for a while, then froze again. I restarted it again, and then it froze when I tried to quit it — after the window had closed, and then went on to suck up a remarkable amount of processor power for being, y’know, frozen; it actually jammed up my computer to the extent that other programs began sticking. (Read more…)