Meetups

We've been talking a lot about meetups this week. There was an assignment in my PHP class to research web development meetups, we had a guest speaker, a recruiter from Amazon, encourage us to attend meetups, and I asked the folks at Foundry Interactive what they thought of meetups. It seems like a good way to get involved and network. I want to research it a bit more and find a good one at a location that I can bus to. I'd also ideally like to find one that meets regularly rather than sporadically so that I can make an ongoing connection over time more quickly.

onlinestarship.com

This week I purchased a new domain name and hosting from Dreamhost so I could complete some assignments that required an external ftp site. I bought onlinestarship.com. I fell like it could be a good future metaphor for a web dev business. I'm excited to have a real place to explore ftp.

I successfully created a MySQL database (of starships, of course) on it. You can view the data here.

Databases

This week we're diving into MySQL databases in PHP class. I can already see how databases are going to allow us to make dynamic changes to a page based on who you are or what you want to see. Think log-ins, shopping carts, flowers by number, etc. Super cool.

Forms

This week we're working with forms in two of my classes. The PHP is a little more complicated than other things we've done, but I think I'm still understanding it well enough. We're using some borrowed code, so understanding it takes more time than when you make it yourself.

reCAPTCHA is awesome. I'm blown away by what a good idea it is! reCAPTCHA works by using text that was hard for computers to read while scanning old books and crowdsourcing the problem while simultaneously making sure people and not bots are submitting real data. So cool!

We Wait Update

I updated the We Wait web app with new things we learned today in class, specifically $_POST instead of $_GET to hide data from the user and a THIS_PAGE define to make moving the page in the future easy. Useful stuff!

Check it out: We Wait

"We Wait" uses the number of people waiting as a clue to arrival time. The formula is top secret, but essentially, as your gut tells you, more people waiting means the bus is coming sooner. It's surprisingly accurate!

Opera

Today I read a lot about Opera.

• Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(web_browser)
• Brain Transplant? http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57569106-93/opera-embraces-webkit-in-browser-brain-transplant/
• Loss of Independence: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57569159-93/web-world-bemoans-loss-of-opera-independence/
• Why Belarus? http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/why-is-belarus-the-only-country-where-opera-is-the-most-popular-browser/265406/#
• Skyfire: http://www.itproportal.com/2013/02/18/opera-seeks-faster-mobile-browsing-with-100m-skyfire-acquisition/
• Upstart Opera: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/the-upstart-browser/article5211078.ece
• So Long, Opera: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/9308625/Web-browser-that-surpassed-the-rest

I like Opera is a backup browser, and Opera Mini is nice in a [data] pinch. I also like Opera's newish browser for the iPad, Coast, though I think it has a ways to go before catching on. It feels slow even though my initial tests show it to be nearly the same as Safari, which shouldn't be too surprising since it uses the WebKit engine that it is required to for Apple products.

I caught up on my PHP page splitting homework last night after being sick all week. I'm still farther behind than I'd like to be on homework at this point. I'm trying to free up my day tomorrow as much as possible for The Big Game.

Arrays

We did a lot of work on arrays today. We also got in to loops like for and foreach. I liked that. Arrays are so useful, and it's cool that there are different ways to make them.

Foundry Interactive

This week I did homework in the office of a local web dev company called Foundry Interactive. Started the quiz for ITC 240. I also downloaded some great coding apps for the iPad so that I can work better remotely.

PHP Include

Today in class we practiced chopping off headers and footers (footer always first) then including them back in with PHP. It really streamlined the main code you want to deal with regularly.

Lynda Videos

Yesterday, I watched a bunch of Lynda videos. I spent about 1.5 hours on videos and questions for WEB110 where I learned all about CSS and HTML. I knew a lot of the HTML tags already, but it was good review. I'm really excited to use CSS. From the videos I learned a new font word: leading, meaning the space between lines of text.

I also spent about 1.5 hours on videos and questions for ITC240. We're really getting into the good stuff for PHP, and the code syntax is starting to blur with my Java class. I'm pleasantly surprised how powerful it seems.

Guinan's Galactic Bar & Grill

Coming soon to a webpage near you dynamically displaying the daily stellar special using php. I worked on this for about 2 hours today. I'm excited.

Update: The page is up! Check it out. Source code below:

<?php
//guinansgalactic.php

/*
A fictional webpage for Guinan's Galactic Bar & Grill
that dynamically displays the daily special including
name, image, price, and brief description.

Specials are:
Sunday
Gahg
$3
Served very fresh.

Monday
Romulan Ale
$4
The blue, banned moonshine of Romulus in a glass.

Tuesday
Kanar
$3
A Cardi favorite, served neat.

Wednesday
Prune Juice
$2
A warrior's drink.

Thursday
Rokeg Blood Pie
$4
Just like mom use to make on Kronos.

Friday
Samarian Sunset
$3
Made in the traditional style. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy it.

Saturday
Root Beer
$3
Bubbly and happy, just like the Federation.
*/

$dayOfWeekNum = date('w');

if($dayOfWeekNum == 0)
{
   $special = "Gahg";
   $price = "3";
   $notes = "Served very fresh.";
   $image = "gagh.jpg";
}
if($dayOfWeekNum == 1)
{
   $special = "Romulan Ale";
   $price = "4";
   $notes = "The blue, banned moonshine of Romulus in a glass.";
   $image = "romulanale.jpg";
}
if($dayOfWeekNum == 2)
{
   $special = "Kanar";
   $price = "3";
   $notes = "A Cardi favorite, served neat.";
   $image = "kanar.jpg";
}
if($dayOfWeekNum == 3)
{
   $special = "Prune Juice";
   $price = "2";
   $notes = "A warrior's drink.";
   $image = "prunejuice.jpg";
}
if($dayOfWeekNum == 4)
{
   $special = "Rokeg Blood Pie";
   $price = "4";
   $notes = "Just like mom use to make on Kronos.";
   $image = "bloodpie.jpg";
}
if($dayOfWeekNum == 5)
{
   $special = "Samarian Sunset";
   $price = "3";
   $notes = "Made in the traditional style. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy it.";
   $image = "samariansunset.jpg";
}
if($dayOfWeekNum == 6)
{
   $special = "Root Beer";
   $price = "3";
   $notes = "Bubbly and happy, just like the Federation.";
   $image = "rootbeer.jpg";
}

?>

<html>
<head>
<style>
body{background-color:#9944dd;}
</style>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Guinan's Galactic Bar & Grill</h1>
<img src="images/guinan.jpg" />
<h2><?=date('l')?>'s Special</h2>
<p><b><?=$special?></b><p>
<p>Only $<?=$price?></p>
<img src="images/<?=$image?>" />
<p><?=$notes?></p>

</body>

</html>

Reading about escape

Today I spent 2 hours doing more of the readings on PHP. I learned about the escape operator, the \. I just read for my HTML class about the escape codes for special characters like &copy, so it was confusing/interesting to compare these two methods for dealing with similar problems.

I also spent 5 minutes making sure I had updated my profile on Canvas. I spent another 15 minutes finishing the form for time tracking. I'm not sure how to use the form yet, but I'm sure we will go over that in class.

Created Blog and Took Quiz

Today I took the syllabus quiz and created this blog. Together those took one hour. I missed one question on the quiz because I misinterpreted it. The question was:

[T or F] When a site moves to a server side language like PHP, we'll likely leave the .HTM or .HTML extensions for that site behind forever.

I took that to mean that we'd leave the real .html files on the server forever. I answered false because I knew we would change file names to .php whether they had PHP code in them or not, so we would have to delete old HTML files. What the question meant was, will we stop using .HTML extensions forever? That is true. *facepalm* Oh well. 85 out of 90 isn't so bad.