Busy Busy
Date Posted: 3rd April 2009
Hey guys,
I've been fairly quiet over the last while but that doesn't mean that I've not been super busy! I've been doing a lot of overtime to try and get some projects off the ground. More updates to come soon!
Blog
PHP: Regular Expression
Date Posted: 2nd January 2009
Regular expressions have so far, been a myth to me. I've been aware of their existence but not needed them until an Ulster Bank project at Bluecube. After doing some homework I came up with the following.
A regular expression is a method of pattern matching. In PHP, regular expressions are often used to test for strings being assembled in particular ways, such as an email address (address@host.com).
The sequence of events is that a pattern will be constructed and then tested. You will then use that pattern in a function such as preg_match, and based on the result returning true or false, act appropriately. If the result came back false, stop and tell the user they didn't enter the email address in correctly. If the result came back true, continue with the script.
I'd encourage any developers reading this to investigate regular expressions. Below is a list of resources I used in learning:
PHP: Language Detection
Date Posted: 10th December 2008
For Bluecube, I've been creating a website for a company known as BlackPearl. They are a property investment company currently creating a luxury development area in Romania. One of the requirements for this project was to have both a Romanian version and an English version, and to filter users accordingly.
My method of approach for this was to check the browsers language. If it's set to English, then the person is wanting to read the english version and it redirects them accordingly. If the browsers language is Romanian then it will redirect the user to the Romanian section. Any other language automatically gets sent to the English version.
As a fall back for those users with browsers that can't have their language detected, their I.P. is checked against an array of Romanian I.P. addresses. If it's within the Romanian range, the user is redirected to the Romanian version, and if it is not in those ranges, they are sent to the English version.
It was a great lesson learned that will come in very handy for future projects with multiple languages.
Rainbow Telecom launched
Date Posted: 26th November 2008
After many months of back and forth with the client trying to get content, Rainbow Telecom has been finally launched. The site is still not fully completed, but the client was happy to launch with what is currently there. Hopefully this can be fully completed before Christmas!
CSS3 selectors
Date Posted: 23rd November 2008
I was reading an article that described how it is possible to use CSS3 functionality to select and style information differently. By using selectors, I can target any link in a paragraph or list item that has an external link in its href and apply a symbol to it. I think this is a great piece of functionality which provides a cool accessibility aspect to your site. It's also degradable, and won't break in IE6 if you use it properly!
A busy time in life
Date Posted: 22nd November 2008
Now that I've implemented this blog, I hope to document all the changes that's going on in my life at the moment. This past month has been a busy time for me; I've started freelancing for Bluecube Interactive as a Web Developer and have worked on projects for Aer Lingus, Jameson Whiskey and currently Ulster Bank. It's great experience and great fun. Whenever I get home at nights I'm busy doing tutorials to try and keep my other web skills sharp and that for me, is life at the moment!