• http://example.org/_[uniqueid] redirects to what you saved.
• http://example.org/_[uniqueid]_ shows a preview
• So I have "xxx.de/_ab" - as low as 10 chars for an url (excluding http://), that's not less than a bit.ly url (currently at 5+ chars after the /) and I can still put normal content (not starting with a "_") on the domain - fair deal I think
• there's a bookmarklet for easy saving, either provide the [uniqueid] or let it be generated automatically
• it's not meant as a public shortening service, so probably some basic auth has to be added

• 401 Unauthorized


• 403 Forbidden


• 404 Not Found


• 405 Method Not Allowed


• 406 Not Acceptable


• 408 Request Timeout


• 417 Expectation Failed


• 418 I'm a teapot

Jackalope is an implementation of the client side JCR standard for PHP. This will enable us making happy agile frontends that are managed with all the various Enterprise features like versioning, ACL's etc. Liip created this project but is looking for others to join. We are already sharing the interfaces with the typo3 guys.

Mahara is a social networking platform that has spawned out of the Moodle e-learning community. Penny recently joined Liip and she was actually one of the original founders of the project.

Picok is a one of my babies. Its sort of an OSS iGoogle. So it allows you to easily create new so called portlets, that can aggregate content from various internal and external data sources and present them in a user customizable interface. Originally created for one of our clients the Raiffeisen Bank here in Switzerland. They were kind enough to let us open source the code. In return we won them a couple prizes at the Swiss Web Awards :)

GottaGo actually took the Swiss Web Awards by storm. It won the grand prize along with a few other category prizes. Its an iPhone app that basically finds the fasted route via public transportation from point A to B here in Switzerland. Oh and I should stop referring to it as GottaGo, since its now called "Transport".

Okapi is our super lightweight framework. Recently Chregu and I have started working on version 2. Basically we took various Symfony2 components and integrated them into our code. Currently its still in proof of concept stage, but it looks quite promising. I am really seeing a lot of potential in the service container and event dispatcher. I also think it could become a very useful addition to the Symfony eco-system as it seems quite feasible to migrate from Okapi2 to Symfony2 or vice versa. Meaning it will be able to choose if you want something simple and lean or you need something full features, without having to need to learn two totally different frameworks. Chregu has ported liip.to to this proof of concept, so check it out!

Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL (4th Edition) — by Kevin Yank

One of the most popular PHP books for beginners, this shiny new 4th edition has been completely updated using only best-practice PHP.

In this book you’ll learn how to:

• install PHP 5 and MySQL 5 on Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X
• gain a thorough understanding of PHP syntax
• master database design principles and SQL
• build a working content management system
• add, edit, and delete web content without using html
• create an ecommerce shopping cart
• utilize sessions and cookies to track site visitors
• craft SEO-friendly and memorable URLs

And a whole lot more …

At around 480 pages, this book is an easy read. As you move through the book you’ll quickly notice that it’s written in a clear tutorial format that’s easy to understand, and illustrated with plenty of screenshots and diagrams, providing quick visual cues. If you hate wading through dry, academic-style “how to” texts, this book will be a breath of fresh air to you.

If you’ve never built a database driven web site and you’re looking to go beyond the limitations of a static site, this book will start you off in no time.

And if you have built database driven web sites before, the extensive PHP/MySQL reference guides included will ensure this book remains an extremely handy desk reference.

Check out the free sample chapters or order a copy today.

...I fundamentally disagree with discouraging someone from pursuing a technology choice because of the threat of patents. In this particular case, the law is an ass. The patent system in the United States is out of control and dysfunctional, and it is bringing the rest of the world down with it. The time has come to take a stand and say “We don’t care about patents. We’re just not going to think about them. Sue us if you want.”

With Midgard we have prior art on some software patents. Software patents only promote big multinational monopolies, and therefore are against the interests of both Europe and the Free Software movement. They're silly, don't apply here, and therefore the only rational response is to ignore them.

Technorati Tags: softwarepatents

Rather than tuck such discussion away in an issue queue, I figured it better to document a bit more widely.

read more

SitePoint is looking for two experienced PHP developers (one with a sysadmin twist) to join the team here at SitePoint HQ in Melbourne, Australia. Help us find the right person for either of these positions, and we’ll buy you a shiny, new iPhone 3GS!

Know someone with “mad PHP skillz” who either lives in Melbourne or would move here for the opportunity to work on one of the Web’s major destination sites for web developers and designers? Drop me an email with the details at kevin(at)sitepoint.com.

Of course, if you would just like to apply for the position yourself, the complete position descriptions are in our jobs section.

For these tasks, my favorite language is “zxx.” I use that code to replace all strings with some XX’s. Now any strings (or images) I missed are immediately evident.

Keeping the zxx localization file up to date is easy to update…

// {{{ l10n_upgrader($pofile,$callback)
/**
 * Allows you to upgrade a PO file automatically.
 *
 * Search for all "" (two double quotes) and translate these.
 *
 * @param string $pofile the messages.po file to upgrade
 * @param string $callback the callback function that does the string lookup
 * @return array
 */
function l10n_upgrader($pofile,$callback='')
{
    if ($callback) {
        $data = file_get_contents($pofile);
        $matches = array();
        $data = preg_replace_callback("!^msgid \"(.+?)\"\nmsgstr \"\"!m", $callback, $data); // if I add s it matches too aggressively
        //unlink($pofile);
        file_put_contents($pofile,$data);
    }
    // generate output
    //msgfmt message.po
    $exec = sprintf(
        'cd %s;msgfmt %s',
        escapeshellarg(dirname($pofile)),
        escapeshellarg('messages.po')
    );
   pass($exec); //erroring out this is an exec function
}
// }}}
// {{{ l10n_ZXXer($matches)
/**
 * Add a bunch of XXXX's to a string
 *
 * @param array $matches
 * @return string
 */
function l10n_ZXXer($matches)
{
    return sprintf(
        "msgid \"%s\"\nmsgstr \"%s\"",
        $matches[1],
        str_pad('',strlen($matches[1]),'XXXX ')
    );
}
// }}}
l10n_upgrader($gt_dird.'zxx_XX/LC_MESSAGES/messages.po', 'l10n_ZXXer');

You may have some trouble getting things working, so remember that gettext uses your system to set the language. If your system doesn’t have zxx installed, you can’t just flip your locale over and expect it to work. As a quick hack for develement, just symlink the directory in your dev machine over to a language you aren’t using. I’m currently using “zu_ZA” which will be okay until Tagged localizes for Zulu.

Also remember that your web server caches gettext strings, so be sure to shut down the webserver to free the file lock before updating your .pot file.

Improving your linguisticness

l10n_ZXXer() above is not that clever. It won’t handle the cases where you have nested sprintf() substitutions. But you can imagine improving it. Here are some ideas of different fake languages:

• Multiply strlen() computation by 1.2 in order to handle spacing issues for localizing to German.
• Replace many of the letters with the letters in the cyrillic alphabet. This way you know unicode is correctly supported. Don’t replace all of them so your pattern replace can be easier and strings don’t get smashed.
  
• Replace the code to run it through a filter so it’s linguistically recognizable. Maybe turn your site into 133t-speak. Personally, I used ebonics from my Plaxo days. Careful though, while it is amusing to see your website littered with argot, fo’ shizzle. Apparently, I was committing a lot of cuss words into the code base. It’s times like that you’re grateful for the symlink trick above preventing your users from stumbling on these fake languages.

Truncated by Planet PHP, read more at the original (another 1347 bytes)