Author Archive for: Alan Seiden

Entries by Alan Seiden

Our Zend Framework-based Site Honored by IBM/COMMON

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UPDATE: As of 2020, we recommend using Seiden PHP on IBM i and LINUX for reliability, speed, and ease of maintenance. We won! IBM has recognized my use of PHP and Zend Framework, and our entire team’s RPG/DB2 and design work, by naming our web solution the IBM i’s most innovative of 2009. At IBM’s 2009 COMMON conference, IBM awarded the Power Systems Innovation Award for Best Web Solution for eBiz@ABG. The site, developed with my colleagues at  Strategic Business Systems, Inc., was created for New Jersey’s largest wine and spirits wholesaler, Allied Beverage Group. The system offers product ordering,…

Why Use a PHP Framework?

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At last night’s NY-PHP gathering, a fellow PHP’er and I discussed PHP frameworks. I told her I was developing an e-commerce site using Zend Framework. She replied that she’d been considering frameworks, especially Cake and Symfony, “but I’m not sure I need a framework at all. I write my own SQL; my apps work fine. What would a framework do for me?” Setting aside the differences between PHP frameworks, I’m aware of at least 4 reasons to use them: Modular design: A home-grown application, with its ad hoc growth, can become a tangled mess that’s hard to change or enhance….

My first open-source project: Mantis/400

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Mantis/400 adds DB2 support to Mantis, the popular PHP-based bug tracking application. I programmed the upgrade with Ira Chandler of Curbstone Corporation, personnel from IBM and Zend, and Mantis’s Victor Boctor. Mantis/400 runs on IBM System i (formerly AS/400), using Zend Core for i5. Even before we got involved, Mantis supported several databases, thanks to the ADOdb Database Abstraction Library for PHP (and Python). ADOdb’s support of DB2 needed help, though, so we improved it, particularly for System i’s version of DB2. I recommend the open-source process to anyone who enjoys learning a lot and meeting good people. Our team…

Brand your site with a favicon

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Favicons are those eye-catching little pictures that appear in your web browser’s address bar, favorites list (hence the name favicon, short for “favorites icon”), and, with modern tabbed browsers, on tabs. Instantly recognizable when designed well, favicons represent the brand identity of sites that use them. Examples Wikipedia uses the “W” from its logo: Digg’s favicon represents a person holding a shovel, an image that seems to have been created especially for the favicon: Usability in a tabbed, multitasking world Tabbed browsers, such as Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, can show many page-tabs at once, squishing a site’s descriptive text….

Protect Your Eyes Against Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS)

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Eye strain is a common complaint from computer users, but eyes aren’t the only part of the body that can hurt. Neck pain and backaches can also result from poor visual ergonomics. In my latest article, Protect Your Eyes Against Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) (requires free registration after about May 18, 2007), I show several ways to keep your eyes comfortable at the computer. People who wear bifocals or trifocals should consider occupational progressive lenses, glasses that are made especially for daily computer use. These special glasses can resolve painful postural problems. Money-saving tip: if you need to buy special…

Arrange Your Workstation to Protect Yourself Against Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI)

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If you’re reading this blog, you need to protect yourself against Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). As we work and explore the internet, we accumulate little stresses and habits that can hurt us over time. MC Press just published my piece on how to arrange your computer workstation to avoid injury. For my research, I interviewed Steve Shostack, former ergonomics consultant to NASA, and Paul Linden, Ph.D. Paul, an aikido teacher and Feldenkrais practitioner, wrote Comfort at Your Computer. I also recommend Paul’s free e-book, Reach Out: Body Awareness Training for Peacemaking, downloadable from www.being-in-movement.com. Space did not permit me to…

PHP mail() on IBM System i

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My new article about mail() is available at MC Press Online. The article covers: Zend Core’s implementation of mail() for IBM System i How mail() compares to packages such as PHPMailer Function definition and example How to configure SMTP in Zend Core Overriding defaults with ini_set Troubleshooting (This article is no longer available.)

Site Upgraded to PHP 5

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Early this week I called my web hosting provider, BlueHost, to ask to be upgraded from PHP 4 to 5. They graciously offered to move my files to a PHP 5 server at no charge. I was warned, though, that my site might be inaccessible during the move. Later that day, I saw that the site was running on PHP 5. One problem: my custom MX records, pointing to the wonderful FastMail email host, were reset to their defaults. People who wrote to me the morning of October 3 had their email bounced back to them. BlueHost corrected my MX…

“Internet Options” Window Does Not Open

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When my friend reported that her Internet Explorer 6 browser crashed repeatedly, I suggested she delete temporary internet files by clicking Tools/Internet Options. She said, “Nothing happens when I click Tools/Internet Options.” Tools/Internet Options did not work. No window appeared. Other features, such as Edit/Find, also didn’t work, or didn’t work consistently. I could eventually make these windows appear by clicking various options over several minutes. I eventually discovered the pattern. No web page loaded: Tools/Internet Options & Edit/Find did not work. Any web page loaded: Tools/Internet Options & Edit/Find worked properly. My PC, which runs the same version of…