Alan Seiden’s Information Technology

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:

1. Modular design : A home-grown application, with its ad hoc growth, can become a tangled mess that’s hard to change or enhance. Most mainstream frameworks provide a modular design that makes it easier to modify or add components.
2. Flexible components : Sure, you can write your own authorization class in PHP, but why reinvent the wheel? The framework will provide an integrated component that handles not only your current needs, but requirements that you haven’t yet encountered (but that the framework’s community has). With a framework, chances are that you won’t have to re-architect your authorization system when the users ask for something new.
3. Best practices: As you use the framework, you’ll begin to absorb the practices and (we hope) good habits of the framework’s creators.
4. New capabilities: Frameworks regularly add functionality to help developers implement new technology. These days, common enhancements involve AJAX and connections to the APIs of popular web service providers.

Developers may understandably wonder if mastering a framework is worth the learning curve. In my opinion, the effort to learn a framework will be repaid with applications that are well-architected, flexible, and maintainable.

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 theADOdb 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 zestily shared knowledge and discoveries.

More information is available in Alex Woodie’s story in IT Jungle: Mantis Bug Tracker Ported to i5/OS.

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.
Below are examples of tabs without favicons. What sites are they? I don’t know.

These have favicons. At a glance I see a seated robed figure (meditation site), a stylized “Ti” that I recognize as my private TikiWiki site, and a picture of me, which (if I can stop admiring its beauty for a moment), I know represents my blog.

Create your own mini work of art

Favicons are ordinary graphics, generally 16×16 pixels in size, named favicon.ico. How to make them? I found an easy method that even non-artists can use.

The free site FavIcon from Pics allows anyone to convert a normal-sized graphic into a favicon. Instructions:

1. Go to FavIcon from Pics.
2. Click the “Browse…” button to select an image from your computer’s hard drive.
3. Click “Generate FavIcon.ico.”
4. After a few seconds, the site will show a preview image and a download link.
5. If you are pleased with your creation, download favicon.ico to your computer. Then transfer that file, via FTP or your preferred method, to your website’s root folder (often /public_html or /www).
6. View your website with its new addition! (You might have to press the refresh button to make the favicon appear.)

Show your art

If this article inspired you to create a favicon, please add a comment here with the link to your newly enhanced site.

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 (occupational) glasses for computer use, you may not need to buy new frames. Your optician will be happy to use old frames that you might have saved from old prescriptions.

My work to foster PHP on IBM System i was noted in the Feb. 21, 2007, edition of buzz@nysia, the New York Software Industry Association’s weekly news report. I am delighted that buzz@nysia columnist Donna Bogatin chose me as a featured “mover and shaker.”

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 write about my conversation with Mary Barbe, Ph.D., a researcher at Temple University. According to Dr. Barbe, recent human studies show that repetitive work causes the release of cytokines, proteins that trigger inflammation. The inflammation is not limited to the local area of overwork, but spreads throughout the body, potentially exacerbating conditions such as heart disease. The cytokines also help the body to rest by causing sensations of lethargy or even depression. Not good for productivity! In future articles, I will write about such hidden effects of RSI.

Meanwhile, read how to arrange your computer workstation to avoid injury. Stay healthy!

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

Read it here.

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 records quickly once I told them. Email flowed properly within an hour or so.

Lesson: anyone with custom MX records should, if altering web host settings, check the MX records immediately thereafter. Easy way to check: MX Lookup Utility.

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 IE (6.0.2900.2180) and Windows (XP Service Pack 2) as my friend’s, does not show the odd behavior described above. My Internet Explorer is willing to show Internet Options and Find any time, even when no web page is loaded.

I’m glad to have found the pattern. We can delete temporary internet files using Tools/Internet Options (after loading a web page). Still, IE’s inconsistent behavior from PC to PC puzzles me. Any explanation from my readers?

Powerful yet unobtrusive, FireBug, a FireFox Extension by Joe Hewitt, runs in a frame that pops up only when requested or when an error occurs. It helped me solve two javascript problems today.

Thanks to Dell Sala, who told me about FireBug at Tuesday’s New York PHP meeting.