Category: Technologies to build applications
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Excel CSV is not UTF-8, fix it with Notepad++
Excel CSV is ANSI encoded (the CSV specification does not define an encoding). Many web applications are UTF-8 encoded. If necessary you may open the file in Notepad++ and change the encoding. I had to do this to successfully import to Formidable forms on WordPress.
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ArnoldC is a new language based on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s one-liners
And for the programming nerds out here, ArnoldC is a new language based on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s one-liners.
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Recreate views after changing datatypes in referenced tables
I recently came across a problem that was difficult to diagnose. After I had changed the datatype in a table from varchar(256) to varchar(512) my Access 2013 reports show data truncated to 256 characters. It turned out that the views that I’d created against the base table were truncating the field. After changing the datatype…
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A good comparison of open source RDBMS
Here is a good comparison of open source RDBMS. This site also has a comparison of NoSQL databases.
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Humour: Excel and big data
As consultants our job is to help the user and unlike the poor second line support person we usually have the time and infrastructure to do it. Here is an amusing rant from one such Sys Admin in The Register. The scenario will be familar to anyone who has ever done a data warehouse project…
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Writing a WordPress plugin for multisite
I use Michael Simpson’s excellent template for writing WordPress plugins. At present it does not explicitly support multisite plugins. This is a cross-post of my investigation that I posted on his site. Cross-post Thank you Michael, I have done a little reading “Professional WordPress” by Brad Williams et. al. http://shibashake.com/wordpress-theme/write-a-plugin-for-wordpress-multi-site http://www.wphub.com/tutorials/plugins-compatible-wordpress-multisite/ http://www.onextrapixel.com/2013/01/08/how-to-properly-code-your-plugin-for-a-wordpress-multisite/ These are my…
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CSS: How to “sandbox” a DIV – a lesson in futility
I am writing this article in the spirit of the scientific principle that negative results should be published (but there is some helpful stuff later on.) Many of us today are not developing new applications but ones which must work with, or sit within other applications that generate HTML and JavaScript. One very common example is…
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Simplifying WordPress farm deployments using symbolic links
I have previously posted on how to create a WordPress (Multisite) farm on a Bitnami server. A big problem when you manage a farm is keeping all the plug-ins up-to date. Until the release of WordPress 3.9 it was not possible to have single copy of a plug-in in a master version and then symbolically…
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Installing Newrelic server monitoring
In a previous post I explained how to install Newrelic server application monitoring for WordPress. I now realise that this is probably putting the cart before the horse in that one should install Newrelic Server monitoring first. This is very easy. The instructions are here and at the bottom of the page it gives advice on…
Dr James Bayley 