if you want something done right... DIY.

fread() without $length causes internal server error

krisgale — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:22:07 +0000

and here i thought php would supply a default value for the second parameter to fread(), namely the number of bytes to be read from an open file handle (that being the first parameter). nope! not only does this quietly surpass php’s syntax check, it causes an internal server error thus creating quite the air of mystery as to what went wrong.

sitepoint’s twitter-giveaway: interesting myisam vs. innodb case study

krisgale — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:32:33 +0000

sitepoint recently discovered when and why row-level locking (as opposed to table-level) is sometimes a must-have…

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/09/08/free-performance-with-mysql-table-types/

payflow pro critical update 9/1

krisgale — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:54:04 +0000

for those of you out there charged with developing/maintaining ecommerce sites using verisign/paypal’s “payflow pro” interface, be aware that as of september 1st (yes, three weeks away) older versions of their sdk will no longer be supported.

information about the upgrade (and instructions on how to perform the required code changes to your site(s)) can be found here:

http://integrationwizard.x.com/sdkupdate/step1.php

good luck.

p.s. this might be a good opportunity to switch to authorizenet since the newer payflow pro sdk uses Very Similar ‘silent’ https post’s to/from the gateway server (as opposed to an intermediary native-code binary in older versions) and might even save you/your client(s) some money, since the two gateways’ pricing structures vary when it comes to per-transaction fees and minimum/maximum sales volume thresholds. have that conversation with your merchant services provider.

scheduling: maker vs. manager

krisgale — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:50:15 +0000

really interesting article outlining the core issues surrounding managers’ scheduling of meetings from a maker’s perspective, with some ideas towards a solution.

“We know we have to have some number of meetings. All we ask from those on the manager’s schedule is that they understand the cost.”

sick of using vi to edit crontab?

krisgale — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:02:22 +0000

use any editor of your choosing to modify crontab… at your command prompt (assuming you are root), type:

EDITOR=nano export EDITOR

now, when you crontab -e that editor (in this case, nano) will be used instead of vi. what a relief!