Monthly Archives: May 2009
Facebook Connect Library for CodeIgniter
Just a brief follow-up to the post series I did a while back on Implementing Facebook Connect with CI. Today, Elliot Haughin continued his tradition of releasing helpful CI libraries and published a new library for implementing Facebook Connect using CodeIgniter. Haven’t had a chance to review it personally yet but I would imagine it’s just the thing to make implementing Facebook Connect on your CI site easier. Check it out!
Support the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
“The U.S. Department of Justice reports that in a one-year period of time 797,000 children were reported missing. That is an average of 2,100 children reported missing each day. 1,682,900 children ran away or were thrown away. 203,900 children were abducted by family members. 198,300 children were involuntarily missing, lost or injured. 58,200 children were abducted by nonfamily members.“ “The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has been instrumental in improving the recovery rate from 62% to 96%.” – NCMEC Timeline The NCMEC is the nations resource for child protection and is celebrating 25 years of service in 2009. In this day in age when kids can log onto the Internet and befriend anyone with a screen name it’s more important than ever that we have organizations like the NCMEC to aid in the recovery of lost children and prevention of child exploitation. That’s why I’ve chosen the NCMEC as by cause to blog for. You can learn more about the NCMEC by viewing this promotional video available on their website. This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.
Building Applications using CodeIgniter (Part 4) – Code Templates
Last July I wrote a post entitled “What does your code say about you?” In that post I discuss the importance of writing clean well formatted code. It’s vitally important, even if you are the only programmer working on a project, that you document and format your code because you may be the only programmer now but who knows about 6 months or a year from now. Plus, as a programmer, the code you write is a direct reflection on you as a professional. So far in this series I’ve discussed my typical application structure, configuration and helper files when developing apps using CodeIgniter (CI). In this final post I’ll review creating code templates for quick consistent development.
Building Applications using CodeIgniter (Part 3) – Helpers
So far in this series we’ve discussed framework/application structure and configuration information. The next thing I always add to new applications is some common helper files I’ve developed and that come in handy in most projects. CodeIgniter (CI) helpers are very flexible tools to assist with common tasks throughout the app. If it doesn’t belong in a controller and is too small for a custom library then a helper might be just what the programmer ordered.
Your thoughts: Do web apps need offline components?
I’ve seen a lot of discussion over the last couple of months about things like Google Gears and Adobe Air, technologies that make it easier to develop web applications that can be run/accessed from the desktop. The more I consider this concept the more I scratch my head in confusion. I have had a request or two from my customers to develop desktop components to my systems but have always dismissed the concept because of the complexity. That and I guess I just don’t understand the need. I believe that the web is becoming the operating system of the future. More and more SaaS companies are popping up everyday and more apps are finding their way online until most of the software people use will be web based. When I boot up my computer the first program I open is a web browser. So that brings me to the question at hand: do web apps need offline components? I’m referring to desktop clients (like the multitude of Twitter clients I’ve seen lately) and separate versions that let you work when you don’t have Internet access (which is slowly becoming a rarity). Is it really worth all the work and complexity that goes along with it?
Building Applications using CodeIgniter (Part 2) – Configuration
The framework that you use to build your application will end up being the foundation of your program. Everything that your program does will revolve around how that framework works. Things like naming conventions, file paths and settings are dictated by the framework. But if you have chosen a good framework, like CodeIgniter (CI), you will be able to manipulate how that framework works and the tools it makes available to you by modifying it’s configuration information. In the first post I talked about application file structure. Now that the structure is solid I’m going to look at how I configure the framework so that it works the way I expect.
How-to Ensure a Secure Connection Using PHP
Image via Wikipedia When submitting sensitive information over the web it’s important to ensure that the requested page is being accessed via an HTTPS encrypted connection. I’ve come across some forms that don’t check whether a secure connection has been made or not. In other words, you can delete the S from HTTP and instead of redirecting the user back to the HTTPS connection the form is just displayed unsecured. This is a BIG NO NO… as a programmer you cannot rely on the visitor, or even other developers who would be linking to the form, to request a form securely. In this post I will review how you can ensure that your users are accessing certain pages using a secure connection.
Who is Chris Monnat?
Chris Monnat (aka mrtopher) is a web application developer and entrepreneur located in Alexandria, VA. This site is his island of information where he blogs about CodeIgniter, PHP programming, business topics, the Internet as a whole and other miscellaneous bits and bytes.
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