if $IE

I was working on a web project and I usually start with Firefox to test things. Then Safari, Chrome, and then IE. By the time I got to IE, I noticed that my hard work was just not viewable. Argh. So I tweeted out:

function browserCh() 
{ 
     $a = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']; 
     $IE = ((eregi("MSIE",$a) || eregi("Microsoft",$a)))==1; 

     if($IE) 
        return 'Bad Browser!';
}

I got a laugh at some of the responses.. :)

@honging : daynah, i prefer: <style type="text/css">* html body { display: none; }</style> ;)

@j_holtslander: @daynah that was kinda hot. LOL.

@robflynn43: @daynah Haha, browserCh() made me happy. You win a high five, redeemable any time you see me. =)

@ialexs@daynah :D (re: bad browser)

To Ruby From PHP

If you’re interested in learning Ruby, here is a list of all the simlarities and differences between Ruby and PHP.

PHP and Yahoo! Web Services APIs

Here’s a great source for information about using PHP with Yahoo! Web Services APIs.

• HOWTO Articles to help you understand our technologies and how you can use them better with PHP.
• Code Samples you can play with. Use them as a starting point for your own applications or study them for subtle nuances.
• Browser-Based Authentication so you can let users authenticate using their Yahoo! id.
• Other Resources out on the Web to help you use PHP and the Yahoo! APIs to their fullest.
• Community Resources where you can join the mailing list and discuss the Yahoo! APIs with us and with other PHP developers.

WordPress 1.5.1.3

Download WordPress 1.5.1.3 “Strayhorn”! It was released a few days ago. I’ll have to test it out later. :)

Happy 10th Anniversary PHP!

It has been 10 years since Rasmus released the first version of PHP! Wow. Happy 10th anniversary PHP!!

SPG: Simple PHP Gallery

I installed this Simple PHP Gallery script at work today and I just love it. I wanted a very lightweight script where I can just add photos and the links/gallery would create itself. And this was the perfect script. The layout is very easy to edit as well. There’s also a plugin for WordPress too. :)

Thanks for the script, Paul!

How to Connect to a MySQL Database using PHP

I was helping my coworker yesterday to create her first PHP-Database program. She already knew how phpMyAdmin worked, so I created a sample page for her to show how to connect to the database and then retrieve data from a query. Maybe this sample page could help you too. I commented as much of the code as I could. Let me know if you have any questions.

Read more

WordPress Plugin: Theme Switcher

I meant to post this a while ago, but I forgot. I installed the WordPress Theme Switcher plugin (written by Ryan) to test out all the themes (especially the ones I was submitting for Stacee).

To install it, just download this file, upload it to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory. Then activate it in the Admin control panel.

Now in your templates, add this to your sidebar:

The if statement just says, if this function is available (if the theme is activated), then print the list of themes. Of course, you may customize the output however you want. There’s a little bit of PHP coding, but nothing to be too scared about. :)

How To Integrate WordPress with your Existing Website

Jonathon writes a great tutorial on how to integrate WordPress with your existing website.

In the tutorial, you’ll find out how to create a blog that:

• looks like its a part of our site
• integrates seamlessly with our site
• is cleaned up without all the extra features we (or our client) won’t need

WordPress: How to Install Post View Count/Top 10 Plugin

I just installed this Top 10 Posts/Views Plugin by Laughing Lizard. It did take a little poking around to figure out what goes where. With the new addition of themes in WordPress 1.5, adding plugins now requires you to edit each theme. So far, I’ve only edited the default one. I’ll edit the other themes later, but I’m feeling lazy right now. ;)

If you do decide to install this plugin, here’s a tip. Read all the comments on this post, especially what Kilikina posted. Well, you can do that, or read this post which takes you step by step on how to install the plugin. I figured out what needed to go where thanks to Kilikina!

Here are the instructions on how to install the plugin for the default Kubrick theme:

1. First add the new table using phpmyadmin
   

   create table mostAccessed
(
postnumber int not null,
cntaccess int not null,
primary key(postnumber),
unique id(postnumber)
);

2. Open up the top10.php plugin file in notepad or some text editor. Change the two occurances of $p to $id. It should be only this line:
   <?php if ($p > 0) { add_count($p);}?>
   change to:
   <?php if ($id > 0) { add_count($id);}?>
3. Upload top10.php into your plugin directory and activate it. (You should be familiar with this step if you installed other plugins. If not, please view this.
4. In the “Post Template” file (single.php), add

   <?php if ($id > 0) { add_count($id);} ?>
<ul><?php show_pop_posts(); ?></ul>

   Just before:

   <?php endwhile; else: ?>
<?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p>

5. In the “Main Template” (index.php) of your theme, find:
   

   <?php comments_popup_link('Comments (0)', 'Comments (1)', 'Comments (%)'); ?>

   And add this line right below it:

   <?php show_post_count($post->ID, $before="(Visited ", $after=" times)"); ?>

I hope this helps. I know I’ll be referring back to it later on. ;)

Random Splash Pages

I was looking through my email and found this email from Grace:

Hi Daynah! It’s me, Grace. I would like to ask a question if you don’t mind -_-; Sorry if I am bothering you. I would like to ask if how can I make random splash pages with php? Or do you know any scripts I could download for
that? Thank you so much. And hope you are having a great week =)

Here is a piece of code that Albert (my boyfriend) wrote. It creates an array of random images to use. It’s pretty simple to modify if you want to create random splash pages. If you have comments/questions, please leave them below.

<?php

// Function name: randomimage($showimage)
// Purpose: Create an array with random data for an image
// Use: Please link http://php-princess.net/
function randomimage($showimage)
{

    // ARRAY OF SPLASH IMAGES
    $bgimages = array('images/splash1.jpg','images/splash2.jpg',
                      'images/splash3.jpg','images/splash4.jpg',
                      'images/splash1.jpg','images/splash2.jpg',
                      'images/splash3.jpg','images/splash4.jpg');

    $bgtext = array ('Picture of Splash 1','Picture of Splash 2',
                     'Picture of Splash 3','Picture of Splash 4',
                     'Picture of Splash 1', 'Picture of Splash 2', 
                     'Picture of Splash 3', 'Picture of Splash 4');

    $bgmax = count($bgimages)-1;

    // Check if viewing additional image option is 
    // set / look for non-integer value passing
    if ((!isset($showimage)) || (!ereg ("^[0-9]{1,2}$", $showimage)))
    {
        srand((double)microtime()*1000000);    
        print_r($names);  

        srand ((double) microtime() * 10000000);

        $rand_keys = array_rand ($bgimages, 2);

        // obtain random image from array
        $bgimage = $bgimages[$rand_keys[0]];
        $bgalt   = $bgtext[$rand_keys[0]];
        $bgkey   = $rand_keys[0];
    }    

    return array($bgimage,$bgalt,$bgkey);
}

// Creates a list of the variables with random image 
list($bgimage,$bgalt,$bgkey) = randomimage($showimage);

// Put printout into variable $mainbody
$mainbody = '';

// Print out $mainbody
print "$mainbody";

?>