Have you ever had to read code with variables like this? int acBalInSav = 1.21 If you have, and were NOT like “Dude, shit man. WTF does that mean?!”, then you’re probably the one who wrote it! Stop abbreviating variable names in your code. I’m not talking about so-to-speak “generally accepted” abbreviations, such as using i in your […]
If you’ve ever used Ruby on Rails, you know it has an amazing console that allows you to execute code within a fully bootstrapped application environment. With the rails console command, you can gain access to your database and models in a command-line interface read-eval-print loop (REPL) for your application. This is made possible by interactive Ruby, […]
I recently added a Logitech T650 Wireless Touchpad to my home office setup in an effort to match the Apple Magic Trackpad that I use at work. My command center at work consists of a 27″ iMac surrounded by dual monitors (one in the upright position, dedicated to tail-ing the logs!), an Apple Wireless Keyboard, […]
The Magento observer pattern is an ideal form of extending your store’s functionality. Since it is part of Magento’s architecture, you can inject your own routines into the e-commerce process.
On my way to the Magento Imagine conference in fabulous Las Vegas, I decided what more to do while I am on an airplane than to finish re-designing my personal website. Mind you, Southwest airlines wireless isn’t the fastest, so wrapping up the latest theme tweaks wasn’t easy. Nonetheless, I was able to finish styling […]
I just gave this presentation up at RIT this past week. Hopefully, it will inspire any web developers out there to look into using deployment frameworks (if you don’t already).
I recently got my hands on a Google Nexus 7 tablet, and I must say I am in love. I’ve previously owned three Android phones (Motorola Devour, Droid 1 and Droid 2 Global) and an Archos 101 tablet, but the Nexus 7 takes the cake.
As a follow-up to a previous article, I will explain how to use Socat + PuTTY to connect to remote MySQL sockets.
Magento’s XML layout engine is really unique because it allows you to override the presentation elements of an eCommerce site in a variety of ways. At the simplest level, an XML layout file determines which blocks are rendered on the page. A block is a PHP object that encapsulates a portion of the page’s HTML output. In this article, I am going to cover the use of <action /> tags in XML layout files.
If you use 1and1.com for web hosting, then you are familiar with how much of a pain their MySQL management can be. In order to access your databases on 1and1, you must first login through the 1and1 customer portal, then navigate to the MySQL databases section, find the database you want to work with, and click on the PHPMyAdmin link. It’s only a few steps, but between pages loads and a slow internet connection this can take up to a few minutes, and even then PHPMyAdmin can be clunky especially if you are used to using a desktop MySQL management tool such as MySQL Workbench or Sequel Pro (Mac). Although some hosting providers allow you to connect to your MySQL instances remotely, 1and1 does not support this (at least not by default).
What I am going to show you in this article is how to proxy a connection to your MySQL instance on 1and1′s servers so that you can manage your databases using a full-featured application like MySQL Workbench or Sequel Pro.