In one of my previous posts, Who Killed The Webmaster?, factors such as technology and the rise of Web 2.o were blamed for the death of the webmaster. But perhaps one of the most obvious reasons why companies (whether big or small) do not need webmasters is because people started to make Content Management Systems. Now, anyone could just pay some guy with a one time fee to set up Joomla and viola! You can now update your website without any knowledge in HTML or PHP.

This is kind of wierd, but somehow I think this is all connected. At work, I have been programming PHP using an MVC Framework for about 3 months now, and already I find it time consuming coding from scratch. With the rise of good MVC Frameworks such as Symfony Project and Code Igniter (to name a few), sooner or later, fewer people would want to code from scratch. I personally could come up with a complete web-based system using an MVC Framework in less than a month! With less bugs and better security.

Within the years to come, only a selected elite of PHP programmers would still code “real” PHP while the rest of the population will be downloading Symfony Project or Code Igniter. The normal guy will be learning how to use the framework instead of learning PHP in-depth.

For me, selecting the right color theme and combination is almost equal to everything when in comes to web design. Most of the time I am inspired by the colors of the photographs that I use while making the initial design. Let’s say I am to make a website about Flowers and Plants; I would dive right into SXC.hu and find the best photo I could on the subject matter.  Run Photoshop and use the Eyedropper Tool to grab the colors. That is why when I found Colourlovers.com I instanly fell in love with it. They have some beautiful color combinations that I could never crank out from using the Eyedropper tool in Photoshop.

I found this at slashdot. Anyways, slashdotters always manage to come up with creative replies. Hehe. One guy replied: “…but I didn’t kill the deputy [webmaster]”.

Who killed the Webmaster? I blame myspace, friendster and Joomla! (<– that one is making everything cheap!) (hehehe)

Back in the frontier days of the web–when flaming skulls, scrolling marquees, and rainbow divider lines dominated the landscape–”Webmaster” was a vaunted, almost mythical, title. The Webmaster was a techno-shaman versed the black arts needed to make words and images appear on this new-fangled Information Superhighway. With the rise of the Webmaster coinciding with the explosive growth of the web, everyone predicted the birth of a new, well paying, and in-demand profession. Yet in 2007, this person has somehow vanished; even the term is scarcely mentioned. What happened? A decade later I’m left wondering “Who killed the Webmaster?”

Posted this here for personal reference. (For MySQL 5.0)

Useful links for this post:

• MySQL String Functions
• Using MySQL Triggers
• Creating a MySQL Trigger
• MySQL Triggers FAQ

A couple of friends have been asking me to teach them stuff about websites. I have been wanting to write a tutorial for a long time now. I think it would be really good if I could come up with something for everyone. It is clear that I am posting this out of boredom and as a diversion.

I have upgraded wordpress to the latest version. Everything works fine but I am having problems with the Visual user-interface when posting articles. Somehow, I only have the Bold, Italic, Page break, Spellcheck and the Help icon. The image and the hyperlink icon are gone.

My Macbook Pro runs at approximately 46 C to 52 C (when the load is high) on day time. The normal room temperature here in the Philippines is about 29 C to 31 C, so it is fairly acceptable to have it running at 46 C.

I think the Apple designed these notebooks for colder climates. The default minimum fan speed is 1000RPM. That way too slow if you live near the equator. I had to download smcFan Control. It is a great piece of simple software. Basically, what it does is that it lets you control your default fan speed. I want to stress out that I feel very safe using this; since it only allows you to set the MINIMUM fan speed.

Other than the temperature, I have no complaints. It runs so fast and without any hitches that it makes you forget about how hot it runs

I am fairly new to Mac. I got my first mac - a 17-inch Macbook Pro about 2 months ago. It works great. Although it is a little warm it does the job well. I never have to worry about performance issues. The OS is flawless. Everything runs smooth as expected.

Then just a few minutes ago, I saw Apple’s videos on Mac OS Leopard. It has everything I wanted for Mac OS Tiger. The Time Machine is simply amazing. Apple, I think, has the tendency to “over-do” things. I am not sure if that is the right word but for the Time Machine, do they have to really make the background look like you are traveling thru time? (with the seemless effect and a portal at the end?) I’m not complaining, the thought just came out because I was very impressed. hehe. Imagine never having to worry about your files getting lost or deleted. It is like putting your entire hard-drive on Subversion!

Another feature that got my attention was Spaces (the icon reminds me of Windows). I tend to clutter up my desktop. Most of the time, I have a couple of browsers open, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Zend, a couple of instant messengers, VLC and a few other apps opened. It does get annoying on Mac OS X Tiger because the windows are not set up like in Windows XP. But with Spaces, this pretty much solved the problem.

I can’t wait for Leopard. Now all I need is a bigger hard-drive!

I have been looking around for a good PHP MVC Framework. As of now, there are 3 frameworks that caught my attention. Symfony Project, CakePHP and CodeIgniter.

Symfony - symfony-project.com

I have read that Symfony is powerful, has good documentation and an active community. I have downloaded but gave up after a few days of trying to make it work. The learning curve is steep. The download is also huge. I shall give this another shot when I have more time. Btw, Yahoo Bookmarks uses Symfony.

Cake - cakephp.org

A friend recommended this framework to me. CakePHP claims to be the easiest to use - As easy as cake. Cake has Layouts, which I assume that you’ll have just to edit/modify a layout file for your controllers.

Code Igniter - codeigniter.com

Good documentation, not bloated and easy to use (i have seen the screencast and i got impressed). I have been to their forums and the community is very active and very friendly to newbies. Altought it doesn’t have layouts (i think), I’m pretty sure that there is another way to do it with Code Igniter. Also, I am not bothered by the lack of table associations since conjuring up a good SQL query would always work.

What is an MVC Framework?

Model-view-controller (MVC) is a design pattern used in software engineering. In complex computer applications that present lots of data to the user, one often wishes to separate data (model) and user interface (view) concerns, so that changes to the user interface do not impact the data handling, and that the data can be reorganized without changing the user interface. The model-view-controller design pattern solves this problem by decoupling data access and business logic from data presentation and user interaction, by introducing an intermediate component: the controller.

Click here for the complete article in Wikipedia.