Random Thoughts
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PHP 5.3.2 Released
Today, the latest version of PHP 5.3 has been released to the masses. The official announcement can found in the news archive with finer details in the changelog. Key points were outlined in the announcement, partially quoted below.
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Comments on “Creating a Crypter Class with PHP”
The following was supposed to be a comment to the Nettuts+ article published recently entitled Creating a Crypter Class with PHP. The powers that be over there seem not to want to moderate the comment so I’ll publish it here and hopefully the trackback will connect things together. The comment is after the fold and it would make sense to perhaps at least scan over Christian’s article before reading my comments.
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Comments on “10 Rare HTML Tags You Really Should Know”
This post is following on from 10 Rare HTML Tags You Really Should Know which was published on Nettuts+ a few days ago. If you haven’t read that article, then perhaps you should before going any further here.
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Tiny Little GIFs
Early this morning, Paul Bonser write a neat little article (The Tiniest GIF ever) on his blog about reducing the size of GIF images to their bare minimum number of bytes.
Starting off with a 43 byte image produced in image editor GIMP, he describes the process of removing bytes that aren’t particularly necessary with reference to the GIF specification. The end result is a working, fully transparent GIF image in only 37 bytes with two further size reductions producing a fixed colour (35 bytes) and an “I’m feeling lucky” colour (26 bytes).
Since it’s a Sunday, and I had nothing better to do, I also figured it was about time to delve into the guts of GIF images and see if I could come to the same conclusions that Paul had with regards to putting GIF on a diet.
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New, Springy Theme!
Spring is on the way (though not according to the weather today: dull and grey all day long!) and it’s time for another cosmetic change here on the ol’ blog.
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Happy 2009
Howdy folks, just dropping by to wish everyone (erm, just one) who visits here a very happy new year and all the best for whatever is ahead in 2009. Good luck and lets see what the future brings.
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New Theme
Howdy folks! If you’re a regular visitor (like any of those exist) to my blog, you’ll notice that I’ve thrown out the old ColdBlue theme in favour of something a little plainer, fresher and more minimal. Hopefully, this (very, very late… or early) spring clean will be a spark for more updates. We’ll see.
There are a number of improvements which I’ll be making over the coming hours, days, weeks (or however long it takes) but they’ll be minor and you probably won’t notice.
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Back!
Howdy folks, just a quick note to say that I’m now back in Blighty again after the summer in France. As usual, it was a thoroughly enjoyable time out there and a welcome break from normal “work”, speaking of which it’s time to start the process of finding employment here and earning some much-needed cash! Expect a little more regular updating (hah, me, regular updates, seriously?!) with various tidbits of PHP goodness and probably some more general webby nonsense, that’s the plan at least. Oh and if anyone is looking to hire a PHP developer then feel free to get in touch with me at [my first name]@[this domain] (peter, cowburn.info… you got that?). A bientôt !
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Away until September
Just letting you know that there won’t be any updates (not that you were expecting any) until probably September! I’m off on holiday with the family next week and then shipping out to France for 9 weeks for the Bourges excavation. If you need anything, email me as I can check those probably once a week.
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Degree results are in!
Today marks an important (yet in the long run, likely a trivial) point in my life so far. To some it’s just another Thursday in May but today I got the result from my Archaeology degree which I started way back in October 2002. So in the end I’ve come out of it with a third, which in the scale of things isn’t what I was hoping for but it certainly doesn’t come as a surprise after the trials and tribulations throughout the time between 2002 and today. It means that I can now be addressed as Peter Cowburn MA (hons) (meaning Master of Arts with Honours). I can now join the many people around the world who also have thirds, including brainiac Carol Vorderman.
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Update (wow!)
Howdyroos, I’m just dropping by with a quick catch-up in the form of a sorry excuse. I’ve not updated this blog for such a hugely long time (even in non-interweb time!) and for those visiting (all one of you) to be greeted with an old “newest” post, I apologise.
So, where’ve I been? To put things simply (only because I can’t be bothered writing very much) I’ve been finishing my final year at univsersity, hurrah! All exams have finished and I waved farewell to the lovely Edinburgh for the final time (for a while, perhaps) and have moved back home to sunny England. The immediate plans are simple: chill for a while! Perhaps there’ll also be some more regular blog updating or at least finishing off some posts that have been in the draft queue for a while.
I’ll keep you posted.
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ElePHPant
Well, a slightly less code-minded blog entry now just noting the hugely momentous occasion that is the arrival of my very own ElePHPant. For those not in the know, he’s quite simply a plush toy version of the infamous PHP elephant logo. For tonnes of fun pics, you can take a look at ElePHPant on Flickr.
Here’s a quick pic of my own ElePHPant reading a French book printed in the 1940s:
Right now, he’s sitting atop the screen on my Macbook Pro, making sure I don’t make any spelling mistakes.
P.S. Whilst we’re on the not-so-serious side of posting, I finally upgraded to OS X 10.5 (Leopard) this week. I spent the best part of a day backing up essential files and documents only to have the installation process go super smooth without so much as a hiccup. Thanks Apple!